Friday, October 24, 2008

Naomi Wolf: The end of america.

Had a friend link me to these after my last post.




Read more!

Who are we?

In the beginning, the worries of the founding fathers were manifold, wrought in the ideals of liberty, and creating bulwarks and safeguards against imposition against rights, and liberties. Our rights were recognized, not as simple rights created by the government, but as pre-existing rights, rights untrammeled by that creation of the government, and agreed upon that such government could never attack those rights. One of those worries were founded in the military, as the military had been, for ages past, the instrument of tyrants.

“An instrument of war and subjugation, the last argument to which Kings resort!”
-- Patrick Henry.

But what encroachments could be made upon a nation of free men by such army? How could it be recognized, and battled? How could such an army be made, in times of peace? This was discussed by Alexander Hamilton, another of the Founding Fathers, in the Federalists 26-28.

“Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose, not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.
If such suppositions could even be reasonably made, still the concealment of the design, for any duration, would be impracticable. It would be announced, by the very circumstance of augmenting the army to so great an extent in time of profound peace. What colorable reason could be assigned, in a country so situated, for such vast augmentations of the military force? It is impossible that the people could be long deceived; and the destruction of the project, and of the projectors, would quickly follow the discovery. “

By limiting the powers of the executive and requiring congressional approval for both declaration of war, and for the funding of the military, the founding fathers had hoped to prevent the creation of an executive with the power to become a dictator. In each part of the founding father's papers, the worry of intermingling the executive and the legislative branches, and control of branches by other branches colored the text.
It was for this reason that the far less limited branch of congress was prohibited from anything but gold or other precious metals as a standard of currency, that they were prohibited from making certain types of laws. Let us look at what the Founding Fathers had to say about the Congress, and what was to restrain it from tyranny.

Federalist 57
“I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and that human prudence can devise? Are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people? Are they not the identical means on which every State government in the Union relies for the attainment of these important ends? What then are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated? What are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them?

Were the objection to be read by one who had not seen the mode prescribed by the Constitution for the choice of representatives, he could suppose nothing less than that some unreasonable qualification of property was annexed to the right of suffrage; or that the right of eligibility was limited to persons of particular families or fortunes; or at least that the mode prescribed by the State constitutions was in some respect or other, very grossly departed from. We have seen how far such a supposition would err, as to the two first points. Nor would it, in fact, be less erroneous as to the last. The only difference discoverable between the two cases is, that each representative of the United States will be elected by five or six thousand citizens; whilst in the individual States, the election of a representative is left to about as many hundreds. Will it be pretended that this difference is sufficient to justify an attachment to the State governments, and an abhorrence to the federal government? “

On those very prohibitions from the government, in article one, section nine, and article one, section ten, speaks strongly to our situation today, in spite of all the changes, and alterations done in the name of the supreme court over the last seventy years.
federalist fourty-four.

“The extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give pleasure to every citizen, in proportion to his love of justice and his knowledge of the true springs of public prosperity. The loss which America has sustained since the peace, from the pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence between man and man, on the necessary confidence in the public councils, on the industry and morals of the people, and on the character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt against the States chargeable with this unadvised measure, which must long remain unsatisfied; or rather an accumulation of guilt, which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice, of the power which has been the instrument of it. In addition to these persuasive considerations, it may be observed, that the same reasons which show the necessity of denying to the States the power of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin. Had every State a right to regulate the value of its coin, there might be as many different currencies as States, and thus the intercourse among them would be impeded; retrospective alterations in its value might be made, and thus the citizens of other States be injured, and animosities be kindled among the States themselves. The subjects of foreign powers might suffer from the same cause, and hence the Union be discredited and embroiled by the indiscretion of a single member. No one of these mischiefs is less incident to a power in the States to emit paper money, than to coin gold or silver. The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, is withdrawn from the States, on the same principle with that of issuing a paper currency.

Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. The two former are expressly prohibited by the declarations prefixed to some of the State constitutions, and all of them are prohibited by the spirit and scope of these fundamental charters. Our own experience has taught us, nevertheless, that additional fences against these dangers ought not to be omitted. Very properly, therefore, have the convention added this constitutional bulwark in favor of personal security and private rights; and I am much deceived if they have not, in so doing, as faithfully consulted the genuine sentiments as the undoubted interests of their constituents. The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding. They very rightly infer, therefore, that some thorough reform is wanting, which will banish speculations on public measures, inspire a general prudence and industry, and give a regular course to the business of society. The prohibition with respect to titles of nobility is copied from the articles of Confederation and needs no comment. “

Have we forgottten whence we came? What measure, what means shall guide us back to the goals of independence, of personal sovereignty? Is our will so weak, as to not exercise the means given? Should we vote for more of the same, or for claimed change that only changes things farther from the design laid down by our forefathers?

Is it not enlightened self-interest that motivates people and nations, not altruism? When we remove the rights of others, does that not put our own in peril?

It has been, and remains a truism, that any government is happy to remove rights, and loathe to return them. They are happy to claim to protect you until that needs for protection comes full, then to ignore the promises of protection. We wait for martial law, looking into the darkness to see when it comes... but what if it is already here?

