If more people knew and understood the truth about our system, we would not be stuck with obamacare now. We MIGHT actually still have a decent health care system! I wish more people would pay attention to what goes on in the world around them, maybe we could make things better instead of worse.
When was the last time you watched something so scary, cringe-worthy, or unbelievably tacky — in a movie, on TV, or in real life — you had to cover your eyes?
The question from the Daily Post got me thinking…
I LOVE scary movies! I used to stay up late at night every weekend to watch “Creature Feature”. I still love to read good horror stories and watch scary movies. I like to read disaster stories, I like to hear about how people managed to avoid the worst and survive against all odds.
The thing that scares me more than anything now is what I see happening in real life, every day. The loss of our freedom here in America, more and more every day.
I try not to watch the regular news any more. It’s not really news. It’s just an on going litany of all the horrible SHIT going on in the world every day. Nothing good about it. Nothing helpful about it. Nothing any of us can do about any of it. It’s so depressing.
I can’t STAND to watch that show “COPS”. It almost makes me physically sick. I can’t believe that show is so popular and people actually believe those thugs in uniforms are doing anybody any good. It’s disgusting to watch them strut around. Yes, it’s ‘cringe-worthy’ for sure. 🙁
I haven’t mentioned much about politics on here lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been traveling outside of the country (I was in Korea for a month).
It’s nice that I can get out of the US occasionally. I would love to leave more often for longer periods of time. I’m even thinking I might want to leave permanently. It’s SO nice to get away where the politics isn’t constantly in my face.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s something ‘wrong’ with me. Most of my friends don’t really care about what’s going on around them. They always tell me to ‘just chill out’, or ‘just ignore it’, or best of all ‘just do whatever you have to do to get around it’.
I wonder “WHY should I have to do any of that”? Why should I have to leave to find the freedom I was guaranteed at birth? I was born and raised here.
I was brought up to believe that THIS country was formed specifically to PROTECT our rights! WHY should I have to try to ignore it when I see our government doing the exact opposite more and more often?
People call me crazy (paranoid) because I’m always aware of how much freedom we have lost in this country, even just in my lifetime. They say I’m crazy to think the things that have happened in other countries (Germany, USSR, N Korea, China, etc) could ever happen here.
But I see that we are following the same footsteps that led those other countries down the path of socialism/communism/tyranny. Why COULDN’T it happen here?
I wonder what’s wrong with everybody ELSE, that they DON’T care what’s happening in this country?
Why don’t THEY get upset that they have lost the same freedoms I have? Why do they clamor to give theirs away (and mine along with theirs)????
I feel more and more like an outsider in my own country. I feel like most of the people in this country have completely abandoned the ideas and ideals that our country was founded on. What made this country so unique in all of history…
The idea that “we the people”, (ALL people), have certain INALIENABLE rights. Rights inherent to us, that belong to us simply because of the fact that we are all human beings. We are all equal under the law (supposed to be here). That our government’s main job, (its’ only legitimate function), was to PROTECT those rights (it did NOT create or give us those rights).
Most people have been distracted and disoriented by the corruption of the language and twisting of the meanings of the words. Rights for example, there are those basic human rights that we are all born with, part of our nature as human beings. Then there are government created rights like voting rights for example. People treat them as interchangeable. They’re not.
People are busy arguing about media created hoopla over free speech (political correctness) and racism (freedom of association) and on and on and on. Too caught up in the small issues that tear us apart instead of fighting together for what’s really important. Our FREEDOM as individual human beings!
Yes, I realize that we are all very busy. I understand that most people have so many things taking up their time and energy now a days.
Most people are so exhausted by the time they get home at the end of a long day, all they want to do is chill out in front of a TV set. They don’t want to think, they want to vegetate til it’s time to go to bed.
Maybe as a sailor, I’ve had too much time to think in my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved to read. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been an explorer. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a skeptic.
But for whatever reason, I do think and I do care. What I see happening around me here flat ass scares the SHIT out of me.
