TAXED INTO OBLIVION BY EUROPEAN UNION

By Sharon Shaare

Since 1972 I have owned a custom saddle manufacturing business. We make all kinds of western and endurance equipment with one of the most precise fitting systems in the industry.
Our attention to detail affecting performance has caused International interest in our products, with about 30% of what we make going overseas...we now have saddles in 20 Countries...
I have traveled to most of these Countries to see what folks needed...and of course have become acquainted with our customers.
In Europe our saddles are in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Italy, and now Russia.
As I visit with those folks, I have NEVER heard ONE of them say they like the European Union...They feel they have lost far more than they have gained.
When legislation comes up that they might like to have a voice in, the edict comes
down from "above"...the EU.
They have lost control of their borders, crime has increased because the
ability to escape has been improved with no border to stop criminals...and the individuality of the Countries is mushed together...
If folks think this North American Union we are heading into will be of any advantage
to the American Middle Class, they are dead wrong. The fat cats may come out winners, like the AIG elite, but the people who make this Country work, the Middle
Class will be the big losers.
Canadian Natural Resources will be looted with Mexican labor while US residents will be left dealing with the crime and costs related to absorbing a corrupt third world population...and...we will be taxed into oblivion to pay for it.
Sharon Saare 3/28/09

____________________________________________________________

TWO SOCIALISTS

By Jim Beers


They were sisters and their parents had grown up during the Depression. Their parents always said that any working-man that voted for a Republican had rocks in his head. The girls attended church regularly and had a deep concern for the poor. During the 1950's and 60's the girls followed the "Civil Rights" Movement with rapt attention and were happy when suddenly the "Civil Rights" legislation included women although they never noticed how the "sex" coverage was a last-minute ploy by Southern "Blue Dog" Democrats to kill the Civil Rights Bill ("why they'll never vote for something that will put women in the Men's bathrooms, ha-ha-ha").
The girls married well and one moved to the country and the other to the city. They both "opposed" the Vietnam War in which neither of their husbands served. They were ambivalent about abortion when Roe v Wade legalized abortion so they avoided even thinking about it. They cheered "saving" "Endangered Species" and "Marine Mammals" and were un-phased by the taking of property or the use of environmental and animal resources to abolish the use and management of these species. They didn't believe that the growing number of water management and power and transportation projects killed or demolished by all the environmental/animal "rights" lawsuits were significant because after all, America was always coming up with new things.
During the 1970's they accepted the notion that "guns were bad" and the 2nd Amendment was "outdated". They looked to all those "Police Chiefs" that said so. They never noticed the fact that those big city Police Chiefs were APPOINTEES of big city Mayors that got reelected by blaming guns for the violence in the cities that they were reluctant to control and that voters were relieved to find out was not "their" fault but the fault of Messrs. Remington, Ruger, Walther, et al. The sisters were unable to grasp the fact that while the big city policemen were carrying guns 24/7 ostensibly because they were always "on duty", the policemen and their unions had demanded that "right" to protect themselves and their families from the very criminals that were ravaging the rest of the community BEFORE the police could get there.
During the 1980's the girls' husbands were doing well financially so they began sending money to the gun control organizations. They noticed all the hoopla about all the "Endangered" "Species", "subspecies", "races", "populations", "subpopulations", "distinct populations", "varieties", and "distinct population segments" worldwide so they began sending money to environmental groups and thinking how "important" the UN or a world government was if we were to "save the planet" or "stop the flow of guns". The gun control organizations and their environmental counterparts began sending the girls literature that was designed to get more donations and to cause donors with "deep pockets" to begin contributing to their silent-partner, the animal "rights" organizations.
The animal "rights" literature denigrated trappers, the management of wild animals, and the use of furs. Poultry farmers were denigrated as were slaughterhouses. The rights of individual American horse owners to sell their own horse to be used for dog food or for human consumption in other countries were slated for abolishment as were the rights of gamefowl owners to "fight their chickens" (i.e. hold cockfights where local communities agreed) as their families had for centuries and as men and women have done for millenniums. The dangers of eating meat were equated to the "inhumanity" (interesting word to use in this context) of hunting and fishing. Mixed in with the occasional article about how Europeans were "abolishing bull fighting" as well as gun ownership and how this was "enlightened" and "modern" were turgid stories and pictures of medical experiments using animals. The girls talked about this incessantly with their friends and sent more money. They cheered when they were told that the public schools were telling the kids all about the danger of guns and the absolute necessity of doing "more" about "Endangered Species" and animal "Welfare" (i.e. the euphemism for animal "rights" and or the abolishment of animal "ownership").
During the 1990's the girls' husbands died and left them well off. They kept up their donating to their "causes" and spreading the "word" about guns and animals and the environment to anyone that would listen. Then they cheered as a President and US Congress that are arguably the most Socialist-oriented ever to be elected took control of the federal government in 2009. I say "Socialist" because just like the German "National Socialists" of the 1930's and early 1940's they advocate "taking over" all aspects of daily life and private enterprise, taking away all guns, and building lots of "infrastructure" and "providing jobs" to "stimulate" a failing economy. The only major difference is that those German Socialists made no bones about conquering everyone else too and these American Socialists are apologizing everywhere (Mexico, Russia, et al) and bowing to foreign despots (abandoning Polish missile sites at Russia's insistence; cooling help to Colombia to curry Chavez, Castro, and Morales; and acquiescing to Iranian nuclear missile development at the expense of Israel and the Mideast).
So the anti-gun Attorney General went about laying the groundwork to void the 2nd Amendment in spite of his boss's (the President) insistence that he was "not for gun control". The Secretary of State told the Mexican government how "American guns" were the cause of Mexican unrest and the hapless lady with a long record of coddling criminals and illegal aliens and now heading up Homeland "Security" took "Security" personnel from "Security" enforcement and put them to work looking (to no avail) for guns LEAVING the US. Incidentally these two ladies' (Secretary's of State and Homeland "Security") pandering here was only meant to surreptitiously reinforce the Attorney General and President's gun control argument for abolishment of the 2nd Amendment.
The animal "rights", "environmental", and gun control Socialists appointed by the President joined their counterpart Socialists in the US Congress, Congressional staffs, and the federal bureaucracy to write and pass laws that seized guns; stopped all workable and affordable energy development; abolished private property, animal ownership, and private enterprise; and gave the federal government control of everything from where homes could be built to what kinds of cars would be allowed, what we ate, and what children could and could not be told. In short, the sisters watched the death of the American Constitutional Republic and its replacement by a Socialist Oligarchy.
As the sisters aged, they began to question the advice of their parents long ago about voting for Republicans. This was not in the sense of political parties but in the sense of having supported both Democrats and Republicans over the years that advocated either a fast or slow track to more power to the central government at the direct expense of individual freedoms, States' Rights, and all those "guarantees" in the Constitution. They slowly came to understand how their blind faith in their parent's best (but flawed) advice about federal intervention was hatched by the "heroic" images of the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt "doing good" in times of stress and how that model (US federal hegemony) grew to be a dragon that consumed all else. What they came to understand, albeit too late for themselves, was the lesson of history that befell every successful society. Where despotism is not constantly resisted; despotism will overtake and then destroy that which it rules.
The country sister began to notice neighbors being concerned about wolves in the area. One night her dog disappeared after she heard wolves and then her dog howling in pain. About that time the "Critical Habitat" area nearby that she had supported had been placed in the National Forest and then made a "Roadless Area" and recently a "Wilderness". This had closed two roads into her home and the third one was no longer well maintained as County revenue had all but disappeared. When she put up her home for sale, there were no buyers since access was deteriorating and a child had recently been killed by wolves at a nearby school bus stop and what with guns being outlawed, rural residences in such areas were no longer in demand. Simultaneously, birds at her bird feeders had all but disappeared since the wind turbine farm had been put in North of her home. Energy prices had gone up and up: electricity bills had soared as "green" sources of power replaced dams and coal and natural gas power plants. Her children and grandchildren visited less and less as gasoline prices soared and fears of wolves as a danger to adults as well as children kept them away. One night two drunken men broke down her door and beat her and then stole everything of value. It was two and a half hours before a Deputy answered her phone call for help. She later found out that not only was the number of County Deputies reduced because of loss of revenue since the federal government bought most of the County: the only other Deputy had been arrested for possession of animal traps (from the days when he trapped) and for telling his sons about cockfighting and how he and his grandparents back to before the Revolutionary War had proudly raised and fought gamefowl for generations. The Deputy was being charged with felonies and was expected to be sentenced to prison. The sister had a broken hip from the robbery and was told by the newly Socialized Medicine bureaucrat/doctor that she could not get a replacement because it was too costly for "people over 75". The Syrian doctor (that was educated in Islamabad) said that anyway, the only specialist left that does such operations was in Miami and the waiting list was 19 months. So she abandoned her home (it was eventually seized for failure to pay taxes and then turned over to the federal government through a Nature Conservancy realtor) as a "valuable addition to the "Eastern Foothills Pink-Petalled Primrose Critical Habitat Biome and Native Ecosystem Restoration Project". Then she moved in with her urban sister.
Soon after moving in with her sister, she mentioned one evening about how she had read that burgeoning whale and seal populations had all but taken over the ocean fisheries and the spawning salmon streams, how non-"farmed" seafood had all but disappeared while "farmed" seafood prices had soared due to environmental demands and animal "rights" objections to killing methods, and how no one would have believed that possible just a few short years ago. When she mentioned how that "protection" had all been done initially to save "baby" seals, she noticed her sister start to cry. The urban sister explained that she had recently found out that her two daughters had aborted 5 children between them. As her sister gasped, she explained how she never thought that her family would lose grandchildren or nieces and nephews back when they ignored the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court. Then she explained how her eldest daughter's infection and death in the hospital had been due to resistant bacteria and the failure of "medical science" to develop new resistant forms since animal experiments had been outlawed. This led the discussion to the fact that the heating and electricity bills had skyrocketed in the city since they had closed the coal-powered plant and put in mirrors and turbines that only operated sporadically and generated too little power while making power prohibitively expensive to use for cooling or more than one light. Both sisters bemoaned the lack of visits by their children and grandchildren between the cost of trains, planes, and automobiles. They laid some of the blame on government-mandated salaries that had greatly reduced the money the kids had to visit anyway. They shared their fear of medical problems that the Socialized Medicine would no longer cover because of their age and then talked about how crime in the city had skyrocketed since guns had been collected and so many people were moving in from the countryside anymore. They both talked of how they missed the dog that the wolves had taken and the cat that lived in the apartment with the urban sister until the new animal pet laws made it impossible to keep or own any animals.
As the oldest sister checked the three deadbolts on the door and the younger sister checked the window deadbolts on the two windows they turned toward each other and asked who would have guessed that they would end their lives living like this? As they shook their heads, the oldest one asked how they ever came to have supported all this Socialism that had replaced the Republic they had grown up in? Had they grown up to be Socialists? The youngest one reminded her sister how their parents had always advised them to support the federal government growth and activism they were grateful to FDR for providing during the Depression. The eldest sister thought a moment and said, "No, we can't blame them". "We should have been more active as adults in protecting the freedoms we had. We should have fought for everyone's rights when government destroyed one group after another and no one fought for the traditions and freedoms of others unless it affected them directly. We let government take everything from us with the promise that they would take care of us and we should have known better. Dad had it right when he used to say, 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions'".
Jim Beers 26 March 2009