I wonder sometimes if people are really seeing the whole picture, or selectively blinding themselves to aspects of it. I wonder what motives the Federal Government might have for many of the abuses, and usurpations in which they have engaged....

And I wonder, still more, at the naievity of the people, their blindness, their lack of will, ambition, and backbone in addressing it. We feel powerless, we feel hopeless, we feel empty... and we expect Martial Law to be declared in this country, judging by the myriad websites around the 'net.

What if Martial Law is already here, hidden under a semblance of normalcy? What if, deep down, we recognize its aspects, its faces, its judgments, its memes? The constitution only allows Habeas Corpus to be removed in cases of insurrection and rebellion... but it has been removed anyway. This was the definition of Martial Law at the time of the Constitution's founding.

We are men, and women, dedicated to a cause, a cause of the future, a cause of tomorrows leading into tomorrows for all their weary ages. There is but one end to what has occurred, one goal, one principle, the guiding principle of power, at any cost.

Our government was instituted, by an agreement of the then-existent several states, in order to help safeguard the future, and to limit the potential for government to corrupt, instituted the weakest, and most ineffective government that could be created, with just enough power to do its job. We have engaged, across the past two hundred years, in the act of making the government more powerful, more efficient, better at its job, and at what cost? The abrogation, destruction, and denunciation of the very contract upon which it was founded.

Such things were known in the beginning to be a possibility. Such things were written, worked, and existed, in the words of the founding fathers, the Federalist Papers, particularly the Federalist 26.

The government was prohibited police powers... but police powers have gone far beyond what was originally meant by the definition of the term. The government was allowed to make regulations, but the term of regulation has gone far beyond the original meaning of the term. The government was prohibited from controlling firearms... but they do so anyway. That government was prohibited from measuring, anticipating, or interdicting freedom of speech... but yet they do so.

These rights were inalienable, unable to be removed, modified, distanced from, or destroyed, but they legislate around them anyway, and our bulwark of the Jury, of Habeas Corpus, of even the very most basic rights, that to know why you are being held... are gone.

They impose upon us taxes, contrary to the will of the People, impose upon the states debts, contrary to the will of the people, impose upon the people requirements again quite contrary to the will and freedom of the people, without valid representation, without often even reading the bills, and without a vote, and without accountability.

In times of peace the nation has held a standing army, has required, seized, and sold the assets of sovereign individuals for the collection of the national debt. The government has ignored property, destroyed the concept of it, via the institution of a system of a privately owned bank, and the creation of debts under that bank, and the collection of those debts by that bank under force of law.

The Federal Government, in the claimed interest of protecting the people, has created, instituted, and established a system of tyranny the likes of which our nation has fought since the beginning.

Equality under the law is no more, with the Bar Association and public defenders having such a wide disparity of value and representation.

They seize assets, search on suspicion, sans a warrant, place in positions of trust over our monies, accounts, and assets men who have no responsibility to the people. They have emplaced those watching over our foods, our medications, our very lives, who are antithetical to the very job that they purport to follow, and paid by the companies whom they are sworn to regulate.
They have removed the locks from our doors, and the weapons from our hands, in order to better protect us. They say we cannot communicate in secret, that we may be better protected. They say that our nation is so vulnerable, that we must give up our rights, and our arms, in order to make it easier to police. They claim that to protect the children, that we must imprison them.

Is this wisdom? Is it justice? Is the measure, and meaning, of any of this anything other than tyranny? Is it the measure of a man's protection to limit the very things he seeks to protect?

And who are we.. if we remain silent?
Read more!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Do we really need this?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/20/domestic.intelligence.agency/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Kingdom has MI-5, which roots out spies and terrorists in the British Isles.
The RAND Corporation said one option would be for domestic intelligence to operate under the FBI.

The RAND Corporation said one option would be for domestic intelligence to operate under the FBI.

Canada has CSIS -- the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Now Congress is asking: Should the U.S. have its own domestic intelligence agency?

On Monday, at the request of Congress, the RAND Corporation outlined the pros and cons of establishing a domestic intelligence agency. It also discussed different ways to organize a new entity, either as part of an existing department or as a new agency.

But there's one thing you won't find in the report -- a recommendation on what to do.

"We were not asked to make a recommendation, and this assessment does not do so," the report says.

Instead, says RAND's Gregory Treverton, the report provides a "framework" for policymakers to use when deciding whether and how to reorganize counter-intelligence efforts at home.

RAND is a nonprofit think tank seeking to help improve policy and decision making through objective research and analysis.

Collecting intelligence domestically always has been a sensitive issue, at least partially because of episodic abuses by the government, notably against civil rights leaders, unions, antiwar organizations or even communists and hate groups.

But the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks renewed calls for increased domestic intelligence to prevent future attacks. Critics said that in the lead-up to the attacks, the FBI devalued counterterrorism agents and failed to heed signs that an attack was imminent.

"If you didn't carry a gun, you didn't count so much," Treverton said.

After the attacks, the FBI moved to transform its primary mission from law enforcement to counterterrorism intelligence and prevention. It now focuses on terrorism through its National Security Branch and the National Counterterrorism Center.

The RAND report focuses on two options to the current system.