OK, now before you all go running for the doors, please stick with me just a little longer.
Yeah, I’m fishing for comments here. I’d really like to hear from a larger sample of people around the world than just my personal friends and friends of theirs I’ve been arguing with on Facebook. 🙂
OK, just one simple question to start off with…
What do you know about the principle of self-ownership?
Have you heard of it before? Where? What do you think it means? Do you think it’s valid? How would you go about justifying it? Do you think principles like this one change with the times? Should they?
Here’s another one to go along with that, it’s really part of the same question… If you DON’T own yourself, who does?
OK, I’ll leave you all to think on that for a while. PLEASE comment with your thoughts here!
If you’re wondering why I put that video on the top of the post, here’s why. I love that band! I really like this song.
I also think it’s relevant to this conversation I’m trying to start. I do think there’s a war going on. It’s a war for our hearts and our heads. It’s a war for the principles we’ll stand and fight for. It’s a war between the great masses of “we the people”, the common people, (you and me), and the elites.
It’s a war between freedom and tyranny. YES, it really is. So far, it’s happening mostly in the background, behind the scenes. You can see it easily if you look around (don’t count on the mainstream media for your information).
“This is Why We Fight”: “When we die, we will die with our arms unbound.” THAT says it all to me.
“This Is Why We Fight”
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
And this is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why
Why we fight
Come hell
Bride of quiet
Bride of all unquiet things
Bride of quiet
Bride of hell
Come the archers
Come the infantry
Come the archers
Of hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
And when we die
We will die
With our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
Come hell
Come hell
This is why
Why we fight
Why we lie awake
This is why
This is why we fight
When we die
We will die with our arms unbound
And this is why
This is why we fight
So come to me
Come to me now
Lay your arms around me
And this is why
This is why
We fight
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
Come hell
I got this in my email today, I just HAD to check it out. This film looks like it will be a real eye-opener and I sure hope it gets the attention it deserves.
The email (from The Dollar Vigilante) said that the first official screening of the film will be at the Freedomfest (Las Vegas Jul 9-12).
I went to Freedomfest a couple of years ago and had a great time. I hope to go again this year. I’m not sure of my schedule yet, so I haven’t made plans. I definitely recommend it for anyone who is into freedom and individual liberty. There is SO much good information there, SO many interesting people, and the atmosphere is just amazing!
Positive energy for a change. 🙂
Here’s what Jeff Berwick (the Dollar Vigilante) has to say about Freedomfest and the new film… “… Freedomfest is probably the largest conference on freedom in the world and so I decided I couldn’t pass it up. Also, at Freedomfest, they will be screening the first public airing of “Freedom From Choice” a film on the state of the US tyranny today with appearances by Peter Schiff, G. Edward Griffin, myself and many more.“
I checked out the link on the email from TDV and liked what I saw. I can’t wait to see the full movie. I even donated a few bucks to help make that happen. (You can too if you want). I think Kickstarter is a great idea (and another example of the free market at work)!
Check it out and let me know what you think. Do you like stuff like this? Do you care about these kinds of issues? Are you concerned about the way things are going in the USA (or the world)? Are you involved in any projects to help change things? I’d really like to know. 🙂
Here’s another excellent article from The Dollar Vigilante. It was written by Latin America Editor Adil Elias (check the link, you can read it in English or Spanish). I’ve subscribed to TDV for a while now and I always enjoy reading their articles. I like to hear from all of their writers and enjoy hearing about their adventures.
Sometimes reading a post makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry (seriously), sometimes it infuriates me, but it always holds my attention and makes me think.
It usually makes me think about how the HELL did we allow our freedom to disappear? Yes, the foreigners still flock here, they believe our propaganda. And yes, we are better off and more free here than if we lived in Somalia or North Korea. But we have lost SO MUCH. We were once the envy of the world. Now, not so much. 🙁
I know what’s happening, it’s like the story about the frog in a pot of boiling water. Throw him in when the waters at room temperature and he’s just fine with it. Turn up the heat very gradually and by the time the water’s hot enough to concern him, it’s too late and we have frog legs for dinner.