PROJECTING SOCIALISM

by Jim Beers

In one real sense, we are all socialists. Socialism in its very root is the means that appeals to everyone of projecting ourselves on others. Socialism, in contrast to its counterparts from Communism and "National Socialism" (i.e. Nazis et al) to despots like Mugabe and Pol Pot, is perceived as "harmless" to ourselves while using the raw power of a central government to make everyone else live and behave like WE think they should. While Communism, Nazism, and despots are considered by most people as "dangerous" and "uncontrollable" when once in power; socialism, incorrectly, is perceived as "controllable" and "reversible" if it gets out of hand. Therein lies the deadly danger of its appeal.
How seductive it is to ponder a "perfect world" as each of us thinks it ought to be. This "perfect world" is the product of our genetic predispositions, our sex, our upbringing, our experiences, our moral sense, and opportunity. It is trite but true to mention that we are all different. Likewise our imagined "perfect world" differs from all others' such imaginings. Each of us, whether we admit to it or not, wants to live in our own "perfect world".
Socialism's allure panders to this desire in each of us by seeming to promise us what we think will create OUR "perfect world". This is promised by an all-powerful (yet somehow "controllable" and "reversible"?) government that will make things right. Consider some of the following imagined reasons to support socialism:
1. Peace and an end to "violence" can be achieved by "ridding the world of guns" and a socialist government can remake the Constitution to do that.
2. Rich people oppress everyone else and a socialist government will "control" corporations, salaries, products, jobs, etc. and therefore "the rich" by "redistributing" "wealth".
3. Religions cause harm by spreading superstition and they will oppress everyone if they are "uncontrolled"; a socialist government will "control them.
4. Children must be "educated" about science, government, and sex in spite of old-fashioned and reactionary parents; a socialist government will assure that.
5. Animals are mistreated and abused everywhere; a socialist government will eliminate hunting, cockfighting, fishing, trapping, slaughterhouses, pet and livestock ownership, fur marketing, leather, bullfighting, circuses, rodeos, animal experiments, (put your favorite "pet peeve" here), etc.
6. The environment is about to disappear, the globe is warming, we are "running out of oil, farms and ranches and houses and suburbs and small towns are "destroying the ecosystem", "Invasive Species" are ruining the world, we cannot "survive" unless and until we have "restored the Native Ecosystem" and all this can ONLY be done by a socialist government.
7. People eat poor diets and "cost a lot"; ONLY a Socialist government will legislate what may be eaten and which people from unborn children and the sick to the disabled and elderly should be allowed to live or receive medical treatment.
8. Dissent against socialist policies (never dissent against non-socialist policies) is destructive and therefore is best if "controlled" by government and ONLY a socialist government will reform the Constitution to implement government control of speech and the press.
9. Internal dissenters are a grave problem and thus government needs to be less constrained by Constitutional guarantees about search and seizure and reasons for arrest; ONLY a socialist government will do what needs to be done.
In each of the above examples (and there are hundreds of other such scenarios) I am imposing myself on YOU. I live in Chicago and I will disarm YOU living on the isolated ranch house in the Nebraska Sandhills. I live in Boston and I will make YOU live with wolves at YOUR child's school bus stop in New Mexico. I live in San Francisco but I will circumscribe what YOUR priest or pastor can say or cannot say. I live in Indianapolis but I will force YOU to kill all of the gamefowl your family has maintained for generations in Louisiana. I live in Miami but I will make You no longer able to OWN ANY ANIMAL be it pet or livestock. I live in Seattle but I will make YOU allow teachers to take your child to an abortionist; to teach your children about sex and perversions, and to disregard any contrary notions that they might hear from parents. I live in New York City but I will make YOU stop trapping, hunting, and fishing and I will assure YOU are put in prison if you even encourage any minor (including your own) to tolerate hunting, fishing, trapping, rodeos, circuses, etc. just like I have done regarding cockfighting and bullfighting: curious is it not what teachers are being authorized TO DO while parents are being told what they CANNOT DO!
The argument against opposing Socialism usually revolves around how ONLY a socialist government can create EQUALITY. This generally goes something like:
Only a socialist government will assure that same sex advocates will be able to marry like others.
Only a socialist government is free from religious control and therefore can operate for everyone's benefit.
Only a socialist government can take from the rich and give to the poor.
Only a socialist government can apply "science" to the environment, embryo destruction, abortion, euthanasia, and "quality of life/cost control) matters.
Only a socialist government can obtain "rights" for animals and eliminate the concept of one "animal" (human) "owning" another.
Only a socialist government can assure that all children are raised "properly" (i.e. like "I" believe) to become "good" socialists.
Again the foregoing is but a small sample of literally hundreds of such arguments. Suffice it to say that the underlying agreement about values that has supported the US for 200+ years is crumbling. Each of us agrees with one or two or more reasons why things could be better. The temptation that this is achievable by gutting some or all of the Bill of Rights or "taking control of businesses" or giving schools the right to deny parental authority is what Socialist leaders prey upon until they gain control that is irreversible. At that point is no longer YOU or ME: there is ONLY "THEM".
Do not be intimidated into believing that "tolerating" our differences like trapping or religious or carrying a gun means not opposing "gay marriage", abortion, euthanasia, nationalized medicine, animal "rights", etc.:
- "Gay marriage, aside from moral judgments, is unlike trapping in that toleration for same sex openness invites it into your own family and into school curriculums.
- Abortion toleration, aside from the "Right" to "Life" so prominently mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (the document that explained why we were fighting and dying for our freedom in the Revolutionary War), encompasses a repugnant precedent that Government - not our "Creator" as noted in the Declaration of Independence - gives and can rescind that "Right" to "Life". This precedent opens the door to human life being disposable (by government) like a commodity for any reason and the ancillary social profanity that animals have "rights".
- Nationalized medicine can be challenged on many legitimate aspects from the loss of medical specialties and innovations to the simple observations of the results where it is being tried. By turning the argument into a "rich v poor" socialist argument you are ignoring the real issue that socialism and the quasi-socialism in America in recent years has resulted in the disappearance of families and churches and charities that are the hallmarks of a free Republic where marriage is valued, government has no authority over children, sex is not rampant, families stay together and care for their elderly and needy, and churches implement care for the less fortunate in the community. The more government "controls" these things; the more they have diminished.
- Most "rich" Americans were once "poor". Many "rich" Americans will be "poor" again. It is ridiculous to wealthy scion politicians like the Rockefellers and Kennedys leading the socialist charge to "redistribute wealth". Has there ever in the history of man been a government or oligarchy that could take away wealth that did not use it for their own ends instead of the promised "poor"? The protection of private property and a respect for contracts are what the future "rich" (could it be YOU or ME?) and a prosperous America will benefit from more than all the socialist promises and dreams combined.
So the next time you are tempted by the siren call of the Socialists to control other Americans like "the rich", "the corporations", "the ranchers", hunters, horse owners, rodeos, the disabled, the elderly, the gun owner, the dog owner, religions, your neighbor's child, your neighbor's diet, etc., etc.: unless it is harming you or others directly, smile and take pride in a free Republic with guaranteed rights that accounts for all of us with our differences living together in peace and harmony (the truest model of real "diversity"). The socialists among us have made use of ancient enmities and perfectly human differences to turn us one against another such that when the dust settles, "THEY" will have absolute power over everything FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT.
Don't let this continue and never believe that it is "too late" to affirm those words from the Declaration Of Independence -
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.-"
Jim Beers March 27, 2009

EXCELLENT POINTS BY BOB FANNING ON CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS!

The following discussion revolved around this article in 3/25/09 Wall Street Journal
Toxic Assets Were Hidden Assets
We can't afford to allow shadow economies to grow this big.
By HERNANDO DE SOTO WSJ 3/25/09

_________________________________________________________________
Bob,

One last thing I forgot to mention...I LOVE this phrase:
"Every financial deal must be firmly tethered to the real performance of the asset from which it originated."
That, is exactly what this diaper washing Mom asked twenty years ago, but in simpler language: "Where's the product?"
Roni
____________________________________________________________________
Roni

As I explained it to an aide;
"Every spouse is entitled to have a life insurance contract on her husband."
"Its an entirely different thing when she and her tennis instructor that she's having an affair with buy the policy."
I went on to say; " When she, her lover and 100 people in their swingers club all buy policies, it's murder".
There is your credit default swap analogy.

It's no wonder they are "opaque"
It's no wonder they are "unregulated"
It's no wonder that the federal reserve said that they are "secret" .
It's no wonder that the federal reserve refused to disclose where the $2 trillion went when Bloomberg and FOX news dragged the federal reserve/ U.S. Treasury into court.
It's no wonder that Congress and the Senate won't have open televised public hearings on CDS.
It's no wonder that the fed/Treasury refused to bankrupt the companies that wrote CDS , thus giving the bankruptcy court the authority to tear up CDS contracts.
It's no wonder why everything is an "emergency" and a "crisis'" that have to be solved in 5 minutes without public hearings. Rush, rush, rush, rush. Says who?
It's no wonder that Alan Greenspan joined John Paulson & Co UK one of the billion dollar hedge funds that bought Credit Default Swaps. http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS136083+15-Jan-2008+PRN20080115
It's no wonder that Congress won't look into whether Rockefeller ,Kissinger,Rubin,Frank, Dodd, Clinton, Obama, Pelosi , Reid, Greenspan, Schumer etc. own credit default swaps in foreign bank in their personal accounts .
CDS are the weapon of mass destruction that an alliance between social engineers and financial engineers used to wipe the United States of America off the map.
Robert T Fanning Jr.

