"The One"

I received this piece in an e-mail, and have no idea of who wrote it, or of where it appeared. Unfortunately it’s far to long to fit into my column, for I think it’s quite appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in today. (Which it is of course, supposed to be.) I wish I could claim to be the author, as this guy's good!


“The One”

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America, having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One". He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed." And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said "We live in the greatest country in the world. With your help we change it"!! And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Change is good!"

Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!"

And then He said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody" And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Show us the money!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said, "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!"

Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas." And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"

Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, "Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with ACORN and your troubles are over!"

Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And the people said, "Hallelujah!!" And they made him King!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then "The One" said, "I am the "The One" - The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more..." And the people said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!" And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"

And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon "The One" and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built. And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

Idaho County

I’ve lived in Idaho County on and off, for roughly half of my life. The other half was spent in a number of states, and even in a few foreign countries thanks in part to the US Air Force. I’ve been to a few places that I liked, and a lot of places that I didn’t care for at all. Southern California was a pretty nice place… back in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Arizona wasn’t bad either, if you like living in a blast furnace. South Florida somewhat resembles a sauna in the summer, and is occupied by a liberal supply of swamps, snakes, and alligators, in the winter it’s a bit cooler, but infested with Yankee tourists. Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was quite beautiful before the developers and sub dividers arrived from California. Overseas I liked Germany just fine, and thought Norway was a fantastic place to visit. But back in the days when we still owned Wheelus Air Force Base, North Africa really didn’t impress me at all. (But we really outta consider making camel riding a rodeo event! It’s almost as much fun as riding a saddle bronc… for a couple of hours at a time!) Exotic Thailand was impressive and a great opportunity for an amateur photographer, while Laos has a lot of beautiful scenery along with some real friendly people, even if the neighbors do have a bad habit of shooting at American flyers.

I guess I’ve seen my share of the world through the years, and in comparison with Idaho I’ve seen bigger mountains, larger rivers, taller trees, more game animals, and sometimes a lot better weather. Funny though, I’ve never seen ‘em all in the same place, or at the same time. When opportunity knocked, I came back to Idaho, and Idaho County, because warts and all, this is my home. And we do seem to have more than our share of problems, mostly economic, and which I will, in my ever popular style, blame on “government”.

Back in the old days, when I was growing up around here, I really don’t remember anybody being homeless, or even “broke” as such, but it always seemed like money was in fairly short supply among most of the folks I knew. Dad was a logger, and while he was usually busy Mom had to work as well, and I noticed that the luxuries were generally few and far between. Today it seems that much the same situation exists among far to many of our citizens. In doing a little checking on county demographics, I found that the average yearly income in Idaho County is approximately $29,515, or about seventy percent of the national average of $41,994 per year, and that about a quarter of our citizens live below the national poverty level! While I wouldn’t expect a rural area to be quite as affluent as a high-tech urban area, that disparity does seem a bit much. From that twenty-nine thousand dollar average income we all pay… TAXES… city, county, state, and federal taxes, along with those of a wide assortment of taxing districts, and a few things I have yet to figure out as well. Taxes are of course the curse of just about everyone, with the exception of the politicians who get to spend all that money, and the folks that think “government” is supposed to take care of us. (Personally I think that if they want the government to take care of them, they can go ahead and work, send their paycheck to the IRS, and then try to subsist on food stamps. But that’s a story line for another day.)

Any government entity has to operate on the income from its tax base, which at state and federal level can be fairly good sized. Cities and counties on the other hand don’t have all that much income, and they still have to provide the services that their citizens demand. With that, they’re always looking for means by which they can improve their income, and some of those means are pretty innovative! (I believe it’s New York City that charges a fee for city tax forms, and then levies a tax on that fee!) Most communities aren’t quite that desperate I guess, and generally settle for little more than property taxes, sales taxes, and what have you. The greater the property value, the more money the community can take in, and thus spend. In our case, the county budget runs about twelve and a half million dollars per year, with the lion’s share of the money going to things like schools, roads, and the Sheriffs Department. It seems however that there are always a number of projects that have to be held in abeyance for a few years due to a lack of funds. With that, the county is always trying to attract new businesses that will build (taxable) factories and hire a lot of local people, thereby enlarging the tax base even more.

According to the US Census Bureau, our county consists of a total area of 8,502 square miles, of which, 8,485 square miles is land and 18 square miles of it is water. According to my calculator, 8,502 square miles comes out to 5,441,280 acres, of which the vast sum of 15% (or 816,192 acres) is private land, and thus taxable to support the rest of the county! The Nez Perce National Forest is located entirely within Idaho County, and comprises approximately 50% of the entire county land area. In addition we have parts of five other National Forests located in the county. That leaves four million, six hundred and twenty five thousand acres that “belong” to government, and who do not pay property taxes on said lands. With the Idaho County tax base working out to about $2 per acre of private land according to Idaho County Accessor James Zehner, along with whatever else he can find to tax. Instead of property taxes on forest lands, we get PILT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) funds from the feds every year. I realize that undeveloped forest land probably doesn’t have the same taxable value as producing farm land, but PILT pays the princly sum of thirty-two cents on the acre each year. (Incidently, Idaho received $25,831,812 in PILT funds for the entire state in 2008, and that has to be spread between all forty-four counties!)

The federal government has so far killed our timber industry, strangled our mining industry, and is now attacking our ranchers through their grazing allotments. The fledgling recreation industry that we so painfully started will quite likely be stillborn, thanks to forest road and trail closures. (So much for the “multiple use” of our public lands.) All this federal attention has hit the county tax base where it hurts, right square in the budget, and it’s not doing our employment situation any good either. In return, the feds send us our annual welfare check to the tune of 16% of what the rest of our land owners have to pay!

County Commissioner James Rockwell recently made comment that if the feds were “good neighbors” and paid the same tax rate per acre that the rest of us do, the county’s economic balancing act would be a whole lot simpler, and we wouldn’t need PILT money, Craig-Wyden funds, or any other federal handout. He’s quite right of course, but just how do we go about getting the feds to do that? They are after all busily robbing us blind… and like good little citizens we’re all standing around with a smile on our faces, and not doing a darn thing about it!