That is exactly what has been going on here in America with regards to our freedom. I know in some ways our freedom has been increasing. I can say that about communications for example. In lots of ways, things have improved in the last 100 years. We have telephone, fax, mobile phones, TV, computers, and internet.
All of those things have given us so many choices and improved our lives. Those things have increased our personal liberty. But that same technology is also being used against us in a lot of different ways.
Most people paid no attention to the fact that the US government has been increasingly violating our privacy. Edward Snowden took huge risks to break the news (again, since nobody paid attention any of the other times these spy programs have been reported).
No one had any major problem with the FBI wiretapping criminals, but now the ‘authorities’ capture EVERY SINGLE PHONE CALL from EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US! Same with everything you ever do or ever have done online. Same with tracking everywhere you go and everything you do. Everything you buy and everything you read. What you do at home and who you do it with.
We are living in a world to rival the worst nightmares of George Orwell and Franz Kafka. Yes, seriously! We have the technology, the money and the means to allow ‘our’ leaders to transgress against us in the most invasive ways.
1984 was supposed to be a WARNING, not a road map!!!
Our ‘leaders’ have decided it’s right and proper that they spy on EVERYTHING WE EVER SAY OR DO or even THINK! They are even collecting our DNA!! Of course, it’s all for our ‘own good’.
Really?
And do you REALLY want to live in a society where the people ‘in charge’ have access to all that information? To be used for any purpose they desire, to sell it to whoever they feel like, or to use it against us? The way I look at it, it is OUR information, it belongs to US and I did NOT give permission for anyone to use ANY of my information other than the people I specifically give it to.
I do NOT want my location tracked with cameras in every store, bank, street corner, and public place, cel phone triangulation programs and RFID chips! I do NOT want red light cameras, toll booths, license plate scanners, and black boxes (now required to be installed in all new vehicles) tracking every trip I make!
I do NOT want every conversation I make, every comment and keystroke I make, every item I buy, every person I associate with, every book I read, every club I join, every show I watch, etc. recorded and stored for all time!
I do NOT want my medical records spread about the internet for anyone to see, just because some kid with a bug up his ass wants to pay me back. I do NOT want my credit screwed up for years because (even) one bad apple in any of the dozens of companies I deal with abuses my social security number!
I do NOT want to live in a society where people have to think about ANY of these things going in in their lives. I could not call anyplace that did that kind of thing a civilization, it is the complete opposite of a civilized society!
I do NOT want to live in a place where people censor themselves and live in fear of being caught out, violated, spied on and blackmailed over any little thing. That IS what happens when people have no respect for personal privacy. Look at the historical record.
Take a good look at Nazi Germany. Take a good look at the Soviet Union. Take a good look at the Chinese and their Great Leap Forward. There are many, many examples.
I hope you’ll read the article in the link. I really can’t do it justice. I hope you’ll think about what he says about the organization of society and the way our ‘leaders’ function. I hope more and more and more people will think it over and decide to take back their lives and their freedoms from the power hungry thugs who somehow have managed to take over almost the entire world.
We will never have a decent world until we deal with these people. We all deserve to live in a world of peace, prosperity and freedom. I see some signs of change. The internet is a huge help in spreading the word, that YES, it IS possible! Let’s make it happen!!!
Here’s to a new awakening in the new year!
Liberator Online: Gov’t to gobble up your Thanksgiving.
This is an interesting take on the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I suppose it is pretty much just an American holiday. Not sure if other countries have it, but I wouldn’t think so.
The report cited in the article reminds us that of $10 billion we spend on Thanksgiving weekend, almost 40% of that is taken by government. Taxes on wine and beer, plane tickets and gas, and the food you enjoy will give the government approximately $3.6 billion in revenues. Hard for me to enjoy my meal remembering those numbers.