PARADOXES AS PREDICTORS

By Jim Beers


The old-timer was flabbergasted. "Did you know the State law protects wild duck eggs while the State law doesn't protect a human child in the womb?" I told him that it was even worse than he thought; all of the States had adopted the federal law perspective regarding the protection of "unhatched" migratory birds. In 1917 the US federal government ratified (by the US Senate) and signed (by the President) a TREATY with Great Britain on behalf of Canada to protect certain migratory birds (mainly ducks, geese, and songbirds but NOT hawks, owls, cormorants, and others) that migrated annually between the US and Canada. The fact that the TREATY would legally protect the eggs of birds named in the TREATY is sensible and understandable, after all a canvasback duck embryo IS a canvasback duck: the fact that 56 years later (Roe v Wade 1973) the same federal government would deny protection to unborn humans as merely having "potentiality" for human life is a scientific and ethical paradox. Is it sensible that an unborn human may be killed (and under the current President with federal funding) while an "unhatched" wild bird is given ALL the legal protection of an adult bird? What does this paradox tell us about our future?
Wolves have been declared to be an Endangered Species despite the danger they present to rural Americans and rural economies. Even though wolves are common and widespread worldwide and that they occurred in several areas of the United States when they were so "Listed" as Endangered; their reintroduction and forced spreading throughout the mountain West has proceeded despite the loss of big game herds, ranch income, pets, and the "domestic Tranquility" or rural residents from retirees to families. How can a federal government formed to "insure domestic Tranquility" by "We the People" force wolves on rural communities unalterably opposed to the presence of wolves? Why haven't State governments been able to prevent the imposition of federal wolves that has served as a legal precedent for so many other federal un-Constitutional power expansions like "taking without compensation" and "taking for something other than 'public use'"? Why are ONLY wolves being "restored" from the imaginary pre-European Ecosystem: why not bison in farm country or rattlesnakes on Long Island? How can such arbitrary and capricious power over American citizens be wielded by politicians or bureaucrats in a "Constitutional" Republic distinguished by a Separation of Powers, States' Rights, and carefully circumscribed authorities, roles, and responsibilities in that Constitution? What does this paradox bode for our future?
The US federal government has been accumulating outright ownership and control (through various instruments from direct acquisition, "swaps", easements and "partnerships" to "Critical Habitat" declarations and key closures of roads and access to private property) of well more than half of rural America. Acquisition and control was begun 100 years ago with the stated purpose (in Congressional funding authorizations) to manage the natural resources on acquired lands for the benefit of all people. Logging, grazing, hunting, fishing, camping, trapping, State authority over plants and animals, local income for roads and schools were but a few of the major promises and intended beneficiaries of everyone involved with this campaign of good intentions that has evolved into a swirl of hidden agendas that are destroying EVERY ONE of the reasons originally used to authorize the unlimited acquisition of private property by government. Wilderness Declarations, Marine Sanctuaries, Roadless Areas, elimination of grazing and range management, prohibition of logging and timber management, destruction of hunting and fishing and fish and wildlife management, disappearance of revenue to local communities and Counties, and the theft State authority by federal bureaucrats are all hallmarks of current federal power expansions. Unbelievably, the "general public has come to accept the un-Constitutional concept that when the federal government gains control of land within a particular state somehow the land is no longer within the state but is magically transformed into some sort of imaginary "federal estate" where federal bureaucrats, powerful interest groups and federal politicians rule like Commissars. How long will this federal expansion continue: until the federal government IS THE ONLY authority? What do these paradoxical precedents mean for our future?
The foregoing examples from the abortion/environment/animal rights agendas are but a few of the current paradoxes (contradictions that express a hidden truth) afflicting America today. Protecting "unhatched" birds while encouraging and paying for the destruction of unborn humans; forcing wolves into rural areas as "necessary" while ignoring the destruction of rural communities and economies that result; and acquiring more and more of rural America with tax dollars to "preserve" rural American values and benefits, and then closing the areas to any management, access, use, and benefit are all paradoxes. They also are precedents for imposition of ever more egregious oppressions by government. These oppressions are increasing in frequency and in severity while they steadily shred the provisions in the Constitution that formerly limited government oppression and protected the rights and freedoms of citizens. Some examples of these concurrent trends are:
- The increasing frequency of the use of Entrapment (the unfair and un-Constitutional luring into crime of an otherwise innocent person) by government agents. If they are guilty of a crime, law enforcement should prove it. If law enforcement merely suspects something, that does not justify tempting them with a crime. Each of us is human and liable to succumb to temptations: government use of this fact should be repugnant to free men everywhere. Law Enforcement agents and their political overseers are not "enforcing laws" when they "Entrap": they are implementing the arbitrary oppression of the powerless by the powerful.
- The current disgraceful actions by National Park Service employees and appointees - all of who are paid for by federal tax money to manage land bought with federal tax money - to prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons on National Parks in States that authorize such carrying of concealed weapons. If federal employees, from National Park Service Park Rangers to the current Attorney General, cannot respect the 2nd Amendment prohibition in our Constitution against infringing the "right to bear Arms", they should quit or be fired and then take their advocacy interests in some private advocacy movement. The use of federal tax money to undercut and strip the US Constitution by those being paid out of tax dollars is equivalent to paying the KGB to murder your own family.
- Spending Billions of tax dollars on recently forming a massive "Homeland Security" super Department to fight terrorism and secure our borders and then within only a few years to convert it into an international magnet for terrorist attacks and a signal that our borders have never been more meaningless. Consider the reaction of international terrorists (Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, Russia, and a range of foreign and domestic Islamic extremists) to a Homeland Security "Chief" that refuses to use the word "terrorist; that has a record in Arizona of being soft on crime and on illegal aliens; and now orders the end of law enforcement of illegal aliens in the workplace. Further consider her image and demeanor: she has no similarity to Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meier, she is reminiscent of Madeline Albright doing the "Macarena" with a shawl at the UN. She and her "Security" image makes America appear like a 70-year old couple walking on a dangerous and dark city path at 11:00 at night - that is to say a vulnerable crime victim looking to be attacked, brutalized, and then killed. Security intended to protect used as a fishing lure being trolled to be hit by a big fish, it doesn't get more paradoxical than that! If it is not being used to provide "Homeland Security" it should be abolished.
- Using economic stress as a smokescreen to fabricate authority for the federal government to (like Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Castro, Chavez, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, et al) take over control of private enterprise. There is NO authority in the Constitution to "Bailout" or "Stimulate" companies, banks, etc.; much less to "set" executive pay, revoke legal contracts, or dictate what vehicles to make or not make. While every example of such "control" of private enterprise has lead to stagnation or collapse, we have allowed Congress and the President to spend Trillions, pass 1000+ page bills that no one reads and to give an appointee (Secretary of the Treasury) powers envied by dictator "wannabees" worldwide. What a paradox; "we will save you by destroying you".
- The best and finest medical system the world has ever seen is slated for destruction. Aside from the nonsense of "economic benefit" from spending Billions to do less of what is now done without federalization: every example of Socialized (and the root of this word is??) Medicine is a disaster. Whether it is the actress that recently died of a ski accident in Canada or it is the Islamic doctors that are ubiquitous in Britain that try to blow up or burn down Scottish airports, there is nothing reasonable to recommend the loss of our medical system. However, the most outrageous Paradox of all in America today is woven all through the sanctimony about the "need" to Socialize American Medical Services. The sanctimonious advocates about the need for unlimited free medicine for the "poor" and illegal aliens et al are currently numerous in the White House, Federal Departments, the US Congress and are the very same ones that paradoxically advocate:
- Unlimited Abortion.
- Human Embryo Destruction.
- Forcing Doctors, Nurses, and Hospitals to Conduct Abortions.
- Evaluating Babies Up to 6-Month Olds for Death If Not Found to be "Worthy".
- Denying Medical Help to the Elderly and Disabled If too Costly.
- Funding Foreign Abortions.
- Euthanasia for the Elderly, Depressed, Disabled, or Inconvenient.
There has arisen a large and active segment of the American population (most accurately described as Socialists) that holds several things in common:
like a disdain for inconvenient human life;
like an unholy reverence for things like ducks and wolves;
like timid foreign policies in the face of mortal threats;
like a yearning for world government;
like a desire for government control of everything from what we eat to where we live or what we can drive;
like contempt for Constitutional protections for things such as gun rights, private property, capitalism, traditions, religious beliefs, speech;
and a deep dislike for Constitutional prohibitions against illegal searches, Bills of Attainder, and Entrapment.
This segment now controls the federal power levers in Washington with the possible and hopeful exception of the US Supreme Court. For at least two years and again hopefully not more than four years, this segment feels unconstrained and the paradoxes mentioned above should serve as both historical examples of a dangerous trend and harbingers of a dark future for America. How successful they will be and whether America can endure what they will do with unfettered control when added to what has now gone before them is something only time will tell. The Constitution is vanishing and citizens are becoming subjects to autocracy: the rest is academic. Unless and until we eliminate this dual paradox (a "Constitution" that is meaningless & a government formed by "We the People" that protects "People" to a lesser degree than wild animals) America will continue to slip beneath the waves of history because we were unwilling to protect it from itself.
Jim Beers

MAD AT HELL AT NPR

By Colleen Walsh

I am sending you a copy of a letter I have written to the reporter on our NPR radio station. She asked the listeners are we really afraid of them. The letter I have written is telling her why we are afraid of them.