Secession?

Secession? The subject of last week’s edition of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s “Texas Straight Talk” took me by surprise, and aroused my curiosity as well. After all, any serious discussion of a state seceding from the Union has been somewhat unpopular in this country ever since Yankee bayonets enforced federal authority at Appomattox Courthouse nearly 150 years ago. Still, the subject has come up in the media any number of times in recent years, most recently when Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in comments following an anti-tax "TEA party" on April 16th, suggested that Texans might get so fed up with taxes and the federal government that they would want to leave the union. He never specifically advocated Texas breaking away from the United States, but even his mild comment was sufficient to trigger a firestorm of media reaction across the country, and once again screaming outrage from the liberal left.

To many in the United States, secession is much the same as treason and rebellion, a fact resulting from ignorance of the words real meaning. Yet the United States itself came about from an act of secession, in an era when secession and self determination were not only believed to be inalienable rights, but were practiced, often with mixed success. In North America, Virginia set the ball rolling in June of 1776 by declaring her independence from Great Britain. The twelve other colonies jointly declared their independence the following month. Still, most Americans generally associate secession only with the US Civil War, and usually think the issue was settled for all time. Yet even a cursory search of the internet finds that nearly half our states have secessionist movements active today! From New Hampshire to Hawaii, from Alaska to Texas, these groups are alive and well, and passionately pleading their cause. Oddly enough, Idaho isn’t one of those states with an active secessionist movement. All are rather small organizations naturally, but in some cases are quite vocal if nothing else. What are their chances of success? Slim I’d say, but keep in mind that only three percent of the American colonists actively planned, staged, and won their rebellion in 1776.

Today of course, we are “much more civilized” than our forbearers, and given the largess distributed by our benevolent federal government, we have no need to withdraw from our great union. Or at least that’s what we’re supposed to believe. It seems almost un-American to believe that the compact which holds the Union together might be sundered. Yet the right to secede is not denied us by the US Constitution, or by any State Constitution that I’m aware of! (I don’t think a state can be involuntarily kicked out either.) The framers of the constitution apparently assumed that if we join the Union voluntarily, we would have the right to withdraw from it if we so desire. With that, obviously, the next question would be… why would American citizens wish to secede from the union?

Man is a social creature after all, and has been since the dawn of the human race. People banded together in small groups in prehistoric times, they built tribal communities, and over time developed the system of government that gave rise to the modern nation state. Government is supposed to be the guarantor of greater peace, tranquility and health than might otherwise be obtainable. In theory it serves to protect property and rights, even though it does not grant or create them. John C. Calhoun in his “Disquisition on Government” expressed the view that; "although intended to protect and preserve society, has itself a strong tendency to disorder and abuse its powers, as all experience and almost every page of history testify.” What then are we to make of this fearful creation that we rely so heavily upon? How do we make government the servant of our needs, and avoid becoming servants of the government? Strangely enough, the framers of our constitution had the answer to that as well, when they very severely limited the powers of the Federal government. Federal powers were clearly described, and the individual states are guaranteed all other powers that are not specifically denied them. Unfortunately, since the end of the Civil War, the several states have quietly allowed the Federal government to assume many of those powers, a trend that does not seem to be ending.

The principle of “one man, one vote” refers to the fact that all citizens, regardless of where they reside, are entitled to equal legislative representation. Initially, the House of Representatives was apportioned by the population of each state. Thus, as the nation’s population grew, so did the number of seats in the house. When the House reached the unwieldy number of 435 members, the law was juggled as to apportion those seats in such a manner that voting power (and thus political authority) was retained by the densely populated urban states at the expense of the rural states. While we might think this is all well and fine, it completely overlooks the fact that the wishes and needs of urbanites are usually totally different from those of our rural citizens. One example of this disparity might be the stimulus program. While large amounts of money are being handed out to every state and most counties in the country, the larger cities are making out like bandits, which is great for the cities, but rather difficult for the ruralites in the country, who, making up around 48% of the population, are going to find themselves paying 48% of the bill. Keep in mind also that Mr. Obama’s budget will increase the national debt by more than that of President Reagan, both Bush’s, and Bill Clinton… combined. Where is either the justice or even the equality in that? Besides, with all that stimulus money being borrowed from China, what are we using for equity on that loan, our big cities perhaps, or maybe our countries natural resources that just happen to be located in rural areas? Or are we supposed to believe that Communist China is loaning us those trillions of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts? For all practical purposes this disparity might be considered as making us two distinct countries under the same flag!

There are always people who generally figure that their knowledge and ideas are superior to all others, and who like nothing better than to tell everyone else what to do. Government seems to be the natural home of these control freaks, where they can happily become mini-tyrants. On a small scale they can generally be ignored, but when they become “the government” with the power to enforce their radical ideas, they quickly disturb the peace of mind of everyone around! When the citizenry isn’t in agreement with the government, the army is always available to enforced obedience. Remember that our revolution was decided by force of arms, as was our civil war. All of our early day incipient rebellions fizzled out when faced by the US Army. The same situation exists today, considering that a mob of aroused citizens armed with hunting rifles isn’t going to last long when faced with an organized and disciplined army equipped with tanks, machine guns, and attack helicopters!

Secession? I think I’ll keep calling for a voter’s rebellion instead…

RS 2477

Albert Einstein is often credited with saying “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” Old Al was a pretty smart guy I think, and the US Government seems determined to prove him right once again. More specifically, the feds are once again attempting to take our rights away from us. With Congress doing little more than sitting on their hands, and with the assistance of the “Republic of the 9th Circuit Court”, the bureaucrats are following an agenda that could well have been written by extremists from the Sierra Club. And from all appearances they will very likely succeed. More specifically, we face the imminent loss of our RS 2477 roads to bureaucratic decree. Many of us will remember the escapade a few years ago wherein the Idaho County Commissioners “wasted” our tax money in having all known RS 2477 roads in the county tracked down, inventoried, and mapped. At the time I stayed out of the donnybrook, mostly because I had no real idea of what these roads were, or why they are so important. As it turns out, the commissioners were right, while the nay-sayers (along with the fence sitters) were wrong.

