August, 2019, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Jail Time For Feeding Two Cats, Orwell Is Back, and Inane Laws Across the Country

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) Hillary Clinton breaks Federal laws and government protocols by having an unsecure computer server, a server that is hacked by the Chinese and probably other countries, in her house and does not get in criminal trouble. Barack Obama breaks existing laws, shreds the Constitution and ignores judicial rulings and does not get in criminal trouble. A 79 year old woman in Ohio feeds two stray cats and goes to jail for 10 days.

Whoever says that justice is evenly distributed across all segments of the American population is obviously blind to how the political class gets away with so much more severe crimes than ordinary Americans:

• Ohio resident Nancy Segula, who is 79 years old, was recently sentenced to 10 days in jail for feeding two cats.
• One of her neighbors had moved away but had left her pet cats behind on the streets to fend for themselves.
• Being a kind hearted human being, Ms. Segula took pity on the cats and started to feed them so they would not starve.
• Neighbors called animal services and they dropped four citations on her for feeding the cats instead of taking the cats off of the streets themselves.
• By the time she got the fourth citation, she was required to report to the local government and was then sentenced to jail.

So remember, if you are not a politician, be careful what stray animals you feed, you could get jail time. The news report with additional details is at:

https://selfreliancecentral.com/2019/08/01/government-gone-insane-79-year-old-ohio-woman-sent-to-jail-for-feeding-cats/?utm_source=190802SRCAMFBF2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=190802SRCAMFBF2

2) For anyone who has read the George Orwell novel, “1984,” you know that it predicts that eventually the government will overtake and destroy all of our freedoms. In that world, the government controls the news, the language we speak, the actions we take and if we dare to violate their dictates, then severe penalties are in store. In such a world, government surveillance is everywhere, there is no hiding from the prying and spying hand of the government and “Big Brother.”

Very scary reading, reading that just got scarier based on a recent USA Today article:

• According to the article, the Pentagon and Federal government are launching and testing unmanned surveillance balloons to observe what is going on on the ground within the country.
• The balloons are currently being launched from sites in South Dakota and are hovering via solar power over a number of midwest states.
• Theoretically, the balloons are to provide "a persistent surveillance system" to help counter drug running and homeland security threats.
• These purposes are on file with the FCC which had to approve the balloon launches for "experimental special temporary authorization." 
• The balloons float miles and miles above the surface (65,000 feet) so they are unlikely to be seen by criminals, terrorists and drug runners.
• But their high tech equipment allows them to track individual vehicles as these vehicles travel miles and miles through all kinds of weather and through days and nights.
• Each balloon can cover 25 square miles in detail and can communicate with each other and hand off tracking if necessary.

So many issues here:

• Why is the Pentagon involved in domestic crime fighting, a slippery slope on domestic use of military resources?
• Given that Obama illegally seized and spied on just about every American’s electronic communications, who and what is to prevent another person like him to do the same with this technology and turn it against their political rivals?
• Given that the Obama administration abused the FISA court process to illegally spy on Trump’s campaign, who is to say a future administration would not do the same thing relative this technology and abuse the need for a court order to use this balloon technology?

Privacy is key to living in a free society and the potential for the military or crooked politicians to take away our privacy via this technology is immense and would certainly help fulfill Orwell’s vision of Big Brother and the destruction of democracy in this country.

3) Let’s finish off today’s and this month’s political class insanity with something a little more light hearted than the destruction of democracy. We often maintain that American politicians are not smart enough, resourceful enough, or energetic enough to resolve real issues facing their constituents and the country. As a result, they waste time, resources, and taxpayer wealth on inane rules, laws, and efforts that in the big picture make very little sense and have very little impact on Americans’ lives.

I recently came across a source that listed out the most insane rules and laws in each state. As you read some of the craziest ones I have listed below, keep in mind that these ideas were proposed, debated, changed, and finally enacted by state and local politicians even though I am sure there were far more important issues (e.g. failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, drug addiction, crime, etc.) that could have been addressed rather than enacting these laws:

• In Alaska you can only legally convert a picnic table into a boat if it contains the necessary safety equipment such as life vests and is properly registered as a boat.
• In Arizona it is illegal for a donkey to sleep in a bathtub.
• In California, it is illegal to eat a frog who died during a frog jumping contest.
• In Florida, pregnant pigs have the legal right to be unconfined and able to roam free while pregnant. No other animal in Florida has these same pregnant rights.
• In Pocatello, Idaho, it is illegal not to smile in public.
• In Iowa, the only legal size of all boxes used for picking hops has to be precisely 36 inches long, 18 inches wide, and 24 ¼ inches deep.
• In Topeka, Kansas, it is illegal to scream in a haunted house.
• In Missouri it is illegal to remove mattress tags or bring untagged mattresses into the state.
• In Montana it is illegal to raise pet rats unless they are used as reptile or bird food (that has to be a big bird).
• In New Hampshire it is illegal to collect seaweed off of beaches during night hours….but apparently okay to do it during the day.
• In New Jersey it is illegal to wear a bullet-proof vest while murdering, kidnapping, robbing, or raping, a law that I am sure all felons abide by.
• In Pennsylvania it is illegal to run a bingo game if you are a convicted felon. Could that really be a problem, massive numbers of felons running bingo games?
• In South Carolina it is illegal to play pinball unless you are 18 or older.
• In Huron, South Dakota is is illegal to cause static electricity.
• In Vermont, it is illegal to dress one’s horse up in a disguise and to disguise it as something other than a horse. I have to think it is pretty hard to dress up a horse and actually make it look anything other than a horse.
• In West Virginia is its illegal to hunt wild animals using a ferret.