By Colleen Walsh

Dear Ms Maria Hinojosa
Last week on March 22, 2009 you asked your listeners "Are you really afraid of us?"
Yes we are!
I have been listening to your program every week now for several years, as I am trying to understand what it is that matters the most to you, and the Latino people. I have great empathy for the difficulties the Latino people have in this country in trying to make a new life in the USA.
Since your program’s goal is to try and "create a place for common ground" for all of us who live in this world I hope that you will take the time to understand what it is that we are afraid of.
If you click onto the link that I am including in this email you will see one of the many reasons why we are afraid. In case you are afraid to open any links I will explain what the picture is that I am trying to show to you. It is from the Denton County Crime Stoppers Hotline showing the photos of their 10 most wanted Fugitives. Out of the 10 fugitives, 8 are listed as Hispanics, one is a black, and the other is classified as Caucasian. This picture was included into are town’s newsletter sent to all of the residents of Hickory Creek Texas on the same day as you asked the question, "Are you really afraid of us?" Yes we are and this is one of the many reasons why.
I would also like to tell you that I was very offended by the remarks that you made about Bill O’Reilly claiming that he "spouts such vile things and hatred". If you really listened to his program on regular bases, like I listen to your program, you will understand what it is that he is really saying. He is only giving a voice to what the rest of us, are thinking and feeling. He too, has much empathy for the Hispanic people who only want the best for their children and are working hard to achieve their dreams in a new country. He has said many times that if the roles where reversed and he lived in Mexico he would do exactly as what others are doing and try to cross the border and go North.
Yet you are doing the same thing that you are accusing him of doing, that is, spewing vile and nasty things about him and others like him who try to inform his listening audience what is that is really going on in our country. I sincerely believe that you are closing your eyes and ears because you do not want to see what it is that we are afraid of. You can only see the problem from your own point of view.
You say that you are all hard working and we should trust you. Therefore I have to ask you, why should we believe you and trust you when the very first thing you do is to break our countries laws. I am speaking of the people who cross our borders without being asked to come in, nor given permission to come in. You would not want someone to barge into your home, eat your food, and sleep in your bed, without knowing who they are, and what is it they want. You would call 911, ask the police to come and help you, and tell them that some strangers are trying to break into my home, and I am frightened.
Our country, the USA is just like your home. Your home has a front door, where people can come and knock on that door, and ask to be let into your home to visit you. Our country’s borders are like your front door. Just as you can not allow strangers to come into your home without first knowing whom they are, are countries can not either? Is that too much to ask to want to know who is knocking on our front door, or to come into our country? All we want, the citizens of the USA is to keep our country strong and have the right to ask people to knock on our front first before coming into our country.
A nation is only as strong as its borders. Yet you think nothing of crossing over our nations borders, to live here and work here in our country without first asking for permission to do so.
I shall try to explain it this way. I believe that you are a person who would never dream of cutting in a line in front of other people who are standing in line. For example if you wanted to see a very good movie, and saw a line of people waiting to get a ticket and go inside to watch the movie, you would go to the back of the line and wait your turn. It would be rude to just walk up and cut in front of all the other people who have waited to see the movie. Yet you think that just because you want a better life for you and your family, you think that it is totally acceptable to cut in line of every one else and sneak in or barge it without waiting for your turn.
I have a daughter in law who is from the Philippines who would love to bring her brother to come and live with her here in the USA. I asked my son, why cannot Betty’s brother come to live here in the States. He told me that it is because he can not swim that far. He has to wait in line for his turn to get the necessary visa to achieve his dream of living in the USA. Unfortunately it will take 20 years of waiting in line for his turn to achieve his dream of living here.
I ask you Ms Hinojosa, why should the people who cross our borders illegally be given the chance to change their status of illegal to legal. Yet my daughter in law’s brother has to wait 20 years to come here. Is it fair? No it is not fair!
Now I would like to give you some background so that you can understand what it is that many others and I are so afraid of. I first moved to Texas in 1984 and lived here until 1993 when I moved to Britain with my husband. After living there for one year I was granted the right to live there forever. I obeyed all the laws.
I saw with my own eyes what happens to a country when you have over 1 million people, every year, enter a country just so they can have a better life and take advantage of the free medical, free housing, job seekers allowances and other benefits. The country is on the verge complete bankruptcy. You can only put so much milk into a pint bottle! Conversely you can only take so much milk out of a pint bottle.
We have people who have worked hard for over forty years and put money into their social security fund for their old age. Yet, you think it is all right for people who have crossed our borders illegally and come to live in our country, should be given free health care through our Medicaid. Our social security program is being totally wiped out by the demands made upon it, by the people who have not lived in our country, nor paid into the social security fund for years. Is that fair?
After having lived in Britain for almost one decade, I can see nothing but problems for our country. Our way of life is being totally changed. When I returned to Texas after a space of 9 years, I was totally surprised to see that Texas is totally being taken over by the Spanish population that is here. While riding down the street in Lewisville Texas, I was beginning to wonder if I was somehow transported to Tijuana. I saw so many signs of businesses that where written in Spanish. The labels on our food in the stores are in written in Spanish. The advertisements in our newspapers have Spanish furniture for sale. We are starting to celebrate your country’s celebrations. Our country’s culture is being overrun by another country's culture.
I appreciate the fact that I can not stop our nation's evolution into another way of life. I have bought a Spanish dictionary to learn your language and customs. I just wish that the people in your culture would try to learn our culture and have respect for our country’s rules and regulations. Is that too much to ask?
Our small town’s neighborhoods are being changed when one family moves into a home, and the next day, we see 10 cars parked onto the front lawn along with the rest of the family’s belonging. Old washing machines, broken down cars, tall weeds and washing strung unto the bushes and trees.
I am asking that you apologize to Bill O"Reilly for the vile thinks that you said about him in your radio program last March 22, 2009. I can tell by the passion in your voice that you really believe the things that you said about him. Yet, you do not really know him or what he stands for. I ask you Ms Maria Hinojosa to take the time to listen to him and try to understand what it is that he is saying. He is the voice of the people who live in this country and are trying to change the things that need to be changed before our country is destroyed.
If you really believe in "creating a place for common ground"’ then you must listen to our voices and what it is that we are afraid of. Or are you just mouthing off the same old tired line of, you listen to us, but we do not have to listen to you. No common ground can ever be accomplished by that attitude.
Ticked off and mad as hell over your vile statements about Bill O’Reilly and asking us what is it that we are afraid of.
Regards, Colleen Walsh

QUESTIONS ON CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS

By Bob Fanning

How many hundred billions in credit default swaps did London / Wilton, Ct. based AIG F.P {Citi, Bear, Lehman, GM, GE etc.} derivatives traders sell foreign banks and hedge funds in off shore tax havens with banking secrecy laws representing ; Rockefeller ,Kissinger,Rubin,Frank, Dodd, Clinton, Obama, Pelosi , Reid, Greenspan, Schumer etc .that they now own in their personal accounts?
Are the CDS payments ongoing?
Are AIG bonuses hush monies to hide the identities of those 'counter-parties'?
Why hasn't Congress held formal investigations to differentiate true CDS hedgers from predatory speculators operating on insider knowledge ?
America is only as sick as these "secrets".
America can only become a tyrannical Oligarchy as long as these "secrets" are protected by ; Obama,congress, regulators and the financial press.

BREAD & CIRCUSES

By Jim Beers

*("Bread & Circuses" is a metaphor for handouts and petty amusements that politicians use to gain popular support, as opposed to gaining it through sound policy.)
Today's St. Paul paper contains three "teachable moments" on the subject of "bread and circuses". Failing to note their lessons, like a "mind", would be a terrible thing to waste.
"WILDERNESS BILL INCLUDES DISPUTED ROAD" -
Two million more acres of Wilderness have been incubating in the US Congress for more than a year waiting like a baby turtle or a baby snake for the right temperature to "hatch". The reason for this incubation was that announcing and "signing" off on "more" Wilderness has always made for grand theatre and the US Congressmen that will crowd around the President as he "signs it" will be reminiscent of clustered NCAA Tournament college basketball fans all painted up while waving and crowding into the camera for the "folks back home".
Wilderness means the end of the management and use of renewable natural resources. Wilderness means the growth of combustible fuels and eventual catastrophic fires that cannot be controlled for lack of roads and access and fuel accumulation. Wilderness means the end of hunting and fishing for all but the rich. Wilderness means the end of trapping and firewood cutting and pulp cutting for local residents. Wilderness means no access and the loss of recreation and tourism for local communities that, if they survive at all, become like clustered roadside African "curio" vendors in vacated countryside. Wilderness means loss of revenue to federal, state, and local government and thereby strangles roads, schools, ranches, farms, and local communities. Yet, "Wilderness" is a "Circus".
"Wilderness" is a "Circus" to millions of urban and suburban voters who are enamored of the emotional nonsense spread by multi-Billion dollar Interest Groups like the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and The Nature Conservancy et al in everything from coffee table picture books to elementary school propaganda books. This Wilderness Circus is being "dragged out" now because we are all upset about "AIG" and "Bonuses" and "Tax Cheats". So the President and Congress that are seen to have "not read" legislation involving Billions that sent Our Taxes into "Bonuses" and "foreign banks" are now (like carnival barkers or cheap magicians) saying, "look over here" "we" are "saving" 2 more Million acres of land that we already own and manage. It should be enough to make you swoon while forgetting that Senator from Connecticut or what's his name the Congressman from Massachusetts..
One humorous aspect should also be noted. While we will continue to ignore those rural bumpkins that are harmed by these Wilderness Circuses, there is one group that the papers note is upset. The National Wildlife Refuge Association (a group of retired Refuge Managers and Refuge advocates that have US Forest Service and National Park Service counterparts) whines that a road will be allowed on the Alaska Peninsula to connect an 800 resident village to the nearest all-weather airport (oooohh!). Such retiree groups and their old chums in the historical and bird and forest "protection" societies and clubs will always advocate "more" money, people, Wilderness, power, etc. for their special interest and everything else be damned. But in their way, they contribute to the "Circus" by making us all feel bad enough to "call" our Congressman and President and "demand" that those natives "just stay home when the weather is bad", er I mean "save the Refuge" and "protect the public lands". Why comedians don't pick up on the absurdity afoot here is anyone's guess. Non-ideological comedians like The Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello ("Who's on 1st?") would have had a ball with this.
"OBAMAS ADD GARDEN TO MODEL HEALTHY DIET" -
As American taxpayers, as opposed non-taxpayers, abjure prepared meals in the grocery store and return to the cheaper "cooking from scratch" to save scarce dollars; we are treated to the "Circus" of the First Family "putting in" a garden on the White House grounds. Not "since Eleanor Roosevelt had a Victory garden during World War II" have American taxpayers had someone in the White House that rents a roto-tiller, weeds, manures, and harvests their own food. Could shooting rabbits be next? Probably not since although the White House is currently not under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia the President and his party that controls Congress has vowed to end the 60 or so years of racial oppression in the District by giving them two Senators and Statehood status and this would allow the District government to impose their anti-gun views on White House grounds. Wait a minute though, since the President's Attorney General is an anti-gun zealot, the fact that the President characterized himself as a protector of 2nd Amendment rights may not be enough to allow him to "plink" rabbits on the White House grounds anyway.
The "Teachable Moment" here should come in mid to late summer. You see, the biggest threat to District of Columbia gardening after theft (which the White House wouldn't have to worry about what with the fence and cameras and Secret Service, etc.) is RATS. Norway rats are ubiquitous throughout the District and are even more efficient garden predators than raccoons. In spite of their control in the District being always a spasmodic thing (when complaints get too loud or when a few scrap dollars are available); the District has always been a favorite "petri-dish" for the animal rights bunch (that incidentally populate this Administration like buffalo on the Great Plains in 1700). They will "sterilize them" and "transplant them" and "re-educate them" but still they will come to a ripening garden even quicker than a garbage bag in the alley. Soooo, will we see White House "control" (i.e. killing) of Norway rats? Will they sterilize them and then cover-up or explain how "they didn't take their pills" or will some of those Administration transplants from Emily's List and Planned Parenthood abort some and "educate" others? Inquiring minds want to know as we all enjoy this Circus.
"SEARCH FOR ENERGY PUTS BIRDS AT RISK, STUDY SAYS" -
"A new Energy Department report" "chronicles a four-decade decline in many of the country's bird populations". We are told, "Energy development has significant negative effects on birds in North America." While the report mumbles about "mountaintop coal mining", "ethanol", "converting grasslands into cornfields", "suburban sprawl" and "oil and gas wells" as bugaboos it soft-pedals the ONLY "four-decade" energy development that coincides exactly with the bird decline - WIND TURBINES.
I have long mentioned the fact that wind turbines, especially the wind turbine "farms" are scientifically placed EXACTLY where winds prevail which is EXACTLY where migrating birds fly. Migrating birds migrate at night and during the day when winds assist their travels. DUH!
I say this not to impugn wind turbine use or development. Wind energy can be a useful adjunct to rural American energy supplies. What makes this a "Teachable Moment" is the "four-decade" absence of all the animal rights/environmental zealots in the matter of wind turbines. Where were the "touchy feely" bureaucrats (US Fish and Wildlife/Park Service/Forest Service et al) that stopped every project or development for farming or rural development? Where were all those "Green" politicians and their "Green" animal rights/environmental "supporters" (NRDC, TNC, Audubon, HSUS, "Defenders", NWF, etc.)? Where were all the University professors of ornithology and all the other "ologies" that are always either lined up at a federal office for grants or testifying "on behalf of" some poor critter or bush that is about to be drowned by a dam or flattened by a falling tree? The fact is that "wind energy" is to America today what cows are in a Hindu village; it can deposit feces anywhere and no one dares say anything. Hence their silence for "four-decades" while they wouldn't shut up given any opportunity to cripple capitalism, rural America, or the Constitution says it all.
This Circus is meant to keep your acquiescence to and support for all the Rube Goldberg energy schemes being perpetrated as practicable for the purposes of supplying America's energy needs in the future. Because of the lack of honest research and public dialogue for "four-decades", the wind turbines are increasing and spreading as their true impacts AND REASONABLE WAYS TO MINIMIZE THOSE IMPACTS remain a mystery that, once again, boobs like you and me must defer to "experts" about. In the meantime, bird "lovers" as opposed bird "users" like me, cheer and write in to "our leaders" telling them to "stop" all that coal and oil and gas development and incidentally make sure that the energy executives don't get paid more than $100, no-no scratch that, $50 thousand per year and if any get a bonus they should be taxed at 100, no-no make that 120%!
Then we smile, sit back and feel good like Romans that just watched a couple of gladiators whack each other to death. Just thinking about all this new Wilderness far away, the President in a wide-brimmed hat with a hanky over his neck hoeing a White House garden, and all this scientific confirmation of why we should stop all energy development and return America to some sort of rural Papua-New Guinea economic Nirvana makes the "Bread & Circuses" of ancient Rome seem to be mere child's-play.
Jim Beers