In July of 1866, Congress, realizing that transportation was crucial to the development of the western territories, passed a one-line law that granted “the right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses.” (A one line law… My, how times have changed!) It granted to counties and states a right-of-way across public lands whenever a highway was built. Remember that nearly everything was public land at those days, and that every farm, ranch, mine, homestead, and burgeoning town needed a road or trail for public access. This statute, commonly called “R.S. 2477,” remained in effect for 110 years, with most of the roads, railroads, and waterways in the West being established under that authority. During that period of our history, national policy promoted the development of public lands into private (productive) hands, with R.S. 2477 rights-of-way being a key part of that policy. Unlike any other federal land statute, the establishment of R.S. 2477 rights of way demanded no formalities: no entry, no application, no license, no patent, and no deed from the feds; and no formal act of public acceptance on the part of the states or localities involved. The Supreme Court of Utah noted 75 years ago that R.S. 2477 “was a standing offer of a free right of way over the public domain,” and the grant may be accepted “without formal action by public authorities.” It’s also interesting to note that in the common use language of the time, a “highway” was nearly any route by which people, livestock, or materials were moved from point A to point B. They included but were not limited to roads, trails, footpaths, railways, waterways, and even the occasional goat path! If it could be traveled over, it was a legal “highway”, with Revised Statute 2477 granting the status of a permanent right-of-way. Even more crucial, those rights-of-way were held by the individual state and county governments, not by the federal government, and particularly not by any federal land management agency. By Congressional intent, the feds have absolutely no authority over those routes. Nor do they have any responsibility for maintaining them.

In 1976 Congress abandoned its development approach to public lands, and adopted a preference for retaining public lands in federal ownership, with, at the insistence of various environmental groups, an emphasis on conservation and preservation. As part of that statutory change, Congress repealed R.S. 2477. There could be no new R.S. 2477 rights of way after 1976. But as Congress repealed the original act, it specified that any “valid” R.S. 2477 rights of way “existing on the date of approval of this Act” (October 21, 1976) would continue in effect. The difficulty is in understanding what this all means, with the BLM apparently thinking that “if it ain’t paved, it ain’t in use”. In its Report to Congress on R.S. 2477: “The History and Management of R.S. 2477 Rights-of-Way Claims on Federal and Other Lands” (June 1993), the Department of the Interior lamented that R.S. 2477 highways “were constructed without any approval from the federal government and with no documentation of the public land records, so there are few official records documenting the right-of-way or indicating that a highway was constructed on federal land under this authority.”

On January 22 1997, then Sec. of the Interior Bruce Babbitt wrote a departmental memo "Revoking" the Department's prior policy regarding R.S. 2477 road rights-of-way, which forms the bulk of the rural transportation network in the Western states and is critical to all public lands access, for everything from natural resource production to recreation. The revoked policy was an attempt to reflect long-established law regarding these right-of-ways, which are owned and managed by state and local government entities. Interior Department personnel were instructed to offer no recognition of any R.S. 2477 right-of-way without prior authorization from the Secretary unless the holder gives evidence of a "demonstrated, compelling, and immediate need". Babbitt created a situation where government personnel would in effect say: "You can't exercise your rights unless we acknowledge that it's valid (or for you to go to court to prove it), and we are prohibited from taking action to acknowledge its validity. Therefore, if you exercise your rights, the United States may sue you". Since Congress had prevented issuing any new regulations, Babbit's memo claims that this is not rule making, even if it has the same effect. The memo stated that the Department will determine whether a right-of-way meets certain criteria concerning "withdrawals and reservations", "construction" and "highway". Given the BLM's proven hostility towards public access to federal lands, these terms will not be clearly defined, but applied on a case by case basis. Here we have yet another example of government bureaucracy being totally out of control! After all, Congress writes the law, it’s not the job of a bunch of regulation issuing pencil pushers sitting behind their desks in Washington DC. At the urging of environmental activists, our land management agencies are using regulatory decisions as another way to keep American citizens off our public lands. Why? Well, consider… The United States has more known energy reserves (coal, oil, gas, and Uranium) than almost anywhere else in the world. If however, we don’t utilize those reserves, the environmentalist ideal of “Stop Global Warming” is realized. At the same time, the energy producers of the world can continue to get rich at the expense of the American people. How to do both jobs in one fell swoop… simply lock up the American west in even more wilderness and roadless areas through land management agency regulations, whereby they win their War on the West by default.

Still, no matter what they claim, those rights-of-way do not belong to the feds to close or whatever, they belong to the individual states and counties. The same states and counties who have the legal right, and authority, to tell the feds where they can put their regulations! If it calls for a long and expensive court fight, so be it. All we have to do is explain to our duly elected city, county, state and congressional officials, that if they won’t fight for our rights, we can surely elect people who will!

TEA Parties

At the moment there are no final numbers available for the April 15th “Tax Day Tea Party”, but the present estimates are that over 650,000 upset American citizens showed up at more than 850 locations to protest a number of government policies. Unlike many of the somewhat “riotous” left wing political protests of past decades, this was a peaceful demonstration of conservative American citizens’ reaction to the loony left’s aggressive and rapidly accelerating efforts to create a radical, socialist country out of the once free United States of America. The Tea party folks did not just demonstrate what they are against, but what they are for as well, minor little things like free enterprise, limited government, accountability, lower taxes, and less spending. Much like the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the 2009 version was in response to the actions of a government that treats American citizens as if they were subjects/slaves to be ordered about, rather than as citizens of a free country with constitutionally guaranteed rights. For the most part the elitist media are trying very hard to ignore this citizen’s protest, which the leftist government promptly labeled as a right wing “extremist” plot, and that has the loony left hysterically up in arms denying that any sane person would oppose their political agenda. That’s nothing unusual I guess, considering all the weeping and wailing (along with the rioting) that happens whenever they don’t get their way. The Tea Party showing was rather impressive, especially since the media virtually ignored the entire movement, no big donor was behind it, and conservative Americans usually have jobs that severely limit their chance to do much more than work and pay taxes. For the most part they also lack the professional “community organizing” experience of the left, experience that began with college students who had nothing better to do than violently protest the Vietnam War. David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief strategist, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the Tea Party movement was potentially “unhealthy.” He might be right with that one, as it indicates to me that the “silent majority” just might be getting completely fed up with the leftist demands for a socialist nanny state.