What I DO have to be thankful for is, as mentioned in the article, the growing liberty movement, including the Advocates for Self Government (www.theadvocates.org) whose newsletter is where I saw this article.
PS- if you scroll down toward the end of the link, you’ll see a link where you can get a FREE ebook ‘After the Welfare State”. There’s also an article and link to the winners of the Reason Video Prize where you can see the videos.
Where Does Facebook Stop and the NSA Begin? | Mother Jones.
Here’s another article re: the NSA. It goes right along with the one I posted yesterday (and my related rant about it). In case anyone did not realize it, it’s not only the NSA that is spying on us. As this article points out, pretty much EVERYONE is spying on us.
Facebook is just one corporation that is in cahoots with the federal government to suck up our personal information and use it (against us) for their benefit. Apparently Facebook has some kind of deal with the feds to just hand it right on over, no warrant required.
I really don’t like the fact that my information, that I am just hoping certain people to see will be collected by some giant corporation and then sold to the feds. This way the government can get around the constitution (not really- but they hope we’ll fall for it) and steal all our information without going through the bother of obeying the LAW (the constitution) and having something specific enough to look for that they can ask for and get a warrant!
Yeah, I know that when I post to Facebook everybody in the world can look at it if they want. I’m hoping that people that I know, or people with similar interests will stop by my page and join in the conversation. I’m NOT really trying to send it directly to some government goon with nothing better to do than spend his entire career illegally spying on people!
You question my calling it “illegal spying”? I call it that because they do NOT have any probable cause to look at anything I do! They do not have any warrant! ANY time the government looks at ANYTHING to do with you without probable cause and a warrant IS illegal under the constitutions 4th and 5th amendments (and others)!
I just can NOT understand why more people aren’t up in arms over this. People really don’t give a damn about the daily violations and constant erosion of their freedom. WHY? Can anybody explain this total apathy? Have Americans been THAT brainwashed, THAT terrified by their government as to allow anything and everything that same government wants to do as long as they say it’s ‘for our own good’? 🙁
Yeah, I guess Facebook might be classified as a ‘public’ space, but who says the government can sneak up and eavesdrop on a conversation you’re having among friends in the park??
It’s really the same thing.
ALL human beings have a RIGHT to privacy! It’s a basic necessity for any civilized society.
The US government was formed ONLY to PROTECT those rights we already had just because we are human beings! WHEN are people going to realize that the government is NOT doing ANY of this stuff for our own good but only for THEIR own good?
WTF is it going to take to get people to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?????
The NSA Review Panel Is An Even Bigger Joke Than We Previously Thought | TechCrunch.
Surprise, surprise, surprise… NOT! Did anyone really think they would do the right thing? Anybody seriously think they would stop their illegal, unconstitutional activities? Anybody actually think they would give up their chance to spy on everything and everybody in the entire world???
Just because they got caught? REALLY???
Anybody who really thought they might, just might do the right thing just because they got caught with their pants down has no inkling of how ‘our’ government really works these days.
We had just better face it, until and unless WE put a stop to this crap, they are just going to find another way to get what they want. What they want is total control over you, me, EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY in the USA (and the world if they can find a way)!
They’re well on their way to accomplishing this sick goal of theirs. They got the PATRIOT Act passed which violated every amendment of the constitution but the one about quartering troops in your home. Then they keep trying to scare the crap out of everyone so they can keep it up. Constant threats we need them to violate our freedoms to protect us from, yeah riiiiiighhhht.
Obamacare is their latest scam and a pretty good jump in their capabilities. After all, if you control someones health, their physical body, then you do pretty much control them. Is somebody going to argue against that?
I’d like to hear those arguments if anyone has one. I know there must be some supporters of this stuff out there. Unbelievable! 🙁 But polls show the majority of Americans support this stuff (illegal spying), http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-spying-on-their-email-neighbors-and-foreign-leaders/.
