This is truly the face of tyranny and just another in a recent set of examples of the Obama administration abusing freedom and liberty in this country. Government intrusion and abuse of privacy of citizens and organizations. The silencing of whistle blowers. Using government agents and agencies to silence political opponents and religious freedom. Spying on news organizations and secretly obtaining the phone logs of those news organizations' reporters. Forcing religious organizations to change their religious tenets for political reasons. And then accusing the governed of having a trust problem. Despicable and disgusting.
But possibly we can learn from others, from today and in the past, when it comes to tyranny and how to handle it since tyranny of this scope has never been seen to this degree in this country. This education process starts right now as we quote some very smart people from today and in our past who actually recognized the many faces of tyranny:
1) Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, the Republican author of the Patriot Act, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder saying he is “extremely disturbed” by reports that the NSA collected phone records from Verizon customers – and insists it violates the law: “These reports are deeply concerning and raise questions about whether our constitutional rights are secure.” Again, this is the guy whowrote the Patriot Act and even he is concerned our rights are being trampled by the Obama administration.
2) Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.” I have heard a few scattered reports that some people applauded the IRS for targeting conservative and Tea Party entities. However, what they fail to realize that endangering the rights of any American citizen makes it easier for today’s and tomorrow’s politicians to violate every citizen’s rights and freedoms.
3) Thomas Jefferson: “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.” Pretty hard not to fear government when it and its agents have detailed knowledge of your calls, your Internet activity, use its power to suppress your freedom of speech and religion, etc.
4) James Madison: “If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” Sound familiar, we need to spy on every American, trample their rights, in order to win the war on terror.
5) Lysander Spooner: “Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.” Today, perjury comes in the forms of denying Freedom Of Information Act requests and the non-transparency of government activity.
6) Thomas Jefferson: “Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Sound familiar?
7) Alex Storozynski: “Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.” Similar sentiment to the MLK related quote above.
8) C.J. Redwine: “Silent acquiescence in the face of tyranny is no better than outright agreement.”
9) Ben Franklin: ”They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
10) Harry Truman: "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." How better to silence the voice of oppostion than to sic the IRS and NSA after them, to harass them and distract them not because they broke the laws but simply because they had a different political view?
11) Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
According to Wikipedia, the purpose of the Fourth Amendment was as follows:
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United Sattes Constitution is the part of the Bill Of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it.
Sounds like the Obama adminsitration massive secret data colleciotn of telephone records and other electronic communications has Fourth Amendment violations all over it since it is a general search warrant, it is not limited to specific information, it is not supported by probable cause, and the amount and volume of data colelcted of innocent citizens is certainly unreasonable by any measure.
12) Martin Nimbler (German pastor discussing the Nazi tyranny on its own citizens):
“When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”
I love this last quote because only individual citizens, acting as one to protect everyone’s freedom can defeat tyranny. If you are not conservative, or religious, or a Tea Party supporter, you may not care that the Obama admnistration targeted them for harassment and abuse. If you are not a news reporter, you may not care that the Obama administration harassed and abused news reporters. But standing idly by encourages this type of behavior, making it even more egregious and wide ranging the next time, a time that may impact your beliefs, lives, and families.
Let this quote and the ones above serve as a guide to defeating what is the creeping tyranny and destruction of our democracy, regardless of which American or group of Americans are being subjected to that tyranny.
Tomorrow we will let you take a Big Brother vs. President Obama quiz to see whether there is any difference between Orwell’s "1984" Big Brother character and the current actions of this administration. The next day we will propose a plan to defeat this tyranny, restore our freedom, and destroy the political class that has allowed this deterioration of liberty to occur.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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