The intensity of the liberal response quite surprised me with its vitriol. It’s common practice on internet news sites to have a space where people can leave comments about whatever story they wish to respond to. I’ll quote a part of one such comment about the TEA parties: “Attention Tea-Baggers, (CENSORED), Red-Neck White Trash, racist pigs, Neo-cons. red-staters, in-bred, Appalacia, Sheet Wearers, War Hawks, Porn-lovin' bible thumpers, and Hillbilliys and Cowboys: I put up with your sorry (CENSORED) for 8 years. You go straight to (CENSORED) or Texas which ever you get to first. Keep your (CENSORED) guns and put those where the some (?) don't shine. You are so disgusting I could and have vomited thinking of you. Take your Confederate States and GET OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are morally repugnant. (I'll pause while you look that up). As an aside; I was raised in Applacia - I know what you scum bags are, what you do, and what "feeds you stupidity." Just go NOW.” (As this paper is intended for reading by mixed company, I did censor a few of the more descriptive terms.) If the writer of that particular literary masterpiece is typical of American liberals, I’m going to be really concerned about Mr. Obama’s choice of office holders in his radical leftist government! The “Left”, according to one government report, is much better educated that the “right wing extremists”, more “gainfully” employed, much better paid, and of course totally unlike us “inbred” redneck conservatives. They are I noted, much more likely to be college graduates, and prone to include Doctors, Lawyers, entertainers, Government employees, and with that I presume social workers as well. If the above is an example of what the “educated” American left thinks and says, I’ve got an eight year old granddaughter that does a much better job of writing, if she dosen't know anything about politics!

Every American is, or at least should be, concerned about the harmful effects of big government, big deficits, big bureaucracy, big politicians and big taxes. Left leaning economists admit that spending a few hundred billion dollars hasn’t done any good so far (read that as “failed”), so they consider that as proof that we need to spend a few trillion more dollars that we don’t have! But today’s vocal liberals want to know where the conservative TEA Party protesters were when Mr. Bush was busily running up a trillion dollar deficit, if we’re so concerned about spending deficits. Well boys and girls, for your information we were here, and busily protesting, but we aren’t in the habit of burning down cities, throwing rocks at police officers, or blowing up college campuses when we protest. That of course means that we’re not newsworthy, so nobody hears about it.

Left leaning politicians and pundits are doing their best to discredit the Tea Parties by describing them as a partisan Republican movement, and as a revolt of greedy rich people who don’t want to pay more income tax. After all, we did get a tax cut they parrot… which only means that I get to keep a couple of extra dollars of my own money each week. What the media missed is the fact that state and local taxes are spiraling out of sight for everyone. Add higher gasoline taxes, corporate taxes, “sin” taxes, death taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, along with the threat of an energy tax. All of these are convincing people that the overall tax burden is still getting bigger despite Mr. Obama's "tax cut".

Tea Party participants are not just angry about higher federal income taxes, but are alarmed at the growing burden of government on all Americans. Keep in mind that California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago. In just a few years Democrats had turned California into a state (it's now known as a "job-free zone" I understand), with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that has reached junk-bond status, and a middle class that is now living in Arizona. Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern, they bought votes with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries, and welfare benefits, and then accused productive people of "greed" for not wanting to have their taxes raised yet again. California was a laboratory for Democratic fiscal policies… the rabbit died, so now they want to try it on the entire nation!

So let me see if I understand the “change” we’ve been promised, and apparently are about to get. Spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on social engineering experiments is good for the country. Check. Taxpayers supporting a few million illegal aliens is good for the country. Check. ACORN subverting our election system is good for the country. Check. Cutting national defense yet again is good for the country. Check. Liberal activists disrupting Congress and vandalizing Marine Corp recruiting stations is good for the country. Check. Conservative citizens defending the Constitution and protesting runaway government spending is unhealthy. Humm….

Radical Right?

Apparently us low life country hicks have managed to attract the government’s concern yet again. The Department of Homeland Security Office’s of Intelligence and Analysis recently released a new assessment of the national security situation, and came to the conclusion that “The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn–including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit–could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities”. (The report can be seen at http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf Read it, and be prepared to get good and mad.) “In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization.” “A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009,” according to the DHS, which describes “extremists” as those “that are primarily hate-oriented” and those that “reject federal authority.” Also targeted are veterans, people expecting even more restrictions of their Second Amendment rights, those concerned about lost of U.S. sovereignty, folks having general anti-government feelings or who prefer local or state government to federal control over almost anything. The report implies that people with such views are not only racist, but potential terrorists as well. I guess it’s nice to know that our government thinks so highly of us!

Another report, issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center last year includes the “possibility” that the vocal supporters of Rep. Ron Paul’s 2008 bid for the presidency are also potential terrorists! (See the report at: http://88.80.13.160.nyud.net/leak/miac-militia-2009.pdf) Under the heading "Political Paraphernalia," the Missouri report states, "Militia members most commonly associate with 3rd party political groups. It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional [sic] Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate [sic]: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr." Can you imagine the political brouhaha had the names mentioned been Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters!?