WTF has happened to America? We USED to be the most free country that ever existed and now we have flushed our freedom in the toilet. For WHAT?????
WTF are you so AFRAID of??? WHY do you let them manipulate you like this? You let them take away our hard earned freedom because of FEAR??? Or is it because of apathy? Or you’re too busy to bother? WHY are you allowing this to happen?
I would REALLY like to know. I just don’t get it.
The World’s Fastest Failure | Laissez-Faire Bookstore.
Great article by Jeffrey Tucker about Obamacare and why it is such a huge failure (at least a failure if you don’t think Obama was trying to ruin the country on purpose- there are plenty who DO think that and they have some good reasons).
It’s true that this program has degenerated faster than the rest of them. Maybe it’s just because its SO big? Maybe it’s just because people are waking up? Maybe it’s because some people actually understand economics and that Obamacare can NEVER work and they’ve been able to make some progress informing others? Maybe it’s just because government has already taken over so much of the economy already? Maybe it’s just that people are sick and tired of government encroaching on our freedom?
Mr Tucker compares the government to a start-up company which has to compete in the market. He shows why government can NEVER be successful in the markets. It’s just their nature and can’t be avoided. He doesn’t think Obamacare will ever be repealed. Instead it will just collapse eventually under its own weight. I hope not, I hope it will be repealed before it collapses and also takes down the rest of the country (and us) with it. 🙁
Its worth reading and thinking about it.
The Phony ‘Fight’ And The Real Story : Personal Liberty™.
Another good article from Bob Livingston and Personal Liberty. This one is discussing the events of the last few weeks, the fight over the budget and Obamacare. The scare tactic to ‘shutdown’ the government, as if that is a bad thing we would never want. As usual, the politicians caved in for bigger government, more money and more power for them. 🙁
I agree completely with Bob on the idea that there is really only ONE party in this country. We might as well just call it the ‘statist’ party since every piece of it (every so called ‘independent’ party), whatever it’s called, is for BIG government.
As the latest vote in congress just proved once more, BOTH the Democrats AND Republicans are for BIG government and completely against the limited government this country is supposed to have according to our Constitution and all the rest of our founding documents!
ALL of those politicians are breaking their oaths of office to uphold the Constitution. EVERY ONE OF THEM, FROM BOTH PARTIES! The Libertarians are the ONLY political party (unless there is an anarchist party I’m not aware of) who is NOT statist and is for the limited government our Constitution calls for.
The latest ‘shutdown’ was just one more farce. The latest show put on for us by ‘our’ leaders to trick us into giving up even more of our power to them. 🙁 I just keep wondering just WHAT is it going to take to get the American people to wake up? To put a stop to this?
I managed to piss off a good friend of mine tonight. He’s a die hard Obama fan and just couldn’t take any more of my ‘ranting’ about how Obama (and all of our previous ‘leaders’ for the last few decades) has been ruining this country.
Well, sorry to him and anybody else who can’t/won’t see the truth. I’m no Tom Paine, but I think the more people put it out there (shout out for freedom/liberty), the more people will come to their senses.
I’m thankful to all the other people in this country and around the world who are fighting for Liberty. In any way. Thanks to the Libertarian Party, to all the small L libertarians, to the Free State Project, to the Advocates for Self Government, to the International Society for Individual Liberty, to the Young Americans for Liberty, for Ron Paul and all his supporters, for the ACLU, for the Gun Owners of America, for the Institute for Justice, for ALL the people fighting AGAINST statism and FOR liberty!
I’m thankful to WordPress, Facebook, Twitter and any other platform I have to spread the word. To get MY voice heard, out there to compete against the mainstream media who keeps on NOT doing their jobs. Dianne Feinstein can go to hell! Here’s to me and the rest of the (‘non-journalist’) bloggers out there!
Keep up the good work!! 🙂
Dianne Feinstein And The NSA Versus James Madison : Personal Liberty™.