Again, these are real rules and laws, negotiated, fine tuned, and enacted by inept politicians who cannot fix real problems but instead worry about disguised horses and other such nonsense.

More insanity next month, to be sure.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

September, 2014 Part 2 - The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care; Microchipping Your Body, Thousands of Virginians Lose Their Currnet Insruance, and More

Over the past few years, but especially over the past thirteen months, we have had to devote more and more posts each month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. This legislation, without a doubt, is the worst piece of legislation ever passed, likely passed by the most inept and useless set of Washington politicians that this country has ever had to endure. The disasters from this law include at least the following downsides:

• It has and will continue to increase the national debt.
• It will leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured ten years from now.
• It has restricted overall economic growth.
• It raised taxes on all Americans in dozens of ways.
• It has reduced the job growth rate in this country.
• It has turned many full time workers into part time workers or into unemployed workers.
• It has generally increased the cost of health insurance, both premiums and deductibles, over what was available in the insurance market before it was passed.
• The Constitution was violated any number of times when the Obama administration unilaterally and illegally changed components of the law without the permission of Congress or the American people.
• The American people were lied to over and over, directly by the President and Democrats in Congress, on the negative ramifications of the law.
• It has caused millions of American to lose access to the current insurance policies they had.
• It has caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred doctors, preferred hospitals, and in many cases, current medicine treatments.
• It has likely increased the volume of people visiting hospital emergency rooms.
• It has caused thousands of doctors to retire early or change professions in order to not deal with the bureaucracy and idiocy of the law.
• It has exposed the inability of the Federal government and various state governments to develop, launch, and operate any kind of successful program.
• It has exposed millions of Americans’ personal financial information to identity thieves.
• It never addressed, and thus, never resolved, the root causes of our escalating health care costs in this country.

I am sure that I omitted some of the negative ramifications of the legislation but you get the idea. To review past discussions of past disasters from Obama Care, enter ”the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above.

The disasters continue below and over the next few days.

1) Virginia news outlets reported on September 11, 2014 that a quarter of a million Virginians are about to lose their current health insurance coverage and policies because those policies “are not following the affordable care act [Obama Care] rules.”

Executive Director of Virginia Association of Health Plans, Doug Gray explained: “We’re not allowed to offer those plans anymore. So what we’re saying to them is, you need to move to one that’s compliant with the law because that’s what we can offer.”

According to a reporter, Alana Austin, “This goes back to that now heavily-criticized line we heard before Obama Care was put in place: ‘If you like your plan, you can keep it.’ Ultimately, that turned out not to be true for thousands of Virginians and companies in the commonwealth.”

The original article and video can be viewed at:

http://www.westernjournalism.com/thanks-obama-250000-virginians-set-lose-health-care-due-obamacare/#qRXx8mqzK576gzuE.99

2) Stories like the following one are usually ignored in this blog, I usually chalk it up to hysteria and rumor mongering. But the fact that the story was covered on NBC News’ national telecast made me think that it might actually be true. NBC rarely reports on anything negative about the Obama administration so when they do report on anything negative about the Obama Presidency, it catches my eye.

NBC News recently predicted that by the year 2017, all Americans will be tagged with an embedded microchip somewhere in their body. They will be implanted to help identify individuals immediately. According to the news report, the technology’s purpose is to answer one simple question, “Am I who I say I am?” 

Obviously, the chance of abuse and Big Brother-like tactics and oppression rises dramatically if the Federal government can track who and where you are. Fortunately, some state leaders agree with the very large downside of such an intrusive government effort. In some states, such as Virginia, state legislation is in development to stop this from happening. 

The NBC News report also claims that an RFID Brain Chip has been developed and is currently being tested on several humans. They cite the proof of the RFID Microchip program in Obama Care by citing the part of the legislation calling for the program: It was reported that the use of Micro-Chips in Bill H.R. 4872 was located on Page 1014 under “National Medical Device Registry” it tells about a “Class II Device That is Implantable” and yes, they passed the bill. 

Seems like an awfully large loss of freedom for such a small potential of upside in the worst piece of legislation ever passed. Details of the NBC report can be found at:

http://800whistleblower.com/all-americans-will-receive-a-microchip-implant-in-2017-per-obamacare/?utm_content=buffer23d0d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

3) We go over a lot of statistics and a lot of overall realities when discussing the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. But we also like to hear form ordinary Americans and how their lives are generally affected in a negative way by the legislation. Check out the following video on how some Americans, likely just like you and me, have been impacted by the law:

http://joeforamerica.com/2014/01/employees-react-obamacare/

4) Over the past year or so we have seen the disaster that is veterans’ health care as administered by the Federal government’s Veterans Administration. High cost for low quality care that actually ended up costing an untold number of veterans their lives as a result of the government’s inability to operate an efficient health care system for veterans.

But the Veterans Administration is apparently not the only entity that has no clue how to operate an effective and efficient health care delivery system. According to a recent study implemented the City University of New York (CUNY) and the London School of Economics, a full 25% of the operating budget at U.S. hospitals goes for bureaucracy, double what hospitals spend in any other country around the world.

In the U.S., annual hospital administrative costs now top $667 per person. In comparison, the same spending comes out to only $158 per person in Canada, $164 in Scotland, $211 in Wales, $225 in England and $325 in the Netherlands. Because of varying methods of accounting, the researchers could not make comparable estimates for Germany or France. But they estimated that hospital administrative costs in Germany and France are about 40% less than in the U.S.

“We’re squandering $150 billion each year on hospital bureaucracy,” said researcher David Himmelstein, a professor at the CUNY/Hunter College School of Public Health and lecturer at Harvard Medical School. “And $300 billion more is wasted each year on insurance companies’ overhead and the paperwork they inflict on doctors.”

