Creeping Gradualism

I am so shocked by the following series of articles, yet I have heard barely a ripple of conversation, news reports or pundit discussion concerning its content.

It feels very much like a deep black hole in the information age.

The below articles provides the missing pieces to a very complex puzzle that causes one pause.

Presidential Assassinations of U.S. Citizens
Last week, Glen Greenwald of Salon.com wrote about a shocking revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed by the President to be "terrorists". As The Washington Times' Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing Tuesday and he acknowledged its existence:

The U.S. intelligence community policy on killing American citizens who have joined al Qaeda requires first obtaining high-level government approval, a senior official disclosed to Congress on Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in each case a decision to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen must get special permission. . . .He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include "whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved."

Where have we heard words like those before?

It is quite a dangerous situation the American people find themselves in, although as a whole, we just don’t know it yet. I am going to do my best attempt to explain why.

It's bringing the frog to a slow boil.

In 1930’s Austria they called it "Creeping Gradualism".

We used to be against tyranny in this country. We fought and won World Wars against it. We fought and won the Revolutionary War for the same reason.

We are a nation completely blind to what is to become of us, what danger awaits us, but I believe that before we know it we are all in danger of being deemed "a threat to other Americans" simply because we don't like the loss of our freedoms and we are organizing to push against this monolithic governmental empire they are creating.

Flashback: We were already identified as potential terrorists in the DHS directive last April. The (U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment document clearly states " the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. 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."

My concerns run deep on this issue and although it has constantly nagged me for nearly a year, I just couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me so deeply - besides the obvious, of course. I knew something was drastically wrong, but I didn’t have all the pieces.

Adding the revelation of presidential directive to the puzzle last week and this newest article today, “Obama Admin wants to track cellphones; 'Americans enjoy NO reasonable expectation of privacy', I feel a chill so deep that no Florida sun can penetrate. All the pieces have tumbled into place in my mind.

This President will try Abdulmutallab the pantibomber, KSM of USS Cole fame (whose tribunal he stopped after his admission of guilt at the military trial), and Hasan the infamous soldier slayer in US Civilian Courts.

Obama via Holder will afford them constitutional protection. He has mirandized them. They have just finished trying Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui and found her guilty of two counts of attempted murder of US Soldiers in Civilian Criminal Courts - yet he ORDERS assassinations on US Citizens without benefit of trial?

At least Bush was consistent in his directive (if that can be considered a plus at all) - but this president acts without the equality of the thing and orders the murder of Americans at the same time he fiercely protects terrorists. Not only that, but he calls it racism to do otherwise.

Do we at all understand what this means to those of us born and raised in America? To the everyday natural citizens of these United States?

Do we know what criteria they are using to determine these American citizens are "terrorists"?

Is it just the newly granted citizens, those who are now known to be terrorists but who somehow made it through citizenship without detection - or is it something far more insidious, something that we only got a whiff of in last April’s DHS missive?

What are the criteria Mr. President? List it out for us, please.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Is it simply okay to give admitted terrorists access to our Constitutional Rights, yet not afford our own citizens those same rights?

Apparently that is our brave new world of hope and change.

The Freedom Stealing Trifecta and One Party Rule

4 Patriot Act
4 Executive Decisions/Directives
4 Congressional Pseudo-Wars


The Patriot Act has effectively suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus for American Citizens.

It allows them to search us at will and detain us indefinitely under "suspicion".

It affords us NO access to speedy trials or even an attorney on the "assumption" that we are a threat.

Apparently it also allows them to assassinate us.

Yet they afford admitted terrorists fair trials with our tax dollars even when they are caught trying to set off a bomb in their panties on a planeload of Christmas Vacationers! SCOTUS stripped us of our right to have an attorney present in May of last year, but this apparently doesn’t apply to terrorists.

The entire purpose of habeas is to say, “Look at me! I’m being detained/abused/disenfranchised contrary to law”. If there’s no writ available, the result is that the government can hold you “against the law”. Since the writ encompasses the full scope of our Constitutional rights, it’s a logical conclusion is to say that while it’s suspended, Americans currently have NO exercisable constitutional rights.

My heart is heavy and my mind is boggled by this as I witness and hear of case after case against our Constitutional and God given rights. Fathers denied their children, children on no fly lists who cannot find recourse to be removed, citizens who are subjected to unlawful search and seizures, and the list goes on and on.

Effectively, they are saying they have all power to do all things because Congress has given the powers of Military License and Force to "protect" citizens, while in reality they take away ALL our liberties in the Patriot Act.

The President, by saying “I can kill you at will because I am the President of the United States and I believe you to be a "terrorist" threat.”, literally means you have a "free for all" from the government’s perspective.

The door has slammed shut on your freedoms.

Creeping gradualism is no longer creeping, my friends, the serfdom has arrived.

What is considered our most basic liberty, our writ of habeas corpus, was finally and completely removed between the trifecta of the AUMF of 2001, the Executive Directive of assassination, and The Patriot Act. All of this because of the very terrorists we are mirandizing right now.

We The People vs The Machine

The Constitution of the United States very clearly states:

1) Congress has the power to declare war.

2) Constitutional provisions cannot be altered by statute.

Based on those 2 points, it is interesting to note that Congress has not actually declared war since Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania on June 5, 1942. They have however, declared many Military Engagements and AUMF's (Authorizations of Use of Military Force) as the functional equivalent of a declaration of war.

