This is a simple guide that explains what it means if your cell phone is unlocked and, how you can tell if it is, as well as some suggestions on how to get your phone unlocked. Simply put, if your cell phone is unlocked it can be used with more than one wireless carrier like T Mobile and Cingular. For a more detailed explanation read on. If you find this guide helpful, please help others find it by clicking the “Yes” in the blue title bar below.
I will start with what is means to be locked. Many years ago, the wireless carriers such as AT&T and others started a marketing strategy of paying for some of or all of the cost of a new cell phone if the customer would commit to a one or two year contract to use their wireless service. The wireless carriers did not want to pay for the phone and later have it used with another carrier, so they got the cell phone manufactures to design the phone to be locked to just their service. For example, if AT&T paid for the phone, AT&T would lock it so that it could only be used on AT&T and not T Mobile. This lock is called by several names including “Sub Lock” or “SPC Lock” or “Sim Lock”.
Now that you know why the cell phones are locked, I will discuss how to tell if your phone is locked or unlocked. First, you must determine if your phone is a GSM phone or a CDMA phone. This is easy to tell, if the phone uses a sim card (a small piece of plastic that you put in the phone, see picture below), it is GSM, if it doesn’t, it is CDMA. The US carriers that are GSM are Cingular and T Mobile. The CDMA carriers are Verizon, US Cellular, Alltel, Qwest, and Sprint PCS. Both CDMA and GSM phones are generally locked, however, only unlocked GSM phones can be easily switched from one carrier to another. I will address each seperately.
Sim Card Sim Card Inserted
GSM Carriers (Cingular and T Mobile are the biggest two). When a GSM phone is unlocked, it will work with any active sim card. So you can put an active T Mobile card or and active Cingular card and the phone will make a call. Now some features of the phone may not work, like the internet browser if the phone is not programmed to the particular carrier, nevertheless, you can make calls.
CDMA is a little different. The cell phone does not use a small sim card and the phone must be programmed to another carrier to work which generally requires that the phone be hooked to a computer that has special service software to program the phone. If you don’t have the software, and it is not readily available, CDMA phones are, for all practical purposes, locked to the carrier they are programmed to.
How can I unlock my cell phone? You can find companies that unlock cell phones on eBay and on the internet. Some companies are able to unlock the phones remotely, meaning if you send them the imei number on the phone, they send you a code to unlock the phone, others require you to send them the phone. Each model is different, so you will have to search a little. Charges range from $5.00 to $20.00 depending on the model of the phone and which company you go to.
If you are purchasing a phone on eBay, look for one that is already unlocked. I hope you found this guide helpful, if so, please click yes below. Also, check out all the phones that I offer on eBay, I can unlock almost every phone made and I generally unlock them before I sell them. If you want to learn even more about unlocking see my guide “After Unlocked Cell Phones: What it Means to be Unlocked”. Thanks for reading.
Wi-Fi_Toys_15WirelessProjectsforHomeOffice_Entertainment The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development Mobile and Wireless Communication Networks Macworld iPhone Superguide Addison.Wesley.iPhone.Developers.Cookbook.2nd.Edition.Nov.2009 Taking Youri Phone to the Max
Is it enough to get up and go to work every day for the rest of our lives? To make more money and buy more stuff? Does that give enough meaning in our lives so that we can be fully satisfied?
We Americans have so much weath outside and it has cost us so much. A top 10 issue that couples across America fight about is money. People are so concerned with money. Don’t get me wrong, I am as concerned as the next person about making the bills. But do we think about the importance of other types of value? Of higher values like inner satisfaction, peace, wisdom and forgiveness? And are we concerned with developing and achieving those values on a daily basis? I don’t know. But, from the way I see Americans living it doesn’t look like it.
So I ask, what is the point? We go to school for years and years with the idea of getting a good job and having a good career. What use is a life that exists on the basis of achieving a means to an end? You go to school, you get a good job, you buy a car and a house, you get married, you have kids . . . then what? Is that it? Is that enough to make you happy with this life? Or is there something more? Is there a desire within us that we can achieve something greater than just material weath? For the sake of our future generations (and the current ones) I certainly hope so. No amount of stuff is going to create lasting happiness in the American People.
Are we achieving happiness as a nation?
According to the National Institue of Mental Health “about 1 in 4 [American] adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” I am not convinced that the American people actually know what happiness is or how to achieve it. Sure, one could argue that happiness is different for every person, but I don’t buy it.
In order to achieve lasting happiness one has to have a state of inner balance. The world outside is ever changing and if your happiness is tied to the outside (material) world, your happiness will surely be short lived. However, with some effort, the world within each of us can be steadied; and a lasting happiness can be built on that framework. Imagine having the power to face the challenges of life without being robbed of your happiness. No need for anger, frustration, sorrow . . . just peace and the enjoyment of each moment. It is possible.
On Liberty
We are blessed in America that we can exercise freedom of choice without ridicule. But freedom is a mixed blessing. We can easily make choices that encourage happiness or self-destruction. America is just over 230 years old; in relative terms, our country is a baby. And thus we lack the moral traditions that prevent us from regularly making stupid decisions. In saying moral traditions I mean wisdom, innocence, humility, and discretion. I long for a day when the American people are empowered with the strength to know themselves and to experience the complete liberty of the Spirit.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in Harmony.”
-Mohandas K. Gandhi
Anybody can think the thought, talk the talk, but can they walk the walk?
Meditation is the answer . . . happiness is the question.
I like the way Matthew Henry explains this verses, so I will simply quote him:
It is not new for a minister to meet with unkind returns for good-will to a people, and diligent and successful services among them. To the cavils of some, the apostle answers, so as to set forth himself as an example of self-denial, for the good of others. He had a right to marry as well as other apostles, and to claim what was needful for his wife, and his children if he had any, from the churches, without labouring with his own hands to get it. Those who seek to do our souls good, should have food provided for them. But he renounced his right, rather than hinder his success by claiming it. It is the people’s duty to maintain their minister. He may wave his right, as Paul did; but those transgress a precept of Christ, who deny or withhold due support. (Matthew Henry’s Commentary)
Section 2: Serving All Men (vv. 19-23)
The latter part of verse 22 basically sums up this entire section:
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
I kind of want to shy away from quoting other people as often as I do, but I found a John Piper sermon that deals with these verses, and there is a part of it that I would like to share.
In freedom, for love’s sake, you try to overcome unnecessary, alienating differences that cut you off from unbelievers. In freedom, for love’s sake, you learn the Maninka language and translate the Bible. In freedom, for love’s sake, you eat dinner together the way they eat dinner. In freedom, for love’s sake, you dress pretty much like the middle class American natives. In freedom, for love’s sake, you get into their politics and their sports and their businesses.
And all the while you keep a vigilant watch over your heart to see if you are in the law of Christ. Here are two tests of how you are doing in this delicate balancing act. I close with these:
Are you becoming more worldly minded than they are becoming spiritually minded? If so, you have probably crossed the line of the law of Christ. Christ does not call you to lose your holiness, but to gain theirs.
Is your passion for winning your friends and family growing, or is it shrinking as you become all things to them? If it is shrinking, then you are not in the law of Christ at that point.
Here is the sum of the matter: Christ died to set us free. Free from the wrath of God, and free from the loveless limits of the law. Free for love and eternal life. Are we using our freedom to make this good news plain? Or are we so separatistic that we have no connection with unbelievers; or are we so worldly they don’t know we have anything radically different to offer? (“Becoming All Things to All Men to Save Some”)
I think that last sentence is one that we really have to think about. Christians tend to either be on the separatistic side of the spectrum or on the way opposite side of the spectrum, which is worldliness. We either have our own little “Christian bubbles,” where we only associate with Christians and participate in Christian things, or we blend in so much with the world that no one can tell that there is something different about us. I think I fall more into the separatistic side of the spectrum. It is easy for me to fall into the “I read and pray everyday, listen to sermons, wear Christian T-shirts, and only listen to Christian music, so I’m a good Christian” mindset. Are those things good? Yes, definitely. However, being a Christian is so much more than that. We are called to “go… and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). We cannot do that if we stay in our “Christian bubble.” We have to go out and interact with the lost, or else we will not reach them, as we are called to do. We have to learn about those we are called to reach, so that we will most effectively be able to reach them. Really for me, I just need to go out and reach the lost period, as that is something that I have never done.
Section 3: Striving for a Crown (vv. 24-27)
As a sports fan, I really like and relate to these verses. I will go verse-by-verse explaining them.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. (v. 24)
The runner who wins the race is going to be the one who trained arduously and gave every last ounce of effort during the race. The winner does not run half-heartedly, but runs with all the strength and energy that he or she has. To connect this to the Christian walk, we are to run hard, so to speak, and give it everything we have. There is so room for running a half-hearted lazy race. If we run in such a way, we might not finish the race and, therefore, not receive the prize—eternal life.
Let’s make it clear here that it is not our “running of the race” that saves us. If we do not finish the race, it is proof that we were never saved to begin with. Our “running zealously” is the proof that we are saved. Works do not save (Ephesians 2:8-9), but faith without works is dead (James 2:20). We are saved by faith, and our works prove that our faith is authentic.
And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. (v. 25)
We see here the importance of obtaining the prize, and again, how to obtain it. Runners compete for a prize that is perishable, but we “compete” for a prize that will never perish. How should we live in order to obtain this crown? With self-control. Again I will refer to a John Piper sermon that I found:
What Paul is saying here is that there are impulses that we have to control if we are going to run like a winner and receive the crown of righteousness. The impulses we have to control are the impulses to do things that will weaken our zeal for God: our earnestness in prayer, our hunger for Scripture, our longing to love, our passion for holiness.