Then we have the (April 15th, 2009) Maryland National Guard alerted to be on the lookout for dangerous people who “have formed recently to express displeasure/anger over recent federal/state government actions: more taxes, increased spending, higher deficits, a surge of borrowing to pay for it all, bailout of the financial institutions.” “This movement can be identified by different variations of “TEA Party” or “Tea Party.” Past “TEA Party” events have been peaceful. “TEA” stands for “Taxed Enough Already,” the report continues. An obvious challange to the government I suppose. And with that, several years back while out on a fire I managed to read a US Forest Service briefing paper for fire staff officers, one that told them to be careful of what they might say to us north Idaho folks, as we’re all anti-government, and won’t “listen to reason” either.

So, it appears that if you oppose any of the following, you could be profiled (along with being investigated and possibly arrested) as a potential dangerous "militia member" or terrorist: The United Nations, The New World Order, Gun Control, The violation of Posse Comitatus, The Federal Reserve, The Income Tax, The Ammunition and Accountability Act, A possible Constitutional Convention, The North American Union, Universal Service Program, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Abortion, or Illegal Immigration. Looking at that list I’d bet that three quarters the American people oppose at least one of the items, but even that opposition is sufficient to mark them as potentially violence prone and anti-government. Looks to me as if the government is either painting itself into a corner, or is planning to arrest just about everybody in the country!

All in all this looks like a most disturbing trend in our government. Dissidents are commonly referred to as "extremists" in these reports (similar to the old Soviet practice of claiming that all dissidents were mentally deranged), and people who express their opposing views in public are now being singled out by name. If we do nothing about this situation it will soon be too late to stop it… it will become a leviathan bureaucracy monitoring and controlling the personal opinions and speech of every man, woman, and child in this country. The Feds already monitor nearly every phone call, email, or public speech. How long before these reports will be used to justify the arrest, and to incarcerate people, because of their ideas and opinions differ from the official line, making them a "threat" or "dangerous" to the officially approved society? Shades of Orwell’s “1984”! For this I spent most of my working life in the armed forces and the fire service!? You might remember Mr. Obama’s campaign speech in Pennsylvania where he said: "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." This comment could be interpreted as targeting people who hold different views from the elitist liberal view -- and not because they're particularly "bitter" or lashing out at a far left political system that appears to have discarded them.

Another report from the DHS that is quite irritating to me personally has an entire section dedicated to “Disgruntled Military Veterans.” (People who are against abortion and illegal immigration also got special mention.) I am after all one of those millions of Americans who once wrote a blank check to the American people, a check that was “payable with my life if necessary”. The idea that our veterans, who have sworn to defend this nation against all comers, would be at high risk to overthrow our country is dead wrong. If anyone has an allegiance to this nation, and have put their life on the line for the nation and the safety of our people, it’s the veteran. He’s the one that is more apt to stand up for the flag and say, “For better or for worse, I love my country” because he long ago made that commitment, and willingly took that oath. To me, reports and assessments such as these do little more than demonstrate the distain in which our government holds the American people, their wishes, and desires. It aptly shows our left wing elitist government in action, and their mad scramble to forcibly control every aspect of our lives. It completely rejects the fact that federal authority is ultimately derived from “We the People”, and that such authority cannot exist without our express permission.

As a source of general information, http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/publications/ is the government webpage listing a wide assortment of DHS publications. I don’t think I’m violating national security (and thus subject to arrest as an enemy of the people) by posting this web address, as the website is currently available to the public. In addition, despite my somewhat precarious position as a rather vocal conservative and military veteran, if we consider my advancing years and declining health, I rather doubt I’m any real threat to the United States government, no matter if I agree with their policies or not.

But then, if I’m not here next week…

Pirates

With the attempted Somali pirate takeover of the U.S.-flagged merchant ship Maersk Alabama, the entire world was once again expecting to see the United States again exposed as a “paper tiger”, seemingly unable to protect her citizens from purely criminal activity, as well as being unable to recover Capt. Richard Phillips unharmed. The other option would have been a disastrously failed rescue attempt. But wait! The White House authorized a rescue (including the use of deadly force if necessary), then sat back and awaited the outcome! Apparently there was no micromanagement from on high, no weeping over the social or political consequences, no left-wing humanitarian hand-wringing, and no leaks to the world’s press. Capt. Phillips was rescued, three of the pirates were killed, and I for one am quite pleasantly surprised with Mr. Obama’s response! (I don’t generally say things like that about democrats in the White House either.)

Perhaps this will sound familiar. An American skipper in the hands of seafaring rogues. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes under attack. Tough men from a messy patch of Africa eluding and harassing the world’s greatest powers. Well, it’s not Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, but pirates from the Barbary Coast (today’s Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya) who hijacked European ships with impunity, and ransomed the crews, nearly 200 years ago. Frank Lambert, a professor at Purdue who is an expert on the Barbary pirates, explained how those brigands, like today’s Somalis, usually kept their hostages alive, not from any enlightened sense of humanity, but rather it was simply good business. The Barbary pirates actually had an ambassador, and the pirates worked for a government. The Barbary rulers commissioned them to rob and pillage and kidnap, and the rulers got a cut. It was all official. And open. It was truly state-sponsored terrorism. And the Western nations’ response was to pay “tribute,” a fancy word for blackmail. Well, they did until the United States sent most of its then quite small Navy to explain the error of their ways…

If a country paid tribute to the Barbary pirates, the 18th-century pirates would leave its ships alone. Today, shipping companies hand over millions of dollars in ransom to the Somali pirates, a strategy that does save their cargoes, but also attracts even more unemployed Somali fishermen into the lucrative hijacking business. The Barbary pirates used small boats powered by slaves chained to the oars to attack western shipping. Crude, but they were effective, much like today’s Somali pirates who captured a Saudi super tanker, from a dinghy! Merchant ships facing the Barbary pirates were often armed and could, if the crew was willing to defend themselves, fend off an attack. Today’s merchant ships are unarmed (for fear of harming someone), and told to surrender if they can’t outrun or outmaneuver the pirates. But then, the Barbary pirates’ bravado brought about their downfall, something the Somalis might want to remember. Eventually, the American shippers got tired of paying off a bunch of knife wielding thugs in blousy pants. That’s what led Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to send in the Navy and Marines, whence “the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn, and of course the violent fall of the Barbary corsairs.