In Point 2, nothing in the Constitution can be reasonably construed to allow Congress to reallocate powers to themselves in a more palatable or politically expedient manner. Yet that is precisely the effect the War Powers Resolution, by which "AUMFs" are passed, has done.

It has given them all encompassing political power.

In a time such as this with One Party Rule, this use becomes especially apparent as it did in the late 70’s, the early 90’s, the early to mid 00’s and now again this past year. The problem is that without the checks and balances, soon you become a single party system as seen in the 30’s and 40’s Austria, Germany, China, and are witnessing in Venezuela today through Chavez and his "istas".

Additionally, that is exactly how those currently in Congress intend to continue to use it to order to remain in power with the recent (Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey and the rise of the TEA Party) threats to their One Party Rule status. See Will Obama Play the War Card?

The War Powers Resolution limits Presidential authority in the use of force without an official resolution or declaration of war by Congress.

The controversial question then becomes, "Where the provisions therein are consistent with the Constitution". According to Wikipedia, in an argument for the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Resolution by Philip Bobbitt, it states that


"The power to make war is not an enumerated power" and the notion that to declare" war is to "commence" war is a "contemporary textual preconception". The Framers of the Constitution believed that statutory authorization was the route by which the United States would be committed to war, and that 'declaration' was meant for only total wars, as shown by the history of the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800); in general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by propriation, while the president commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized."
Bobbitt also argues that "A democracy cannot ... tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.”

Based on the in depth analysis of this explanation, the Constitution authorizes Congress to declare war, but it does not authorize Congress to declare Military Force, License or pseudo-wars whether or not they are politically expedient. The “preconception” is actually a misconception and a severe one at that.

3) In light of points 1 and 2, regardless of what Congress may have done, purposed or purports to do in the way of authorizing force, the AUMF is constitutionally a “brick short” of a war declaration.

This leaves the question of whether we have a need to consider or obey the war-time powers of the President - as they have not actually been constitutionally activated.

Logic dictates that the Executive Decision of the President to Assassinate US Citizens is then simply a legal loophole to authorize sending out “hit men” on American Citizens because he (or any of the organizations that he may empower) arbitrarily deem them to be terrorists.

In light of the DHS directive, secret watch lists and any number of things the American public cannot possibly know about, this indeed is a very dangerous position to find ourselves in as average Americans.

4) The Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment states quite clearly that government shall not deprive any person of life without due process of law.

A secret, unilateral, unreviewable determination that an individual is a “terrorist” by the President doesn't in any way, shape or form constitute "due process".

The Door Slamming Shut

The problem we face with this directive doesn't lie with shooting an enemy combatant who is shooting at us, regardless of whether that person is a US Citizen, nor does it include fighting true terrorists. It certainly doesn't concern capturing them, imprisoning them, interrogating them, or killing them before they kill us as those are all "normal" war time activities.

No, the problem lies with effectively calling out a "hit" on an American Citizen whom they arbitrarily determine is a risk, without due process, without a jury of our peers, without known proof or warning, while at the same time securing those same constitutional rights to known enemy combatants and war criminals they have just denied the newly declared American citizen “terrorist”.

Here are two very specific stances of our most recent President's:

1) Targeting specific individual citizens whom they believe have ill intent and ordering them shot on sight, presumably “in other countries”, although Blair didn’t actually use those parameters in his description of the directive.

2) The fact is that they view the world as their battlefield in this AUMF, including hits on citizens of the US, sending drones, secret or pseudo secret actions in Yemen, Pakistan and any other country they damn well please, without concern to collateral damage or definitive proof.

There is war, then there is just playing dirty. I understand that sometimes during war, playing dirty is collateral - it's called strategy - but this is beyond that. This is simply playing dirty most of the time, more so on American Citizens than on the actual enemy. An enemy who consistently breaks the rules of engagement no less: who has no uniforms, no marching orders, just murderous intent regardless of the collateral damage it may cause. In fact, they delight in murdering innocent citizens on their way to work or home for the holidays.

In reality, what highlights an American Citizen as a "terrorist"? Do we know?

We have no idea their criteria, but we have hints to what it might be that constitutes a "terrorist".

4 We have the Terrorist Watch list. Many of us left-titled "right wing extremists" (who are actually just natural and patriotic citizens) are probably teetering on the brink of being on that one because this president doesn't like dissent for his policies. In fact the DHS report says as much.

We may very well reside there simply because we are either Veterans, don't believe in abortion, do believe in the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms, or we “cling” to our bibles. What of those who act as recruiters to community organizing conservatives, are bloggers, tea partiers, or any other ludicrous thing they can think of to include to marginalize and attack us?

4 We have the "No Fly List" (which houses untold natural US citizens), and

4 We have recent “questionable” citizenships they examine – unless, of course, they are Muslim – for that would be racist profiling.

4 Furthermore we have no access to any of the above lists, nor do we know if we, as an individual sit on either of the first two “lists”, and if we do, why we are there. We apparently can't find recourse to be removed from said list as recent revelations by those who find themselves on said list can attest.

This leads to the very real conclusion that anyone on a no fly list, a government deemed “right wing extremist” or virtually anyone the government targets could realistically be shot on sight or meet some other fatal event, even though he may have no prior knowledge of being on some list somewhere. The question that follows this conclusion then is: would that include his or her traveling companions as well? What if there are children around this big bad townhall attendee, veteran or tea partier?