But with the advent of Obama Care, that overhead and paper work load is likely to get higher and higher. Resulting in higher and higher costs to operate a hospital, costs that the taxpayers and the economy eventually have to absorb.

Now, for complete disclosure, the researchers concluded that the answer to this overly expensive U.S. cost problem is for the Federal government to take over the entire domestic health care system, the so-called single payer system, to eliminate this problem. Of course the researchers ignore two major problems with their proposed solution:

1) Our Federal government has already tried that model with our veterans and all it did was kill them sooner at a very expensive rate.

2) The researchers fail to take into account the reality that citizens around the world living under a single payer system also suffer through long delays and postponements of life saving treatments in those countries, i.e. they suffer the same fate as our veterans under a single payer system. While their systems might have less expensive hospital costs, their quality of care is not very good at all under a single payer system.

The details of their research can be found at:

http://personalliberty.com/one-fourth-medical-dollars-disappear-vast-healthcare-bureaucratic-rat-hole/

More bad news on the Obama Care front, just like every month around this time. And sadly, more of the same tomorrow.

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Government Gone Wild, Part 9: Three More NSA Whistleblowers Come Forward, Part 2 Of Their Tale Of Bravery

This is the second half of a story we started yesterday where we reviewed the revelations now coming out from three new NSA whistler blowers regarding the intrusive and unprecedented government snooping into all forms of electronic communications of all Americans. This is also the ninth in a series of posts regarding the overall Naitonal Security Agency spying and snooping on Americans, without just cause or due process, and the shredding of the Fourth Amednment of the Constitution.

This second half continues the review of the noteworthy quotes from the three whistleblowers and their USA Today interview:
Radack: “I consider this to be an unlawful order. While I am glad that we finally have something tangible to look at, this order came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. They have no jurisdiction to authorize domestic-to-domestic surveillance.” Comment: As we have already asserted, secret warrants from secret judges sitting in secret courts with aoo facets breaking the law.

Drake: “For me, it was material evidence of an institutional crime that we now claim is criminal.”

Radack: ‘Congress has been a rubber stamp, basically, and the judicial branch has been basically shut down from hearing these lawsuits because every time they do they are told that the people who are challenging these programs either have no standing or (are covered by) the state secrets privilege, and the government says that they can't go forward. So the idea that we have robust checks and balances on this is a myth.” Comment: checks and balances is a myth, could not agree more regardless of what the President and his surrogates say.

Radack: “The proof is in the pudding. Last year alone, in 2012, they approved 1,856 applications and they denied none. And that is typical from everything that has happened in previous years. ... I know the government has been asserting that all of this is kosher and legitimate because the FISA court signed off on it. The FISA court is a secret court — operates in secret. There is only one side and has rarely disapproved anything.”

Radack: “Even for people in the know, I feel like Congress is being misled.”

Drake: “But see, I am Exhibit No. 1. ...You know, I was charged with 10 felony counts. I was facing 35 years in prison. This is how far the state will go to punish you out of retaliation and reprisal and retribution. ... My life has been changed. It's been turned inside, upside down. I lived on the blunt end of the surveillance bubble. ... When you are faced essentially with the rest of your life in prison, you really begin to understand and appreciate more so than I ever have — in terms of four times I took the oath to support the Constitution — what those rights and freedoms really mean. ... “

Drake: “Well, I feel extraordinary kinship with him [Snowden], given what I experienced at the hands of the government.”

Radack: “I would thank him for taking such a huge personal risk and giving up so much of his life and possibly facing the loss of his life or spending it in jail. Thank him for doing that to try to help our country save it from itself in terms of exposing dark, illegal, unethical, unconstitutional conduct that is being done against millions and millions of people.”

Binney: “Two basic principles you have to use. [to collect data on potential terrorists and protect the Fourth Amednment] ... One is what I call the two-degree principle. If you have a terrorist talking to somebody in the United States — that's the first degree away from the terrorist. And that could apply to any country in the world. And then the second degree would be who that person in the United States talked to. So that becomes your zone of suspicion. And the other one (principle) is you watch all the jihadi sites on the Web and who's visiting those jihadi sites, who has an interest in the philosophy being expressed there. And then you add those to your zone of suspicion. Everybody else is innocent — I mean, you know, of terrorism, anyway.” Comment: reasonable approach to keeping freedom intact and the citizens secure in this age of terrorism which we do not want to morph into the age of liberty destruction.

Drake: “It's been within our capabilities [to operate with these liberty safeguards] for well over 12 years.” Comment: which raises the obvious question: why were these safeguard capabilities not used?

Drake: ‘This (kind of surveillance) is all unnecessary. It is important to note that the very best of American ingenuity and inventiveness, creativity, had solved the major challenge problem the NSA faced: How do you make sense of vast amounts of data, provide the information you need to protect the nation, while also protecting the fundamental rights that are enshrined in the Constitution?” Comment: which gets us back to the old saying: just because you can does not mean you should. Just because you can collect and store EVERY piece of electronic communications from every American, the vast, vast amount are innocent of any wrongdoing does not mean you should, especially when more effective and targeted approaches are available.

Binney: “But when it comes to these data, the massive data information collecting on U.S. citizens and everything in the world they can, I guess the real problem comes with trust. That's really the issue. The government is asking for us to trust them.“

Binney: “It's not just the trust that you have to have in the government. It's the trust you have to have in the government employees, (that) they won't go in the database — they can see if their wife is cheating with the neighbor or something like that.” Comment: that this is the second major flaw in this strategy of secretly tracking everyone: not only is it unnecessary but the potential for abuse by government employees and government politicians is immense with very little positive benefit back to society.

