Dude, Where’s My Freedom?
Benjamin Franklin once warned Americans that “they who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” Yet in the seemingly unrelated areas of health care and physical security, our political leaders are embracing this folly with predictably bad results.
In the realm of health care, the Obama administration is forging ahead to implement its “universal health care” plan, despite consistent popular opposition and numerous legal challenges. They claim they must restrict patients’ freedoms by forcing them to purchase insurance on government terms and restrict doctors’ freedoms by herding them into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in order to guarantee everyone the supposed “security” of guaranteed health care.
Yet, as we’ve already seen in Massachusetts (which has a health plan similar to the national ObamaCare program), this results in patients having theoretical “coverage” — but less of an ability to get actual medical care.
In the related realm of pharmaceuticals, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims it must restrict patients’ freedom to purchase (and manufacturers’ freedom to sell) drugs in order to protect our safety. However, pharmaceutical industry experts fault onerous FDA regulations for contributing to the current dangerous shortage of many injectable drugs by artificially raising the costs of drug creation and production. Hence, many seriously ill patients are now unable to get the medications they need.
Even worse, as Mark McCarty of Medical Device Daily recently described, FDA advisors have sought to deny terminally patients access to potentially life-extending treatments on the grounds that “the risk-benefit ratio was not up to par.” Similarly, medical device makers are now finding Europe a more hospitable environment for innovation than the U.S. due to FDA regulations. Rather than protecting Americans, the FDA is endangering them.
In the realm of transportation security, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is already a national joke for groping grandmothers and babies. Yet when tested with fake bombs and real guns, they’ve failed miserably. Indeed, it was the passengers who stopped the would-be bomber in Detroit of Northwest Airlines flight 253, not the TSA — a classic example of what blogger Glenn Reynolds calls “An Army of Davids.”
Americans have surrendered their freedoms (and their dignity) to the TSA for a sham “security theater” rather than genuine security. Yet politicians like Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) want to extend such controls from air travel to train travel.
Finally, Obama administration officials recently let slip that they are working on new gun control measures “under the radar.” Gun control is the classic example of foolishly exchanging an essential liberty for an illusion of security. The U.S. states that respect the honest citizen’s right to carry firearms in self-defense have consistently lower rates of violent crimes than states with strict gun control laws.
These examples illustrate the problems that arise when government oversteps its proper bounds. The proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as our rights to free speech, property, and contract. Only those who initiate physical force or fraud can violate our rights. A properly limited government thus protects our rights by protecting us from criminals who steal, murder, rape, and so on, as well as from foreign aggressors. But it should otherwise leave honest people alone to live peacefully.
I think most Americans would agree with the points Dr. Hsieh makes in his article. The Obama regime does use the “crisis” rationale as the reason to intrude on citizens’ freedoms.
I would be vary wary of anything Obama does before November 2012. When ideologues are in charge, they tend to throw everyone under the bus in order to advance their agenda. That’s why they don’t see a correlation between states that have concealed carry licenses and a decline in violent crime.
It’s much easier to enforce the law when it’s a law-abiding citizen than it is when the target is an actual criminal. Anti-gun laws make criminals out of honest citizens. The Obama regime wants to deny honest citizens the right to carry handguns for self-protection, but doesn’t address the problem of criminals carrying guns. It’s a duplicitous tactic.
The same with the TSA. The screeners aren’t the problem. They are employees who are required to implement the policies of their bosses, in this case the Obama regime. Yet, it’s the screeners who bear the brunt of the criticism, not their GS-19 bureaucrats who MAKE the policy.
the Germans were disarmed prior to world war two so they were defensless against hitlers storm troopers. when I was stationed there in 1952-3 they were still only allowed to own a shot gun. people you better keep your powder dry and plenty of it. you are losing more and more of your freedom every day this CORRUPT regime is in power,
i do expect that some form of restrictive gun owner ship will be enacted in the coming months and years, but i can tell you here and now that only a foolish person will surrender his protection from lawlessness and criminals….never will i give up one of my firearms….nor any of my ammo….and i have a lot of both….same with gold and silver coins, the guv. can pass all the laws they want to about giving up your precious metals, but folks dont do it….you can hide it, but not to the gvt….josie
I guess legal gun owners should begin buying up stolen weapons to ensure their Constitutional rights before Obama takes away their legal guns.