Who’s to say since the world is the administrations battlefield, that regular people couldn’t meet with some “unfortunate accident” in their own backyard or driving to work one day? Who’s to say it couldn’t be one of us? Will we be shocked then?

The meaning of this executive directive is simply too broad, too secret, too arbitrary and far too outside the confines of the Constitutional boundaries under which our leaders rule. When considering we have 8 year olds who have been battling to be removed from the no fly list for 3 years, who are surely no danger to the US, it is highly likely there are other innocents who have been deemed dangerous to the US. I can easily extrapolate that list could include those of us who disagree with this president’s policies, whom he has already called out as “extremists”, and of which the DHS has further extrapolated the term to mean “terrorists” - or at the very least “terrorists in the making”.

The fact is that individual citizens have no chance to defend themselves against such a charge and it is a charge unbeknownst to them in most cases. They are a target and the President can simply say “just take them out”. That quickly. POOF! You are no more.

Combine those facts with the newly revealed adjacent "policy" that tells us the government has purposely allowed known terrorists into the US for Surveillance purposes. A policy which obviously has the potential to foment war upon the citizens of these United States, since such a one could escape surveillance easily enough in order to do the dirty deed they came here to do.

For good measure add in the loss of our economic freedoms that has been proven to have been brought upon us through a combination of congress, President’s (CFR and redistribution initiatives), cabinet appointees (deregulation of SEC trading rules), and the purposeful, proven “negligence” of the Federal Reserve. It becomes clear that we now have quite a dangerous stew of policies going on in this country today. Policies that should deeply disturb all of us.

We can’t fight it, we don't know exactly what it is. Even if we did, they won’t listen because it contains their belief in superiority, their political expediency to remain in control, and entitled elitism. Nor do we have the funds left to flee or to protect ourselves against it, which is exactly the definition of our "economic freedoms".

They are playing quite dangerously with the rights afforded us by our constitution: our safety, security, privacy, redress, petition, protest, due process, economic freedom, and our personhood rights - those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are manipulating with their pseudo-war time activities. They are playing in such a way as to endanger ALL US Citizens, not just those deemed “bad seed” - and they dare say we the people are the threat to this country?

Are we a threat to their policies through peaceful resistance? I certainly hope we are.

Are we a threat to their plans to stay in power through the web of campaign contributions, States of Emergencies and further pseudo-war actions they themselves have built? We had better be.

Are we a threat to their ever increasing credit lines and their license to makes us all serfs?

If we aren’t, we might as well hand over our property and simply lie down in the coffin now, for we can all be labeled “terrorist serfs” now.

Additional Recommended Reading: "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer. A study of the takeover of a people by Nazi Germany.

To Hoffman or Not To Hoffman?

NY’s 23rd District Candidate Doug Hoffman Gave an Excellent Interview Under a Very Tough Opening Question while the Tea Party Express Endorsed Hoffman Yesterday in spite of Gingrich’s Tough Talk.

Mr. Gingrich simply isn’t getting the message the Tea Partiers are trying so hard to send.

Conservatives don’t want “moderate Republicans”, we want conservative candidates. Whether that means we have to risk losing a few races now, or we actually succeed and win it, the effort will mean a win for conservatives, because before the GOP gets it, they must understand we mean business. We must get the message across that we will not be controlled by fear-mongering any longer.

In trying to insure we listen to him by calling it “a win for Pelosi” if we back Doug Hoffman for NY23, Gingrich is doing that very thing. He is creating fear to control the segment of the population he needs to control. It is wrong and it has to stop.

I’m sorry Mr. Gingrich, but you kicked that dog the moment you walked away from your Contract With America. We don’t believe you are THE conservative voice anymore. Once burnt, twice shy…all that.

You certainly are not the conservative voice at this moment Mr. Gingrich, right now you are simply toeing the party line and we all know it. You, Mr. Steele and the GOP really need to understand the party line no longer cuts it with us. The Sleeping Giant is AWAKE!

Right now Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Hoffman is the conservative voice and all of conservative America is climbing behind him because his is the first meaningful election since we gave our country away last year. You then essentially say that we have no business being involved in this race, and by saying that local elections shouldn’t be attended to by the general population, well, might I remind you that you are not a New Yorker living in Albany and yet you are supporting the liberal moderate RINO Scozzafava, as is the RNC who so relentlessly pursues our dollars….

When exactly are we supposed to be concerned with the Congresspersons being elected? Only when you or the GOP tells us to? Perhaps when the RNC takes our donations and floods the playing field for the moderate/liberal ‘conservative’ with our dollars? Or should it wait until perhaps when they are actually in office signing on to TARP or cozying up to the Spendocrats to spend our money collectively?

No. Politics are changing in America Mr. Gingrich, the people are taking it back. We are awake, we are watching and we are silent no more.Stop fighting us and join us, or we stop buying your books, donating to your causes and listening to you.

It’s that simple.

It’s that real.

You don’t seem to understand that we aren’t Republicans, Democrats or Independents, we are THE people. We are the ones written about in the Constitution. We are U.S. Constitution believing citizens who believe that the founders had it right and we have NO REASON to back away from that.

