What We Learned At the Debates Part 2

Concentrating on the 2nd Amendment while ignoring the others feeds right into the hands of those that wish to oppress us.  Does anyone think that we are freer today than we were in 1968?

And yet the NRA has taken in untold billions of dollars to “protect” our gun rights, the Republicans have taken in similar amounts and elected “good” folks, the Democrats have taken in just as much and claim to be anti-gun.

Yet, when the Republicans had majorities in both Congress and the Presidency, nothing changed for the better.

When the Democrats had majorities in both Congress and the Presidency, nothing changed that dramatically.

Except for a few things.

Folks that owned stock in gun and ammo companies made lots of money.

Both political parties took in lots of donations for and against the gun cause.

The NRA got rich.

While we were fixated on the 2nd Amendment, the same folks that we elected destroyed most of the rest of the Constitution.

Look at what the National Defense Authorization Act has done. Ostensibly, this is the law that funds the Department of Defense.

Yet it allows for the use of military reservists to be first responders in support of Governors in the event of “terrorist attacks” along with a lot of other reasons. And we all know that we are being painted with the terrorist paint brush regularly.

Section 1021 of the NDAA bill allowed for the “indefinite detention of American citizens without due process at the discretion of the President”. Although some in Congress have attempted to remove this provision, it still exists.

The 2014 NDAA also includes a new provision that appears to bolster the national security surveillance state. Section 1071(a) authorizes the Defense Department to “establish a center to be known as the ‘Conflict Records Research Center’.”

Using the dangerously broad terms now typical of national security policy parlance, the Conflict Records Research Center enables the DoD to compile a “digital research database including translations and to facilitate research and analysis of records captured from countries, organizations, and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.” Who gets to be a surveillance target — the specific remit of “now or once hostile” — is troublingly ill-defined and unrestricted.

Run down the list of violations of the constitution on this one. The so-called Patriot Act is full of examples of constitutional abuse.

It’s reasonable to have different opinions on the actions of Edward Snowden. Some hail him as a hero, others as a traitor.

What we can’t disagree on is the troublesome actions that he revealed.

NSA sweeping up American’s phone records.

The British spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), taps fiber optic cables all over the world to intercept data flowing through the global Internet, we learned. The GCHQ works closely with the NSA, sharing data and intelligence in a program that’s codenamed Tempora.

XKeyscore is a tool the NSA uses to search “nearly everything a user does on the Internet” through data it intercepts across the world. In leaked documents, the NSA describes it as the “widest-reaching” system to search through Internet data.

The NSA has at its disposal an elite hacker team codenamed “Tailored Access Operations” (TAO) that hacks into computers worldwide, infects them with malware and does the dirty job when other surveillance tactics fail.

It’s not just about Internet data though. The NSA, following its unofficial motto of “collecting it all,” intercepts 200 million text messages every day worldwide through a program called Dishfire.

The power to take property without due process continues to be abused by local, state and federal law enforcement officials. Asset forfeiture is a horror that is repeated daily across the US.

In America today, you do not have the right to say whatever you want. If you say the wrong thing on a blog or a website it can have dramatic consequences.

In America today, you do not have the right to do raise your own children as you see fit.

In America today, you do not have the right to grow whatever food you want and you do not have the right to eat whatever food you do grow.

In America today, you do not have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

In America today, you do not have a right to privacy. In fact, you should expect that everything that you do is watched, tracked, monitored and recorded.

If you doubt any of the statements above, just check out the examples posted below.

The following are 11 signs that Americans who love liberty and freedom should watch their backs….

#1 A 55-year-old man in Arizona was recently ordered to turn in all his guns because of things that he wrote on his blog. Fortunately, after WorldNetDaily covered the story there was an outpouring of outrage and the order was overturned, but what would have happened if WorldNetDaily had not covered the story?

#2 According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the nation to question them about the vaccination status of their children.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey(NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by “NORC at the University of Chicago” and that households should “have your child’s immunization records handy when answering our questions.”

#3 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate “in monthly anti-terrorism drills”. The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends….“Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.”

#4 According to licensed private investigator Angela V. Woodhull, hospitals are increasingly using “guardianship” to strip elderly Americans of their liberty and to rapidly drain their bank accounts. The following is one story that Woodhull included in a recent article….Ginger Franklin, Hendersonville, Tennessee, fell down the stairs in her condo and suffered a bump on her head.  She was declared “temporarily mentally incapacitated” and a guardian was appointed through the courts.  Within six weeks, the guardian had sold Franklin’s home, car, furniture, and drained her bank account.  Today, Franklin has her freedom back, but she is having to start all over.

#5 In a sign of just how far individual liberty in the United States has declined, a judge in Wisconsin has actually ruled that citizens do not have a right to grow and eat whatever foods they want to. The following is a short excerpt from his recent decision….

1) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;

2) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;

3) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;

4) no, the Zinniker Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State’s police power;

5) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume foods of their choice;

#6 The freedom to raise our pets as we want to is also being greatly curtailed in many areas of the country. For example, a new law in St. Louis would require nearly all dogs and cats to be sterilized and microchipped….Board Bill 107 would require all pet owners to spay or neuter their dogs and cats and microchip them for identification. Those who don’t want to sterilize their pets would be assessed a fee of $200 per year.