Next we will have to start medicating ourselves with ground up endangered animals ,like China does,because we can’t medical treatment.
And education for white people who are all born racists and Christians.
We need to know more about “The secret society of about 200 people that will meet until June 13 to discuss and plan the agenda of the New World Order Illuminati.”
Bilderberg conference…yet there is quiet while we discuss Weiner’s weiner.
The sad thing is we now have a whole generation of citizens who view all these intrusions into our freedom and quality of life as an accepted norm. They don’t have the life experience to make comparisons between free-wheeling freedom and liberty and a quasi police-state environment. At age 72 I am able to see the disconnect.
One of the images that disturbs me to no end is the presence of police officers all gussied up in SWAT uniforms that we see all over the place. I once had one of them start screaming at me for taking a photo of a passenger train. There is no law prohibiting such photography but there might as well be. We have so many petty restrictions on our daily movements that one just assumes that maybe taking a photo of a train actually is against some Department of Homeland Security Stupid rule. By the way, what an Orwellian title “Department of Homeland Security.”
Airports are the worst. The airport experience makes one appreciate how people felt living in East Berlin during the cold war. How I long for the days when if you wanted to meet a friend at the airport you could just stroll down to the arrival gate no questions asked.
The technique applied was quite straightforward. We had our attention drawn to it many times, by many commentators…and chose to let it continue. Our descendants might never forgive us.
Hah, WE should never forgive ourselves. What we are doing in allowing these intrusions to take place is unforgivable.
Neither will our forefathers:
That article is weak, Francis; it identifies a surface phenomenon — gradualism — and fails to account for the underlying ideas which made it possible: the cult of compromise.
Gradualism fails in the face of intransigent, principled, uncompromised resistance. It bounces harmlessly off a society sufficiently populated with men who say ” I do not recognize anyone’s right to one second of my time, one inch of my property, or one cent of my money”.
It is impotent against the man who says “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor expect another to live for mine.”
(It is highly effective, however, against the man who merely says “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”, as that man offered no guidance over what really belonged to Caesar… a fact that the Caesars of the world have consistently exploited in the two thousand years since.)
“Fortunately, we can rectify these injustices by insisting that the government adhere to its legitimate function of protecting individual rights.”
Sure, a lot that gets us. How many e-mails, protests, phone calls, demonstrations, town hall meetings, and polls were produced as evidence that showed that the majority of the American people did NOT want Obamacare? Yet it was still passed by a far-left Congress and a socialist president. Elections do have cosequences, folks. I’m not really sure the country could survive another major assault on our individual rights like that one. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will still overturn this hateful law which will doom this country both politically and economically. And, if Obamacare stands, it will also be the end of Federalism as well. So if the Supreme Court is still supposed to uphold the Constitution, it will strike down this law. If not, I really fear for the future of this country.
Supreme Court protect the Constitution?
You mean Kagan and a wise Latina maybe?
Sure.
As you are discovering, ringing alarm bells will never be enough. Nor will winning elections, in what are never more than temporary victories, suffice. Important as they may be, they are only a step in the right direction.
Prepare yourself for the same decades long, thankless march through our educational system and our governmental institutions that the left has systematically undertaken. We could repeal Obamacare tomorrow, but unless we ruthlessly dismantle the bureaucratic architecture already being set into place and extinguish the de facto Executive Branch power to legislate through regulation, progressives will still have made advances upon which the next Democratic Congress will inevitably build. It is also time for the right to stop conflating capitalism and freedom. They are both worth defending, but the flagrant cronyism we are witnessing in Washington is a manifestly cautionary tale about universal corruptibility, whether left or right.
A correction please: Capitalism IS freedom. But crony capitalism is not capitalism.
“Capitalism IS freedom.”
That’s not a correction, that’s precisely the sort of assertion which deserves closer scrutiny.
Would you say that a monopoly = freedom? That’s the capitalist’s natural objective, which is why one of the primary markers of success is “market share.” It’s a measure of how close to a monopoly a business has gotten.