We know we can’t spend ourselves into “prosperity”, we bought that lie once, and it blew up in our faces. We get that it is just a shiny new phrase that simply means politicians want to redistribute our wealth, obviously to themselves with pay raises, repatriating terrorists, buying up companies, and giving to banks filled with toxic debt! We understand that the government is now in the business of privatizing the gains of the usurped companies at the same time they publicize the losses.

We finally realize that the only difference between the accepted parties at this time is how quickly and to what degree they believe they can achieve the goal of centralized government while ensuring themselves power in perpetuity.

Politicians don’t yet understand that we get it now. That it is simply a question of what level of socialism they are trying to bring to bear upon us, not whether or not it will be crammed down our throats.

We believe we CAN fix these problems as capitalists, we can still work with other countries (been doing so for centuries) without the UN's involvement. We CAN still have tolerance (as long as you will afford us the same luxury) but we cannot support huge centralized government or lose our sovereignty over who is the turtle and who is the rabbit as far as bankrupting us and our country goes.

Take a minute Mr. Gingrich to listen to the shocking Dobbs video from October 26th, 2009 and the 45th anniversary week of this Reagan speech from Tuesday to get the message. The difference now is that the threat they both speak of is not external anymore, it is strictly internal within our own government. This is our last best shot to begin to fix the destruction and waste that government, labor and special interest has thrust upon us, and we are going to take that shot.

We simply aren’t doormats anymore. We are awake and we are big.

We Are All Founding Fathers Now

By: Michael S. Yashko

The cover of Newsweek Magazine recently proclaimed, “We Are All Socialists Now”. Maybe we are. Maybe it’s time to stop kidding ourselves. Let’s quit pretending that we’re a country of rugged individualists, like in the movies. John Wayne doesn’t live here anymore. Perhaps we should stop the charade and just get it over with, admit that we just don’t have it in us. Americans like the federal nanny-state. They need the federal nanny-state.

To resolve all doubt, we could gather in Philadelphia, draft a Declaration of Dependence and submit these facts to a candid World: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident in our Society: that without Federal Government intervention, we cannot take care of ourselves, our families or our neighbors; that we are endowed by the benevolent good graces of a ubiquitous Federal Government with certain unalienable Rights and that chief among these are taxpayer-funded programs to ensure our happiness and well-being. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on our own inadequacy, we pledge to the Federal Government our blind loyalty, our incomes and our sacred liberty.”

But maybe Newsweek was wrong - a modern-day “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment. I sense a growing awareness on the part of average citizens. Previously too busy bettering themselves and doing right by their neighbors to be “activist” about anything, they are awakening to the realization that their country is being changed. America is not changing in the sense of a benign, political drift, but it is being relentlessly, purposefully changed in a real, fundamental and irreversible way. People now sense that we’ve reached a tipping point, a moment in the history of our Nation when the core philosophy of our country is being re-set for good. And, the gravity of this realization is spurring them to “get into the game.”

Let’s face facts. We are presently engaged in the “Third Founding” of the United States. Only the Revolution and the Civil War rival the coming four years in philosophical importance. If we are intellectually honest and aware, we should recognize that we are being forced to choose: become full-blown socialists or turn back to our historical roots as a constitutional republic. Time is short. This “re-founding” is going to be complete within the next four years, not some time in the obscure future. In these next four years, we will decide if we’re capable of taking back the power we’ve ceded to Washington or if we really are all socialists now. Did Newsweek get it wrong? We’ll know soon enough. We’ll have an idea of what road we’re on after the 2010 midterm elections. The morning after the next Presidential Election, we’ll know for sure.

It’s late in the game, but the battle of ideas has finally been joined in earnest. I say “in earnest” because we finally realize that both political parties are speeding us down F.A. Hayek’s Road To Serfdom. People finally grasp that the choice is not between Republicans or Democrats, but between an intrusive federal nanny-state run by both parties or a movement by the people to take back the power originally reserved for them by the Constitution’s Framers.

The Founders gave us a constitutional republic and made individual liberty paramount. They designed a decentralized government to ensure that the people could govern themselves – those most directly affected had the most say. We now have a centralized, mass democracy where the concept of federalism is but a footnote in history. Professor Claes Ryn calls the social and political philosophy which enabled the Federal Government to invade every nook and cranny of our lives a “moral hoax” because it allows the proponents of big-government to “ooze benevolence for people in the abstract.” Because they don’t have to do something concrete for specific people it is checkbook morality - “moralism made easy”.

The Supreme Court aided and abetted this transformation of the Constitution by ignoring or re-writing clause after clause limiting government power. In his book, Restoring the Lost Constitution, Professor Randy Barnett vividly describes the result, “The Constitution that was actually enacted and formally adopted creates islands of government powers in a sea of liberty. The judicially redacted constitution creates islands of liberty rights in a sea of governmental power.”

So, what to do? Professor Barnett has a concrete answer is in his Forbes.com article, A Bill of Federalism (May, 20, 2009). We must demand that the Federal Government return the power it has usurped. We must restore the original balance of power between the Federal Government and people and the States. But legally and politically, we cannot simply erase the Supreme Court cases that brought us to this point. We must amend the Constitution to formally reinstate the clauses eliminated from the Founders’ Constitution. In this way, we can assume control over our own lives again, just as the Framers intended.