VALUES

By Jim Beers

A recent warning by Anthony Mauro, Sr., the Chairman of the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, is a red flag for hunters, anglers, and trappers across the nation. Mr. Mauro and his organization are effective and active defenders of the rights of rural Americans in a State that could rightly claim to be the most urban State run by a one-party political machine joined at the hip with every radical group that ever threatened rural America and renewable natural resource management. It would not be amiss to suggest that as Mr. Mauro and his group goes, so goes the nation in due time, so heeding his concern is in all our best interest.
Mr. Mauro says that New Jersey hunters, anglers, and trappers "are growing frustrated by program cuts and by the diversion of millions of dollars in sales tax revenues from their equipment purchases". Now program cuts in resource management programs are right and proper in these times of economic difficulties and government reorientation, while the size of cuts compared to other cuts in spending are arguable issues. However, the aspect of this that should alert "hunters, anglers, and trappers" nationwide is the "diversion" of "sales tax revenues from their equipment purchases".
A Federal Excise Tax on sport fishing tackle, guns, ammunition, archery equipment, and other such items has been collected for over 50 years now. The federal excise taxes MUST go to Wildlife Restoration and Sport Fish Restoration programs in STATE Fish and Wildlife agencies. Recent annual collections exceed a half Billion dollars and exceed a Billion dollars when required state matching funds (from licenses) are considered. The federal government collects and then disburses these funds based on the area of the State and the number of hunting and fishing licenses sold each year. By law, the federal government can withhold about 5% to "administer" these funds. "Administer" includes apportioning collections annually, assuring that ONLY Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration projects are funded, and each State fish and wildlife agency is AUDITED every five years.
Ten years ago I was forced to retire from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In the midst of that nasty business the US General Accounting Office discovered that the US Fish and Wildlife Service had ("taken"?, "diverted"?, "stolen"?) $45 to 60 Million ABOVE the allowable 5% in the previous 2 years. The stolen funds were used by federal appointees to do things Congress had refused to fund like introducing wolves into Yellowstone and opening a "Green" office in California and to paying large bonuses (like AIG?) to favored cronies. No one was ever even disciplined and the funds (for OUR hunting and fishing programs) were never replaced!
By the time of this theft, the required 5-year audits of state programs had all but disappeared. The resumption of the state audits was reinstituted with fanfare (a "diversion" from the theft) as the repayment of the stolen funds was gradually forgotten. OUR State agencies (from whom the funds were stolen) NEVER asked for much less demanded the replacement of those funds. The reason for this was twofold:
1.) Their own state wildlife programs had grown corrupt during the period of infrequent and ineffective audits. Their state lobby organization in Washington procured a share of future excise tax collections to grow their own staff in Washington. By being easy on federal thieves, state bureaucrats got some "pay to play" under the table.
2.) Their growing dependence on federal Endangered Species, Wetland, Native Ecosystem, Natural Area, etc. grants and "partnerships combined with a belief that "by 2000 several states will have banned hunting and trapping" thereby endangering state employment of fish and wildlife employees: all this made any jeopardy of current and future relationships with US Fish and Wildlife Service employees and the federal funding they controlled very dangerous to state employees.
The first two years of the renewed audits found over $125 Million of "diverted" (paying for state parks, buying motor pool cars for other agencies, putting timber management revenues into state coffers, etc.) funds in state programs. The states objected so the US Fish and Wildlife Service fired the auditors and arranged to pay millions to the Inspector General (responsible for overseeing the US Fish and Wildlife Service) to conduct future audits of the state agencies. This was illegal and the Inspector General made the "diversions" disappear and then conducted audits that made only "hunky dory" audit reports. By the way that Inspector General is the guy appointed by President Obama to "oversee" the "Stimulus" and "Bailout" funds. He is a former Massachusetts police officer and Secret Service employee who sat near the First Lady in the Congressional balcony when the President addressed Congress recently.
The point to all this is that there is a long history of theft of fishing and hunting money at both the state and federal level. Hunting and fishing have always been a low priority compared to other government functions but today there are two NEW reasons why stealing government hunting and fishing money will increase:
1.) The current economic stress at the state level means state politicians and state bureaucrats are like alligators eating their own young. Any money not nailed down is fair game for whoever grabs it. Since a small match of state funding is needed to get the federal hunting and fishing excise taxes, the state will still get it but the temptation then to use it elsewhere (with no fear of exposure by an audit) grows daily.
2.) State fish and wildlife agencies have hired many employees that are anti-hunting, anti-fishing, and anti-trapping. These employees, like the Democrat White House and Congress, see these economic difficulties as a convenient cover for other agendas. Shredding the Constitution, like shredding fish and wildlife management is a necessary part of agendas that are anathema to American traditions and freedoms.
Concerned hunters, fishermen, and trappers will keep a close eye on this and be wary of anything that federal or state bureaucrats say. Watch historic funding levels and satisfy yourself that cuts aren't created by "diverting" the federal excise taxes or by failing to do what the excise taxes were designated to accomplish. The threat to hunting, fishing, and trapping was probably never greater between the economy and the gun control/animal rights/ environmental agenda in Washington.
A confusing paradox exists today as I write about the understandable low priority or value given wildlife programs compared to human needs as governmental priorities. A bizarre glimpse at another example of the value given wildlife appeared in the Minnesota paper yesterday and today.
Yesterday, "An 18 year-old man was ordered to serve 90 days in jail for his role in the shooting of a Coon Rapids man." This fellow and two of his chums committed an "aggravated robbery" with a gun and shot the intended victim "in the jaw".
Today, "A farmer in Oconto County was charged with three felonies for poisoning wild turkeys." He "decided to take things into his own hands after the turkeys repeatedly ate the feed on his farm." He "mixed antifreeze with corn and placed it in a wooded area near his farm." "About 200 wild turkeys were poisoned" and if convicted he faces "10 ½ years in prison".
Two hundred turkeys in any area is way too many turkeys in any area. Two hundred turkeys eating "feed" on any family farm is an economic burden of large proportion. Killing animals (the only realistic alternative in most situations) that burden farmers (coyotes, cougars, bears, golden eagles, etc.) has become less and less common because of animal rights sympathies and when it involves "endangered" wolves or "game" like turkeys I am sure that government controls are no more than some little lady in a uniform passing out a pamphlet telling the farmer "How To Live With Wildlife". This is not meant to excuse the farmer's action but it is meant to place the death of 200 turkeys (that will be replaced by natural processes in a few years) in context.
While state and federal bureaucrats treat hunting, fishing, and trapping as anachronisms headed for extinction, they put wolves or turkeys that harm rural people on a pedestal above the human citizens that pay their salaries. Given their agendas they do whatever suits their current purposes:
A farmer that takes the law into his own hands regarding 200 turkeys faces 10 ½ years in prison.
A young tough shoots a guy during an aggravated robbery and gets 90 days in jail.
Federal bureaucrats steal $45 to 60 Million from American hunters and fishermen and go on to big Executive jobs with The Wildlife Federation, The Defenders of Wildlife, and one was recently considered by the Obama White House to be Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
What is wrong with this picture?
Jim Beers