The serious athlete doesn’t ask about how to just get by in his training. He asks about what will bring about maximum performance. So the mature Christian asks, what will make me most useful for the kingdom? What will stir up my zeal for God most? What will intensify my earnestness in prayer? What will trigger more hunger for God’s Word? What will strengthen my longing to love? What will fan the flames of my passion for holiness?
And then the Christian takes note of all the impulses and all the habits and practices of his life that weaken his zeal for God and his joy of faith, and he sets about to take control of them and put them out of his life. (“Olympic Spirituality, Part 2″)
And now onto verses 26 and 27, which show the severity of this self-control:
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
In the interest of time, I will continue to quote from “Olympic Spirituality, Part 2″:
Here he could hardly be more out of sync with contemporary American life. ” . . . I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I buffet my body and make it my slave.” The body is not evil in itself. God created it. And he will raise it from the dead to exist forever. But the body is the base of operations for sin, and sin uses it to give rise to many impulses that are destructive to spiritual life.
Therefore Paul says that when he exercises self-control, it is like boxing, and the enemy to be struck is the body, and when he swings, he does not miss and hit the air. He connects, and pommels his body, and makes it his slave. He will not be mastered by the appetites and impulses and cravings and lethargy of the body. “The body is for the Lord” (1 Corinthians 6:13). So Paul means to make his body serve the glory of the Lord.
This is exactly the spirit of Jesus when he said, If your eye leads you to sin, pluck it out, or if your hand leads you to sin, cut it off. For it’s better to enter eternal life blind in one eye and maimed in one hand than to go to hell with both (Matthew 5:29–30). Paul said, It’s better to beat my body into submission than to be disqualified from the race.
Now gouging out the eye does not overcome lust, and cutting off the hand does not conquer theft or battery. The point is: fight these impulses with that kind of seriousness. Both Jesus and Paul mean: there are impulses that must be put to death. And the fight to put them to death is like a boxing match with direct blows to the face.
I will conclude by recommending the second sermon I quoted (I do not know about the first, as I barely looked at it), as the parts that I read were really good, and I like the ending of the sermon. Here is the link again: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/19/803_Olympic_Spirituality_Part_2/
Student Action Committee (SAC) Protest For Missing Persons
Schedule:
Saturday, 30th January 2010,
3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Liberty Roundabout, Lahore
“They disappear without a trace. Their families exist in torturous limbo. They lay awake wondering about their loved ones’ whereabouts and condition. Terrifying thoughts come to their minds evoking tears and a jolt to their heart. Their meaning of life altered. Forever”
Since the start of the US led war on terror in 2001 hundreds of people have been illegally picked up from Pakistan. Amnesty International has stated that Pakistan has detained hundreds of alleged terror suspects without legal processes. It has been speculated that some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated, some were sold to the US military and others vanished without a trace. Some of the missing were Al-Qaeda suspects but others included innocent women and children. The families of missing persons in Pakistan have been running exhaustively in search of justice and information about their loved ones. They see no light at the end of the tunnel.
For too long us Pakistanis have remained silent as things around us spiral out of control. If you want to make a difference, it is time to stand up, be heard and be counted, for history will never forgive us for being indifferent to the plight of our people.
Join us to protest against the forced abductions of the citizens of Pakistan and demand their immediate return to the country.
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Because once I start blathering on about something, I just can’t seem to stop.
——
Glenn Greenwald won’t stop, either; this is likely due to the apparent circumstance that his commenters won’t (a) read what he wrote or (b) stop bothering him with their reactions to what they think he wrote. We have the following:
Follow-up on the Citizens United case (Salon.com)
Greenwald begins with delightful asperity:
I say [that disagreement with this post is] to be expected because, in our political discourse, it’s virtually always the case that opinions about court rulings perfectly coincide with opinions about the policy whose constitutionality is being adjudicated (e.g., those who favor same-sex marriage on policy grounds cheer court rulings that such marriages are constitutionally compelled, while those who oppose them on policy grounds object to those court rulings, etc. etc.). When a court invalidates Law X or Government Action Y on constitutional grounds, it’s always so striking how one’s views about the validity of the court’s ruling track one’s beliefs about the desirability of Law X/Action Y on policy grounds (e.g., “I like Law X and disagree with the Court’s ruling declaring Law X unconstitutional” or “I dislike Law X and agree with the Court’s striking down Law X”).
This is what comes of focusing on outcomes rather than processes. Objective constraints like the Constitutionality of a law become mere reflections of one’s own opinion, at least to oneself. (The less depressing thing about the Constitution is that it obstructs some good from being done; the more depressing thing about the Constitution is that we fixate upon that good while ignoring the overwhelming evil that it also obstructs. If only we didn’t have that damn rag from 1787, we could make the trains run on time!)
Greenwald goes on to note that, while many of the internet’s objections to Citizens United stem from the idea that “money isn’t speech” (upon which more anon) and/or that corporations are specially exempted from the First Amendment, none of the Supreme Court justices entertained either position. I’ll use his words to segue:
The fact that all nine Justices reject a certain proposition does not, of course, prove that it’s wrong. But those who argue that (1) corporations have no First Amendment rights and/or (2) restrictions on money cannot violate the free speech clause should stop pretending that the 4 dissenting Justices agreed with you. They didn’t. None of the 9 Justices made those arguments.
To the contrary, the entire dissent — while arguing that corporations have fewer First Amendment protections than individuals — is grounded in the premise that corporations do have First Amendment free speech rights and that restrictions on the expenditure of money do burden those rights, but those free speech rights can be restricted when there’s a “compelling state interest.”
(Emphasis in the original.)
“Compelling state interest” is the sort of phrase that makes my eyes bleed. It’s a direct, powerful, and frightening phrase: it emphasizes the fact that the state has interests which are utterly inimical — and often specifically harmful — to the people over whom that state purports to rule. It reminds me of the gallows wisdom that, by definition, most participants in a gang rape enjoyed it and would do it again. But let’s continue before I write something that’ll get me arrested in this land of Human Rights Commissions:
Those who want to restrict free speech always argue that there’s a compelling reason to do so (“we must ban the Communist Party because they pose a danger to the country”; “we must ban hate speech because it sparks violence and causes a climate of intimidation”; “we must ban radical Muslim websites because they provoke Terrorism”). One can have reasonable debates over the “compelling interest” question as a constitutional matter — and, as I said yesterday, I’m deeply ambivalent about the Citizens United case because that’s a hard question and I do think corporate influence is one of the greatest threats we face — but, ultimately, it’s because I don’t believe that restrictions on political speech and opinions (as opposed to other kinds of statements) can ever be justified that I agree with the majority’s ruling.
Don’t make me quote Heinlein at you, Greenwald commenters. Okay, you asked for it:
“When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On, 1940
But beyond this notion of “special” rights and “compelling” State interests is the disgusting insinuation that the Supreme Court is mostly concerned with ridiculous technicalities, persisting in narrow and literal-minded interpretations of the Constitution with no concern for the real problems facing our country — problems which must be dealt with expediently and forcefully.
Wait, are we talking about terr’ists or corpuh-ayshuns?
One of the principal accusations made over the last eight years from Bush followers — directed at those like Turley and the ACLU who objected to Bush terrorism policies on legal and Constitutional grounds — is that they were caught up in “legalisms,” absolutism and dogmatic purity at the expense of addressing a “real-world” crisis: the threat of Terrorism. “People are trying to KILL US and you’re worried about due process.” Those same name-calling accusations were made frequently by commenters last night about those who think the First Amendment actually means what it says and can’t be violated in the name of good results (“your absolutism and legalistic purity ignores the real-world problem of corporate influence”).
And y’know what? It’s still a bogus argument, fuckers, whether you do it or the Bushies do it. Listen up, you primitive screwheads: the primary threat faced by any people is not teh ebil terr’ists, nor is it teh ebil corpuh-ayshuns: it is, as the Founding Fathers discovered back around that apparently-forgotten war near the end of the Eighteenth Century, their own government. The Constitution does not exist to keep us safe from each other. The Constitution does not exist to keep us safe from other nations. The Constitution does not exist to tell us how to pee. The Constitution exists to protect us from our own government, because our own government is the force with the most guns brought to bear upon us.
Nineteenth-century slaveholders were terrified of an armed uprising from their unjustly-indentured servants, and with good reason. So too should our governments be terrified of us.
I get a bit vicious when I’m angry.
——
Glenn Greenwald gets quite vicious when he’s angry. Not wrong, but vicious; and Barry Goldwater (and your humble blogger) would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice:
Letters: “What the Supreme Court got right” (Salon.com)
Anyone who believes that ["money isn't speech, it's property"] would have to say that there’s no First Amendment problem with any law that restricts the spending of money for political purposes, such as:”It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money to criticize laws enacted by the Congress; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such laws, provided no money is spent;” or
“It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money advocating Constitutional rights for accused terrorists; all citizens shall still be free to express their views on such matters, provided no money is spent”; or
“It shall be illegal for anyone to spend money promoting a candidate not registered with either the Democratic or Republican Party; all citizens shall still be free to advocate for such candidates, provided no money is spent.”
Anyone who actually believes that “money is not speech” would have to believe that such laws are necessarily permitted by the First Amendment (since they merely restrict the expenditure of money, which is not speech).
Do you actually believe that? I don’t even find that argument sufficiently coherent to warrant much discussion.