And in what capitalist rulebook do you find the prohibition on cronyism? In what world is voluntary self-policing the capitalist norm? As William F. Buckley once quoted Willi Schlamm, “The problem with capitalism is capitalists.” Capitalism may be inherently more compatible with freedom than any other economic system, but a rudimentary study of history should be enough to dispel the idea that the two things are synonymous.
Capitalism may be inherently more compatible with freedom than any other economic system, but a rudimentary study of history should be enough to dispel the idea that the two things are synonymous.
Ah, the old false division of liberty into two unrelated fields, the “political” and the “economic”. Otherwise known as the bizarre, arbitrary notion — sourced from the 19th century Marxists in an ideological “divide and conquer” maneuver that, to this day, is rarely ever detected, let alone questioned — that individual rights somehow cease to exist when a dollar is involved.
Political freedom means: freedom from the use of force by others; freedom from coercion, from forcible interference against one’s freedom of action. Do you see anything in there about an exception for certain activities deemed “economic”?
There is no such limitation. Liberty is indivisible. It is not an accident that the Founder set out to create a free society upon this earth, with no separate economic plans whatsoever, because they saw no such division — and capitalism was the economic system that resulted.
As a matter of fact, before the Marxists first gave the world the false premise you have so unquestioningly swallowed, capitalism and liberty WERE seen as a single system: the system of natural liberty.
The onus is upon YOU to justify this bullshit dichotomy whose source or validity you never questioned. Don’t just smuggle that premise in as if we aren’t paying attention; we are.
I accidentally posted the reply above anonymously. You’d think I’d know enough to fill in my name first by now….
One has to agree, FortySix.
And the pity is, that after all the blood, sweat and tears shed in our historic fight for freedom, it should be taken from us by a generation of ignorant, unprincipled ,greedy lazy-crazys;selling their votes for handouts financed by repressive taxation and criminal inflation.
Unles we adopt a modus viviendi based on biblical standards we are doomed. A nation in rebellion against God is a nation doomed.
Make no mistake, we are at war with the left in this country. Now if we really want to do something about it we had better steel ourselves to the challenges ahead and make sure that in November 2012 we elect a War President and hopefully her administration can help us begin the fight to roll back the numerous incursions into our liberties. The elites of both parties orchastrated this clowns rising to power. Obama is putting in place the crowd control laws they need in place to subjugate us all. AND if we elect another Progressive RINO or a Bilderberg stooge we will not have a second chance to turn this around.
It may already be too late. Oscumbag will spend over a billion dollars in the coming election campaign. All sorts of ficticious, dead, insane, retarded, criminal persons will vote; some several times. The majority of women, hispanics, young persons will vote for him, as will almost all blacks, homosexuals and abortionites.
The GOPhers are no help as they are about as leftist as the obamanites, and hypocritical, too. I had a dream the other night, in which John Wayne addressed a large Tea Party gathering and shouted, “Lock and load”.
Only ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity drive this administration to do what it is trying to do. It’s been the dream of the American Left to Obamacare the country and then force people to do many more things they would not willingly do. If the Obamanoids succeed in this scheme the quality of life will plunge for millions of people, particularly for the producers of this country—the people that make it work. But the Obamanoids won’t succeed because this group would have to be abject fools to give him the second term he needs to make it happen. So, the best chance the Left has had in several generations to “fundamentally transform” this country will come to nothing soon enough. Obamacare will be defunded or repealed and a lot of time and money will have been wasted in this effort. But these people had to try to do this, they just had to. If I were a Democrat I would seek out a good mental health provider in anticipation of what is coming next year. If he isn’t already Obama will become your worst nightmare.
As sure as Perot gave us false hope but allowed a very real destructive person into our top Governing positon of President, the faux conservative Donald Trump is now trying to position himself to divide the Republican vote in the 2012 Presidential election and allow Obama to be re-elected with less than a majority of the vote. This is the tactic the Democrats used last month to stealt the 26th Congressional special election in Up State New York and it is the strategy they will use to try and save Obama in 2012. I suggest we show Donald Trump up for the narcissitic opportunist he is, before he gets a chance to drain enough votes via a third party to re-elect the US’s first communist President for a second term.