In one, a new agency would be created using intelligence agencies from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and intelligence community. A second option is to create an "agency within an agency" in the FBI or DHS.


The first option would result in an organization with a clear, unambiguous mission, and might be able to draw on a more diverse recruitment pool, such as linguists and historians who are not normally attracted to law enforcement. On the flip side, such massive reorganizations typically involve political compromises that could affect its performance.

The second option -- an "agency within an agency" -- could involve less short-term disruption, but could be hindered by a "lack of clarity of a single mission," the report says.

RAND also suggests a range of actions short of reorganization that could improve domestic intelligence gathering, such as increasing resources, improving leadership and changing bureaucratic cultures.

The report does not assess the FBI's performance since 9/11, Treverton said, but he believes Congress should seek an independent assessment.

A panel of experts that RAND convened guessed that the probability of a terrorist attack had decreased about one-third since the September 11, 2001. But "they were not enthusiastic about alternatives" to current counterterrorism organizations.

In a cautionary note, the report says that while public acceptance of domestic intelligence activities is imperative, public attitudes about what is considered acceptable "can both be fragile and shift significantly over time."

"Public demand for domestic intelligence is driven by the perceived threat, and those perceptions can change much more rapidly than the threat itself," the report says. For instance, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, 49 percent of people surveyed were worried "a great deal" about more attacks. Two years later, that had dropped to 25 percent


I think that the Congress, and the President, have forgotten a large part of the past... when you have disaffectation of a section of the populace, is it really just, or meet, that we should, in order to win back their love, spy upon them more, and attempt to bring that love through force of arms? Such is foolishness, limned in ignorance, and would seem dedicated to the promulgation of naught but further disaffectation by the people.

Wisdom would be to bring the power of the people back to their own hands, to return the reigns of the republic to the foundational principles. It is foolishness, and the hunger for power that would argue otherwise, but let us explore it!

If one creates a situation where a person, a citizen of the state, feels powerless, is it not true that they will then seek that power? Is it not true that a great many wrongs, and immoral actions are wrought in the seeking of power?

How, then, can it be that making a man less powerful over his own life, less enfranchised in the dedication of his own ends and means, less capable of speaking, of writing, of being free, would be a good thing?

Is it even reasonable to assume that further restrictions will manage to correct the anger and anguish that past restrictions have wrought? If our nation falls, it will not be due to too few regulations, but too many, binding and breaking the people to the lash.

After all, to paraphrase a wise man, are fleets and armies necessary to the work of peace and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? No, sirs, these are instruments of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which Kings resort! I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us into submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it? Has the United States any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for the accumulation of armies and navies?

No, sirs, they are meant for us, they can be meant for no other. For what reason would a representative government fear its people, perchance? Is it because they have faithfully listened to the works and words of their constituency? Should they fear us, were they representing us to the fullest extent that they may? No, ladies and gentlemen, there is no fear from these things, only from their opposite. Were the senators, congressmen, and president abiding by their purpose in the creation of the office, there would be naught but love between our peoples, and those august houses that they have long since been occupying.

Can any person assign another motive to the accumulation? Could any purpose of protection be legitimately assigned to spying upon innocent people, and encouraging their dissent with their neighborhoods, their neighbors, their family, their state? No, the purpose is to create disunity, not to unite. Their passions have flown and grown from protecting freedom to protecting power.

Ask yourselves, friends, or enemies, all the same, if their stated purpose can be to protect, when the very things that they were instituted to protect are falling before their protection? Ask moreover, if we still have the power, as the people, to insist upon that representation we were guaranteed, when so much of law and writ is passed, not by vote, but by institution by a few states with great power? Peer into your auguries, look into your futures, and look where this road leads.

We are not to question them, we are not to ask about them, we are not to look too highly into their affairs, for those of us lesser mortals are not of their ken, and must not speak, lest they be offended! Should we, as Americans, as citizens of our states, as people born to a free nation, submit to expansion of laws, designed to do naught but remove further our sovereignty, rights, and freedoms recognized by the constitution as pre-existing, and not to be tampered with?

Should we turn our eyes, and blind ourselves to that imposition of the government, how could we be anything but slaves? Did not the very founding fathers consider the loss of the vote to be worse than death, and the loss of the writ of habeas corpus to be the most defining measure of tyranny? Was it not true, that for these purposes, men laid down their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, and died, in many cases, via torture, or penniless, to uphold that honor? How many wars were fought for the maintenance of those rights? How many times has our nation claimed to uphold them in actions elsewhere, shining that light into the world?

And now to have abandoned them is an usurpation of the worst sort. Each moment we stand here, we forget who we are, more and more the blood of our ancestors cry out in anguish as we abandon their legacy of freedom, for our own petty retribution and aggregation of power.

Lest we forget, we are a nation of patriots. Patriotism is not simply accepting and going along, it is fighting things which are wrong, no matter how 'legal'. It is a truism that all laws are 'legal'... but not all laws are correct, nor just, nor moral.

Patriots stood, fighting against that shadow, against that wrong, from the beginning of our nation. Men with the most to lose from the fight, and loosing gladly the chains of others, at their own expense. Are we, as human beings, so much superior to they? Are we so much inferior? No, we are the same stock, the same blood, and such could never be borne by a free man.