Wow, scary and fascinating stuff. I applaud these newly identified whistle blowers and the others, Edward Snowden, Maxine Walters, and  Shia LaBeouf who also have done their part in exposing the massive attack on privacy and Fourth Amendment rights in this country. They have sacrificed personal and professional safety and careers to do the right thing.

There is a way to do this electronic surveillance without persecuting, tracking, and spying on every Americans’ communications like Big Brother would do in an Orwellian world. These experts have shown how to do it. Do we want to allow the non-experts in Congress and the White House to convince us that their creepy and all surveillance all the time approach is the only effective way to fight terrorism?

I for one would trust these brave whistleblower experts way before I would trust a Washington politician, given their recent and historical tendency to just plain out lie to our faces. That is why we continue to focus on the need for term limits for Washington politicians. They have gotten use into this liberty sapping situation for reasons that we now know from these data systems experts is totally unnecessary.

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

Government Gone Wild, Part 4: Orwell or Obama, Take The Quiz

Over the past few days we have been covering the scandal and disgrace that was recently uncovered by the Guardian newspaper, namely the fact that the Federal government, the National Security Agency, and the Obama administration have secretly been collecting the telephone calling details of millions and millions of Americans. This unethical heist of private telephone information was executed via a secret court order signed by a secret judge in a secret court. Secret anything is usually never a good thing in a democracy.

Subsequent revelations by other reputable news sources have uncovered the fact that the government and this administration is also collecting other electronic communications activities of private citizens including emails, credit card transactions, etc. This was all done in the name of “national security.”

The scary aspect of these clandestine activities is the recent scandal on how the Obama administration was using, and abusing, the private citizen information available via the IRS to harass and deny freedom of speech rights to citizens and organizations, both political and religious, over the past few years. This severely broke the bond of trust between the citizenry and the government and the belief that the government was an impartial entity, not favoring anyone or any group based on their political or religious views.

Now, with that broken bond of trust, who is to say that the government and its agents will not similarly abuse the citizenry with this trove of private communications data? As the various scandals unfold, we seem to be getting closer and closer to the repressive form of government written about in George Orwell’s novel, “1984.” In that story, an all controlling, all knowing, repressive government, represented by the fictional propaganda figure, “Big Brother,” has squashed democracy and free will while keeping an extremely tight and oppressive leash on all citizens.

Which brings us to today’s post, courtesy of the following website:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/orwell-or-obama

Take the following quiz and try to determine whether the topic of each of the following ten questions describes the repressive tactics of Orwell’s Big Brother or the Obama administration (answers below):

1. "Telephony metadata"

- Another word for the information the Orwellian government is secretly collecting from its citizens’ phone records.

- Another word for the information the Obama administration is secretly collecting from its citizens’ phone records.

2. "Teledep"

- The department in Orwell’s “1984” that is in charge of re-writing history through media.

- The department in the Obama administration that is responsible for getting intelligence from telephone calls.

3. "The Custodian of Records"

- The figure in Orwell’s “1984” in charge of cleaning up all media to erase any hint of government wrong doing.

- The figure in the Obama administration who provides electronic phone records to the National Security Agency.

4. "Data-mining"

- The Orwellian practice of searching citizens’ data for national security.

- The Obama administration searching through its citizens’ data for national security.

5. "Newspeak"

- The propagandist language of the Orwellian universe marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.

- The propagandist language of the Obama administration marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.

6. "Upsub"

- The Orwellian practice of getting authorization from superiors (frequently to change things to conform to party line.)

- The practice of getting authorization from superiors (frequently to change things to conform to party line).

7. "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"

- The “secret” court in the Orwellian government in charge of surveillance initiatives that are deemed important to national security and intelligence.

- The “secret” court in the Obama administration in charge of surveillance warrants for things that are deemed important to national security and intelligence.

8. "Malreported"

- An adjective to describe the Orwellian practice of dismissing journalist facts as untrue and never admitting the government is wrong.

- An adjective to describe the Obama administration’s practice of dismissing journalist facts as untrue and never admitting the government is wrong.

9. "Pornosec"

- A division of the Orwellian government in charge of producing pornographic content to distract the masses.

- A secret division of the Obama administration in charge of monitoring your data for terrorist communication disguised as pornographic content.

10. "Doublethink"

- A policy of psychological manipulation in the Orwellian universe that is rooted in being able to hold contradicting ideas at the same time.

- A policy of psychological manipulation in the Obama administration wherein prominent figures say and do contradictory things.

And the correct answers in the quiz of who is the bigger of the “Big Brothers” are as follows:

1) Obama

2) Orwell - Teledep is short for The Teleprograms Department of the Ministry of Truth.

3) Obama - “The Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or “telephony metadata” created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” Source: The Guardian, the newspaper that broke the story on the NSA spying scandal.

4) Obama - “The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency [NSA] is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.” Source: The Guardian

5) Orwell

6) Orwell - “Upsub” is a part of the language of Newspeak.

7) Obama - “The FISC oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies (primarily the F.B.I.). [Enacted in 1978]” Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the FISC is a “secret court”: its hearings are closed to the public, and, while records of the proceedings are kept, those records are also not available to the public.” Source: Wikipedia

8) Orwell - “Malreported - When the Times reports a fact which the government later deemed untrue. You see, the government is never “wrong”, the paper merely reported the facts incorrectly. This term was often used in describing newspaper articles that contained references to unpersons, unfulfilled economic projections, or altered government policies.” Source: A glossary of Orwellian terms.

9) Orwell - Pornosec is a division of the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth that produces pornography for proles (the working class/proletariat).