We are but months away from the culmination of Socialism’s one hundred year assault on the Founders’ core philosophies and their Constitution. We must face squarely the question, “What is the proper role of Government in our lives?” Either we will re-affirm the philosophy and virtues of our Founders and re-invigorate the Constitutional Republic they created, or we will take the final step to European-style Socialism. I see ahead the last off-ramp on Hayek’sRoad To Serfdom. Let’s take that exit marked “Individual Liberty, Limited Government and Free Enterprise.” Fight for what you believe in. Join the debate. We Are All Founding Fathers Now.

© 2009. All Rights Reserved.

America - The Beacon of Hope to the World

Written By Greg

George Washington wrote, “I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.” - The writing of George Washington, by John C. Fitzpatrick, GPO, 1931 – 44. Vol 32:2

By this statement, we know that George Washington understood a truth; that God allowed a group of militias to unite to overthrow the mighty British army, whose job it was to uphold the tyrannical rule of the British Empire over the colonies.

When I read his writings, I believe that George Washington sensed the reason for God’s favor on those patriots included an important point – one that I see us moving farther away from as a nation. Namely that God had given a vision to these believing patriots to ensure that our country would be a model, a "Beacon of Hope" to the world. These patriots knew from where their strength came. They knew they were operating under the blessings and by the direction of the One who could lead them from tyranny to liberty. The Constitution of the United States of America is, among other things, a testimony to this reality.

George Washington knew that it would take the American people working together to uphold the principles of our country that are manifested by the United States Constitution. The principles are the reason that he and so many others had sacrificed their comfort, security, health, and ultimately for many, their lives. He knew that winning our independence was nothing short of a miracle, and that our “experiment” as a republic with a distributed form of government led by the people would fail if we failed to remember what would make it succeed – to continue to be the Beacon of Hope – One Nation, Under God.

Our Statue of Liberty declares to the world, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Lady Liberty is a symbol of our own freedom from tyranny and is a symbol of hope the rest of the world. However, a statue with words, or a government making new laws will not endow the American People or the immigrants who have entered her shores with the strength to uphold such lofty ideals. We are a free people, endowed by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and we are given a heady responsibility to care for our fellow man while ensuring the continuation of the Republic. Without God, freedom becomes impossible to maintain. It is when the American people remember that those words etched on Lady Liberty by human hands, has a deeper meaning when we believe in our God and His offer - “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”.

How far have we strayed from these truths? Our elected leaders apologize to the Leaders of these "huddled masses" for what our country has done. Our leaders, elected and unelected are taking significant steps to give up our hard fought sovereignty to be part of a global central government, a one world order, whose goal it is to usurp the moniker "beacon of hope". Our President is trying to convince other nations who have watched the true Beacon of Hope become the leader of the free world through these 200 years that we are no longer a Christian nation.

Of course, these leaders are not the first Americans who deny that it was and continues to be the blessings of our Creator that has allowed the miracle of our nation to occur. These are simply the first leaders to be in a position of power, and to the have benefit of a global stage, enabled by technology and own the media to such an extent that they can get away with making these proclamations. These are the first leaders of the free world to have the ability to take advantage of the momentum and traction of an emerging, powerful global central government whose viability has been enhanced by a global financial crisis not seen since the Great Depression.

It is up to the American people to remember what has allowed us to be the leader of the free world. We need to remember why we are the nation with more immigrants every year than any other nation – it is because we are the Beacon of Hope.

Those of us that understand these truths need to remind our family, friends and neighbors that are old enough to remember the time when we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and pledged our allegiance to our flag every morning at school. We need to take the time to explain to the under 40 set that we did this every morning of every school day so the American people would never forget why we are blessed to live in the greatest nation the earth has ever known.

If we know the truth, the truth shall make us free. If we speak the truth in love, our numbers will increase. If the numbers increase a grass roots force will exist who know these truths, remember them every day, and share them whenever possible. Then and only then will we have listened to the advice given by the father of our great nation and we will be obedient to our Heavenly Father. Then and only then will we prevail and be able to stop the momentum being caused by those who are making sure they "do not allow a serious crisis go to waste".

The Third Founding of a Nation and the Fomentation of the White Rose – an article.

Aristotle: On Politics: "... and further, it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon,... and further, to set man against man and friend against friend, and the common people against the privileged and the wealthy. Also it is part of these tyrannical measures, to keep the subjects poor, in order to pay the guards and the soldiers, and so that they will be occupied with earning their livelihood and will have neither leisure nor opportunity to engage in conspiratorial acts... Further, [to levy] such taxes on income as were imposed in Syracuse, for under Dionysius the citizens gladly paid out their whole fortunes in taxes within five years. Also, the tyrant is inclined constantly to foment wars"

I attended an interesting presentation Monday evening on the historical premise of the Constitution as presented, the “Unwritten Constitution”. It was an interesting take on the reasons and the basis for the Constitution. The presenter showed the intent of the founders, how they formed their opinions from early times in the history of great thinkers and from the basis of the ancient philosophers. We learned why they chose to expound on the ideals of free men as they reintroduced these ancient precepts as they founded our budding nation as a “way of life” while establishing a government for the people, by the people and of the people.

Our presenter was an attorney whom I will identify only as Mike. It was a very well thought out presentation and one that although difficult to hear in many respects, opened my mind to a new perspective that I dare say might make the difference in this cultural war. He highlighted a few points that led me to a refined conclusion. I will attempt to convey to my readers the core truths of this dissertation.