This woman has NO idea of what the Constitution says or means. She is just an ignorant, power hungry THUG that happens to wear dresses. She is one sick evil bitch and I’ll call her that to her face.
I can NOT understand why the people of California ever elected her, much less allowed her to continue her RAPE of the Californian people and their state for all these years. Anybody from California out there with some sort of explanation?
Is it just that you Californians all are screwed by the system just like the rest of us are in the national elections? Where the media refuses to do its job and inform us of ALL the candidates and instead only allows us to know about its favorites?
The ones representing the 2 favored (really only ONE) parties who have been vetted by the owners of those media outlets? The ones who pass the tests of being…
1. members of the same elite club,
2. willing to follow orders from the leaders of those same elite clubs,
3. NOT willing to do what’s best for the country and follow their oath to protect our rights and uphold the Constitution!
It’s hard to believe there was NO one on the ballot who wasn’t a better choice. Was there NOBODY else running against her? NO ONE ELSE was ever on the ballot against her? Not once in all those years??? Cause ANYBODY would be better than her, I mean REALLY!
Obamacare: A Parasite Intent on Killing Its Host | Laissez-Faire Bookstore.
This is a VERY good article by former Texas Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. I have to admit, I LOVE Ron Paul! 🙂 He has been my congressman for years and he is the ONLY politician I’ve ever met who REALLY tries his best to do the job he was elected to do.
That job is to PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION! NOT to pander to the public (like most politicians think). Regardless of how many people do or don’t want to do one thing or another, he ALWAYS did the RIGHT thing and fought to uphold the constitution and our rights.
We would be in SUCH a better place as a country if he had been elected instead of Obama. Too bad the media refuses to allow any other candidates to be heard. 🙁
I’m sure if more people actually listened to what he has to say, they would LOVE it! Just look at the reaction he gets when he visits any college campus around the country. These kids are open to new ideas, they’re not completely brainwashed yet. He gets a HUGE positive reaction from young people.
Ron Paul is absolutely correct in everything he says in this article. I know a lot of people refuse to open their eyes to the truth, but you can NOT evade human nature or the laws of economics for very long.
Obamacare IS a disaster waiting to happen. It just makes me sick that we have SO many people in this country now who, for whatever reason, still support this legislation which is completely in violation of ANY sort of respect for individual rights. Those same individual rights this country was founded to PROTECT (not to give, since we had them already-but to protect!).
In fact, the ONLY proper function of OUR government is just that, to protect our rights, PERIOD! With Obamacare, we have turned that idea inside-out and upside-down. Everything about it is a violation of our rights.
Our right to decide our own medical treatments is violated in every way! We can’t choose the price we’ll pay for those treatments. We can’t choose who we want to provide those treatments. Our privacy is totally eliminated!!
How can that mean anything other than that somebody ELSE OWNS YOUR BODY AND SO YOUR LIFE! How anyone could even imagine that it could possibly do anything but corrupt completely the principles this country was founded to uphold, bankrupt and destroy this country is just beyond belief!
I just don’t get it. Do these people who support it have some kind of switch in their brains that shuts off any logical thinking whenever the subject of Obama or his latest SCAM comes up? Or maybe they just never could think logically about anything to begin with. Or maybe its just greed that’s blinding them, the thought of all that ‘free’ stuff is just too much for them to cope with and they overload their brain cells?
They keep talking about how ‘all the other democracies have socialized medicine’ and that is somehow supposed to justify destroying ours. I don’t understand why they don’t just go to one of those other wonderful countries if they love socialism so much.
THIS country is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC! It is NOT a democracy and it is NOT a socialist country! If you want one of those, you have about 180 of them to choose from. Leave THIS one alone to continue to be free and an example to the rest of the world. It is only your socialism that has been dragging it down for decades now!
Let us return to the FREE country this used to be and we’ll be able to recover and prosper again. Keep pushing the cronyism, corporatism, populist and socialistic fantasies and we will just keep on whittling away at our freedom and everything that once made this country the greatest in the history of the world will go away with it. 🙁
Look to England for America’s Future | Laissez-Faire Bookstore.