We know our directions, but we must learn our freedoms. Look deep into the works of the past, the works of your ancestors. Remember your fathers, your grandfathers, brothers fighting against brothers, people fighting against the imposition of a foreign government abusive to the ends of freedom and society... and remember who you are, and recognize your own rights and exercise them.

Ask yourselves how much of the Declaration of Independence applies today. Look into the Federalist 26, about the military powers granted to Congress and the President. Look into the federalist 57, the federalist 84. Seek deep into the Federalist 44, about the abuses and usurpations of the rights and ancient law.

Then ask yourself if you can, in conscience, remain idle, remain silent, when any other has their rights stripped, their dignity removed... and ask yourselves how further impositions upon your rights might succeed when all the old have simply made the problems worse for us.

It is time, and high time, we took to the polls, and removed all of those incumbents in office... changing the guard for our nation when our old guard has grown lax. Military and civilian alike, people of all colors, all races, all belong to the human race, and all people can see the hurt, feel the pain, that our economic policies and impositions upon the rights of the people have caused.

It is high time for a change... but when neither of the candidates offer true change, but only more impositions, is it not time to choose a candidate that would lessen the restrictions, remove the impositions of government, and to, with a steady hand, do what is needed to return the government to the purpose of its foundation, that of the service of the people to which it belongs?

Think, and think deeply upon these things... for each and every one of you are responsible for what next comes. The vote is coming... and it is up to you to ensure your votes are counted.

In our world of vote fraud, electronic voting, and no-paper-trail voting, how can we guarantee, however, that our votes will even be counted properly?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is up to the county... and the state... so changes there as well are quite important.

And if those changes fail, if those powers and usurpations continue, the nation itself has already fallen, and it is our purpose, our job, our oath, and our duty to return it to the powers with which it was instituted, and for the purposes of restoring the constitution, and the federal government, to being in line with being the servant of the people of the United States.
Read more!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Politics summed up:

It's manure. We know it's manure, but we have a choice of the type of manure. We've got one flavor of manure (from donkeys) and a flavor from elephants. Then we get to choose if the manure is pork fried, or boiled with pork.

Meanwhile, America is sitting on the fence, wishing that the manure wouldn't be served, but each voter more worried about getting fed the type of manure that they hate more. So one side will vote against the other side, by choosing the one that they hate least. Meanwhile, over in the corner, the constitutional/libertarian candidates may be full of manure, but at least it is a different flavor, which everyone is scared of. It might not even be manure at all, but people are too worried that voting for the one not offering manure will mean they end up with their least favorite variety of manure.

So, rather than voting for the potential of not having manure, both sides vote for the manure they know, and hate less, than the manure the opposing main side offers... and so manure spreads all over.

Maybe it's time to look around and admit we're being fed manure, rather than pretending it's filet mingnon, or spinach, which is at least good for you and somewhat similar in appearance. It doesn't matter how you bake, boil, or fry it, manure covered in pork fat is still manure.

It doesn't matter which animal it comes from, it's all manure, and pretending it's not and holding your nose while you eat it isn't really helping you get your needs met.

For the full impact of this article, simply replace 'manure' with the more common name for the substance.

Thank you and have a nice day,
I'm Tried By Conscience, and I approve of this message.
Read more!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The end of the constitution... and nobody blinked.

The nature of habeas corpus was quite clear under the constitution... the Federalist papers were quite clear on the subject.
The federalist 44

Independent of those which relate to the structure of the government, we find the following: Article 1, section 3, clause 7 "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law." Section 9, of the same article, clause 2 "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Clause 3 "No bill of attainder or ex-post-facto law shall be passed." Clause 7 "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." Article 3, section 2, clause 3 "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed." Section 3, of the same article "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." And clause 3, of the same section "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted." It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with any which are to be found in the constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex-post-facto laws, and of TITLES OF NOBILITY, TO WHICH WE HAVE NO CORRESPONDING PROVISION IN OUR CONSTITUTION, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone,1 in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man of life, says he, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government." And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas-corpus act, which in one place he calls "the BULWARK of the British Constitution."2





I can say nothing else.
Read more!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Remember... the beginning of the dream.




Remember who you are.. and why you are. Remember what was lost, then gained. We cannot fight this in a spirit of hate, but in a spirit of compassion for all our fellow men. Our government has turned its back on us... but it is still our government. Perhaps it is time to remind our government the reason for which it was created, instituted, and upheld.

Before we lack the power of remonstrance and remediation, let us use those powers.. and should they fail, remember what was said in the Federalist 26. Remember the chart, and course of the Federalist Papers, as they laid out the future, and the reasons for our government.. and look to what is lost... before it is lost forever.

Sometimes truth comes from the strangest places. If you want to know the truth... want to know what happened to our country, turn to the past. It is lots of reading, but read the federalist 26, the federalist 57, the federalist 44. Read the federalist 84. This is a start. This is your key to understanding who you are, why you feel like you've lost control over your world. it is why we wonder where our country is going, where it is headed.