10) Orwell

How did you do? It is not easy distinguishing between the oppressive tactics of Big Brother, the Obama administration, and the entire political class in Washington. And, even though some of the answers above directly relate to Orwell, with a little imagination they could also apply to the Obama administration and Washington in general:

• When a renegade U.S. Army soldier, a person who had been in touch with a leading terrorist leader in Yemen, goes crazy in Fort Hood and starts shooting up the place, killing and wounding many Americans, yelling anti-American slogans and pro Islamic slogans in the process, this administration insists it is not a terrorist attack, it is a violence in the workplace incident. Certainly a case of Orwellian thinking and “propagandist language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings.”
• A similar case of circumlocution and inversion is made by the Obama administration insisting that there never be a reference to “Islamic terrorism” even though there are many people devoted to Islam who are terrorists, i.e. newspeak. Did the Obama administration “upsub” the description of the terrorist attacks at Benghazi when the so-called “talking points” were changed or edited about a dozen times to minimize the appearance of government incompetence, eventually settling down to a point where the “talking points“ made up stuff and put the blame for the attack on a badly made, obscure YouTube video?
• Isn’t it a form of Doublethink when the President says no one will lose their current health care insurance under Obama Care but the Congressional Budget Office says 7 million Americans will lose their insurance, when the President says not a single dime will be added to the deficit because of Obama Care but  numerous sources expect hundreds of billions of dollars to be added to the deficit because of Obama Care, when the President says that the entire ten year cost of Obama Care will be under $900 billion but the latest Congressional Budget Office puts the total cost at over $1l7 TRILLION, etc.
• Didn't Nancy Pelosi recently experience a misreported episode when after four years of extolling the cost savings every American will experience under Obama Care she recently declared that she never declared that every American would see cost savings under Obama Care?

You get the idea. Even if this administration and the entire political class do not fit the exact quiz answers that were attributed to Big Brother, they certainly are showing distinct signs that they are behaving more like Big Brother rather than as representatives of Americans within a democratic system.

That is why Step 39 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” is so important. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that we break this Big Brother mode of thinking and operation and get back to the principles of privacy, freedom, limited government. Because, as this quiz proves, along with the past few posts on government snooping and harassment, we are much closer to Orwell’s dysfunctional world than to Jefferson‘s, Franklin’s, and Washington’s vision for America.

Tomorrow, we will put forth our proposed steps needed to fix what ails our democracy and those that created this mess that would have made Big Brother proud.

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
 

Government Gone Wild, Part 3: The Face of Tyranny As Described By Some Very Smart People

We have spent the past few days reviewing the hideous Federal government program that recently came to light which uncovered the fact that the Federal government, and the political class that operates it, have been collecting, analyzing, and storing just about every form of electronic communications possible from just about every American, regardless of whether or not they are a threat to national security. These electronic records include phone calls, emails, Internet activity, etc. and were obtained from secret court orders issued in secret courts and approved by secret judges. Democracy is not served when the word "secret" is used so often to describe government activities.

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
 

Obama, Orwell, and Goebbels - The Triumvirate Of Language Control

Consider two famous quotes, one from a famous author and one from a famous and heinous tyrant:

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." George Orwell, author of "1984"

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's propaganda minister.

Both of these quotes keep coming to mind as I watch the Obama administration try to control the country, and its freedoms, by controlling and distorting the language. Consider:

1) The latest language control initiative from the Obama administration was on display during the Hurricane Irene aftermath. The Federal government was not coming to the aid of those affected by the hurricane, raining, and resultant flooding. According to the Obama administration, the "Federal family" was mobilizing to help people.

I guess the Federal government thinks that "Federal family" will make us feel more warm and fuzzy about government functions if we consider them part of our "family."  I am assuming that the political class thinks if they tell this lie and phrase often enough and maybe we will actually want more of the "Federal family" in our lives.

Little does the "Federal family" know that many of us want less of our families in our lives many times so why would we want a bigger family of people we never met or heard of? Many times having more family in our lives results in less money in our lives and our wallets. "Federal family" really starts to sound very much like the Big Brother idea from Orwell's "1984" which was not a good concept from a freedom perspective. Eventually, Big Brother became the center of every citizen's life at the expense of family, privacy, liberty and freedom.

2) Another recent perversion of language is this government and political class insistence that government has a "revenue" stream. Governments collect taxes and fees, they do not generate revenue streams. Consider the standard definition of revenue that exists in the real world outside of Washington:

"Revenue - income that comes into a business as a result of selling a product or service."

Government does not sell a product or service. Theoretically, a democratic government only does certain things for citizens because it is more efficient for government to do it centrally than for citizens to do it for themselves (a whole other blog post could be done on how far we have drifted from this definition of democratic government). Comedian Chris Rock went one step further, once saying that we do not pay taxes, they (the political class) take taxes.

Revenue should be associated with individuals acting in their own best interests and giving some of their wealth voluntarily to a business in return for a product or service we desire. This could not be any further from what taxes are, the mandatory confiscation of our wealth by a central government for uses that we do not always agree with.

By trying to reposition the government tax process from a confiscation process to a voluntary process by renaming "taxes" as "revenue," the political class hopes that we will be more likely to give up our personal wealth in the future in order to support the government's revenue stream rather than its tax stream.

Abe Lincoln once said: "If you called a tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have? Answer: Four, just because you call it a leg does not make it a leg." Same thing here, just because you call it government revenue does not change the fact that is confiscatory tax.

3) One of the earliest perversions of the language and reality from the Obama administration was its insistence that we not refer to "Islamic" terrorism. Whether it was in reference to the 9-11 attacks or the Ft Hood massacre, the Obama administration insisted that the word "Islamic" not be used to describe these and other Islamic terrorist attacks.