It would be like saying: “No person shall be permitted to use a megaphone or television outlet to advocate liberal views — there’s no First Amendment problem: megaphones and television outlets are just ‘property, not speech’.”
(Emphasis added.)
These examples are almost absurdly germane to Ilya Somin’s post on corporate and property rights, which ameliorates my understanding of corporate rights in general: it now seems to me that “the rights of corporations”, far from being “new, excessive” rights, are simply more specific codifications of the rights of individuals (who, through free association, compose a corporation). You know, the way gay marriage rights are simply new codifications of existing individual rights rather than “new, special” rights. I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, since I’m embarrassingly ignorant in the field of corporate law and judicial precedents for the rights of corporations; but corporate law as short-hand for the rights of individuals in aggregate fills in a lot of gaps for me, and I’m at least clever enough to apply Ockham’s Razor to the matter.
——
Let’s now take a moment to examine Kevin Drum’s response to Glenn Greenwald’s first post:
Money in politics (Mother Jones)
Mr. Drum begins with a tedious error:
But there’s a difference here: in the case of, say, Brown vs. Board of Education, the pernicious effects of Plessy over the previous half century were plain. In Citizens United, we had an equally plain view of the effects of previous restrictions on corporate campaign funding, and those effects were… negligible.
The frustration… it burns….
Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission is not about the fucking corporations!
Frankie fuck a fencepost; we’ve already established that corporations can spend as much goddamned money as they want to influence local, state, or national politics by way of existing means such as lobbying the thrice-damned pols directly. Dropping money on the campaign of someone who might get elected has got to be seen as a riskier venture, to be undertaken only as a last resort — and it’ s not as though they can’t buy the opinion of a New York Times editorial staffer. Fuck me sideways: Bush 43 bought the whole Iraq War for the mere promise of “access”; don’t tell me that someone with real money to offer a dying legacy-media franchise couldn’t have their way with the Grey Lady in any convenient back-seat or dark corner.
Okay, let’s get back to the part where Mr. Drum has a point:
Modern corporations are far more than [organized groups of people], and long precedent recognizes this by allowing them fewer speech rights than individuals. Fairly broad restrictions on advertising, for example, are both constitutional and widely accepted. Ditto for laws that prohibit corporate officers from discussing earnings forecasts during “quiet periods.” So it’s perfectly defensible to suggest that corporations might also have more restricted rights when it comes to campaign speech.
I’m going to provisionally disagree with the notion that corporations are somehow “special” relative to other groups of people organized to a common purpose, but the judicial-precedent point appears to stand just fine on its own. Corporations are permitted fewer rights than individuals. (Whether this is a good thing is perhaps the topic for another post.) So it’s entirely reasonable, following Mr. Drum’s reasoning, to assert that corporate rights are special… in the context of a First Amendment that deals with the rights of individuals. Why don’t we have a look at the First Amendment, anyway?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would appear to be of a kind. No mention is made of individuals (as members of “the people” who might peaceably assemble and petition the &c.) until the clause after “freedom of speech”. If freedom of speech and freedom of the press are indistinguishable in the First Amendment, I don’t see how they’d be distinguishable in terms of corporate rights: following Mr. Drum’s argument, we might allow a New York Times editorialist publicly to endorse a candidate through s/h/its newspaper column, but forbid the Grey Lady herself from expressing an opinion. After all, corporations can’t be trusted.
Smile, it gets worse. Right at the end we encounter this peculiar dictum:
Exxon is not the Audubon Society and Google is not the NRA. There’s no reason we have to pretend otherwise.
Far be it for me to cast aspersion upon any of the players involved, but que hablo what the fucking fuck? It is not only invidious but utterly counterproductively reactionary to deride any group simply because they seek to profit for themselves. Coyote Blog does this one better than I:
When you say “Exxon is not the Audubon society,” I am not sure how? I am a stockholder of the first and a member of and contributor to the second. I have bought products from both. I have written both (well, actually I wrote Mobil once but it is the same now as Exxon) about their issue advocacy, each time with equally small effect. It is as difficult as a stockholder of Exxon to even get a disclosure of their issue advocacy and lobbying efforts as it is for Audubon (though I am smart enough to take a pretty good guess at both). Neither allows me, as a shareholder/member/contributor to vote on their advocacy/lobbying, either in terms of amount spent or direction. Each carry substantial influence in particular government realms.
But that’s not the line about which I intend to bitch most. That dubious honour falls to this throwaway:
I’m just enough of a First Amendment fundamentalist to believe that there are plausible arguments for allowing corporations to make political contributions; [...]
(Emphasis added.)
“First Amendment fundamentalist” is a particularly ugly turn of phrase. I might quote the rest of that Barry Goldwater bit: “Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!“ Particularly in a realm where everyone concerned has admitted that shit-tons of money buys one (to a greater or lesser degree; we’ve established that government is a whore, we’re just haggling about its price) a great deal of influence over policy, couching one’s support for the First Amendment in the same sort of language with which one refers to those who seriously debate each other over locking their wives in the woodshed during menstruation catches me somewhat aslant.
The First Amendment has no “yeah, but” to it. It means precisely what it says, and this particular kerfuffle over moneyed influence over government serves merely to underscore its importance: that free speech must not be restricted, no matter who’s already bought influence and wants to protect it.
Blogger Seismic Shock, a Yorkshire-based student, received an alarming visit from local police late last year. Seismic, a Christian, had been heavily critical of Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer on his blog, alleging that Sizer associated with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
On 29 November, he received a visit from local police, who advised him to remove certain posts from his blog. The police officers maintained that this was an “informal chat”, but the blogger, understandably intimidated, agreed to remove his original Blogger site, while maintaining his WordPress blog.
Index on Censorship has made numerous attempts to contact West Yorkshire Police in order to clarify a) under what authority the blogger was visited by police and b) what potential breach of law had been commited by the blogger that warranted such a visit.
So far, no explanation has been offered.
I’ll be watching this. I’ll also be backing my blog up in its entirety.
Times change. There was a time when we could look at Supreme Court Justices with great respect and admiration. They were people who had a high standard of right action, a commitment to the Constitution of the United States, with no bias favoring specific political parties or agendas. They supported ethical behavior and the ideals of democracy.
Not anymore. The Supreme Court has been corrupted by inferior elements.
As we wave goodbye to democracy and accept the fact that powerful corporations loyal to stockholders and money above integrity, liberty, fairness and decency are running our country, we are left with the sad fact that there is no one we can turn to for help.
Our country’s leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, are damaged goods. They are a collective body of wealthy liars and thieves with little interest in patriotism, democracy or justice except when they can use the words and symbols of these ideals to fool us into thinking they care about us.
As we’ve watched the descent of our country into immorality and decay, most of us seem to think it’s one party’s fault or the other. It’s not. It’s our fault.
It’s our fault for tolerating the lies. It’s our fault for not even knowing when we’re being lied to.
It’s our fault for placing people we have decided to trust for emotional reasons (because they have seduced us with their rhetoric and passion) on pedestals, and taking everything they say at face value as the gospel truth without caring to look at the evidence and discover the truth for ourselves.
It’s our fault for putting our faith in these people and institutions, accepting their inconsistencies, hypocrisies and outright lies and propaganda simply because we trust them, despite their being no real basis for the trust.
It’s out fault for not insisting that they be held accountable for the things they say and do.
It’s our fault for choosing to stop thinking for ourselves and allowing them to think for us.
Bottom line: The politicians and corporations have not sold us out. We have sold ourselves out. We have betrayed ourselves. We have failed this country. As a result of the choices we’ve made to give up our responsibility as caretakers of our liberty and democracy, we are now on a sinking ship.
So what can we learn from the Supreme Court? That it’s time to wake up, start thinking for ourselves, and begin a new policy of only electing people who tell the truth.
As soon as we catch anybody in a lie during their election campaigning, we decide they won’t get our vote and we let them know it.
It doesn’t matter who they are, how much they’ve accomplished, or how wonderful their reputation is, because truth be told: If someone lies to us one time we cannot trust that they won’t lie to us again. If we can’t trust them, we shouldn’t elect them to an office that is going to dramatically impact our lives and affect the well-being of our families.
If we do this, if we reject every political candidate we catch in a lie, big or small, over time we will most likely replace just about everyone currently holding office with honest people who say what they mean and will do what they say.
Martin Luther King once said, “A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”
He also said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
We are now officially the oppressed, living in a pseudo-democracy that has frightening fascist elements growing stronger everyday, as the recent Supreme Court decision demonstrates.
Only we, the people, can stem this tide over time.
Martin Luther King made reference to a dream that people “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
We must now apply this concept to the politicians we elect to public office, in the sense that we not judge them by the facade they have constructed about themselves but by the integrity of their being.
If we catch anybody in a lie on the campaign trail, they’re out. Case closed. On to the next guy until the politicians get the message that nothing less than honesty and ethical behavior will be tolerated.
There can be no other way. The lies must stop if this democracy is to survive and prosper.
So what can the Supreme Court and Martin Luther King teach us about relationships?
When we are in the courtship phase of a relationship, if we catch the one we’re courting in a lie, we bail out immediately, rather than look the other way and get entrenched in a relationship which will one day either fail and/or cause us great emotional suffering because the foundation of the relationship was flawed from the start.
When we have the courage to walk away from shiny objects that offer great promise but are actually composed of paper mache covered by glossy paint, we will spare ourselves a great deal of grief and give ourselves the opportunity to find real value and meaning in this very strange world we now inhabit.
I find the timing of this situation amusing given my earlier post on how to fix Detroit through tax exemption.