The background of the presentation among other writings, was a book titled “The Road to Serfdom, The Collective Works Volume Two” by Friedrich August von Hayek (circa 1944) and the more recent writings of Claes G. Ryn. Both writings are rather prophetic in nature, so much so that as you read them, you feel as though they were written in the last few months. The presentation was a very telling tale of a nation’s decent into the “Collective” culture; as opposed to the ‘Constitutional Culture’ on which our country was built.

As background, Wikipedia in describing Hayak’s book states,

“The central thesis is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny. He used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries that had gone down “the road to serfdom” and reached tyranny.”

Hayek argued that within a centrally planned economic system, the distribution and allocation of all resources and goods would devolve onto a small group. This would lead to a disagreement about the practical implementation of any economic plan. Combined with the inadequacy of the central planners’ resource management, in turn would invariably necessitate coercion in order for anything to be achieved.

Failure of central planning would be perceived by the public as an absence of sufficient power by the state to implement an otherwise good idea. (Bush) Such a perception would lead the public to vote more power to the state, and would assist the rise to power of a “strong man” perceived to be capable of “getting the job done”. (Obama) For Hayek “the road to serfdom” inadvertently set upon by central planning, with its dismantling of the free market system, ends in the destruction of all individual economic and personal freedom.”

We also were presented the Economic Bill of Rights, better known as the ‘Second Bill of Rights’ written by FDR and he introduced the concept that we are currently in the Third Founding of this nation. The former I did not know existed, and the latter concept I found a very eye-opening description of what is occurring in our Nation today.

The point of the discussion was to begin to understand where our founder’s were going with the writings of the instrumental declarations and the establishment of guidelines from which this country was founded, starting from the perspective of personal and societal responsibility combined with reason; as compared to today’s direction of feeding and controlling all needs, wants and desires of our current culture.

The conclusion being we have one of two choices:

Finding a way to secure our independence and protect our children’s freedom, the freedom in which we ourselves were raised, or if we do nothing, being the very people who will have to explain to our children and grandchildren what it was like to live in a free America and the more difficult explanation of why they no longer live free.

Perhaps an enlightened way of understanding this culture shift would be Gain vs. Greed as opposed to the flattening of the bell curve and a leveling of society that we currently see as populous ideals. The manipulation and framing of the premise being no one believes we should see a starving child and not wish to help.

The Take Away

Four statements made by Mike struck me quite hard and I have been pondering them ever since. I am going to ponder them with you.

1. A well-organized minority can quickly become the majority.

2. The meaning of Constitutional Living, or “Living in Freedom” is simply the act of caring for yourself and your neighbor physically, keeping government at bay and taking responsibility for ones actions. In times of old, if my neighbor and her nine children became widowed, either she would be living in my home, or I would be helping her tend her fields to support her. If my neighbor is a little old lady who finds herself buried in snow up to her ankles, I as a younger individual will go over and shovel her driveway, start her car, put her in the car and drive her down to the grocery store so she can get what she needs. It is a mindset built in the active support of our struggling fellow man.

3. Our society now lives as a “Statist Society”, which is, in short, a welfare mentality perhaps better phrased as “Freedom from Need or Want” as the main driver. It is these thoughts that fill the Economic or 2nd Bill of Rights. Do you see the difference between points 2 and 3? We have gone from “Living and Giving in Freedom” to seeking “Freedom from Needs and Wants”.

Freedom from Need and Want says that I matter and then maybe my fellow man - although he is not my problem. I go to work and I give the government a large chunk of my paycheck. I do not look out for my neighbor personally, but I expect the paycheck I give my government will somehow go to meet my neighbor’s needs/wants after my needs are met.

It teaches me that my money will somehow be returned to the collective in the form of government subsidy so that we can all live in our homes. It also promises that we can pay our bills and party when we want to party. It tells me that it will end world hunger, world pain and world want without my direct involvement or the need to go out of my way for the betterment of society. It is the "easy" way out through apathy and I propose it is a trap from which we will travail to escape. For once it breathes strong, the people suffocate. Never can we have it both ways.

Who can argue against that frame of “statist justice”? You can’t without understanding the difference in ideology. No one wants to say there will be starving children and the framers of this statist system know that and use it to manipulate us.

The difference in ideology is who should feed that hungry child, individuals, churches, charities or the government? Can the government do it better than the neighbor can? If we truly all helped our neighbor through the former 3 avenues presented, would any be starving, would we need the ever increasing appetite of the government? If so, then why when we incorporate the 4th avenue (the government) do we see an increase in poverty? We will always have the poor with us, but which is better, to teach them to fish, or to only give them a fish to feed them for a day? And who really gets that money we faithfully send in to the government. Has it ended poverty and starvation? We keep throwing more money at the problem, yet we seem to actually create more poverty….Why?

4. As we are in the throes of the Third Founding of our Nation, what are we prepared to do to overcome the seemingly inevitable. The First Founding is highlighted by the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the framing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Second Founding was highlighted by the Civil War, went through the New Deal period, ended after WW II, culminating in the 2nd Bill of Rights. This Third Founding in my view could easily be called a “Third Reich” which started with Carter, was slowed by Reagan, was picked up again by Bush Sr., gained strong support from Clinton, accelerated through Bush and is now at warp speed with Obama.

The Third Reich USA style is simply defined by the politicization of everything, the privatization of gains and the publicizing of losses - for now.