I assume that the reasoning was that by denying the obvious, Obama would endear himself to those in the Muslim world that were not terrorists. I really do not know what his motives were but the simple reality was that they were Islamic terrorists. If they were Christian terrorists, we should call them Christian terrorists. If they were Martian terrorists we should call them Martian terrorists.

By denying the reality who and what was the source of the 9-11 attacks and other terror actions, we are further away from understanding the root causes of terror. Old joke: "A wife walks into the living room and sees her husband crawling around on the floor. She asks him what he is doing and he says he is looking for something he dropped on the floor in the bedroom. When she asks why isn't he looking for it in the bedroom he says the light is better for searching in the living room."

By denying and suppressing the root causes of many terror attacks and perverting the description from "Islamic" to a more generic description, we end up looking for root causes of terrorism in the living room when we really should be looking in the place where the problem is, the bedroom. Why the President elected to search in the living room, especially after how much terrorism suffering the country has lived through, is beyond me.

4) The all time great lie and perversion of language has to be the "Social Security Trust Fund." This name implies that we give up some of our wealth every pay check to the government who holds in "trust,", i.e. keeps it save for us until we need it back when we retire.

However, that "trust" is severely misplaced. That money that the political class and Federal government was supposed to hold in trust for us is long gone. It has been paid out over the years to current retirees during those years. There is no pot of money or wealth, with our name on it, sitting somewhere for use to use in our golden years. The only pile waiting for is a set of IOUs that track how much of our payments have been made to other Americans. It is quite simply a giant Ponzi scheme where those that gave their money to the scheme first are most likely to get the highest return back over time.

Now, some people, like Harry Reid, would declare that there is indeed $2.6 TRILLION sitting somewhere in the Social Security Administration building or elsewhere for all of us. What he is too ignorant too understand is that there is $2.6 TRILLION of accounting entries sitting somewhere in the Social Security Administration. Accounting entries are not wealth and they are not money. You cannot take an accounting entry to the store and buy something with it. 

When you retire, the Social Security Administration will have to take some of those IOUs over to the Treasury Department for redemption. Since the Treasury Department is currently running an annual deficit of over a TRILLION dollars, it does not have any money laying around and will have to go out and tax existing workers to cover your retirement check.

Don't believe me still? Think back to last month when it was possible that the debt ceiling would not be raised. What was the first scare tactic out of Obama's bag of demagoguery? Social Security recipients might not get their checks if the debt ceiling was not raised. Why would he say that if there was $2.6 TRILLION sitting in the Social Security"trust"  fund?  Why couldn't he just take some of that money out to cover the short term shortfall?

Because it is not money, it is accounting ledger entries. Social Security is now a negative cash flow operation, money coming in from workers is not enough to cover the money that has been promised to be paid out to retirees. Your trust that the political class would hold your Social Security pay check deductions in trust could not be trusted.

[Note: We will do a lot on Social Security next week since it will be a hot topic up until the November, 2012 elections.]

5) I am not a bankruptcy expert but I am pretty sure I know what happens when a company goes bankrupt but still wants to continue on as a business after cleaning up its financials via a court supervised bankruptcy proceeding:

• The company gets to get all or much of its debt forgiven.
• The company gets to break distribution contracts with existing dealers of its products if needed to get solvent again.
• The company gets to break contracts with its unions and workers if needed to get solvent again.
• The company gets to make changes to its arrangements with its stock holders and debt holders including turning their investments into junk if needed to get solvent.

It is a pretty straightforward process. Small to large businesses have been doing it for hundreds of years under the watchful eye of a judicial branch. The vast, vast majority of these bankruptcies have been done without government input and interference and certainly without wasting tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth.

Until Obama bailed out two of the big three domestic auto makers. We are constantly told the big lie that Obama "saved the auto industry." Which is totally a lie being told so many times. If General Motors and Chrysler had been forced into bankruptcy proceedings without any government involvement, all of the above bankruptcy steps would have still been executed but without the loss of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Both companies would have shed debt, broke contracts with dealers they did not want to deal with any more, reworked their union contracts to a more favorable pay scale, and probably greatly diminished the wealth that stock holders and debt holders had given the company. The end result might have looked different but there were enough valuable assets in both companies that they would have emerged out of bankruptcy as smaller, but stronger competitors. They did not need Obama's or our politicians' intervention.

But Obama wanted to intervene in order to leverage a political goal: protect as many union jobs and union voters as possible. He did not intervene to save the auto industry, he intervened, using taxpayer money as collateral, to protect his political interests.

To prove this, let's look at an extreme case. The American car market sells about 16 million cars a year. General Motors has about a 25% share of that market. Let's assume that General Motors never emerged from bankruptcy, i.e. Obama had not intervened to "save" the car industry in America.

What would be the size of the car market if that had happened? No, not 12 million, it would still be about 16 million. The market did not change, that market demand would still have been there, for the most part, with or without General Motors being a competitor. About 16 million buyers of cars would still have needed cars, the absence of General Motors would have forced them to buy Fords or American made Hondas, or American made Toyotas or foreign cars.

The auto industry would still have been intact, with many of those 16 million cars still being made in American factories, some of them owned by America companies and some of them not. But the Obama administration wants you to believe the lie that it saved the American car industry. It did not, the American car industry would have survived nicely, with a revamped General Motors and Chrysler and without billions of dollars wasted.