Why does your government lie to you? Often it is out of the best of intentions, the intention to preserve and protect. The government, however, forgets it is not a parent, and forgets that, as much as it might wish to protect, we must make our own errors in some instances.

And we must pay their price... not asking others to do so, not turning away from the cost. My oath is to the Constitution. It is, and must always be, not just to the paper, which is meaningless without the spirit, but the spirit and intent as well.

I may die.. but that spirit will live on, so long as any heart beats and yearns to be free.

That is the fatal flaw, after all, to tyranny. Mankind is bred, and born, and has some innate, curious power, that desires more. That emptiness inside you, that hopelessness, that thing, that spark for which you're searching... is your own self-determination. Your evaluation of yourself as an actor, you feel lacking, out of control. You see, not for wisdom, but for temporal things.. and often don't even know what you're seeking when you ask for wisdom.

Freedom is not something that can be legislated into place, nor taken. It is something that is innate, something pre-existing our government, living before our constitution, before our civilization. It burns in the hearts of men. When they try to take it away, it never leaves.

It cannot. It's borne inside of you, not the trappings you see outside. It's self-determination, and learning to control one's own self, rather than anything around you. Real power is calm, quiet, and deep. The ocean may spawn the hurricane, but the hurricane can never spawn the ocean. Over time, even the stones wear away before that power, even the earth trembles beneath its touch. It is self-mastery.

For the patriot, the tools are there, as they always were. It is the act of patriotism to brave the abuse and punishment, an act of courage to choose your path, in spite of the costs to yourself, and your family.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It was we the people who established the government, not the government that established the people. When the bonds placed upon the government's trust are broken, and the trust shattered, is the government still just, or an establishment that can be preserved?

Ask yourselves, how many of the aspects of the Declaration of Independence is our government in violation of?

And how much of our Constitution has fallen in its grip?

What is to be done about it? that's up to you. I cannot help you further, you must chart your own course. I can say, however, that your latitude and longitude can be found in the writings of the Federalists and Antifederalists, in the Constitutional Congress and the speeches of Patrick Henry, James Madison, and the works of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson.

The course which we have followed can be charted by those works... the origin, then the permutations on our path with the Civil War, and the acts creating the Federal Reserve, the Emergency powers of 1933's Farm Bill.

The truth is plain... if you will just look for it.
Read more!

Friday, October 10, 2008

Thursday, October 9, 2008

There are monsters...

The government loves its fear, and yes, there are monsters out there. Monsters waiting to take you, break you, and use you for their own will. When we look out into the darkness, what do we see? What do we hear? Is it that bump in the night? It gives us a thrill, the sound of metal clanking on metal. The old ghost stories of the past come forward in our mind, and we find ourselves with an atavistic dread rising from our hindbrain, cold hands, and sweaty fingers.

Fear is one of the more powerful emotions, perhaps the most powerful. Fear moves us, binds us, breaks us down and leaves us seeking for the protection of someone larger, and stronger. Oh yes, there are monsters in the night... but like some teenager's 'snipe hunting parties', often the monsters are created for a purpose.

We hear all the stories, all the grim details, of how this person was murdered, and talk about the growing crime waves, the massive sensationalism sweeping across our conscience, and designed to bring back that atavistic dread. We hear about the sex offenders in the neighborhood, the drug problems, the problems with children murdering their own parents. We're inundated constantly with fear, and hate. If it's not the Koreans, it's the Russians, the terrorists, the Iraquis, the Iranians. Maybe it's the Christians, the Moslems, oh, wait, look, it's those polygamists. Umm, we were wrong, it's obviously Wall Street. Your retirement is gone! Oh no, I'm sorry! No, I didn't break that, it was the high-flying wall street execs.

We look around and see the increasing numbers of crimes and problems rolling through our country, but don't see that we're actually suffering less crime per capita. We hear the constant inundation of stupidity, coupled with horrific cases, but ignore that we're far more numerous.

We've gone in the last thirty years from a fairly private, freedom-oriented nation, with communities knit with common interest, into a 'security-driven' bunch of people with their heads in the sand, fearful of the next bullet. Is it any wonder our children feel alienated, when we won't let them go out and play? Is it any surprise that gangs find that disaffection from society, and draw the people in, then won't let the children go on pain of death?

We look at our bulging prison systems and scream for more protection, more blocking of the prisoners, even while more and more people are taken from the streets, and not given any kind of trial, nor any kind of defense. We look out the window and say "at least it's not me!". Oh yes, there are monsters in the world...

But what is their face? What is their shape? The fears that drive the country are not from the actions of any individual, but actions taken in a pattern, designed to drive the country into a frenzy of fear. Rumours, stories, misdirection and nonsense crowd our channels of information, and more, and more, that fear grows. We fear our government, we fear our neighbor, we fear our police force, we fear our national guard. Fear drives us. It directs us. But what direction does it direct us?

When we look at the sources of those fears, from 'true crime' shows to 'reality shows' which bear little resemblance to truth, or to reality, the evening news which claims a rising tide of crime and a greater social burden, and then look at the statistics gathered by the the Federal, state, and by the Canadian databases, is it really rising all that much? Some varieties of crime are rising... financial fraud, identity theft, bad checks, theft, both petty and grand, drug trades.. but what is the truth?