Last week I received tax return forms in my name mailed to my address by a nearby city government. I’ve never worked in that city and as the letter states my physical address is not within that city’s limits. I’ve lived at the address for over 10 years and this was the first time I’ve received such a notice.
I sent this letter in response with copies of the forms they had mailed to my address:
NOTICE TO CEASE AND DESIST
To Whom It May Concern:
My spouse and I recently received City of X individual tax return documents which stated a “return must be filed by April 30, 2010.” This letter you are now reading serves your agency notice that we are not required to file a tax return with the City of X. I will make it clear that we do not work in the City of X. Likewise, the mailing address your agency used to contact us is not and never has been within the city limits. Therefore, you will cease and desist from attempting to collect money outside of your legal authority.
Any future attempts by your agency toward collection of taxes on person(s) employed outside the city or at this address which is outside the physical boundary of the City of X will be considered harassment. Therefore, it would be in your agency’s best interests to remove our names and our address from your tax collection rolls posthaste.
Sincerely,
Chris Sullins
As you can tell I don’t take kindly to the local city-state extending its boundary. I’m sure this overreach was done by the city due to their lower revenues, lost income and property taxes. But, to do this under the color of law is nothing short of official fraud. However, proving official misconduct is another matter. There was no official’s name on the forms and I can’t imagine I’m going to find a signed memo authorizing this new attempt at collection outside of the city’s limits.
In the meantime I wonder how many people who reside on the same road also received the same tax forms? How many of them are just going to fill out the forms and send checks to the city without any protest? How many of them will ignore it altogether? But the important question is out of how many households did anyone bother to write a letter of protest? How many actually told them NO? This last question is the most important when considering the extent of the local MacRib Test.
If enough people don’t say No early enough, things often tend to go past the camel’s nose in the tent. I can imagine the local city continuing to extend its boundaries in the future and/or performing other actions under an air of legality. I can imagine situations in which cities overreach their boundaries and authority, yet still convince judges or a state administrator (aka bureaucrat) to garnish citizens’ paychecks for supposedly unpaid taxes and fines which were never owed in the first place.
This outright theft would continue until the citizen trudges through an onerous Kafkaesque process of “proving” they didn’t reside within the city and that the tax wasn’t ever really owed. The city/judge/administrator could then play the “oops” game and blame a computer error or some other complexity of the system which they had purposely misused. Of course, the costs for the citizen to challenge such an “error” will be designed in advance to exceed the cost of submitting to the “error” in the first place.
Citizens must box in any attempts by government to exceed its authority. They must frame and contain any acts conducted under the color of law. This does not require violence. The simple act of refusing to comply is enough. This was evident in the many peaceful revolutions that took place in 1989 when people said NO to communism across Eastern Europe. Although governments hold the threat of force in reserve to force compliance, the American government will not use it against the citizens over taxation at this time.
As one of my lead characters Josiah Shroud said “In the past when the federal and state government was really unwilling or incapable of following through on using physical violence as a consequence, it was the conditioned and residual fear of such consequences from an authority figure that acted as a powerful force alone in the minds of most people. But just like the story of the people in Plato’s cave, these things were just shadow and illusion. We, too, were prisoners in our own minds until we freed ourselves over the past decade.”
The key to doing this successfully is to stand together.
First Amendment to the United States Constitution- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Say what you will about the advertisements that will flood the airwaves come election time, but the underlying principle of freedom of press (for all!) was defended today by our Supreme Court.
Greece has canceled the remaining order for about 8 million batches of the vaccine against the deadly swine flu, local media said citing the
government sources.
Greece has previously ordered over 11 mln batches to vaccinate its entire population, and has received 3.6 mln batches, worth 25 mln euro ($36 mln) from that order.
“The state will pay only for vaccines which have been received so far,” local TV quoted Health Minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou as saying on Monday.
The minister said the vaccination against the A/H1N1 virus had not been popular among the Greek citizens. Only about 360,000 Greeks have voluntarily received the vaccination up till now, and it is questionable if all the received vaccines would be used until their expiration in 2011.
According to official data, up to 96 people have died so far in Greece from the swine flu and its complications.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported late in December 2009 that the death toll from the swine flu outbreak had reached 11,516 worldwide.
The number of infections continues to rise in some areas of central and eastern Europe, as well as in western, southern and central Asia, which were hit by the virus outbreak later than other parts of the world, the organization said.
WHO had earlier suspended publishing weekly reports on the spread of swine flu after some countries refused to report each infection.
A form of redistribution of wealth in capitalist countries. In their current form, taxes are a half-measure aimed at self-preservation of the capitalist system. Bourgeois cliques quench the people’s wrath by confiscating small portions of money (40%) from the rich and returning it to the People who are the money’s rightful owners. In a just and equitable society of the future there will be no taxes as there will be nothing to collect. The State will be the People’s only employer and will keep all their earnings. Instead of salaries, the State will distribute goods and services based on one’s good conduct.
Tax Cuts
Immoral attempts to stifle the return of stolen money to their rightful owners. Tax cuts indicate the strengthening of Capitalism and pose a danger to the people’s cause.
I absolutely love this bias tape I found on the ClothKits website. ClothKits do beautiful fabrics ready to be made into clothes, bags etc, but they also have some other goodies, including this tape wound on to vintage wooden bobbins. So pretty!
Tomorrow, America honors the memory of one of our greatest – Martin Luther King, Jr. He used his gifts and talents in selfless, mighty ways to mobilize efforts against racial discrimination and is deserving of our honor.
Please take a moment to tell your children about this great man. He fought for liberty and equality because he knew they were God-given and he knew that no government should be empowered to thwart our freedom. King summarized his mission when stating that no one should be judged based on skin color, but by the content of one’s character.
Seeming to have a foreboding notion of how quickly life passes, he did not waste time on pettiness. He believed that “the quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.”
May our children follow in the footsteps of giants like King, who sincerely respected equality.
- Sarah Palin
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – MLK
Very well said Ms. Palin.
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Yeah? Well I’m still pissed about not making the list at all. But I have to give credit to Sen. Jim Inhofe, who said of Rolling Stone placing him at #7 on the Climate Killers hit parade:
“My first response was I should have been No. 1, not No. 7,” he said. “I am serious about that. I have spent now literally years on this thing, and it has been a long, involved thing.”
Well that’s just more evidence that Rolling Stone has its fist, head up its ass. There are those who said SOYLENT GREEN should wear the Rolling Stone snub as a badge of honor. But I say no–I stand for a host of bloggers who were also slighted; Tory didn’t make it. Simon didn’t make it. The Englishman didn’t make it and GOT didn’t make it. So for them and others, I say to Rolling Stone, “I’m Number One.”
BONUS ROUND: Extra super tasty bonus carbon debits for anyone who guesses the video link at the end without looking first.
Fiona Macrae and Sophie Borland
Mail Online
January 14, 2010
More than half the scientists on the swine flu taskforce advising the Government have ties to drug companies.
Eleven of the 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have done work for the pharmaceutical industry or are linked to it through their universities.
Many have declared interests in GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine maker expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic.
The disclosure of the register of interests comes just days after a health expert branded the swine flu outbreak a ‘false pandemic’ driven by the drug companies which stood to profit.
The Government is now trying to offload up to £1billion worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine.
Last July, the Department of Health warned of up 65,000 deaths, with 350 a day at the pandemic’s peak. But the death toll now stands at just 251.
SAGE was created to give Ministers recommendations on how to control and treat the virus.
Official documents show some members are linked to vaccine manufacturer Baxter and to Roche, which makes Tamiflu.
GSK, Baxter and Roche stand to make up to £1.5billion between them from Government contracts related to swine flu.
The scientists declared the interests to the Department of Health.
They were not obliged to declare the amounts they earned but they are thought to range from around £500 for a lecture or presentation to more than £100,000 for a directorship of GSK.
Some will simply be heads of university research departments which received funding from companies.
Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb said last night: ‘While there is no evidence that experts acted improperly, the sheer scale of the pharmaceutical industry’s influence is a cause for concern and needs to be looked at.’
However, some researchers said industry experience could only add to the scientists’ knowledge, enabling them to provide the best and the most up-to-date advice.
Leading flu expert Professor John Oxford said it was right to have people with different types of experience.
He said: ‘If you are giving advice about vaccines or anti-viral drugs, you can’t sit in your ivory tower and think you know everything about it.’
One of the biggest earners on SAGE is the former rector of Imperial College, London, Professor Sir Roy Anderson. He is a non-executive director of GSK which also makes Relenza, the Tamiflu alternative for pregnant women.
GSK strongly denied any conflict of interest.
It said Sir Roy was asked to rejoin SAGE, which he had left to join GSK, because of his expertise.
The company said: ‘He has not attended any meetings related to purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the government or GSK.’
Dr Stephen Inglis of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control has interests in more than 40 drug companies, all connected to the NIBSC rather than himself.
He says: ‘The NIBSC is a centre of the UK’s Health Protection Agency, a not-for-profit public body whose purpose is to enhance and safeguard public health.
It must engage with many pharmaceutical companies and, in some instances, it is appropriate to charge them for products and services.’
The Department of Health said: ‘Committee members do not take part in discussions that may involve a potential conflict of interest.’
But that raises the possibility of more than half of the handpicked advisers being shut out of key discussions.
What would happen if Obama succeeds in passing a law to force insurance companies to accept customers with pre-existing conditions at the same price as everyone else who doesn’t have pre-existing conditions?
Investors Business Daily
Read this IBD editorial by George Mason University economist Walter Williams. (my second favorite economist)
Excerpt:
Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, have introduced the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act, which would eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions in all insurance markets. That’s an Obama administration priority.