So what do we know for sure:

1. There is no "Federal family," there are only Federal government agencies, run by an incompetent and wasteful political class, that should be seen and not heard until they are needed. Much like we do want Big Brother at our dinner table, we do not need or want this Federal family around our family dinner table either.
2. The government does not generate revenue like viable businesses do, the collect taxes. By the way, did you ever notice that when you put the words, "The IRS" together, it spells THEIRS? That is confiscating taxes, not generating revenue.
3. There truly are Islamic terrorists in the world.
4. It is too late now but we never should have trusted the government and political class to put our wealth in a Social Security Trust fund.
5. The political class and Obama did not save the auto industry, it would have been fine without taxpayer bailouts.

As agent Mulder used to say on X-Files, "The truth is out there." Unfortunately, entities like Orwell's Big Brother, Goebbels propaganda machine, and the political class spin doctors and politicians would rather you believe their lies and will keep telling them, hoping that their lies become your reality, a reality that is usually more restrictive when it comes to freedom and liberty.

Never forget the warning from the past: "The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."  And, if I may add, the State is usually the mortal enemy of freedom.



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 http://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.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/

The Rise Of Oppression and The Decline Of Freedom In America

As a long time observer of the political class, I have become increasingly distressed by the rise of oppression in this country that has resulted in the dramatic decline in our freedoms and liberties. Many Americans assume that just because they vote every few years, they are still living in a free country. They forget, or never knew, that people living behind the Iron Curtain and in Russia during the Cold War also voted.

No one could ever make the case that these people were living in a free country. This fact was recognized long ago by Communist revolutionary Karl Marx: "The oppressed are allowed every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent them and repress them."

Unfortunately, most Americans are too busy going about their lives, managing their careers and families, to keep track of the many ways our political class goes about sacrificing our liberties for their own careers. Our politicians are willing to take whatever shortcuts are needed to get into elected office and to stay in office even if it goes against the principles of freedom established by the Constitution and Bill Of Rights.

Consider the variety of ways where the political class has turned up the dial on oppression and repression over just the past few years:

Congressional District Gerrymandering - Every ten years, based on Census population estimates, the House Of Representatives rearranges itself into new Congressional districts. Unfortunately, we allow the political class to rearrange and redraw those districts according to their needs and advantage, not to the advantage of the voters and citizens.

After the 2000 Census, I distinctly remember reading an article in the Newark Star Ledger that described the New Jersey process for drawing new Congressional districts (to my disappointment, I could not locate that article). The conclusion of the article was that the New Jersey Republican Party and New Jersey Democratic Party had jointly agreed on how to draw the districts that would almost guarantee that just under half of the new New Jersey Congressional districts would always have a Republican Congressperson and just over half of the new New Jersey districts would always have a Democratic Congressperson.

Nowhere in the article did it discuss whether either party cared about how to ensure that every citizen in New Jersey would be fairly represented, probably because they didn't care. As a result of their work, Democrats in Republican-designated districts would probably never have a Democrat representing them in Congress. Republicans living in Democratic-designated districts would probably never have a Republican representing them in Congress.

Thus, even though these New Jersey citizens could vote in their newly formed Congressional elections, many of them had no real choice since the New Jersey political class had already rigged each Congressional district boundaries. Doubt my conclusions? Check out the last set of New Jersey Congressional districts. Their boundaries follow no logical or pre-existing geographic or other existing boundaries political boundaries (county or city lines). As Marx knew, even though you vote, it does not make you free.

Organizational Campaign Financing - Even though the politicians need your vote to get into office, they are really not indebted to you. You give them only one vote, corporations, unions, PACs, etc. give each politician millions of dollars in campaign donations to further the aims of their particular organization, not the needs and freedom of individual Americans.

Who do you think President Obama cares more about? The one vote you may have given him in 2008 or Microsoft who gave his campaign $833,617 or Goldman Sachs which gave him $994,795? Given that the politicians in Congress give out about 10,000 earmarks a year worth billions of dollars to these same organizations, what do you think they care about more - their ability to pay for their re-election or your vote? Once the politicians do not care about you, they also do not care about your liberties.

Presidential Primary Schedule - Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire are allowed to have the first say on who might be the Presidential candidates for the two major parties. Many candidates, both unworthy and worthy, have seen their chances of becoming President be enhanced or destroyed by their performance in Iowa and New Hampshire.

However, with no disrespect to the good people of Iowa or New Hampshire, they constitute a very small percentage of the voters in this country and are certainly not representative of America. Given these problems, why then do we have this current system if it does not provide everyone in America with an equal voice in deciding who will be the Presidential candidates?

It allows the political bosses in each party to control the primary election process. By spreading out primaries and caucuses out over months, they can control access to money, voters, and primary elections. If the those in control of the primary process really cared about equality and freedom of choice, we would move to a single Super primary voting day where everyone, in every state voted in a state Presidential caucus or primary election at the same time and each of their votes carried the same weight.

In the past paragraph I usually used the word "control" three times. Control always results in less freedom in whatever context it is used.

Disdain For American Citizens, Part 1, Obama Care - Many citizens did not agree with the legislation that eventually became Obama Care. They felt it was the wrong approach, would increase the national debt, would not solve the health care problems in this country, and would give the government and political class much more control over our lives at the expense of our freedom. The most glaring example is the requirement that every America must purchase a government mandated product, health care insurance, whether or not they wanted it or could afford it.

However, one of the most despicable aspect of Obama Care from a freedom perspective was the venomous words and attitudes that our so called elected leaders came after ordinary Americans citizens for simply having a difference of opinion than those politicians. Consider the following accusations that Democratic Party politicians made against ordinary Americans:

• Speaker Of the House - those Americans opposed to Obama Care or un-American.
• Congressman Charles Rangel - those Americans opposed to Obama Care are just like the racists that opposed the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
• Congresswoman Shelia Jordan Lee - those Americans opposed to Obama Care are no better than Ku Klux Klan members.
• Congressman Alan Grayson - those Americans opposed to Obama Care are knuckle dragging Neanderthals and racists.