Last year, there were more than 120 pirate attacks off the African coast, and the pirates made off with more than $100 million in ransom. There are reportedly more than 1,200 pirates roaming the coast of Africa now, mostly from Somalia. Rather than the cannon, cutlass and dagger of yesteryear, today’s pirates are armed with light machineguns, RPG’s, and AK-47’s, essentially light infantry weapons easily outclassed by only slightly heavier weapons commonly carried aboard small naval patrol boats. The modern 9,000 ton destroyer USS Bainbridge could probably whip nearly warship afloat today, but it really isn’t the proper platform for running down pirate speedboats, which would be somewhat like swatting flies with a billion dollar sledgehammer. The idea is to have lots cats chasing the mice, instead of a few hulking lions wandering around off-shore. For years, military planners have been calling for the U.S. to build a fleet on small, fast, and cheap ships that can patrol inshore. This eventually lead to the Littoral Combat Ship program, and a problem laden effort to build 55 relatively inexpensive ($450-$600 million apiece) coastal patrol ships. However, even the Navy’s vaunted LCS is, at 3,000 tons, bigger than a WW II era destroyer, only slightly faster, and armed with small guns and lots of anti-ship missiles, making it appear to be another “multi-purpose” warship rather than a dedicated pirate hunter. To catch pirates I’d hazard a guess that something on the lines of the inexpensive Motor Torpedo Boats of WW II would be much more appropriate. Unless the world’s navies are allowed to attack the pirate lairs (which is highly doubtful due to international law), the world is going to need a lot of these patrol boats as well, because there are a lot of pirates out there. Reported pirate incidents from 2002 are: Indonesia: 103. Gulf of Aden/red Sea: 11. Ecuador: 12. Guyana: 12. Vietnam: 12. Nigeria: 14. Malaysia: 14. Malacca Straits: 16. India: 18. Bangladesh: 32. The numbers increase every year as the pirates get bolder, better organized, and better equipped.

It is also of interest that the number of incidents is on the rise. 106 cases of piracy were recorded in 1992. By 2002 there were 370 minor and major incidents reported. The statistics go on to say that: the majority of ships have been boarded whilst at anchor, that 10 crew members were killed by pirates in 2001 and 97 serious injuries were sustained. The professionalism and desperation of these elements is growing as the records show. "The big worry is that the attacks are getting much more violent… It's moved on from being maritime petty theft, where half a dozen robbers would steal something and escape, to much more organized, with much greater use of weaponry… They're carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades," says Andrew Linington, of the maritime officers' union. He's amazed that the attacks haven't resulted in a major maritime disaster, yet.

The world’s navies could of course wipe out the pirate lairs, sink their vessels, and kill them in large numbers, leaving the base problem to fester on, and pirates to crop up again and again. A better response would be to crush the pirate’s power, demonstrating that crime doesn’t pay, and in addition find their recruits an alternative form of employment, whatever that might be. In reality the humanitarians will weep and wail, governments will continue to waffle, navies will continue to chase their tails, shippers will continues to pay ransom, leaving nothing to change as long as the world considers that it has “bigger” problems to worry about. For Obama, his handling of the crisis showed a president who was comfortable in relying on the U.S. military, much as George W. Bush did. But it also showed a commander in chief who was willing to bring in federal law enforcement officials to handle the judicial elements of the crisis. Will Obama see any political gain? This crisis will have faded into distant memory by the time voters reach the polls in 2012.

Revolution?

I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and constitution of his country.

Daniel Webster

In the course of roaming the internet, I often come across webpages that discuss “The Second American Revolution” or the “Coming Revolution”. (I rather prefer “The coming revolution” myself, as like most history buffs I consider the Civil War to have been our second revolution.) Usually these articles range from purely fictional stories to some “way out” radical right wing stuff, and I look at them accordingly. Occasionally however I’ll find an article on the subject that is factual, well thought out, and certainly to the point. Fortunately for all concerned, these articles don’t promote an armed revolution, as that’s all highly illegal, and would soon have everybody in the government coming down on the authors head, with a long stretch in jail as their end goal. Besides, an armed rebellion against the US government in this day and age of professional armies and high-tech weaponry is probably a really good way to commit suicide!

However, there is a way to go about having a full scale rebellion, throwing the present government out on their ears, that is all perfectly legal! And that would be what’s presently called a “Voters Rebellion”. I’m more convinced every day that a much needed voter revolution is brewing, and I certainly hope that it will happen in whatever’s left of my lifetime. The cause of this rebellion can be seen all around us. It can be seen in our ever increasing national debt. It can be seen in the ever increasing taxes that never seem to catch up with that debt. It can be seen in our government’s misuse of our laws. It can be seen in our courts interpreting the constitution in whatever manner they happen to see fit at the time. It can be seen in the increase arbitrary government rules and regulations that have the effect of law. It can be seen in the everyday lack of common sense displayed by our “leaders”. Worst of all it can be seen in the mad dash towards socialism we see promoted by our intelligentsia and followed by our politicians. The birth pains of this voter revolution can be seen through the current political polarities. It was felt through the surge of the constitutional community in supporting Rep. Ron Paul. It was felt in evangelicals' and conservatives' frustration with the election of our current president. It was felt in the response to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for his vice-presidential candidate. It was felt in our recent nearly unanimous disapproval rating of Congress. America does have some good congressmen of course, but those good politicians are few and far between. The majority of them desperately need to be replaced, which isn’t going to happen until Americans get their act together! Such a revolution would bring in politicians who will make sweeping changes, and who are genuinely committed to the America established by our Founders. They would defend our nation and our civil rights, cut government waste, stop pork-barrel spending, reject political perks, dump the lobbyists, quit borrowing from other countries, put an end to our amateur attempts at nation building, reduce the flow of government aid overseas, and bring back pride in America.