Good post on some history from across the pond. I would certainly think it would follow that we would wind up the same way if we follow the same path. It looks to me like that’s what IS happening here. WHY can’t we ever learn from history, instead of repeating the same mistakes? 🙁
Our World Through Thomas Paine’s Eyes | Laissez-Faire Bookstore.
Excellent article by Jeffrey Tucker! I guess I’ll have to re-read Common Sense again. I liked it the first time I read it. I liked it more the next time. I’m sure my attitude toward it hasn’t changed, since my love of individual liberty is stronger than ever!
I wonder what will it take for us Americans to stand up and take back our liberty again. We did it once back then when Thomas Paine’s essay managed to stir up the people. Do we have anyone now who could do that job? I know people are trying, the internet is a big help- but most people still aren’t interested in paying attention.
We are in a much worse off position then the colonists were then. Back then, they were fighting the most powerful empire in the world. So would we be. But they were a heck of a lot more evenly matched! The King didn’t have any drones, or NSA spy programs to watch your every move, or even nuclear weapons to threaten with…
Our only real advantage now is the fact that our IDEAS are the better ones. How many people can honestly support tyranny over freedom?
How has tyranny ever lifted the standard of living in a nation? Compared to systems with some freedom allowed? How has tyranny encouraged creativity? Compared to freedom?
Even with the limited freedom we started with here (re:slavery, women, etc), we STILL became the most productive country with the best standard of living on the planet.It’s only as we threw that freedom out the window that we started going downhill.
Get the truth out there to people and they will no longer support “our” government. It HAS in fact become a tyranny.
“Tyranny- arbitrary or unrestrained use of power- oppressive or unjustly severe government.”
As the founding fathers fought the American Revolution against King George for such trivial things like a tiny tax on a few items like tea, WE have a much larger tax on EVERYTHING. As they fought against no taxation without representation, WE have no representation either (or do you REALLY think your congressman does what YOU ask them to?).
As they fought against their treatment by the Kings soldiers, we put up with daily harassment by the TSA strip searchers, DEA and police theft/destruction of your property and NSA collecting EVERYTHING you do or say! How much worse is that then the Kings men occasionally looking through your (snail) mail? And yet no one today protests. 🙁
The government right now is in a ‘shut down’ which did not in fact shut down any of the things they use to oppress us (oh my wishful thinking that they would shut all that down!!). Things like the NSA, DEA, DHS, TSA, IRS are all still open for business (and NO, we do NOT need ANY of them!). They have only shut down the things that people actually ENJOY the use of from the government. Things like the National Parks and the WWII Monument.
They are ‘shut down’ in a fight over the budget and Obamacare. Obamacare is only one more HUGE violation of our rights and the budget is already TRILLIONS of dollars over what it should be! I just keep wondering: what in the HELL is it going to take for the main part of the American people to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’?
Animal Food Checkoff Programs and the Economics of Meat Production – Politics – Utne Reader.
Here is an interesting article from Utne Reader on the new book by David Robinson Simon: “Meatonomics”.
This exert from the book is mainly about the food “checkoff” programs. Those are programs where the federal government takes a certain percentage of every product sold, say every pound of beef or pork, or a dozen eggs, or a gallon of milk. They then use that money to “promote” those products. In other words, to manipulate the public through advertising to buy more of those products.
Milk- it does a body good.
Pork, the other white meat.
What’s for dinner? Beef.
The incredible, edible egg.
I’m sure you’ve seen these ads, they’ve been around for years. According to the article, they’ve been VERY effective. For instance, the dairy producers report they’ve increased per capita milk consumption 12% to 620 pounds since their program started in 1983. More than 7 billion extra pounds of milk sold!
I don’t really have a problem with food producers trying to promote the sale of their products. If they all just got together voluntarily and threw their money in a pool to spend on advertising that they all agreed on, then fine.