History teaches us that with Revolution, blood can and often does flow in the streets. If this is true and with a nation changing as rapidly as is ours, how then does that bode for we the people? How can we avoid the fate of past Revolutions? How can we stop the hate and the division we are witnessing?


Part II - The White Rose Society

I am going to tell you a story of the “White Rose Society”, a story that will not only move you tremendously, but through the reading of just a one of the six pamphlets produced from this movement, hopefully will help you realize once again that nothing is new under the sun. This young organization mobilized many to rise up against fascism and to demand a return of freedom to its people from within Nazi Germany.

The White Rose Society was a student organization in the early days of the Third Reich based out of the University of Munich. It was started by Christian students, Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, their friends Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and their philosophy professor Kurt Huber. They were youthful, innocent, courageous, morally strong college students who stood, taught, and fought against the tyranny, oppression, and genocide of the Nazi regime. They were not Jewish, yet they found the hatred of the Jewish, and the promulgation of a culture of hate through centralized government dictates which were becoming more and more cruel, appalling.

These students, along with their teacher built pamphlets of their ideals, based on the values, morals, and ideals of their faith and of other, wiser men before them. They printed these ideals for all to disseminate. They were true freedom fighters, the human swords of the proclamation of liberty, compassion, and devotion to their fellow man.

They were barely out of childhood, very young adults who wrote the road to freedom. Like many who become human swords, standing for what was right; they were subsequently and very publically beheaded for their beliefs. Their six pamphlets were confiscated by the Gestapo and destroyed at their capture, not that a capture was terribly difficult for such a government machine, as they were students going to school and being proponents of unsanctioned ideals as students are prone to do.

But, like all truth is wont to do, 17,000 of these pamphlets were somehow spared and they made their way to England. The Royal Army reproduced these pamphlets and later airdropped over 5 Million pamphlets over 17 German cities. World War II was not won solely by outside freedom fighters coming into the country in warrior fashion, it was won through the hearts and minds of its own people. I am reprinting the third pamphlet here in its entirety.

The Fomentation of the Ideal – The Third Pamphlet of the White Rose Society
Reprinted here in part.

“Salus publica suprema lex – The Safety of the People Above Law
All ideal forms of government are utopias. A state cannot be constructed on a purely theoretical basis; rather, it must grow and ripen in the way an individual human being matures. But we must not forget that at the starting point of every civilization the state was already there in rudimentary form. The family is as old as man himself, and out of this initial bond man, endowed with reason, created for himself a state founded The White Rose Society on justice, whose highest law was the common good. The state should exist as a parallel to the divine order, and the highest of all utopias, the civitas dei, is the model which in the end it should approximate.

Here we will not pass judgment on the many possible forms of the state - democracy, constitutional monarchy, and so on. But one matter needs to be brought out clearly and unambiguously. Every individual human being has a claim to a useful and just state, a state which secures the freedom of the individual as well as the good of the whole. For, according to God's will, man is intended to pursue his natural goal, his earthly happiness, in self-reliance and self-chosen activity, freely and independently within the community of life and work of the nation.

But our present "state" is the dictatorship of evil. "Oh, we've known that for a long time," I hear you object”, and it isn't necessary to bring that to our attention again." But I ask you, if you know that, why do you not bestir yourselves, why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanized state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right – or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system?

But if a man no longer can summon the strength to demand his right, then it is absolutely certain that he will perish. We would deserve to be dispersed through the earth like dust before the wind if we do not muster our powers at this late hour and finally find the courage, which up to now we have lacked. Do not hide your cowardice behind a cloak of expediency, for with every new day that you hesitate, failing to oppose this offspring of Hell, your guilt, as in a parabolic curve, grows higher and higher.

Many, perhaps most, of the readers of these leaflets do not see clearly how they can practice an effective opposition. They do not see any avenues open to them. We want to try to show them that everyone is in a position to contribute to the overthrow of this system. It is not possible through solitary withdrawal, in the manner of embittered hermits, to prepare the
ground for the overturn of this "government" or bring about the revolution at the earliest possible moment. No, it can be done only by the cooperation of many convinced, energetic people - people who are agreed as to the means they must use to attain their goal.

We have no great number of choices as to these means. The only one available is passive resistance. The meaning and the goal of passive resistance is to topple National Socialism, and in this struggle we must not recoil from any course, any action, whatever its nature. At all points we must oppose National Socialism, wherever it is open to attack. We must soon bring this monster of a state to an end. A victory of fascist Germany in this war would have immeasurable, frightful consequences.

For the entire reprint of the White Rose Society pamphlets, click here.

Ending Thoughts

The oracles of this movement, the brave young men and woman who began it, may have lost their lives to the fight but in their end, the movement continued. I propose to you that this movement galvanized the people, the underground and ultimately, even while struggling to recover through the late 80’s to today, freed an imprisoned population from Nazism and many of communism which is only a different flavor of the same governmental appetite. These countries remain far from perfect, it is a long road back to freedom, but the gray people of the gray breadlines find relief, they can and will, if allowed build nations of Freedom in Living and Giving.