I wonder whether President Obama and his congressional supporters would go a step further and protect not just patients, but everyone against pre-existing condition exclusions by insurance companies. Let’s look at the benefits of such a law.
A person might save quite a bit of money on fire insurance. He could wait until his home is ablaze and then walk into Nationwide and say, “Sell me a fire insurance policy so I can have my house repaired.” The Nationwide salesman says, “That’s lunacy!” But the person replies, “Congress says you cannot deny me insurance because of a pre-existing condition.”
This mandate against insurance company discrimination would not only apply to home insurance, but auto insurance and life insurance as well. Instead of a wife wasting money on costly life insurance premiums, she could spend that money on jewelry, cosmetics and massages and then wait until her husband kicked the bucket to buy life insurance on him.
Insurance companies don’t stay in business and prosper by being stupid. If Congress were to enact a law eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions, what might be expected?
Yeah, that’s why Walter Williams is awesome. And you must read the rest to see how it would apply to medical insurance. Everything sounds good to those who do not ask the most important question in economics: “and then what happens?” And that question cannot be answered with “then I feel good about myself and people like me because I care about the poor”. That question needs to be asked for the forgotten man. The nameless man who is hog-tied into supplying the wealth that gets redistributed by demagogues desperately seeking adulation from the covetous masses.
The problem is that people don’t understand how insurance works. If you have to pay guaranteed claims from people with pre-existing conditions, then the premiums of all those people who don’t have pre-existing conditions will be increased to pay for those claims. Think. Beyond. Stage. One.
The Cato Institute
Consider this podcast from the libertarian Cato Institute, which explains a little more from the point of view of the medical insurance company.
The MP3 file is here.
Here a summary of what happens after stage one, to the forgotten man. Medical care costs money to produce. Forcing medical insurance companies to sell care for a pre-existing condition far below the actual cost of providing it will force insurers to drop coverage for those pre-existing conditions. (Or they may drop the doctors who treat those conditions from their network). That is worse for the people with pre-existing conditions. And this is how economic ignorance hurts the very people that the secular leftist do-gooders are trying to help.
Believe me when I tell you that this happens all the time with leftist economic policies. It’s the law of unintended consequences. They think they are helping their preferred victims, they feel better about themselves, but they actually hurt the very people they are trying to help. And by “help” I mean they steal someone else’s money/product/liberty and transfer it to their preferred victims in order to buy votes.
The National Review
Now, take a look at this article that ECM sent me from National Review, which talks about Obama’s promise that you will be able to keep the medical coverage you have. Is Obama telling the truth? Can pigs really fly just by sheer belief and pixie dust?
Excerpt:
Obamacare would forbid insurers from basing rates on the individual health of their customers in any community. It also would force issuers to cover people who refuse to buy insurance until they get sick. These and Obamacare’s other complexities and contradictions would make insurance pricier, as would a $149.1 billion, 40 percent excise tax on high-value “Cadillac plans.” Thus, some employers would save money by paying fines after de-insuring employees. Workers who cherish their health plans then would find themselves dumped into the government-run Health Insurance Exchange.
“Some smaller employers would be inclined to terminate their existing coverage,” explained a December 10 memorandum by Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard S. Foster. He added: “The per-worker penalties assessed on non-participating employers are very low compared to prevailing health insurance costs. As a result, the penalties would not be a significant deterrent to dropping or foregoing coverage. We estimate such actions would collectively reduce the number of people with employer-sponsored health coverage by about 17 million.”
Even more ominously, Obamacare would require employers to provide federally approved coverage. Obama considers “meaningful” plans those at least as generous as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
“Obama’s definition of ‘meaningful’ coverage could eliminate the health plans that now cover as many as half of the 159 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance, plus more than half of the roughly 18 million Americans in the individual market,” says Cato Institute policy analyst Michael Cannon. “This could compel close to 90 million Americans to switch to more comprehensive health plans with higher premiums, whether they value the added coverage or not.”
It’s not just elective abortions that we’re going to be paying for whether we want them or not. In some countries with socialized health care you can pay for breast enlargements (UK), sex changes (Canada), in vitro fertilization (Canada), etc. And these elective surgeries take up money from the other vital services. Obama can make it such that every plan has to offer those coverages.
So, those who don’t use such elective services end up encouraging them, even if they have moral objections to those services. When the government subsidizes something, more people choose it. Won’t Planned Parenthood be pleased with all that new revenue? I’m sure they’ll think of something to do with all that money. Maybe a nice political donation?
As anyone who hasn’t been sailing solo around the world or living in a cave knows, the United States Constitution is under attack. The Democrat-controlled health care bill, which, if passed, will designate 16% of the economy to the government, and the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, which, if passed, will mean “global warming” will have hijacked our future, provide ample evidence.
The Founding Fathers (remember them?) restricted “statism,” limiting central government to the funding of defense and the delivery of mail. Today, however, we’ve flouted their vision. Every aspect of life, from medicine to energy, is a call to “spend and rule.” The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights….” yet few adhere to this construct. It goes on to say, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it….” And it is here, boldly, where Force comes into play. The destruction of truths being patent, government must preserve, through machinations and legislation, a sometimes overt, sometimes clandestine, and always inexorable, usurpation of liberty. George Bush conceived the Patriot Act, a questionably legal bill, and now his successor, who keeps it in place, threatens Freedom by targeting guns.
C.I.F.T.A., a U.N. treaty, which purports to limit arms-trafficking, is his vector. Bill Clinton signed CIFTA in 1997, but the Republican-controlled Senate wouldn’t ratify, and the “evil” George Bush stone-walled for eight years. Today, with leftists in power, there is no stone-walling. In October, the United States reversed course, declaring that it was amenable to the treaty, and proceeded to back a time-table for signing. The set-up occurred last April, when Obama, meeting with Felipe Calderon, declared that “90% of guns recovered by Mexican authorities come from the U.S., many from shops that line our shared border.” ( False—he QUINTUPLED the figure—but early on, the president abjured facts.) In Mexico, he went on to say: “At a time when the Mexican government has so courageously taken on the drug cartels that have plagued the border, it is absolutely critical that the U.S. partner in dealing with these issues…. I am urging the Senate in the United States to ratify an inter-American treaty (CIFTA) to curb arms trafficking that is a source of many weapons used in the drug war.”
Of course, this sounds great. (What liberal policy meant to engineer every aspect of life doesn’t?) But rhetorical euphony is laced with pitfalls. Consider that of the 33 western nations that would be affected by CIFTA, not a single one shares the protection afforded by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. How, given this, can it be anything but parlous? Does anyone, besides a Right-wing Rogue, sense danger in being bound to “law” eagerly signed by Venezuela and Cuba? Alan Korwin, at GunLaws.com, points out that CIFTA clears the way for a national gun registry, a legislative non-starter. The treaty, if implemented, would require the U.S. to adopt “licensing requirements,” to mark firearms when they’re made, and to establish “information sharing” between CIFTA nations. Americans could conceivably be required to obtain a license “per/round,” be banned from adding features to weapons, and have the whereabouts, type and number of their arms disclosed to foreign powers.
Clearly, then, this is less about smuggling than it is about control. John Bolton, former U.S. representative to the U.N., observes that “the Obama administration is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about trade between nations, but there’s no doubt—as was the case over a decade ago—that the real agenda is the control of domestic arms.”
That the treaty “reassures” signatories that it is “not intended to discourage or diminish lawful, leisure, or recreational activities, such as travel or tourism for sport shooting, hunting, and other forms of lawful ownership and use recognized by State Parties,” is hardly a comfort. Since when are U.S citizens subjected to what is deemed “lawful” by foreign lands? The right to keep and bear arms is SINGULAR to America, UNRECOGNIZED elsewhere, and this being the case, is FUNDAMENTAL to Freedom. Rights don’t wane. Designed not merely to allow for “leisure and recreation,” but as the final recourse against tyranny, the Second Amendment is neither negotiable nor interpretable nor amendable.
PERIOD.
As for Obama, his posture is worrisome. An untested acolyte who renounces America is backing policies that eviscerate self-defense? George Washington once said, “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance. They are the people’s liberty’s teeth.” He also said, “the very atmosphere of arms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference. They deserve a place of honor with all that is good.”
I wonder what he would think of Obama. Both are presidents; yet to compare them is folly. Washington commanded Revolutionary troops. Obama reads a teleprompter. Washington stewarded a nation toward greatness. Obama, decrying it, seeks to punish wealth. The irony lies in their civic influence. As integral to our history as Washington remains, if our current president “transforms” America, his mark on Liberty may be as profound.
Saw this at Liberty Post. It’s an email blast from CA Tea Party Patriots rep. Mark Meckler. He wrote that Assemblyman Dan Logue will introduce AB 18, designed to suspend the state’s 2006 global warming law, Monday.
It is vitally important that Tea Party Patriots pack this committee hearing. Our leaders are steaming ahead with their plans to implement AB 32 and are ignoring the pleas of small business owners, out of work Californians and those fed up with endless regulations telling us how to live our own lives.
I know it’s a little late in the day to take on a road trip to–of all places–Sacramento, but any of you left coasters who see this (wirecutter) might spread the word. Then again, with the state having already given away all it’s money to freeloaders, and businesses fleeing like Japanese extras in a Gamera movie, how much more damage can this insanity do? According to Meckler:
AB 32, signed into law in 2006, is a coming freight train that will kill over a million jobs, add $50,000 to the cost of a new home, increase the cost of gas by 20% and increase electric bills by 30%. In effect, AB 32 will tell you what to eat, what to drive and where to live.