Where I have an issue is that this program is mandatory. The federal government does not allow anyone to opt out and it forces ALL producers to pay for whatever it is that the government decides to say. We’re talking $557 million yearly, that’s a lot of advertising.
Why in the world do we even need the federal government to promote ANY product? Is this in ANY way consistent with the LIMITED government we are supposed to have according to our Constitution? It IS still the supreme law of the land, no matter how many ‘laws’ have been written into the books to subvert it.
Looks like nobody really cares. There’s already been a case where some beef producers disagreed with an ad campaign (Johannes v. Livestock Marketing Association) that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Basically, the court ruled that the statements (ads) were being produced by the government, NOT the beef producers and so they had no standing to object (I’m not a lawyer but that’s my take on it).
Tough titties in other words 🙁
It looks like a book worth reading if you’re at all interested in our increasingly corporate food system. The more I learn, the more I DON’T like what I’m finding out. There has to be a better way.
“Coupon Constitution” Threatens Fundamental Freedom by Bob Barr.
I couldn’t have said it better. Everything he says is the truth. It’s so sad what we have allowed to happen, what we have done to ourselves. It wasn’t Al-Qaeda that destroyed America, it was US!
Through our FEAR, we allowed everything America stood for to be shot down along with our enemies. We allowed the government to run rampant, in complete contrast to our founders intentions of an extremely LIMITED government with only a few areas of authority.
I hope one day the American people will come to their senses and take back our country before its too late.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk.
I LOVE Ron Paul. He was my congressman for all the years I’ve lived in Lake Jackson until he ‘retired’ recently and moved on to other projects. He has ALWAYS stood up for the Constitution on EVERY issue and I really admire him for that. After all, that is the job EVERY one of our ‘representatives’ from the President on down swore and oath to do and he is the ONLY one for decades who has actually done that. His son Rand Paul is not even close tho he at least does try on a few issues.
Since Ron was a doctor, he probably knows about health care and how Obamacare will hurt the medical profession better than the rest of our “leaders”. I know he knows finances and how the market works better than 99.99% of them. I know how the market works better than the huge majority of them, from their actions, they are almost all completely ignorant of how the free market works and how any interference with it causes problems.
People here keep saying the government has to fix the problem since the market can’t. I call BS on that! First of all, we have nothing like a free market in health care or anything else. We USED to, and then the government stepped in and started screwing things up. Now we have a corporatocracy (facism in other words). I really hate the idea of Obamacare and its ‘individual mandate’. Mandate???? In a FREE country???
The government has come to believe that they OWN us now. What else could you call it when they will be dictating the way you can take care of your own body? I guess it’s NOT your own body anymore when you can’t decide what to do with it anymore but somebody else can. This is just the last step on the road to complete totalitarianism in the once land of the free. I am doing my best to get the hell out but still stuck here trying to figure out HOW??!
Saving Democracy with Civic Literacy in America 101.
I liked seeing this article (in Utne Reader) and I really agree with pretty much everything they said about the need for civic education. I remember we used to have classes in civics in elementary school. I still remember a lot of what I was taught then and I still really believe in all that stuff. I am a strong supporter of the constitution and wish more people around me were. I think people need to have a good understanding of the constitution and the principles behind it. I do disagree with the writers when they say that what made our country great was BIG government! WOW!! I totally disagree with that! In fact, I think its the complete opposite. We became great because we had the FREEDOM that having a SMALL government gave us! We are still living off the productivity those years provided. Now we are losing our freedom, our prosperity, our strength and influence in the world because we have strayed from our founding principles and our government has become so huge it has taken over everything here. You can’t do ANYTHING here anymore without government somehow being involved. You can’t get though a day without breaking at least one law anymore. There’s a book out, its called “Three Felonies a Day” by Harvey Silverglate. I haven’t read it yet but just the title makes it sound like something I would really get into 😉