Where does all the inundation of fear rise from?

When you get to the core of it, people are afraid... but not always afraid of what they think they fear. Not all can admit the fears. We look at a world which seems to have gone mad... our promises of a safe retirement, gone, our investments into the future, gone. The college money we saved for our children, gone. Many of the people responsible, however, go on to retire very well. We feel anger... and hopelessness.

We look out into the shadows of the night and start attributing every bump, every clang, every crash to the monsters which we can see, and think we can do something about. The more fearful the people grow, the greater the backlash against those monsters.

But are they truly the monsters one needs to fear? Does the Department of Justice, and Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police, have reasons to lie about the reoffense rates of sex offenders to make them seem low? They get paid no more, nor less, for their studies, they have no vested interest in promulgating lies, nor do they have any vested interest in making the facts fit theories. Should we, however, take a look at congress, and the rhetoric, at the media, and their reporting, one would think that every offender is ready to pounce strangers at the drop of a hat.

But do they have a vested interest? Well, if one considers that the government is a stronger 'being' than the people, and the people look to the government for protection now, rather than grasping the responsibility in their own hands.. yes. People will cling to the government, adding scrap after scrap of armor, until the being they look to for protection is nigh invulnerable.

But what happens when the government is unassailable? Too often what was protecting turns to destruction. In Germany, in the 30s, there was an economic emergency. The Bolshevik Communists were in the country, and were perceived as a threat. To combat this danger, after the Reichstag fire, the enabling act was passed, passing further power from the hands of the Reichstag into the hands of the ruler. One of these powers was control of the finances of the government. Before too long, the emergency powers removed the Reichstag, after the death of Hindenburg. Attacks on 'antisocials, homosexuals, and sex offenders' became common after the civil rights of the people were removed under those emergency powers. The age of consent was raised to 21, and the church was promoted as the only measure of morality.

Then came a shining hope for the people of Germany... the racial segregation, distributing the Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto, among other places, where they could live their lives without interference, and the German people could live free of their taint. Meanwhile, the government was painting them more and more as demons, claiming that they were robbing from the people.

The 'resettlement in the east' was begun, and armed resistance only really began after the escape of people from Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. So the Warsaw ghetto was burned, blown up block by block, and 'cleansed'.

Meanwhile the people of Germany lived mostly unaware of the deaths of millions, living in fear of being taken away themselves, while they labored under the National Socialists and tried to eke out a living... the slaughter of 'defectives' and those felt to be 'detrimental to the whole' was sanctioned by 'reason' and brought in by religion and fear. Nobody wanted to believe what was going on. Even today, some still disbelieve... and some have blocked it from their memory, for being too troubling.

Fear is powerful, and there are monsters in the night... be wary of building a bigger monster to fight them. They often turn on you.
Read more!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Our National Chernobyl

Power, by its nature, is a curious thing, a thing which reacts within itself to grow ever more powerful. It can be likened to a nuclear reactor, with its prerequisite control systems. Like a reactor, that power is dangerous, and can even be deadly when improperly applied.

Power, under the US constitution, has numerous control systems. From the separation of powers (control rods) to the oversight (failsafes) and backup systems (safeties). There are cooling systems for the reactor, as well, the public opinion, which can heat up or cool down the reaction, and drives the power.

But what happens when, one after another, the control rods are withdrawn, and the power of the legislative branch mixes with that of the executive? As the control rods move out, the system increases in power, exponentially. Eventually, it reaches a point of criticality, at which point the reaction flashes out of control.

Those separations are vital in the constitution, as in the government. If we are not to suffer a meltdown, we must have the safeguards against it.

We have numerous automatic systems, control nodes that are supposed to cut out and quench the reaction when it grows too intense. One of those is the power of the people, and the voice of the vote, to replace the fuel rods within the reactor (senators, representatives, and the President). Another of those is the power of impeachment, between the representatives, the senate, and the president. A third is the power of the Supreme Court to interpret what the contract of the Constitution actually was.

But what happens when the system breaks down? What happens, say, when one section of the reactor grows too powerful? If we take fuel from the congress, and add it to the pile of the executive, do we not add disproportionate power to that section of the reaction? Does it not negate the use of that control rod that quelches the reactions between those powers?

Let us take the separation between the two houses, the representative house, and the senate. The senate represents the states, the house of representatives, the people. The will of the people drives the reactor, in theory, and the senate recognizes the needs of the state, to moderate the will of the people. By slowing down the reactive force, the senate actually prevents the House of Representatives from growing too hot, and initiating further reactions in the President.

But what happens when you remove the control rods of separation between the two houses, and the constitutional rules that require a majority for any business? Each control rod reduces the control of the system. When they are removed, as well, the reaction runs more feircely.

That is when the automatic systems should engage.. but what if they are cut out? What if, in the reaction, the executive branch chooses to lift the control rods beyond their safety limit? While the people boil, the system gains more and more power within the fuel, and the interaction between the three grows incredibly more powerful, exponentially with each moment of reaction.