When the political class has no respect for the opinions of regular Americans, disrespecting and attacking their right to have a personal and independent opinion, then we are in deep trouble. We are in danger of having an elitist political class starting to dictate policy and behavior rather than serving those that they were elected to serve, not rule over.

Disdain For American Citizens, Part 2, Political Opponents - As the Obama administration has stumbled along the past few years, not solving any major or minor issue facing the American people, the President has seen his popularity plummet. Every facet of the economy has continued to crater, the national debt has skyrocketed, endangering the financial stability of the country and future generations to come, and America's standing in the world continues to slide.

This dissatisfaction has resulted in the rise of the Tea Party politics. The Tea Party movement has supported successful candidates for Congress and has helped forward the need for more prudent government spending and performance. They have operated within all confines of the laws and political processes. regardless of what you think of their political agenda. As Americans they have the right to petition their government for changes, they have the right to support certain political candidates that support their non-violent agenda, they have the right to be involved in the politics of the nation that affect their lives.

However, their success has resulted in some unbelievable resentment of their actions from the political class. Certain members of the political establishment, the establishment that has been the cause of the country's myriad of problems, vehemently and disgustingly despise the work and freedom of speech of these fellow Americans:

• President Obama, in a speech supporting Democrats running for office last fall, declared that "our enemies need to be defeated." Unfortunately, his "enemies" were nothing more than American citizens with a difference opinion from the President. A President is supposed to represent all Americans, not divide the country into friends and "enemies," regardless of their opinions.
• This week, California Congresswoman Maxine Walters, speaking at a job opportunity even, stated: "As far as I am concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." Rather than engage in adult, mature discussion and negotiation, Ms. Walters would rather than just sling the slurs of hate, wanting to see fellow Americans, who are simply expressing their freedom of opinion, to just go to hell. Also, since the Tea Party helped elect 78 people to the House Of Representatives, Ms. Walters not only wants a large segment of ordinary Americans to go to hell, but also 18% of her peers in the House Of Representatives to go to hell also. Despicable behavior and attitude. No wonder Congress gets nothing done with this type of venom and trash mouth being tossed around.
• Not to be outdone by the Congresswoman, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, speaking on a recent  MSNBC morning news show, stated that the mainstream media has the "responsibility" to not give equal time to Tea Party actions and views/viewpoints. As a lover of freedom, this type of behavior is just beyond belief. When did having a difference of opinion become a reason to suppress ideas? When the government and the political class that operate it actively look to kill off ideas in a democracy, it will not only kill ideas it will also kill the democracy.
• And worst of all, in the midst of the debt ceiling negotiations, Congressman Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania declared that Tea Party people were "terrorists." Speak about contempt for Americans having an opinion and point of view. How despicable is associating mass murders of civilians and terror mongers with Americans' freedom of speech? [Side note: although he has denied it, independent sources have stated that Vice President Joe Biden made the same terrorist accusation as Doyle.]

Despicable is too mild a word to use in describing these politicians' disdain for anything that would break the monopoly of power the established political class holds over this country.

Patriot Act - first enacted during the Bush administration as a knee jerk reaction to the 9-11 attacks, this ominous law was renewed by the Obama administration. It involves secret courts with secret judges issuing secret warrants to snoop into just about any aspect of an American's life. Wire taps, both stationary and roving, library activity tracking, etc., the government and the political class that operates it can pry into just about any aspect of your life without you ever knowing it. When privacy can be violated so easily, you are not living in a free country anymore.

Financial Freedom - yesterday we introduced the concept that you cannot have political freedom without also having financial freedom. If you spend more than half of your working life supporting the apparatus of government, sending your hard earned wealth all government levels to support their onerous taxation levels and regulations, you are not free.

The less wealth you retain, the less wealth you have for just about any facet of your life. You have less freedom to send your kids to better schools, you have less freedom to support your favorite charities, you have less freedom on where you live, what your drive, where you work, and less freedom to live your life the way you want to since your economic freedom, keeping what you own, has been severely restricted by our political class.

The saddest part is that in exchange of losing our freedom via onerous taxes is that we get very little in return from government and the political class. They still provide failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, wasteful spending, inefficient operations, etc. The worst of all possible worlds: high cost via high taxation and low quality on government's services.

Let's review: we lose freedom every time the political class controls and alters our political processes to ensure their political careers rather than allowing voters to have freedom of choice, we are liable to lose our privacy without cause via the Patriot Act, we lose our personal wealth supporting an overbearing government taxation and regulatory structure that provide no solutions, and we are insulted with disdain and condescension for daring to challenge the existing direction of the country and those politicians that run it.

If politicians do not respect your opinions, they certainly are not going to respect your freedoms and liberties. They will look for every possible way to oppress and suppress that freedom and your opinions in order to protect their careers. Harry Truman, one of the last politicians who put America and its citizens first, before personal needs and careers, recognized the danger of the altitudes illustrated above by President Obama, Senator Kerry, Congresswoman Walters and others:



"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of the 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." Telling Americans to go to hell and calling them terrorists is a long way down that path of "increasingly repressive measures."

Today's political class would make George Orwell's Big Brother proud.  In order to stay out of an Orwellian world, numerous steps from "Love My Country, Loath My Government" need to be implemented to reverse this rush towards oppression and repression. From fixing our political processes to getting outrageous government spending under control to reviewing and possibly repealing the Patriot Act, these steps need to start as soon as possible. Otherwise, the decline towards Big Brother's world will be unstoppable.




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 http://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.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/