#7 Whenever any politician suggests that we should “suspend elections”, that should be a major red flag. Former North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue made national headlines when she made the following statement….“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover“

#8 Many Americans have complained about the horrible treatment that they are receiving at U.S. airports, but now the TSA is bringing their brand of “security” to many other locations throughout America as well.  TSA “VIPR teams” now conduct approximately 8,000 “unannounced security screenings” a year at subway stations, bus terminals, ports and highway rest stops.

#9 Many of our public schools are now being run like prisons. In fact, in many areas of the country, little kids are being publicly arrested by police in their own classrooms and are being marched out of their schools in handcuffs.

#10 If you think that anything that you do on the Internet is private, you should guess again. It has recently come out that Facebook continues to track most of the websites that you visit even after you have logged out of Facebook.

In addition, law enforcement agencies all over the globe are increasingly viewing social media as a law enforcement tool. For example, the NYPD recently created a special “social media” unit dedicated to looking for criminals on Facebook and Twitter.

Also, many large organizations are now setting us very sophisticated systems that keep track of what is being said about them online and who is saying it. For example, the new “Social Media Monitoring Solution” being developed by the Federal Reserve will identify “key bloggers” and monitor “billions of conversations” about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.

#11 The U.S. government is ramping up efforts to have all of us watch one another and to report any sign of “suspicious activity” to them immediately. But exactly what does “suspicious activity” entail?  According to a shocking document obtained by Oath Keepers, the FBI has really broadened their definition of “suspicious activity”.  According to the document, “suspicious activity” now includes….

-paying with cash

-missing a hand or fingers

-“strange odors”

-making “extreme religious statements”

-“radical theology”

-purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers

-purchasing meals ready to eat

 

-purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks

According to WorldNetDaily, this document is part of a “series of brochures” that will be distributed “to farm supply stores, gun shops, military surplus stores and even hotels and motels.”

Who knew that the in 1997, the US has implemented an International Building Code in every city, county and state in the United States?

These are just a few examples.

The point isn’t the examples. The point is that there is a plethora of government intrusion into lots of people’s lives.  Folks that could be our allies in the fight for liberty.

We must transition our 2nd amendment passion to a support for all liberty.

Freedom and Liberty need to be our rallying cry. Those who wish to control our lives work hard to keep every oppressed group separate.  If we were to embrace some or all of the other oppressed folks, our numbers would grow.

Take a look at the oppression of liberty, particularly on things that you don’t like. Liberty means genuine tolerance, even for things that you don’t like.  Many folks for example don’t like cigarettes, but the government oppression of smokers is huge.

Freedom is freedom, no matter what sub part of it we wish to fight for.

What We Learned At the Debates

I’m not a fan of Presidential politics, so I pretty much ignore the so-called debates for both parties. Last weekend they had a debate on Saturday night.  We were out of town and stayed at a hotel that had very limited channel choices.  When that happens, I end up roaming up and down the channels to try and find anything that might be interesting.  I stumbled across the debates.

The moderator quoted former defense secretary Gates, who said that the presidential candidates all were ignoring the threats to our national security and needed to come up with defense strategies for the various countries, regimes and forces that were real and potential threats to the US.

The moderator then went down the row of candidates and asked them to address Gates’ comments. Each of them proceeded to talk about how they would employ our military in a myriad of different ways.

Now, I really don’t like any of the GOP candidates, but with that said, I was incredibly disappointed that none of them addressed the notion that the defense department is not and shouldn’t be the first choice for foreign affairs activities. Once you decide that you need the defense department, all other options are done.  Diplomacy is best done with the threat of military action.  You can’t use military action as a threat to use diplomacy.

I realized as I was watching this, that we in the liberty movement are kind of the same. We see armed resistance as the ONLY method to achieve our goals.

Some of the reasoning for this is because of our own history.

Many of us are veterans and like most folks, we’re comfortable with what we know.

Many of us came to the movement because of the very real threats to the 2nd Amendment.

Guns are the common denominator for most of us.

The problem is that just like in foreign affairs, once you make the decision to solve your issues with force, it’s hard to de-escalate.

It becomes complete victory or total loss.

How do we accomplish change?

Change on the level of an entire country like ours requires some sort of rebellion; members of our society against its leaders.

Rebellion runs the gamut of something like the Tea Party movement or the 1% movement, all the way up to subversion and armed conflict.

For example, the rebellion may intend to extract limited political concessions unattainable through less violent means.

On the other extreme, the rebellion may intend to break away a portion of the nation from government control and establish an autonomous state within traditional ethnic or religious territorial bounds.

None of these has any guaranty of success.

Rebellions arise when the government is unable or unwilling to redress the demands of important social groups. Our government is very good at keeping social groups separate.  These groups are “pigeon-holed” into their particular needs, descriptions, beliefs, etc.  There is a reason why the media talks about black lives matter, white racists, gun owning subversives, left wingers, right wingers, evangelicals, atheists, etc.  It’s to cause us to focus on each other instead of the evil pervasiveness of our government.

Liberty is more than just the 2nd Amendment.  While we concentrate on the 2nd, our enemies are totally destroying the 1st through 9th Amendments.  The 10th has been ignored for well over a century.

In part 2, we’ll discuss how we can try to accomplish change, short of the bullet box.