Before we get there, I challenge all to practice what we preach. We must return to the culture from which we came in part. We may not be able to return to a strict construction ideal, but we can certainly return to free market system, where our children can be raised with a sense of personal responsibility. I challenge everyone reading this that we stand for that which we tolerate. If we do so, will that make us the oracles? Could we become targets of a government gone to repeating the failed movements of the past? I can’t answer that question, but I can ask in return, which is worse, to live in a country that suffocates and silences its own or to live in a country in which it is all for one and one for all? A country such as we mainly were as recent as the 80’s, free from nationalization, fearful out of control deficit, and mass control of her people and her businesses.

Please pass this on. Please comment on your take. If the comment appears to disappear after you submit it, be assured it pops into my inbox for approval.

Awakening the Sleeping Giant

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was portrayed in the film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (circa 1970) as saying, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." after his attack on Pearl Harbor.

It is a matter of lore’s and legends. It is, from another Yamamoto saying, a matter of “kicking the sleeping rabid dog”.

I do not know if the first legend is true or partly true, the only thing I know is that it was an accurate description of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

It could also well be descriptive of the America we see today.

March 2008, we were a pretty happy crew here in America. We believed in our country. We did our jobs and [mostly] trusted our elected officials and bank officials to do theirs.

We saw the election gearing up but weren’t yet in the frame of mind to pay much attention. We were busy working and planning our summer vacations. We were enjoying the fact that we were seeing our nest eggs grow to along with the DOW to the 14,000 mark. More importantly, we felt safe again, safe to fly, safe from terrorism and safe in our homes.

We didn’t know a thing about CDO’s or CDS’s or the coming market crash. We didn’t understand Mark to Market accounting rules. We had a real life to live. We didn’t understand the army of volunteers that were being commissioned through ACORN.

We didn’t much like our gas prices or our housing starts slow-downs or our declining values in the housing markets, but we didn’t see what all that meant. No one was sounding alarm bells. We weren’t being told much.

We slept well at night.

Today, one short year later we have gone through some estimate a total of 20 Trillion Dollars in bailouts and promised bailouts. As a whole, this nation has lost $18 Trillion with a "T" worth of PERSONAL wealth.

We are facing the largest budget ever sent to Congress by the new President Obama – some say more than all past President’s combined! This weekend Obama placed 1,000,000 feet on the street to get signatures for petitions on that very same monstrosity he calls a budget, in the continuing campaign saga that has become Obama’s legacy. The Obama Forum has morphed into Obama 2.0. 2.0 is now being funded through our tax dollars, which are going through groups like ACORN to help him continue to beat his drum. He is raising money and he is making it work for him.



We are seeing bills that chip away at our Constitution being passed at an alarming rate. We are being threatened with being conscripted into a National Service Organization. Our Census has been taken AWAY from the Dept. of Commerce and put into the hands of the White House and one Rahm Emmanuel Chief of Staff. Our 401k’s are now better defined as 201k’s. The government doesn’t seem to care what we have to say on any matter as they rush through bill after bill without reading a single line.

Meanwhile, our tax bills are set to rise exponentially with a purported $168,000 additional debt to our government for each person in the USA. Per person is not to be confused with per WORKING person, it is every man, woman and child.

We felt lost. We felt alone. We marveled at the rock star status of this new President. We dealt with a “Get in their face” mentality from the left and an onslaught of media flagellation such as has never been seen before - during and after the campaign - it never ends.

Conservatives realized what Obama’s true message was really saying back about July or August. The left never got it, or if they did, they really wanted it, which is even more stunning.

Suddenly the group that houses mainly conservative pacifists find ourselves swiftly changing gears to become activist. A groundswell of various groups are popping up all over, Tea Parties, We Surround Them groups, even old school groups like CATO and The Heritage Foundation are gaining huge new momentum.

The media won’t cover us, but we are becoming our own media, learning to navigate the once spooky waters of the internet and to collaborate with other groups like Grassfire.org’s www.resistnet.com.

We are aiming for 2,000,000,000 feet on the street through Tea Party Demonstrations, word of mouth, Facebook and other group sites like Meetup and the Ning’s social networks. We are organizing seminars, training, education, and book clubs. We have Congressional Watch groups, are sending millions of emails, calling a thousand times, writing letters and faxes. We are learning to blog and twitter, and we are peppering the online publication articles through their comment sections with our opinions and good old common sense.

We are learning a bravery and courage we didn’t know we possessed on the ashes of the political graveyard of our great country.

From my little corner of the world, it appears that Obama has awakened that sleeping giant. He has kicked that proverbial sleeping rabid dog.

It is up to each one of us to make sure that this administration, this legislature and even this judicial system begins to understand that we truly are serious. We are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore. BTW, did you know that 1 phone is counted as 13,000 calls when you call your representatives. Your one little phone call suddenly became quite powerful!

It would be interesting to find out how many opinions or votes are changed by that one letter or fax....

To that end, my new blog ‘The Point’ is to remind us we do count. Some might be long blogs, some might be pithy, some even funny. I hope you will however read them and contribute to them. I want nothing more than to offer a place for us all to enjoy, to commiserate, to unite, and to destroy what this current government is doing to our country. I want to never give up and to never let up on them – equaling our ferocity to their ferocity of not letting up on us, not giving us a breather. This is musings from a fed up mind, pure and unadulterated. I hope you join me!

And by the way....This crisis Mr.’s Obama and Emmanuel is NOT your opportunity to destroy this country! Do to me what you may, Mr. Socialist Man, but I will NOT shut up. You kicked this rapid dog, now deal with it.