Sounds like an optimistic appraisal to me.
Committee meeting and protest details are at the link, as are contact numbers. Do what you can guys.
Recently much news has been reported, from Bernie Madoff to an attorney in Florida, about many losing vast sums of money to swindlers operating what is commonly called “ponzi schemes”. The swindle takes its name from one Carlos “Charles” Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who swindled investors out of millions of dollars in the early 1920s. The basic premise of this scam is to promise high-yielding returns on investments when there is no basis for it. Those who invest money later down the line end up losing everything because the monies they invested were used to pay returns to those who invested early on in the scheme so as to give the “investment” an appearance of authenticity. Although Madoff swindled investors out of billions of dollars that pales in comparison to the greatest swindle in the history of mankind – i.e., that which is currently being perpetrated upon us, our children, our grandchildren and who knows how many more generations by this current Congress and the Obama Administration.
In fairness, however, I cannot lay the charge of this behavior at the feet of just the current leadership in Congress and occupant of the White House – our “representatives” and presidents have been doing this for decades as they legislated one massive government program after another, piling up insurmountable debts and placing a burden upon the citizenry of this country from which we may never recover.
Perhaps the granddaddy of these scams started with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his “New Deal” socialism that included this grand new program he termed “Social Security”. When it was passed, Roosevelt presented it to the nation as an insurance retirement savings program, the monies for which would be deducted from earnings and deposited into a separate “trust” account. When the Social Security Act was challenged before the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional (which it was and is), Roosevelt’s attorneys argued to the court that there was not to be such a thing as a trust fund, but that the system was simply another form of a payroll tax. Since he had “stacked” the Court with appointees that would go along with his socialization of America, Roosevelt secured the blessing of the Justices and the rest, as they say, is history. Three decades later along comes Lyndon Johnson, another socialist democrat, and he piles the Medicare and Medicaid programs on top of the Social Security system. In all of these schemes the picture presented to the public was of a “safe” investment that would “pay for itself”, while in private those promoting it knew otherwise. However, there is no such “trust” fund – its all a shell game; the money goes into the general fund of the government and is spent as soon as it is deposited (or actually even before then)! As for these programs being self-sustaining, David Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States, testified before Congress in 2008 that the current liabilities of the federal government for these three programs in current dollars total $53 trillion – that’s $53,000,000,000,000!! (For a graphic representation of just what a trillion dollars would look like, I refer you to the pictorial display put together in the following link: http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html). So you see, those who paid into the system earlier are being paid their benefits from the monies being paid currently by us and by future generations, until the whole system collapses from under its own weight and those that are last will be left without any benefits – a “ponzi scheme” of unimaginable proportions, foisted upon us by our own government! (For an excellent, brief expose of these points I would recommend the chapter “On the Welfare State” in Mark Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny).
Yet today we are being told that the current proposals for “health care reform”, the various “stimulus bills”, the so-called “Cap and Trade” legislation, et al, will also be self-sustaining and will reduce our nation’s debt, all of it brought to us by the same fascist-minded political party (the democrat party) that pulled the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid scams on us. Our current national debt currently stands in the neighborhood of $12 trillion, take a few hundred billion or two, much of which is owned by foreign nations. The largest debt-holder in this category is none other than Communist China, with around $1 trillion in treasury notes (counting those purchased by Hong Kong). We need not fear the Chinese military destroying our republic; with the amount of indebtedness we owe to them, they could and may eventually crush us fiscally without ever having to fire a single shot!
However, do you know who holds the largest amount of our national debt? To learn the answer I want you to go into your bedroom or bathroom, wherever you may have a mirror and look in it – it is us, the American citizens who hold the largest amount of debt. “How is this possible?” you might ask – simple, yet another “ponzi scheme” known in economic and financial terms as “monetizing the debt.” I am far from having a deep knowledge of this subject and those that do may find my following thoughts a little simplistic, but the matter is a serious one for the future financial stability and indeed even the very existence of our republic.
“Monetizing the debt” in the most basic definition occurs when a country, unable to pay its debt, simply prints or mints more money in order to pay it; or as one financial analyst styled it, “replacing government debt with money.” The two main players in this scam are the US Treasury department and the Federal Reserve – the entity that controls our financial system, including the money supply and interest rates. It is important to remember that the Federal Reserve is not an agency of the Federal Government, but rather is independent of it (I know, a hard concept to grasp and one that most of us find somewhat confusing). In the simplest transaction when foreign and institutional investors decide not to purchase US Treasury notes to finance the proliferate spending of the leadership in Congress and the Obama administration the Treasury department turns to various hedge funds and sells the notes to them since they deal in higher risk investments. However, these hedge funds do not retain ownership of the securities but instead turn around and sell them to the Federal Reserve, which being an entity that has no cost of capital and must keep the money supply in line with a set target rate, and not having those funds kept in reserve simply cranks up the its printing presses and creates the money that it needs to purchase these notes out of thin air! And so ’round and ’round it goes until eventually it comes time to “pay the piper” and when unable to do so the entire financial system, economy and indeed our beloved republic comes crashing down like a house of cards, with future generations being the ones upon whose heads it will collapse!
I would like to offer to you as support of what I have said the following analysis published just last month by Sprott Asset Management, LP on the zerohedge website (for a full reading of their insightful analysis click on the following link:
“In the latest Treasury Bulletin published in December 2009, ownership data reveals that the United States increased the public debt by $1.885 trillion dollars in fiscal 2009.1 So who bought all the new Treasury securities to finance the massive increase in expenditures? According to the same report, there were three distinct groups that bought more than they did in 2008…. to summarize, the majority buyers of Treasury securities in 2009 were:
Foreign and International buyers who purchased $697.5 billion.
The Federal Reserve who bought $286 billion.
The Household Sector who bought $528 billion to Q3 – which puts them on track purchase $704 billion for fiscal 2009.
…we were surprised to discover that “Households”…bought 35 times more government debt than they did in 2008.”
When they investigated just who makes up this “Household Sector” they learned
“…that the Household Sector is actually just a catch-all category…. So to answer the question – who is the Household Sector? They are a PHANTOM. They don’t exist. They merely serve to balance the ledger in the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report.
Our concern now is that this is all starting to resemble one giant Ponzi scheme…. It serves to remember that the whole point of selling new US Treasury bonds is to attract outside capital to finance deficits or to pay off existing debts that are maturing. We are now in a situation, however, where the Fed is printing dollars to buy Treasuries as a means of faking the Treasury’s ability to attract outside capital. If our research proves anything, it’s that the regular buyers of US debt are no longer buying,….
Bill Gross, who is co-chief investment officer at PIMCO and arguably one of the world’s most powerful bond investors…. Earlier this year he referred to the US as a “ponzi style economy” and recommended that investors front run Uncle Sam and other world governments into government debt instruments of all forms.12 The fact that he is now selling US treasuries is a foreboding sign.”
As you can well imagine, the creation of money “out of thin air” can have but one effect – it lowers the value of the money and inflation can (and at the rate we are increasing the debt will) run rampant. We need to take a lesson from recent history as to what happens to a country when such an approach to paying debt takes place. I take you back in time to just a little less than one hundred years ago. The First World War has ended and the victorious Allies have imposed a horrific peace treaty upon defeated Germany. The most odious part of that treaty was the imposition upon Germany of “war reparations” – i.e., they (upon the insistence of the French) forced Germany to repay them for their costs of the war. Having already been greatly debilitated by the cost of the war from their own vantage point (for it was really upon this fact which Germany lost the war and not by defeat upon the battlefield) they now had the overwhelming debt of the victors as well. So while the rest of the world enjoyed the boom commonly referred to as the “Roaring Twenties”, Germany suffered under a severe recession (or actually the beginning of what spread to the rest of the world as the “Great Depression” of the 1930s’). Unable to repay the debt through the normal means of taxation and commerce, they cranked up their printing presses to print more German marks. The result (and a sobering fact for us to consider as we face the mountain of debt being amassed by our current Congress and the Obama Administration, as we are following the same path as Germany) can be seen in how this all affected the value of the German mark (as valued against the US dollar):
Beginning with the outbreak of the war, we get a stunning picture of the decline of the value of the mark in its exchange value against the dollar:
July 1914 — 4.2:1
July 1919 — 14.1:1
July 1921 — 76.7:1
July 1922 — 493.2:1
July 1923 — 553,412:1
Nov 15, 1923 — 4,200,000,000,000:1 (yes, that’s 4.2 trillion marks to 1 US dollar!!)
This, my fellow Americans, will be our future if we do not rid ourselves of such out-of-control leaders in this government and return ourselves to fiscal sanity. In his chapter “On Public Debt”, Montesquieu in his monumental work The Spirit of the Laws had these words of wisdom as to the result of a government amassing debt:
“If foreigners possess much paper that represents a debt, they draw, every year, from the nation, a considerable sum in interest. In a nation thus perpetually indebted” [emphasis mine - Epaminondas] “the exchange should be very low. The impost” [i.e., taxes] “levied for the payment of the interest on the debt injures manufactures by making workmanship dearer. One takes the true revenues of the state from those who are active and industrious to transfer them to idle people, that is, one gives the comforts of working to those who do not work, and the difficulties of working to those who work. There are the drawbacks; I know of no advantages“ (Part IV, Book 22, chapter 17).