WOODROW WILSON & AIG

By Jim Beers

One could say it began with Teddy Roosevelt. Confronting "big" business, "National" Parks, "National" Wildlife Refuges, "National" Forests were all hallmark "accomplishments of "Teddy" the Republican President. He did "good" things and always with the highest motives but he did very bad things in his (and our) ignorance. He set a precedent that, unlike the Constitutional peacetime government of the previous 120 years, the US government (the central or federal government per the Constitution as distinct from State government) could solve any and all issues better than State or Local governments. This precedent, that coincidentally played right into the hands of the emerging Socialist/Communist ideology of Karl Marx, not only soon proved the wisdom of The Founding Fathers that powerful central governments lead inevitably to "Tyranny"; it came just one short decade before the election of Democrat President Woodrow Wilson and a Democrat-controlled US Congress.
Wilson's legacy and his Presidency have much to teach us today. Wilson was elected on a "New Freedom" campaign very like FDR's "New Deal", JFK's "New Frontier", LBJ's "Great Society", and Obama's "Change". Like them, Wilson had a Democrat Congress with a "mandate". Wilson was a foe of business and founded the Federal Trade Commission to "regulate" "Trusts". Wilson campaigned on a plank of "individualism and state's rights" and then supported and signed the 16th Amendment authorizing Congress "to lay and collect taxes on incomes" and the 17th Amendment that changed the election of US Senators from "chosen by the (sic State) Legislator thereof" to "elected by the people thereof". How "individualism" is supported by federal "taxes on incomes" or how "state's rights" are supported by denying their appointment by the State "Legislature" are two things only those currently claiming that a national health plan is needed to solve the economic crisis might understand. Like the current President's election claims of support for the 2nd Amendment and opposition to "earmarks"; election and a "progressive" Congress transforms "conservative" candidates into liberal zealots overnight.
Wilson's final claims to fame rest on his unflinching support for a nascent world government (The League of Nations) and The Versailles Treaty (recognized ever since as a major contributor to World War II a short two decades later). Wilson's argument for the Versailles Treaty (that also contained the "Covenant"* of the League of Nations) was, "Dare we reject it and break the heart of the World?" (One is reminded of recent election claims about how Europeans and Middle Eastern countries didn't "like" us.) Fortunately, the Democrats had lost control of the Senate by 1918 and the Versailles Treaty failed to be ratified.
(*Note the word "Covenant" like the word "Convention" used in recent decades by UN bureaucrats and "progressives" in "developed" nations to disarm local objections to "Treaties" like Kyoto and Endangered Species and proposed gun control schemes.)
It is the 16th and 17th Amendments that have evolved into "vampires in the nursery" today, 18 March 2009. For two days now the public screaming about AIG (the largest insurance company "in the world?") paying its' executives Millions in "bonuses" has reached a fever pitch. Reportedly all of the Bush/Obama "Stimulus" and "Bailout" Trillions included Billions to AIG. Reportedly we (American citizens?, Congress?, the President?, the Secretary of the Treasury??) now "own" 80% of AIG and here are the AIG Executives paying each other Millions in bonuses and reportedly sending money to foreigners on top of it! Here we are "saving" them (and reputedly "the economy") and these ungrateful holdovers from Wilson and Roosevelt's anti-trust nemeses are "misusing" "our money"! People are appearing at rallies and on TV with pitchforks and threatening, what, to hold their breath?, to pout?, to call for imprisonment and worse for all (what was it the communists called them?) "intellectuals, bourgeois, and capitalists?
The 16th Amendment set this in motion 96 years ago. The "taxes on income" were reputedly only going to be levied on "millionaires" and "the rich", much like the taxes being laid today (only the "rich, 5% of taxpayers, only over $250K, etc.) to pay for the Trillions the Democrat President and Congress are using to establish Socialism in the US today. Over the 96 years federal income taxes have come to be accepted as "wealth redistribution" engines and financial support of everything from welfare and Social Security to "National" Parks, Refuges, Forests, Endangered Species, Grants, Loans, Law Enforcement, etc. that would either not exist or would be far less intrusive in American life today without them. However, up until today who would have been seriously listened to if he had said, "why pretty soon they will just tax us 100% of what we earn"? That is exactly what US Senator "Chuck" Schumer said the Congress and President would do "If they (the AIG Execs) don't return every penny of their 'bonuses'" forthwith. Thus has the tax "only on the rich" become a weapon like those used by every dictator throughout the ages to oppress those they dislike to favor those they like or need. Call it populism, call it political expediency, call it what you will; the fact that a US Senator even has such thoughts much less feels free to express and enact them means simply that the 4th Amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" is no longer in effect. Congress and the President can do or take whatever and whenever they want anytime they want. But what about the US Senate?
When the 17th Amendment was passed 96 years ago, US Senators no longer were answerable to a State Legislature that, say what you will, was and remains not only the current political expression of that State but is composed of elected officials that are far more susceptible to being recalled or defeated than any US Senator "elected by the people thereof". The reason for this very significant change is that now US Senators are reelected by garnering national and international supporters that provide millions and volunteers and unlimited media support to the Senator as opposed the "people" and "Legislature" that are more concerned with the affect of federal actions on their State. Thus we are now treated to the ultimate spectacle of US Senators as pampered and unanswerable dandies as Republican Senator Grassley suggests publicly that AIG Executives that do not return their bonuses should commit suicide. One observation is relevant here: if you or I were to publicly state that any Senator or the President should commit suicide because they did something we disapproved of. well, between the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, and the US Attorney we would be imprisoned and never again "allowed" to vote or possess a gun.
There is an old ditty that goes,

For want of a nail, a shoe was lost
For want of a shoe, a horse was lost
For want of a horse, a rider was lost
For want of a rider, a battle was lost
For want of a battle, a kingdom was lost.



To paraphrase that ditty,
For want of State defenders, State's Rights were lost
For want of State's Rights, Federal restraint was lost
For want of Federal restraint, Individual Rights were lost
For want of Individual Rights, Freedom was lost
For want of Freedom, America was lost.

The federal government has no authority other than brute force to "bailout" or "stimulate' any bank or company or insurance outfit like AIG. What is going on right now (even ignoring "socialized medicine", gun control, and abject foreign pandering) like wage controls for executives, dictating what cars to build, etc. is simply an incremental shift to Socialist government that is ultimately a "slow motion" approach to the Communist government (anyone for Russian cars or Chinese family limits by forced abortions, etc.?). The disgraceful politicians in Washington today are self-serving Socialist enablers that have less regard for us ("should commit suicide") than they have when pandering for votes from animal rights radicals ("outlaw horse slaughter", "outlaw cockfights", "outlaw trapping", "outlaw hunting", etc.). The federal income tax in the hands of an unrestrained federal government ("we'll tax them 100%") is merely ammunition for self-serving tyrants to oppress us.
How to reverse 95 years of Socialist/Communist infection of Constitutional government? Throw out the current crop of self-serving Socialists in the Congress and the White House. Elect politicians that will reduce and limit (through Constitutional Amendment) the size and growth of the federal government except for national defense and interstate commerce. Elect politicians that do not equivocate about national sovereignty, the Constitution, and State's Rights. Elect politicians that restore the appointment of US Senators by State Legislatures to thereby restore the reason each State has two Senators and not just two "Lords" in a remote House of Lords. If this is impossible we will continue to regress to the intolerable tyranny from which we sprung. If we continue this decline either we will meekly accept bondage and oppression or we will need to contemplate the blood, sweat, and tears that were required of The Founding Fathers, from Washington to the Vermont cockfighter freezing and starving at Valley Forge, to recognize and protect the freedoms and God-given rights that once made America the envy of the world. Jim Beers

CITIZEN HIATT JAILED FOR NOT

Following is an un-edited exchange between Paul Hiatt and Jack Venrick.
Think you can't be jailed for not? Think again.

Jack -
February 2009
I'm trusting your judgment to send it wherever you think it may do some good, but am asking you don't send it to hostile leftist green main stream media as opposed to conservative sources like talk radio or whatever. I sure wish I could go to that rally tomorrow and speak to folks, but I truly must work, as I have work right now and it is about survival if they throw me in jail the end of this month like they want to.
On the Motion For Sanctions, Jack, that is basically two pages of 12 type with large borders, if you subtract the double spacing, and needs to be read in entirety by anyone interested in the case, most especially Evergreen folks or the like. It is easily understandable that is straight forward documentation that the District Court and prosecutor tried to throw me in jail to silence me again, this time in direct violation of a supreme court order, as part of a continuing pattern, which is also documented there, and stinks to high heaven. Judge Kenworthy is threatening to throw me in jail for contempt again for relying in good faith on the Supreme Court order staying proceedings in that court, (not going to jail January 31 when he sent me a bogus summons), when HE and Prosecutor Rose are the ones in contempt. It also covers that they are planning to make me serve time I already have, (33 days), illegally, and are imposing punishments the law strictly prohibits for a misdemeanor, concerning my property. Interestingly, I am informed it will be heard by a "different department" than the judges hearing my motion to modify, which is certainly disappointing because those deciding whether my case will be reviewed should get to see the extent of the corruption I am up against in Pierce County. That is the whole story of this case.
On the motion to modify, I am still trying to get heard, because the commissioner up there said no, my issues have no merit, when they do. The issues before them now are:
The District Courts don't have jurisdiction of cases at law involving title and possession of real property, under our state Constitution, but they tried mine there over objection, in a sham trial with no witnesses permitted for the defense, and all exculpatory evidence barred. They illegally seized the property, they have encumbered the deed, they have take without compensation, but they claim the case doesn't involve real property. This is an issue of broad public interest.
The wetlands code charged is unconstitutional as applied. First it is ex post facto, because there were no wetlands when I did the work, and there were no wetlands when I went to trial, they designated them illegally after my conviction for wetlands violations. Further, the work I did is specifically exempted from the wetlands codes, and is exempt under DNR regs. Remember that the county gave me their map on day one showing no wetlands with right about 300'. There are a number of constitutional issues, but they are more complex.
They violated the statute of limitations in bringing charges against me, and they unlawfully amended the complaint many times after that, including at trial after the state rested, then gave the jury "to convict" instructions misrepresenting, adding to, and changing what was actually in the complaint, (the elements of the crime), to obtain a conviction by deceiving the jury.
They presented a case in chief at trial which was the poisonous fruit of an illegal search warrant, after refusing to quash that warrant, and after agreeing they would not.
I have proved upside down and backwards they violated speedy trial rule, requiring reversal of the conviction.
I have proof of prosecutorial misconduct which requires reversal.
There are many more issues in my Petition For Review, but the upshot is this thing is required by their own case law, our statutes, and Constitution to be reversed many times over, and I can't get heard so far, because they are determined to punish me for refusing to contract my deed rights away, give them as much of my property as they decide they want without just compensation, and pay extortion to use my own property, when I'm not doing anything there which requires permits in the first place.
Thanks Jack.
Paul
___________________________________________________________________________________

Paul Hiatt's update:

This is Paul Hiatt's update and recap of the continuing green madness going on in Pierce County Washington , especially their kangaroo court system. He has already served 60 days in jail and his life ruined, for merely cleaning out his ditches and burning slash. Now the vendictive Pierce PA office and District court system want more blood. Please note his summary below and recent court documents attached above. His appeals up to the Washington State Supreme court have been denied. Paul is clearly being railroaded.
He has documented uncountable court corruption, e.g. procedural and basic law violations, denial of critical information to him and to the jury, manipulation of the dates for a speedy trial, violation of the statute of limitations, serious over stepping of jurisdiction by the court, breaching of the fundemental rights of owning private property, prejudicial intent, prosecutorial premeditation and prosecutorial misrepresentation and misconduit, personal court green vendettas, court abuse of the hated English Common Law "contempt" charge, excessive bail, excessive delays, excessive punishment, denial of due process and tortous treatment as a political prisoner all on trumped up green charges that are clouded at best.