Far to many people will jump on the idea of a voter rebellion with the question “Why do we need a voter revolution?” To which the simple answer is “To save our nation as we know it.” We have a choice of course. We can, as a free nation and a free people go quietly into the night, or we can stand up and fight. Our Constitution and our way of life are under attack by the same men who have sworn to uphold it. Many of these men are the same people who did their best to tear down our country in their youth, and who, with their socialist/totalitarian goals unchanged, now promote themselves as the best to lead us into the new millennia (with themselves as the new age rulers of course). These are evil men, whose only goal is the accumulation of position, wealth, and personal power. They lead impressionable youth with vague promises of a utopian world where everyone “shares equally”, disregarding the fallacy of such socialistic claims. And our youth knows no better. The political left is betting on the American people being so cowed by the fear of poverty, befuddled by the incessant demands of modern life, and so consumed by the desire for personal security, that we will go along with this socialist agenda. Now, before it’s to late, is the time for all Americans to stand up and show these people that we will sell neither our personal liberty nor the greatness of our nation. In his Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson told us: “Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”

There are three common-sense steps toward a voter revolution: First, examine the doings of your representatives and ask yourself: Do they represent the people? Do they have the type of character that can resist the temptations of political power and special interest groups? Secondly, if your answer is "no", get them out of office. Call them by name and explain to people why they should be ousted. Third, fight to elect solid, reputable, law-abiding, Constitution-honoring representatives. A politician's personal honor and integrity must be above reproach, whereupon they are far more likely to do what they've promised. In May of 1770, British orator Edmund Burke stated “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. Words that we would do well to remember today. Evil has flourished in this nation for far too long. It's well past time that “we the people” join hands and rise up in another revolution, not just sit back and hope everything turns out OK.

"We the people are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." - Abraham Lincoln

UN Again

No matter how hard I ignore them, it seems that the environmentalists and their precious Kyoto Treaty and its successor, the Copenhagen Accord, just won’t go away! Now it appears that the
United Nations is pushing even harder with a new "climate change" plan that envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes. … all under the supervision of that august world body naturally. Those and other results are discussed in a United Nations "information note" on the possible consequences of the measures industrialized nations will have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord (Kyoto Treaty, part 2), after it’s negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an "effective framework" for dealing with global warming. Yet nobody seems to agree on whether “Global Warming” or “Global Cooling” exists at all, to what degree it may exist, or to possible causes. Adding to the confusion, science has found that all the planets in our solar system are warming to some degree, and the Sun’s magnetic field seems to be doing some strange things as well! I might suggest that Mr. Obama’s government back off in making changes in our nation until we see just what actually is happening, or even if we could really do anything about it!

The UN note is to be distributed at the negotiating session that started on March 29 in Bonn, Germany. This is one of three sessions intended to decide the national commitments involved in this new arrangement. In language that is normal for important U.N. sessions, the negotiators are known as the "Ad Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol." (Even the “spell and grammar check” mode of my computer chokes on that one!) The consequences of their “negotiations” could be nothing less than world-changing, with catastrophic results for the United States population! Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to bother our new regime in the mad dash toward globalism. At present, closing the deal has become the United Nations' highest priority, and the Bonn meeting is a critical step on that path to what the U.N. claims is an "ambitious and effective international response to climate change," The U. N.s goals can be seen at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032709_informationnote.pdf . The paper offers little detail about the positive and negative consequences to the industrial nations will most enforce the greenhouse gas reduction targets. Nor does it make any effort to calculate the costs and disruption involved, but makes it very clear that they will impact the entire global economy.

Among the considerations are “the cap-and-trade system for controlling carbon emissions that has been espoused by the Obama administration; "carbon taxes" on imported fuels and energy-intensive goods and industries, including airline transportation; and lower subsidies for those same goods, as well as new or higher subsidies for goods that are considered "environmentally sound." Other considerations are vaguely referred to, including "energy policy reform," which could affect "large-scale transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail and airports." The note claims that such reform could have "positive consequences for alternative transportation providers and producers of alternative fuels." While that could be good news for some people, it’s going to be rough on the folks that work in the oil industry. Actually it’s going to be rough on all of us to one extent or another. “Cap and Trade”, or perhaps more properly called “Cap and Tax” is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth, in a very strange way. It takes from working folks and gives to the rich, just the opposite of what Mr. Obama told us during his campaign. It takes from an industrial America that is already struggling, and gives to rich Wall Street “green” investors who know how to pull political strings. How does that happen? With much higher taxes on energy usage, and on fossil fuels, both imported and domestic. MIT researchers have released their “Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,” which shows that the increase would be more than $3,000 a year for each American household. You can also expect to see much of those taxes being turned over to the UN. The note adds that "If they were implemented fairly, such schemes would leave trade and investment patterns unchanged." Nothing is said of course about how such fairness is to be achieved, nor of the consequences if it’s not. The impact, the note states, "would be functionally equivalent to an increased tariff: decreased market share for covered foreign producers."

The UN note informs negotiators that cap-and-trade schemes "may induce some industrial relocation" to "less regulated host countries." While the system urges manufacturers toward less polluting technologies, many of them will simply move to another country that doesn’t have stringent pollution regulations. The note adds that such relocation "would involve negative consequences for the implementing country, which loses employment and investment." But also "would involve indeterminate consequences for the countries that would host the relocated industries." Humm… sounds somewhat like the UN is planning to move your job to Africa, with or without you.