So that you not think me a lunatic “tilting against windmills” and playing the role of a “Chicken Little”, I leave you with the sound wisdom of perhaps the greatest of the Anti-Federalists, Thomas Jefferson:
“[A] wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” — First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” — letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” — letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816
The time is now, my fellow citizens, to rid ourselves of these “swindlers” in Congress and the White House before they bring our precious republic and our inalienable rights of liberty and pursuit of happiness to ruin!
In George Orwell’s final masterpiece, 1984, Big Brother is always there. Whether in his flat or rogering his bird in the woods, Big Brother is always there. There is a similar omnipresence in today’s world. No, it isn’t Graham Norton on TV. It isn’t Americans in St Andrews. It isn’t even glory holes in public toilets. The only omnipresence in the world is mention of 1984 in political articles.
The use of the terms Orwell invented in his work is appropriate in describing the modern attack on liberty, yes. There is no question Orwell possessed superb vision in his description of a potential omnipotent fascist state. 1984 remains the critique of authoritarian power.
However there comes a point where opposition to increased government power needs some form of originality. 1984 was published in 1949, over 60 years ago now, and yet it is still the first point every liberal makes in defence of liberty. You a bit of a libertarian? You getting a bit of a kicking in a debate? You want a way out? Use the “Orwellian” card. BAM. Debate won. It’s like the anti-Semitic card being pulled by defenders of Israeli aggression. Get out of jail free, every time baby.
But more than that, it is the staple diet of every lazy journalist looking to write an article on, well, anything really. John Pilger is very fond of this tactic. Pull a few of Orwell’s terms out, apply it to modern day politics, job done. A very quick search on liberal websites such as the Guardian pulls up this. The New Statesman pulls up this. The Independent this. Huffington Post this. Hysterically it was also used by the far right in America to oppose health care reform. You get the picture.
Obama flunks his first year as president
Posted By Gene Healy On January 5, 2010 (8:57 pm) In Top Page News, Voices and Choices
We’re coming up on the anniversary of Barack Obama’s first year in office. How’s he doing so far? ”A good, solid B-plus” — that’s the grade 44 gave himself when Oprah asked him in December. That must be a relief to anyone out there still worried about this president’s self-esteem.
Is it accurate, though? How should we grade presidents, anyway?
Pundits and historians typically ask questions like: Is he popular? Has he worked his will on Congress? And, does he aspire to be a “transformational” president — dreaming big and daring great things?
Those metrics reek of value-free power worship. We shouldn’t judge presidents based on whether they please the crowd or “transform” the country. What if the country doesn’t need to be transformed?
When Obama gave himself a high B, former George W. Bush consigliere Karl Rove pounced, pointing out that 44 had “the worst [popularity] ratings of any president at the end of his first year.”
But what’s popular isn’t always good, and vice versa. If transient public favor is the true measure of success, then Lady Gaga is the singular artistic genius of our age.
Nor should we grade presidents on whether they manage to ram their agenda through. If that merits high grades, then Bush’s first term was an A-plus: He got Congress to authorize a disastrous war in Iraq and pass a prescription drug entitlement that’s going to help bankrupt the country. Teacher, give that kid a smiley-face sticker!
Historians usually try to let events cool before they bring out the red pen. But their standards are just as warped as pundits’ — which is why the perennial presidential ranking polls reward nation builders and war leaders, while demoting presidents content to preside over peace and prosperity.
In a recent Washington Post retrospective, historian David Kennedy downgrades Obama for his “Clintonesque” record of legislative success, while scholar Robert Dallek laments the fact that Obama lacks the “advantage” FDR had of using the Great Depression to whip the opposition into line.
Our Constitution spells out a very different benchmark for presidential success: fidelity to the oath of office.
As constitutional scholar Gary Lawson notes, the Constitution prescribes the specific words the president has to affirm before assuming power (as it does for no other office). It requires him to “faithfully execute the Office” and “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”
The implications of that standard are quite radical, in Lawson’s view: “[T]he new President’s first obligation is to veto pretty much every bill sent to him and recommend the repeal of pretty much everything in the United States Code.”
Maybe you’re not willing to go that far. But surely “first do no harm” is a minimum requirement for fidelity to the constitutional oath. A president who takes the oath seriously shouldn’t add new constitutional violations to those committed by his predecessors.
So does Obama’s leading criminal justice initiative, expanded hate crime laws, which flirt with thought crime and ignore the fact that, as Chief Justice John Marshall put it in 1821, “Congress cannot punish felonies generally.”
Meanwhile, the president runs the ongoing bailout as if the Constitution makes him commander in chief of the U.S. economy, while his Justice Department defends the unconstitutional proposition that the federal government can ban union- or corporate-funded ads and movies that mention federal candidates by name.
All in all, a miserable first-year record.
True, other recent presidents have violated the Constitution just as flagrantly. But give Obama time: He’s just getting started.
It’s true too that the standard advanced here — fidelity to the oath — is one that few presidents have lived up to over the last 100 years. But again, so what? It’s a standard that should at least be part of the debate.
Besides, expecting less of our chief executives reflects what Bush, in another context, once called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Who says we have to grade presidents on a curve?
“We think that we have the fairest approach in our bill,” Ms. Pelosi said. “I always say when it comes to tax policy around here, it’s like a mirror. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ The Senate thinks theirs is fairer. We think ours is. We’ll see which mirror cracks.” (NY Times)
Should some mention who actually said those lines to the mirror??
The Evil vainglorious, self-obsessed Queen in Snow White?
Come to think of it, the resemblance is remarkably similar
So does that make Health Care Reform the Poisoned Apple?
Freudian Slip? I think not.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, piqued with White House pressure to accept the Senate health reform bill, threw a rare rhetorical elbow at President Barack Obama Tuesday, questioning his commitment to his 2008 campaign promises.
A leadership aide said it was no accident.
Pelosi emerged from a meeting with her leadership team and committee chairs in the Capitol to face an aggressive throng of reporters who immediately hit her with C-SPAN’s request that she permit closed-door final talks on the bill to be televised.
A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras.
“There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.
People familiar with Pelosi’s thinking wasted little time in explaining precisely what she meant by a “number of things” – saying it reflected weeks of simmering tension on health care between two Democratic power players who have functioned largely in lock-step during Obama’s first year in office.
Senior House Democratic leadership aides say Pelosi was pointedly referring to Obama’s ’08 pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class, which she interprets to include a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health care plans that offer lavish benefit packages to many union members.
Interesting interpretation of “middle class” wouldn’t you say…
The House aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pelosi has been miffed with Obama’s tilt toward the Senate plan and his expectation the House will simply go along with the Senate bill out of political necessity.
A Pelosi aide later downplayed the remark, saying, “It was a quip, not a jab at anyone.”
She just specific about whom he was, but it wasn’t anyone in particular. Ah, doublespeak….
“She’s setting up for the conference,” said a leadership staffer. “It’s strategic. She’s staking out her territory.”(Politico)
The Tyrannosaurus Rex Female is staking her claim and protecting her young.
Woe be anyone who gets in her way.
Especially, Republicans.
The ultimate in back room secret deals between a cadre of specially picked partisans will decide that the Government does in fact have the right to decide if you live or die and how you live.
Isn’t Democracy grand.
Wish we still had one.
So I have to laugh, or else…
It’s so bad, I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid behind the counter asked, “Can you afford fries with that?”
I got a pre-declined credit card offer in the mail.
The economy is so bad, I went to my bank the other day and the teller handed me a note saying, “This is a robbery!”
The economy is so bad that I went to my bank to get a loan, they said, “What a coincidence! That’s just what we were going to ask you!”
The economy is so bad, that I bought a toaster oven and my free gift with purchase was a bank.
The economy is so bad I saw a man in Costco buying one roll of toilet paper.
The economy’s so bad, Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
The economy is so bad, Obama met with three small businesses to discuss his Stimulus Plan: GM, Pfizer, and Citigroup.
The economy is so bad, Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America!
It’s so bad, they built an Indian reservation on a casino.
The economy is so bad that when Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.
The economy is so bad, Malia and Sasha Obama started a lemonade stand to raise money for bailouts.
The economy is so bad… Motel Six won’t leave the light on anymore.
Even people who aren’t in Barack Obama’s cabinet aren’t paying taxes.
Q: Why is the United States Congress and the porn industry always mentioned together?
A: Between the porn industry and Congress, no one has screwed more people!
Q: Why is there no gold at the end of the rainbow?
A: The Leprachan took it and sold it to Cash4Gold!
Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!
But don’t worry, we’re from the government and were are here to save you.
Especially, with the smoke-filled, non-transparent, 1000% partisan, Bribe-em-to-the-Max, Health Care Reform.
Gordon Brown has said it’s inappropriate, so that’s all right then.
I was intrigued and then also simultaneously amused by the antics of Anjem Choudary, in stating – and then recanting - the theme that he and his might march through Wootton Bassett with a number of empty coffins.
Poor old Wootton Bassett. Its torments will end with the appointment of another Foreign Secretary: I can’t think who it would be right now, but it would have to be someone good and tough. This town was never meant to have to do, what it now feels it has to do out of ordinary civility and politeness – since nobody from the dead chaps’ employers feels able to turn out.
My amusement of course was unlike what is now perceived by the majority of Middle England, which, owing to its current pre-occupations with celebrity and Wireless Tele Vision, is suddenly surprised and hurt by what the mountebank has said.
This stunt, which Choudary has admitted latterly, does not surprise me in the least, and I was expecting it. It is what I would do, in his position and with his belief-system driving me.
The comment thread here is illuminating and worrying for the future. The volume is staggering. And – they have not even got round to moderating mine, and I posted it 36 hours ago.