More information may be found on Paul's case and other assaulted property owners at - http://www.freedomforallseasons.org/EmbattledPropertyOwnerStoriesNew.dwt.asp.

Let us all at least pray for Paul and his family for a miracle to save him and US from this insane tyrannical and needless war upon the natural born, sovereign and free state Citizens.
Our militias have been taken, our unalienable rights are gone; we are awakening from a long slumber finding ourselves stripped naked to the roaming wolf packs of the bench, bar, banks and brokers of government who live on our flesh and blood, our traditional lives and our property.
Support you local property rights groups as well as Evergreen Freedom Foundation's new Property Rights Center.
Jack Venrick

ANIMALS, SOCIALISTS & GOVERNMENT

By Jim Beers

American wildlife and the American citizenry have simply become Socialist guinea pigs for achieving all manner of Socialist agendas. While we argue and bemoan about wolves being "Delisted" under the Endangered Species Act and we ask about the new Administration in Washington "don't they realize that increasing (fill-in-the-blank) taxes and massive government spending will discourage investment, depress employment, and diminish businesses even more?" we are either told lies or we are ignored. The continuing destruction of the Constitutional bedrock principle of property, the overwhelming growth of central government size and power, and the insertion of central government power into every aspect of American society from business, education and states' rights to rural land clearances and parental rights are all merely facets of the establishment of a Socialist Oligarchy. This agenda has progressed from "'Wilsonian' Democracy" through FDR's "New Deal", JFK's "New Frontier", LBJ's "Great Society", and then expanded sporadically by the alternating naiveté and activism of Nixon, Carter, the Bushes, and Clinton. The Socialist Oligarchy envisioned by these Socialists and Neo-Socialists is best imagined as a national ruling class unfettered by a Constitution similar to the combined political patrimony of Chicago, the entrenched radicalism of San Francisco, and the simple one-party rule of Milwaukee for the past century. Periodically promising the moon to an electorate increasingly dependent on a government that is chronically broke and that rules every aspect of daily life is only sustainable when the "rich" from elsewhere or a "State" economy can shore it up by enforced government mandates. Otherwise, it has always been a recipe for disaster.
Current wildlife issues are a kaleidoscope of Socialist lies and hidden agendas that are intended to fulfill larger Socialist objectives:
- Salmon in the Pacific Northwest are in a constant state of emergency as everyone professes concern for their future. Environmentalists and "their" representatives blame dams, irrigators, hatchery fish, recreational fishermen, "non-native" fish, loggers, farmers, dredgers, and commercial fishermen both foreign and domestic. Their "concern" and that of the politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers that represent them is touching. Were they and the central government really concerned, we would see more hatchery fish introductions and elimination of the out-of-control seals and sea lions devastating salmon returning to spawn as well as research and management concerned with reducing the impact of ocean predator fish on the high seas and the impact of bird and fish depredations on young salmon going out to sea. The fact that minimizing such impacts would significantly increase salmon numbers is denied because the goal is not to increase salmon stocks but to destroy fishing, dams, irrigation, power generation, logging, dredging, (see above) and establish a governmental rule like Wilderness or Marine Sanctuaries that will contribute to further rural land clearances as well as reduce the non-urban vote.
- Recently a wild cougar was "sedated" in a northern Wisconsin town. The state bureaucrats then tagged it and released it with the admonition that cougars were "protected" and that anyone seeing one should report it to the government. This is on the heels of decades of reports of cougars in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Iowa by hunters, birdwatchers, and loggers. Always, the reports were denied as unverified by state bureaucrats. One cougar was even killed in Chicago suburbs. Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin maintain the legal fiction that cougars are "native" or "rare" or "part of the ecosystem" and are therefore "protected". Cougars kill children and adults; they kill pets and livestock from sheep and llamas to goats, calves, and pigs; they also kill deer. When government "protects" cougars in populated places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois they are abusing the primary government responsibility and mandate to "insure domestic Tranquility". Urban voters (as in California three decades ago) that support subjecting their rural cousins to unmanaged cougars are akin to rural voters that (if they had the numbers) would vote for a maximum security prison and halfway house in Central Park or on Lakeshore Drive along the northern Chicago Lakefront. Neither the urban supporters or wildlife bureaucrat "experts" "protecting the cougars" will have any responsibility when your grandchild is killed on a hike or a girl scout disappears at a summer camp or a farmer goes broke or your pet dog is killed in your yard by cougars. No; the retiree, the farmer, the woodcutter trying to raise his family, the camper, the pet owner, the hiker, and even hunters will all be increasingly reluctant to live in or recreate in places where disappearances and killings occur (especially as gun ownership and carrying are restricted). As with those "concerned" about salmon, rural land clearances and gun control (of an increasingly urban citizenry) and government power growth are facilitated.
- Recent reports of wolves being taken off the Endangered Species "List" and returned to "State management" everywhere but Wyoming are prominently reported. What a fiction; what a lie! Putting aside the unending legal challenges that extend to the horizon, states can only "manage" as much and however the central government allows. Killing large numbers of wolves as large numbers either depredate or kill people will not be tolerated and excluding wolves from certain areas as their impacts on big game (they have decimated elk and moose and deer although the states manipulate and distort and obfuscate the information) or livestock changes with weather and learned behaviors will also be impossible. So the scenario is that wolves "belong" (per government mandate and despite centuries of evidence as to their danger and harm in our history or the current history of carnage and death from wolves in Russia ) and therefore they are more important than your children, your neighbor, your rural economy, the safety of campers, pets, livestock, or "domestic Tranquility". The romance of a howling wolf degenerates into sheer horror when a child is killed or some old man is torn to bits; rural recreation in America will be like it was in Nazi Germany or under European royalty or Communist Russia, simply a pastime for the rich and powerful. As with salmon and cougars, Socialist Oligarchs increase their power and bring more and more Americans under their un-Constitutional sway by professing a need for wolves.
- Recently a suburban housewife here in Eagan, Minnesota had "two coyotes surround and attack her miniature-breed dog which was later euthanized". Today's paper reported, "They (sic Animal Control) hope to track the number of coyotes entering the city and are asking residents to call Animal Control". Our faux wildlife manager "Animal Control Officer Karen Grimm" says, "coyotes are naturally curious but timid when challenged and a loud noise should be enough to scare one away". This tinker belle phony tells us coyotes are "timid when challenged"? Tell that to the Cape Cod mom that had to fight one tooth and nail to get it to let go of her toddler in her backyard. Also that a "loud noise should scare one away" and that they are "naturally curious"? So what? What is this "CONTROL OFFICER" doing about it other than "hoping" (like many recent voters) "to track the number of coyotes entering the city"? What do we pay government for in this instance, to lecture us about animal fantasies? If a "CONTROL OFFICER" only "CONTROLS" us, call her a cop. This lady like so many current veterinarians and wildlife biologists and wildlife officers and environmental/animal bureaucrats are immature zealots bent on establishing a fairy land where no animal is owned or used or hurt or eaten or certainly never killed: only man is the problem and either man "learns to get along" (i.e. loud noises, not looking into eyes, wearing bells, etc.) or too bad for whatever happens, guess who's fault it is? Aside from the lies and disinformation, man and his rights and property are fast becoming more and more like the unwanted fetus or the disabled child, or the helpless and hopelessly imperfect among us - simply worthy of disposal in some manner where others need not be concerned. Do you not see the connection?
- Lastly, my Minnesota paper reports that an Oregon Indian tribe is exploring releasing condors on "their" (meaning not in Oregon) lands. The meetings with government "officials" are "closed to the public". Like the Idaho Indian tribe that disabled Idaho resistance to central government wolf blandishments by making itself an "island" for wolves in Idaho to the delight of central government bureaucrats, the Oregon tribe will be making itself an island in Oregon. This will be very problematic for rural Oregonians because (as both the tribes and the "wildlife" bureaucrats know) there are all manner of "scientific" assertions that condors are "endangered" by "eating" lead bullets. The evidence of this "threat" is specious although it has been accepted by courts at the insistence of expensive lawyers. So the condors are meant to introduce laws and programs in Oregon to outlaw lead rifle (pistol?, shotgun?,) bullets and slugs and buckshot. Costs will rise, efficiency will suffer from less dense substitutes, and availability of ammunition will be limited: all of which will further decrease rural recreation, rural economies, rural residences, and rural livelihoods. Sound familiar? Care to guess what else will result? Care to guess about the impacts on ammunition and guns in both rural and urban Oregon? Care to argue about the precedents it will set and how other states will hear the argument about how "they should too"?
Current national politics mirror these deceptions and obfuscations:
- We are told it is urgent to "wean ourselves off foreign oil". Yet we can't drill in ANWR or offshore where large oil deposits exist. We can't expand refineries or their capacities to reduce gas/oil/energy/heating/electricity prices nor can we build nuclear power generators or deposit nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. We can't transmit electricity from a coal-powered plant because central bureaucrats deny "permits" for transmission lines. We are told that "wind" mills are an answer even though numerous reports of bird population disappearances (in the past 3 weeks a Californian, an Arizonan, and a Minnesotan have so remarked to me) are never connected to massive windmill farms (from Abilene, TX to Rockford, IL) that are scientifically located exactly where birds migrate (yet we hear no "peeps" from the erstwhile environmental and animal rights crowds that are otherwise so "concerned" about salmon and cougars and wolves et al). So the government stops production of SUV's and Pickups and "big" cars to be replaced with "little" cars and cars that must be "plugged in" and vehicles that are unsafe and far less appropriate for rural lifestyles or cold northern climates. Hmmm, move to an urban apartment anyone? Don't read the "Stimulus"; prattle about Executive pay and Company entertainment; but whatever happens hope that "more" government spending and "more" government control will "bail us out". The "crisis" that the White House "chief" correctly reminded us is "too good to waste" is simply a cover for all of these Socialist daydreams that could not otherwise stand the light of day even with a couple of Socialist superstars ramrodding the House of Representatives and the Senate.