What happens, however, when the control systems are attempted to be reapplied? Well, in the case of a reactor, good engineering design takes over. In the case of a government? That's questionable. The government tends to swell to fill the gaps. The control rods have to be forced into the remaining gaps, and can no longer do the job they were intended to do. The automatic systems should kick in at this point, moving the fuel apart. If they were disabled, and the oversight of the people disabled so the coolant can no longer circulate (the government no longer respects the people) the coolant continues to grow hotter, and hotter. The reaction intensifies still more, granting more power to the system than it is capable of handling.

Eventually, in a reactor, the system melts down, often explosively as the coolant boils off, then the system reaches full criticality, and the runaway reaction devestates the reactor chamber (the country) and scatters radioactive particles all over the area, and anything surrounding it.

In the government, it's far more subtle.. the people grow more and more afraid of the government, the stacks of fuel are stacked more and more into one section of the government, as the control rods separating them cease to matter. The automatic systems in this case cannot cope, as they were not designed for a system where the stacks of fuel were all in the hands of the executive. The executive begins to radiate power at a faster and faster rate, pulling in the fuel from the other systems, which become less and less effectual at resisting it.

Eventually the fuel begins to radiate so hot, that the power production peaks, and a criticality event occurs. This is the declaration of a state of emergency, and the removal of the constitutional safeguards for the coolant. The coolant (people) no longer cool the reaction of the government, and the power continues to build until the original framework can no longer handle the pressure... and the reaction runs away, destroying the equipment, burning away the people, and the foundation of government crumbles under the assault.

It is human nature to wish more power... it is wisdom to moderate it. It is human nature to believe that we know the right things for mankind, and thus, it would not hurt to pull the control rods a bit further. After all, we're in control, right?

This is exactly what was thought at Chernobyl. The head engineer felt that he knew the system, and disregarded the requirements of the test that was being done. He closed down the reactor, then when he brought it back up, it was not operating as he thought it should. Due to the introduction of xenon (a neutron-blocking material) the system could not generate the power. Nothing occurred when he pulled the control rods, so the manuals were pulled, necessetating the lockout of the control computer. As the power increased, slowly, with the rods fully out, eventually it overcame the moderation potential of the xenon, and then the reaction became instantly more powerful. As the control rods were reinserted, something else odd happened.. the tips of the rods displaced the coolant, and provided better neutron paths for reaction, causing the system to seize, and there was no stopping it.

Perhaps we should stop our governmental chernobyl before it irradiates the countryside, and costs lives, livelihoods, and poisons our lands for centuries to come.

Let us return the safeguards, and safeties to the people. Do we not owe that to future generations?

Chernobyl is silent now.. a monument to a grave mistake. Let us not make the same mistakes in our government, or the generations to come will not forgive us, either.


Read more!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Congratulations.

I wish to congratulate the Congress... in its creation of an autocracy. For violation after violation of the spirit, and the letter of the Constitution. For raping, pillaging, and burning the very nation they were elected to represent.

Senators, you represent your state's interests... but that does not give you the right, nor the power to subjugate the other states to your will. Autocratic exercise of that power, by 'unanimous consent', with no vote, is no less dictatorial than any of the dictates of Saddam Hussein, and no less a terrorist act against the nation than the events of 9/11.

Sad to say that it has come to this. Is it any wonder that less than four percent of those surveyed approve of the actions of congress? That's getting to be a mighty damned small margin, ladies and gentlemen... those of you who still believe in the Constitution, and the founding principles behind it, look at your comrades, look at what they have done! They have subverted, and destroyed the very nature of the system that gave them the power... and you, in your silence are complicit to their actions.

Your house rules have failed. Your senate rules have failed, and we no longer have a representative republic, we have a ham-handed group of dictators running the country through trickery and deceit who have neither respect for, nor any love or loyalty for, the very principles that they were sworn to uphold and protect.

Congratulations on ushering in dictatorship in our country. Congratulations for creating a situation where we, as a people, have become more and more the servants of a government that was instituted to serve our needs. And congratulations on the storm that is rapidly rising within our country.

You have created a storm where insurrection is rapidly becoming the word on the street... who knows what spark might set it off? The realization that their vote counts for nothing? That your promises count for naught at all, that their desires, and their rights count for less than toilet paper in your lust for power?

That is neither the principles nor the practice behind the government that you were instituted in, to serve the people. You, as congressmen, are our representation to the government, in the house, our state's representation in the senate. You are the guardians we imposed upon our will, and you have failed.

You have failed in such a spectacular, and blatant fashion, and in such a willful and malicious means, that it is entirely culpable, and further, those persons responsible have placed the onus of title 18 of the US code straight upon your heads, with willful and malicious action to attack the rights of voters, the rights of citizens, resulting in some cases in death, which is a felony, for which the maximum sentence is death. There is no congressional immunity from this.

The forefathers foresaw this. The federalist papers discussed it. The Federalist 44 discussed the nature of attainder, the nature of erosion of rights and immunities of the nation. The federalist 57 discussed the very means by which you could be recognized, and you tore all of that down. The federalist 84 discussed these things again, and laid down the track for the nation to follow, and warned against these usurpations.