To what end do individuals in societies form governments – or for what purpose do citizens expect their established government to fulfill? To answer this question and its impact upon several of the remaining amendments contained within our “Bill of Rights” that heretofore I have not commented on, let us turn to some statements made by John Locke, one of the most influential political and philosophical thinkers in Western history. Locke (1632 – 1704) exerted a great influence upon the founders of our republic, especially the Anti-Federalists, and his writings are readily apparent in the thoughts expressed by Thomas Jefferson in our own Declaration of Independence. In one of his most important works, The Second Treatise of Government, Locke has much to say about the purpose of government and why individuals form them. People unite together, he says in chapter 9, “Of the Ends of Political Society and Government”,
“…for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property. The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property;….”
Yet, though man forfeits to a degree the rights he possesses in what Locke terms his state of nature, i.e., his God-given rights and freedoms into which he is born as an individual into the sea of humanity, by forming and submitting to a mutually agreeable government in order to achieve the preservation and protection that is otherwise not available in the state of nature, there are limits to the power of this government in fulfilling such an obligation. In his concluding section of this chapter Locke went on to say
“But though men when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative as the good of the society shall require;…the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one’s property…and so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees;…And all this to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.”
Locke again returned to this thought in chapter eleven, “Of the Extent of the Legislative Power”, of his treatise, to emphasize the point of the limitation that should be placed upon legislative bodies when it comes to the liberties and properties (as understood in his broader context) of the citizenry:
“…men unite into societies, that they may have the united strength of the whole society to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bond it, by which every one may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society which they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of nature….
It cannot be supposed that they should intend…to give to any one, or more, an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate’s hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them. This were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it,…therefore, whatever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions. For then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of nature.”
So having quoted extensively from Locke’s thoughts on this, what can we ascertain? We can learn that at the time of his writings and the influence it was to have on our founders when they composed our Constitution some ninety-seven years later, there was great concern over the rights of private ownership. This obviously was due to the nature of the monarchies that were prevalent in Europe at the time in which the king could take whatever he wished, which power was a major spark in the igniting of the American Revolution. Is it no wonder then that this concern received as much attention as it did in the Bill of Rights, namely portions of amendments four, five, and some years later in Section I of the fourteenth amendment.
The substantive elements we can glean from Locke’s quotes above are that first, the right of property (and not just land, but will be expanded upon in a moment), being a part of the “state of nature” would fall under what Jefferson would later categorize as an “inalienable” right endowed upon man by his Creator. Second, that man forms societies and governments (or as he also refers to them as “Commonwealths”) in order to better protect not only his property but also his liberty and his life, two more of Jefferson’s “inalienable” rights. Third, that although in forming such commonwealths man as an individual gives up some portion of his protective rights to the society so formed, it then is incumbent upon those selected to govern to guard that right as though they would do so as the individual would. And fourth, that such governance should be conducted based upon established laws, consented to by the people and not by the arbitrary whims of those in power to their own benefit, but solely to the betterment of all the people.
Locke continued in the same chapter to expound upon the fact that should government ever take the property of the citizens without their consent such action violated the precise reason for its existence.
“For all the power the government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws; that both the people may know their duty and be safe and secure within the limits of the law; and the rulers too kept within their due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have in their hands to employ it to such purposes,….
…The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent. For the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society,…Hence it is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure….the prince, or senate, however it may have power to make laws for the regulating of property between the subjects one amongst another yet can never have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the subjects’ property without their own consent.”
Locke does not by all this mean to imply that governments have no legitimate right to any portion of the property of the citizens, for he goes on to say
” ‘Tis true governments cannot be supported without great charge, and ’tis fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them.”
This last principle will be one that I will show to be of importance as it relates to the current “health care reform” legislation being considered in our Congress. But for the current time, all of this should show that those who have been entrusted by us to govern and legislate laws in our behalf are bound to do so with the protection of our liberties and property in mind and that to exceed their bounds by appropriating more than is necessary or for reasons contrary to our good or expressed will has no support in principle or in what we shall now see in the Constitution.
The fourth amendment addresses our rights against what is commonly referred to as the “searches and seizures” clause.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,…”
The fifth amendment also addressed this matter and added more restrictions upon the government’s power to take that which belongs to the citizenry:
“No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
It should be apparent now just how much of an influence Locke’s treatise had upon Mason, Madison and the others as they composed these amendments, as much of the language and phraseology you will find in the quotes I have given in the earlier portion of this essay are here repeated in these amendments. It is in the fourth amendment that we get a glimpse of what is considered to be the rightful property of the citizenry, for within it entails all that pertains to the individual, which would also include our finances. Returning once again to Locke’s treatise, in chapter five “Of Property”, he has this to say in regards to what property consists of:
“…every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property….For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to,…The labour that was mine removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them….the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.”
Why, you may ask, have I quoted so extensively on this matter, and the answer is simple – to establish that anything that pertains to us that we may have, be it physical property and possessions as we normally think of the term, or intellectual property such as is protected by copyright and patents, or our money since it is the product of our labor, is to be understood as not accessible to other individuals or to the government without our express consent. Perhaps you can now see where this very much ties into the concept of taxation and what should be the proper method of supporting the government and which methods violate these principles and amendments.
Put together, these two amendments assert the following points:
This is a right of the people, as described by Locke as a right of nature, one that Jefferson termed to be “inalienable”;
That this “right” is to be secure, that is protected from and guaranteed not to be deprived of life, liberty and property;
That such security may be violated only when there exists a reasonable basis for doing so and only in accordance with a due process of established laws;
And that should a deprivation of property be necessary due to a need for the common good, it must be a reasonable cause and just compensation must be rendered to the one from whom the property is taken.
You will also note that the one amendment states these rights in the positive mode (the fourth) while the other (the fifth) expresses the similar sentiment in the negative. To be “secure in their persons” is tantamount to not being “deprived of life”; “to be secure in houses, papers, and effects” is the equivalent of not being “deprived of property”; and “against unreasonable” corresponds to the same notion of “without due process” and “without just compensation”. The argument is made that in the fourth amendment the right under consideration is a collective one, viz. it does not guarantee that an individual is secure in his person, house, etc. from unreasonable search and seizures. Yet if it cannot be individualized, then it makes no sense as people do not collectively possess a house and possessions other than as individuals. Furthermore, the language of the fifth amendment that is so similar clearly points to an individualistic interpretation.
I will grant that the thrust of these two amendments has to do with the authority of the government in respects to investigating and preventing of criminal activity (at least as it has been applied down throughout our history), but it is more than that – it is a curb on the power of the government to conduct such activities under any circumstance without just cause and, as Locke would say, for the betterment and protection of the society as a whole. However, consider once again how Locke defined “property” – that it was anything that an individual came to possess as a result of his labor. That being the understanding of “property” in the time of the framing of our Constitution then cannot it be further asserted that any method of taxation devised by the legislature that, as Locke put it, “extend farther than the common good“, and rather than to “secure every one’s property” diminishes one’s property by laws and regulations not fully known by the people, I ask – does this not then amount to nothing more than unreasonable seizure by the government of our property without our consent for purposes not necessarily for the good of society and in excess of what is actually required? Consider our complex and convoluted tax code – would you say that it meets that assertation by Locke that such laws regarding property (in this case money earned by labor) are “to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bond it, by which every one may know what is his.” Do all of the rulings and regulations of the IRS meet the standard set forth by Locke when he said “every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them”?
Furthermore, consider if you will the myriad of agencies in the government that issue rules and regulations that deprive individuals of the very things these amendments were put in place to protect, and yet the Court has in recent years declared that the due process clause does not apply to these agencies!! Therefore the EPA can order that water in a fertile farming region of California can be shut off due to some two inch minnow fish’s existence being threatened, causing the loss of the livelihood of tens of thousands of our fellow Americans, and they have absolutely no recourse to such action! I would beg of you to explain how this can be anything but an unreasonable seizure of the property of these individuals and a deprivation of their life, liberty and property?!
Yet again I would suggest to you that the portion of the so-called “health care reform” legislation currently before our Congress, in its language that would impose fines and even possibly imprisonment for those who refuse to purchase the government-mandated insurance coverage is once more nothing other than an arbitrary capricious use of power to deprive individuals of their property in that the government would seize monies from those individuals, which again as Locke points out, falls under the broader definition of property in that it was gained by the labor of those from whom it would be seized.
There have been other instances in recent years where the private property of individuals was taken under the guise of “imminent domain”, which then was used for commercial purposes and not something that could be defined (without a great stretch of the principle) as something for the common good of society – a clear violation of the fifth amendment, but when appealed by individuals to the courts, fell on deaf ears.
I could continue with but one example after another of how those currently in power in Congress and the White House view our liberty and property not as rights to which only we have claim to, but as vehicles by which they can further their agenda of rendering us slaves to their power, deprived of liberty and wholly dependent upon them for sustenance. What other reason could President Obama have in mind when he speaks of the need to “spread the wealth” – the notion of “redistribution of wealth” is nothing more than a clear violation of our rights as delineated by Locke and a shredding of these two amendments. Our lives, liberties, and property are under the most severe assault that this nation has ever witnessed, and unless we rise up in opposition to those seeking to seize these from us with their unreasonable agendas we are doomed.
I leave you then with these words of warning of Thomas Paine in the opening pages of his work, Common Sense:
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer….WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”
First Amendment to the United States Constitution- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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Pundits and historians typically ask questions like: Is he popular? Has he worked his will on Congress? And, does he aspire to be a “transformational” president — dreaming big and daring great things?