What does this mean for the United States? Pretty much an economic disaster I’m afraid, on top of the one we’re already dealing with! That doesn’t bother the environmentalists who are working so hard towards this “realignment”, it doesn’t seem to bother the democratic regime presently in power, and it certainly doesn’t bother the third world nations who can only profit from all this “change”. In addition to greatly increased taxes, we can expect to see skyrocketing prices for everything energy related or energy dependant. That includes just about everything in our technological world of today. Well… I always wondered about living in a semi-primitive world. The Ladies can look forward to cooking on wood stoves, and using washboards and flat-irons, while the guys can figure on plowing the fields and skidding firewood with a team of horses. Considering that home made candles really don’t produce all that much light, and that kerosene will be outrageously expensive, I guess we can plan on going to bed early as well. A Sunday drive will mean horse and buggy, with ten dollar a gallon gasoline being to expensive to waste in any but emergency conditions.

In a nutshell, the UN plan that Mr. Obama so strongly supports is to force the world’s industrial nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. While this may or may not be a good idea, it will effectively wreck those countries economy and standard of living as industry packs up and goes elsewhere. Just what, pray tell, will the United States do when we find ourselves inundated with another hundred million or so suddenly unemployed citizens!? I’m afraid it’s merely another step to the socialist “nanny state” that the far left is steadily pushing us towards.

Remaking America

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama spoke of his desire to "remake" America, to be a "transformational" President. He didn’t say "restore" nor "rebuild", but rather "Remake", as if he plans to turn our country into something quite different from the nation most of us (or at least those of us on the right, or in the center) revere. So far we’ve been lucky I guess, in that nearly everything President Obama has accomplished during his two months in office has turned out to be the exact opposite of what his campaign promises claimed, but even with that, I haven’t noticed any real change in the liberal Obama-Pelosi-Reid “Axis of Evil”. In the guise of solving our current economic crisis (caused in part by liberal economic ideas), they’re engineering what will probably be the most radical changes in our government in the nations 233-year history. And it’s not going to be the “change” we might have expected either. They seem quite intent on remaking America into a socialist utopia, no matter what it costs us. And rest assured, it will cost us…

It would be a socialist America where “redistributing the wealth” means out-of-work citizens would receive lavish government handouts and benefits, supported by the ever shrinking minority who do work and pay taxes, and at ever increasing rates naturally. Our industries, crippled by government mandates, excessive taxes, incessant regulations, and downright political interference, will end up becoming taxpayer-supported dinosaurs that can no longer compete in the marketplace, further increasing the number of unemployed Americans forced to survive on the dole. The liberal regime is further attempting to deny workers the right to a secret ballot when voting on whether or not they want to be part of a union, and eliminate present Right to Work laws in 22 states. This is a key point for Big Labor, because it would allow forced unionization of millions of workers into the dues-paying union ranks, and not incidentally that much more political power and money to labor leaders.

European style socialized medicine under the heading of "universal health care" will mean waiting weeks or perhaps even months for needed treatment, unless you happen to have the proper political connections. Treatment will be rationed by government bureaucrats on a “cost effective” basis rather than by medical doctors, in a manner similar to the profitable HMO policies of today. Your private medical records will be stored in a government database and available to all medical providers, secured I’m sure on somebody’s “ready to be stolen” laptop computer, making it just one more target for mass identity theft.

Government enforced environmentalist demands will determine where we live and what we drive. The government will decide where we live, where we work, and what sort of house we are allowed. Our food will be rationed as will our energy usage. There are efforts afoot to give the government the right to limit the number of children we’re allowed, and I hate to think what will happen to anyone who exceeds the approved limit.

We already see vast tracts of “public” lands locked away in wilderness areas, and that is rapidly expanding even as I write. Roadless areas were determined by bureaucratic decree in yet another wilderness expansion, bypassing the requirement for Congressional consent. Now we see the new “Travel Plan” regulations from federal land management agencies ordering the closure or “decommissioning” of hundreds of miles of existing roads, thus denying the public use of thousands of square miles of our public property, all by bureaucratic decision, and you might notice without our permission. We’re quite aware of the damage “environmental concerns” can do to rural economies, particularly when those concerns are based on “junk science”, and not on proven fact or common sense. In our new liberal world order we can expect to see a lot more of that I’m sure. The Supreme Court recently affirmed our second amendment right to “Keep and Bear Arms” despite massive liberal opposition. But now the liberal anti-gun crowd is at it again with plans to massively tax and regulate the ammunition for those arms.

Our centers of finance, industry, culture, and innovation, from New York to Silicon Valley, will become slums crowded with unemployed welfare recipients, while our surviving business and industry immigrate to foreign lands. We will become a socialist utopia where only politicians, government bureaucrats, and their favored friends, are able to thrive in any manner… where the only remaining "liberty" is the government's freedom to control every aspect of our lifes. A utopia where all the common citizens are equal in every way… and all living at the lowest possible subsistence level.

Our would-be masters will stop at nothing to secure the power they've come to think of as theirs by divine appointment. They will do anything to harass, intimidate, and marginalize any opposition to their rule by decree. Already, they're preparing to use federal power to stifle any opposition… by passing the "Fairness Doctrine" to silence conservative talk-radio... by enacting "card check" laws that would leave anti-union workers exposed to intimidation and harassment... by passing the “Freedom of Choice Act” which would force pro-life medical professionals to refer patients desiring an abortions.

Would you want to live in such an America? Would you want to leave such an America to your children or grandchildren? It’s certainly not something I look forward to!

If you don't believe that Barack Obama is the embodiment of the Second Coming... you don't believe that America needs a "New New Deal" in the form of a trillion-dollar "stimulus package" ... you don't believe that bans on oil drilling in the ANWR and off-shore areas serve America's need for energy independence… you don't believe that the U.S. Constitution is a "living document" that means whatever any activist Court declares it to mean... and if you do believe in the old-fashioned virtues and principles such as faith, family, freedom, and self-reliance that once made America great and can help restore that greatness today, then raise your voice in a howling storm of protest.

Get active with your protest! Talk to your relatives, friends, and neighbors. Explain to them what’s happening in this country! Write letters to the editor and call the talk radio programs voicing your opinion! Write, call, or e-mail your congressional contingent expressing your view, and remind them that you are a voter. And most importantly, at the next election, get out and vote for what you believe in!