- We are told that we will "lead" other nations by signing a Global "Warming" TREATY at the next world government soiree in Denmark. In spite of no defensible science or reason to justify either that the world is warming or cooling in some overarching manner and particularly in light of the fact that neither the presence or absence of Carbon dioxide (CO2) does or could influence "climate" "change" we will sign a TREATY (thereby per the Constitution becoming "the supreme Law of the Land") to tax CO2 and further impede economic recovery, capitalism, and freedom. These latter are the "real" Socialist goals of all this "climate" hubbub. The fact that government will reap Trillions as it destroys remaining vestiges of free enterprise or Constitutional property rights is merely an interim bonus. As an Australian scientist observed, "if the US and China went to zero CO2 emissions tomorrow, it wouldn't make ANY difference to climate. The way to manage climate changes is to prepare for wet and dry, hot and cold, and storms of varying magnitude."
- Every day, expanded government interventions (bailouts, stimulus, stock purchases, laws governing pay, elimination of a secret vote regarding unionization, specifying what cars to build and not to build, etc.) in every facet of American life proceed apace. Each of us hopes it doesn't touch us ("our" mortgage interest deduction, what vehicles we will be "allowed" to buy, the price of oil for heating and transportation and electricity, the "new" electrical plant that is supposed to "reduce" costs, etc.) while we simultaneously ask "what is in the (Stimulus, Omnibus, proposal, etc.) for me?" The goal of a Socialist Oligarchy becomes clearer each day.
- Government race and sex categorization rapidly approaches the chronic status of Zimbabwe as Robert Reich and Charlie Rangel openly discuss at a Congressional hearing how to "keep this money (the government largesse all around) FROM GOING TO WHITE MALES". Oh hum, so what? It gains no more than a shrug from Constitutionally illiterate millions that governmental preferences (hiring, contracting, promoting, allocations of government programs, access to government "largesse", etc.) based on race or sex or national origin - just like religious categorizations - are WRONG, ILLEGAL, AND CORROSIVE TO LIBERTY AND FREEDOM. This rotten precedent is even used now to justify the President expressing the policy that religious groups may not "discriminate" as with Catholic institutions having to hire abortion advocates and Jewish organizations having to hire anti-Jewish Moslems. In addition to setting us against each other, this divisiveness allows the Socialists, just like Nazis and Communists, to promise us things separately with the fiction that they are merely "redistributing" "it" as if Freedom or wealth for that matter were finite amounts instead of growing values that are the continuing product of a Free Society where government protects Rights instead of destroying and then parceling them out.
- Government erosion of Constitutional State's Rights is almost complete. Ever since Woodrow Wilson succeeded in Amending the Constitution to establish a federal income tax AND to make US Senators into pampered Lords elected by and in service to national and international interests as opposed to the State they formerly "represented", the disappearance of State authority (as with wolves where federal overseers dictate but states "manage") and the parallel growth of a supreme central government has continued. No better example exists than the recent bragging by the Los Angeles Mayor that since "the state" (i.e. California) has other priorities (like going broke largely because of the cities like Los Angeles) the mayor "has been to Washington and received assurances" that much of the current Socialist government largesse will "come directly to the city". Hear that Chicago, Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, et al? Lest we forget, remember those Red/Blue maps of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election. Where will those urban masses look for "support"? Who will they vote for? What are the implications for gun control, Wilderness, Endangered Species, a "Climate" Treaty, Socialized/Nationalized medicine, etc., etc.?
Last but certainly not least, there is Life (human that is). The President and his curiously Catholic enablers like Richardson and Daschle and now Sebelius all proclaim how we "need" for government to take over all medical treatment for the poor and the sick and those that "can't afford it". Simultaneously, they (in this time of fiscal "crisis?"):
1. Initiate funding for abortions in foreign lands.
2. Expand and will pay for stem cell research involving the creation and destruction (excuse me, "harvesting") of human embryos
3. Initiate federal funding for abortions nationwide.
4. Begin legislation to force ALL doctors and hospitals to perform abortions or lose accreditation (thereby assuring the destruction of Catholic hospitals, Christian doctors and nurses of conscience in this matter, and soon even the right to protest against abortion - a "legal" right - as in other Socialist states like Norway.)
While I am aware of the President's wish not to have his daughters "punished with a baby", spare me the empty rhetoric about "concern" for the poor and minorities et al and the nonsense about nationalizing medicine being important to "recovering the economy". One or two of us are actually not that stupid. Our lives, from conception to natural death mean no more to you than they did to Nazis or Communists. We are as cheap as those animals you are "concerned" about. We are merely a means to your end and will be discarded when we are no longer needed to serve your purposes or pay enough taxes. Destroying religious-based charities, organizations, hospitals, and schools is necessary to your replacing them with YOUR substitutes that like Communist or Nazi substitutes are merely means of maintaining power, period!
I for one am not surprised, only desperately mad. The President's wife told us she "was never proud of America" while the President clearly communicated (in a closed San Francisco meeting) what he thinks of guys like me ("clinging to guns and religion"); so what else could I expect? As a former veteran and police officer, anyone associating with and utilizing the likes of Tony Rezko, Bill Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, and the Chicago political machine (I was born there and raised nearby) only generates disgust in my mind.
The Congress and White House are firmly in the hands of Socialists that are determined to take it the final step - destruction of any shred of Constitutional law and establishment of a Socialist Oligarchy. Even foreign relations are being perverted to prove quickly that old adage that "Democrats get us into wars". We slight our oldest allies like Britain while bending over backwards to find and "dialogue" with "Moderate?" Taliban? We can't even produce a proper Russian translation on a stupid and childish "gift" to Russian rulers while we ignore North Korean threats and manipulations. We offer no alternative to Iranian nukes and the promise to use them on Israel (and?) while we "visit" Chinese officials that then turn around and order harassment of a USNS ship in International Waters. One is reminded of the perception of similar Carter ploys that bred first humorous contempt and then open defiance by enemies bent on destroying American interests in the world.
So no more "don't they know" feces. They know exactly what they are doing and why they are "doing it". They have no scruples about lying or dissembling. Whether it is the "environmentalist" lying about wolves or salmon; or the Health and Human Services "Catholic' lying about her concern for "the poor"; or the President lying about how health care "reform" is "necessary" to "recover the economy": they are all about establishing their own Oligarchy of rule. They may or may not believe that it will stop with them and their ideas (like Chavez's early supporters or Mugabe's early supporters also believed) but that is irrelevant: either we reclaim the Constitutional freedoms we have so Cavalierly failed to defend in the mistaken assumption that they would take care of themselves or we can look to Venezuela or Cuba or Rhodesia/Zimbabwe to imagine what awaits our children and grandchildren.
I will conclude with a few simple truisms and a hopeful suggestion:
- Massive spending and massive debt whether national or personal is more dangerous the greater it becomes.
- Government at the lowest level and guaranteed rights are the foundation of free men.
- Other than protecting the commerce between states and defending the interests of the United States internationally, the only important function of the central government is to PRESERVE THE CONSTITUTION.
- As Constitutional government dissolves, radical replacements emerge such as the total "protection" of renewable natural resources and the elimination of the benefits, management, and wise use of animals, plants, minerals, and energy resources. The degree to which these things are eliminated is a rough barometer of the growing strength of an all-powerful central government.
- The degree to which we cherish and protect all human life from conception to natural death is the measure of the protection we can each expect from our government under all circumstances.
- There are many factions in the world that want the United States to disappear from communists and socialists to radical Moslems and governments that want to rule people that cannot even imagine, much less expect or demand, the freedoms and rights enjoyed by Americans for 200 plus years.
Socialists HATE (the correct word) various things:
- Environmentalists HATE farmers, ranchers, loggers, road builders, private property rights, managers of plants and animals, energy development, dams, irrigators, accessible and usable public lands, rural towns and residences, etc.
- Animal rights radicals HATE hunters, trappers, fur owners, fishermen, meat eaters, pet "owners", private property, local governments (they might allow bullfights or cockfights or horse slaughter plants, etc.), ranchers, poultry farmers, etc., etc.
- Jeremiah Wright's crowd HATES whites.
- The Planned Parenthood women in The White House and Departments HATE men and housewives and religions wherein women can't be what THEY want them to be.
- Descendants of victims of brutal businesses like miners and farmers that were abused by businessmen or bankers HATE capitalists and big business.
- People dependent on the forced support of others HATE those that have "more".
- Politicians and bureaucrats determined to control and rule others HATE the Constitution and all the stumbling blocks placed in their path.
- Scientists HATE the "ignorant" (of what the scientist "believes") and all those that would presume to do anything that the scientist opposes for whatever reason.
- Teachers and professors HATE the parents and religions that presume to inculcate the young with values and beliefs with which the state-salaried "teacher" disagrees.
- Same-sex advocates HATE anyone questioning their lifestyle or resisting their demands for "marriage" or indoctrinating young persons.
- "Victims" HATE those they believe have victimized them.
These hatreds have grown particularly intense and public in recent years from hatred for individual Presidents to hatred of particular religions. Just as the child that was tolerated for stealing from his Mother's purse and then for stealing lunch money from classmates doesn't just suddenly start strong-arming old people and then sticking up 7-11's; so too did these Socialists not suddenly just pop up in one election. Their gradual successes have bred a belief that their triumph is inevitable. Like the youngster gradually taking more and believing himself invincible, so too have Socialists come to believe that the Constitution can be violated without consequence and that rules and rights are convertible into government legal tender that can be doled out as appropriate for government's purposes. Maybe the first step in turning this around lies in admitting the existence of lying by our leaders and then in understanding what is going on and why. Whether it is too late to begin turning this around and reclaim our Constitutional liberties and guarantees only time will tell.
Jim Beers