And you have broken all of the warnings given in the beginning. Bravo, ladies and gentlemen. Bravo, Congress. You've ransacked the country long enough, and it's time to be brought to heel and remember whom you serve, and to be held responsible for both your inaction, and your actions that, by their very nature, rob the entirety of the people, for generations to come, and due to your ex-post-facto and attainder rulings, this generation for actions already paid for by the rule of law.

The erosion of the writ of habeas corpus as well can be placed at your feet. The destruction of any reasonable measure of representation stands at your side. Before you stands a shield of 'congressional immunity' and rules and regulations designed to promulgate and continue your excess and waste. The decimation of the Bill of rights, natural rights simply recognized by the government, and the guards thereof, can be squarely placed on your shoulders.

You might want to look at your masters in the shadows as well.. for they will just as easily plunge a dirk in your back as assist you, after you have betrayed your citizens, and your states.

Look to the future you have written, and weep. It is written there, amongst the 900+ cubic meters of code. Look, not just to what you have done, but what you have done in conjunction with others in the past. Look at what you have lost, and stolen from the people. Trillions of dollars in debt, hundreds of trillions in money made up out of thin air, assets created by fairy dust and happy thoughts.

Short sales of stocks leading to the financial crisis, speculation and rampant spending, inflationary printing, prohibited under the constitution as implemented, emergency powers eroding the barriers between the legislature and the executive, emergency powers stealing the power of the judiciary and the states, and by insidious reason considering it to be virtuous and goodly, because it was necessary and proper to institute these laws for the good of the people.

Where is that good now? It is travelling into the very pockets of those that have robbed the people, and that you share your homes, your offices, and your congressional seat with.

Congratulations. May you get what's coming to you, good or ill.
Read more!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Requiem for a dream.

I am not one to grow angry easily.. but this fire has gone beyond a simple burning into an all-out inferno. The actions of the Congress have gone beyond simple abuses into an all-out refusal to operate under the conditions and needs of the people, and the states. Such a refusal is a direct violation of due process, and is outside the powers of the Constitution itself, which I am sworn to uphold and preserve.

By what power do they pass bills with no debate, no vote, no discussion? In under a grand total of one minute, then redact the record with information prepared beforehand?

Is this democracy, or dictatorship? Is it so grand and good an idea that the ideals of republicanism, and democracy cannot be seen nor heard within the House of Representatives, and the Senate?

Have we grown so unimportant to our congressmen and senators, that no other states other than those employing sneaky tactics in the judiciary should be given a chance to pass bills?

By what power, what warrant, has the Senate and Congress come to this? By what power can they delegate legislation to the Executive, by what right dare they to seize the monetary supply and mandate the bills to nationalize the financial system, after the house of Representatives, representing the people have rejected it?

Yet they have done so! By what power dare they to seize the rights of individual citizens, and by writ abrogate their very humanity into a footnote in the law, and subject them to extreme, and cruel treatment, and by what farce of logic can they claim these actions to still be regulatory, when they dare not place the actions before the House, or Senate, for open vote or open debate?

Is the common good more important than individual rights? Is it not true that individual rights comprise the core of the common good? If these rights are not respected, rights which were mandated, not by government, but by a recognition of ancient proportions, a recognition of a mandate beyond government, can we still say that the powers which were founded upon the basis of those rights are still valid, still proportional, and as their expansion ate further into those rights, still Constitutional?

It is in vain after these occurrences that we continue to indulge the House, the Senate, and the Executive with their control over the Judiciary in the creation of a monopolistic, autocratic, and dictatorial government based in the powers of corporate entities rather than the powers ceded by the people in the interests of the common good.

People have had enough. What good is it to be able to get a loan, when we cannot afford fuel for transportation, cannot afford food nor housing, cannot even perform the basic functions of a civil society, down to the most basic of human needs? By what power, what writ do they accomplish such things? It certainly is not in the Constitution.

By what power do they mandate the creation of 'registries' that are neither regulatory nor civil, but punitive to the core, and admittedly so, glossed over in a veneer of fiction so thin one could peel it off with a fingernail?

By what power do they disenfranchise their people, disarm them, disregard their will, their vote, their property, and place them in economic servitude for generations?

Did we not cede them that power in the beginning, and did they not create, sustain, and uphold an oath to make that power subservient to the will of the people, the constitution, and furthermore, on the conditions that these rights be never infringed in the least form, and that the power must remain subservient to the people?

It is in vain to continue in this matter, for they have shown their true colors... like the Redcoats of the past, they are come to bind upon the people of the United States chains, chains of law, chains of writ, and later, chains of steel.

I care not what course others may take. I have my direction, I have it by oath and conscience, and I will defend the Constitution until my dying breath, from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The constitution, however, is more than a document. It is a spirit, an intent, and a contract written in the best intentions of men. It was, and remains a contract designed with the intention, and utmost purpose, of preventing the majority from removing any rights from the minority, as well as providing for the rights of man, by providing for their needs for a common defense.

In these things it has utterly, completely, and recklessly failed. In the lust for power, the Congress, the Senate, and the Executive and Judiciary have disregarded, and lost the spirit, the conviction, and the nature of the constitution, and replaced it with Dictatorship.

It is enough.. and time enough to condemn them utterly for what they have done.
Read more!