Well said Nickel, I have been preaching that issue since Trump first talked about running. He would be the second coming of Ross perot, and we would all lose. I think if the GOP chooses another RINOcrat like Rommney, who will not win agains obama, then it is time to form a third party, the Tea party. Yes, we will not win, but neither will the RINOcrat, so at least it gives us a foot in the door for next time, and the opportunity to dismantle the GOP finally. But what will be left of the Republic after obama’s second term? Will it ever be possible to revive it?
I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FROM THE START….TRUMP IS IN THIS FOR GLORY AND FURTHERANCE OF THE OBOMA REGIME, THIS I REALLY BELIEVE…..WAKE UP FRIENDS….TRUMP IS ALSO AN ”UNHEARD OF ONE” LIKE OBO
“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.”
Kindly do not refer to Mr. Trump as a “narcissitic opportunist …….
It is demeaning and insulting to narcissitic opportunists.
RE>>
Only ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity drive this administration to do what it is trying to do. It’s been the dream of the American Left to Obamacare the country and then force people to do many more things they would not willingly do.
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WE, the American public/voters allow this and only have ourselves to blame. We, WE are allowing it by the people we elect and KEeP REELECtiNG
We’re static until it hits our checkbook
RE>>
Only ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity drive this administration to do what it is trying to do. It’s been the dream of the American Left to Obamacare the country and then force people to do many more things they would not willingly do.
****************************************************************
WE, the American public/voters allow this and only have ourselves to blame. We, WE are allowing it by the people we elect and KEeP REELECtiNG
We’re static until it hits our checkbook, now it may be too late.
Anne: The sad truth is that many Americans WANT Obama’s socialism. Certainly not a majority of Americans, but enough to swing an election. There are way too many people out there who want a nanny state, want the government to guarentee them a job (or simply give them money), want to be cared for all their lives (on someone else’s dime).
That’s why people like Stalin and Hitler were able to gain and to stay in power. Obama know this and is trying to replicate the political strategy that most dictators used to gain power. Like the aforementioned dictators, Obama isn’t intelligent, just ruthless.
“And they are all doomed to fail because at root they are just different ways of government violating our individual rights rather than protecting them.”
If they were doomed to fail, alas, you wouldn’t be writing this column.
If they were doomed to fail, alas, you wouldn’t be writing this column.
So far, so good, eh?
Consequences are not necessarily instantaneous, genius.
This didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t put in place by only one party. Those same pharmaceutical companies almost all have big fines to pay off at all times, usually over trivial matters, just “protection money” to the mob in DC so they can do business. Remember the article a couple of weeks ago about the “cost of compliance” with government regulations being more than the combined taxes or profits of all US business combined?
Add to the list prohibition of drugs, the DEA’s budget alone is $2.5 billion, now we’ve got department of education storm troopers just like the ones fielded by DEA and ATF (this is what happens when the term “the right of the people to bear arms shall not be abridged” is “interpreted” by thugs who could say with a straight face, “it depends on what your definition of “is” is.”
Yesterday, TN outlawed putting “disturbing” images on the internet (majority of the TN legislature have “R”s by their names). So, who gets to decide? The police state already forbids photographing of video taping law enforcement “doing their job”.
Newt is an idiot, but he was quiet right to point out that “right wing social engineering” is, indeed, as big a problem as left wing social engineering. Successive administrations since Nixon have gradually turned the US more and more into a third world police state. The trouble with putting all of these regulations and jack boots into place is that the next administration after yours may re-task the beast to do something you are completely against. The GOP has helped build the monster that the socialists are ready to unleash upon the people.
We need major change, we need to get back to the Constitution. We need Sarah Palin and enough people in Congress with the stones to help her.
This is a load of crap.
Every time I turn around I see left-wing social engineering. It’s a lot harder to find the conservative equivalents.
Hint: not all Republicans are conservatives.
I take exception to a point that this author wrote…the government is NOT there to protect individual liberty. The Bill of Rights is there to protect the citizen’s individual liberties from government usurpation.The original states representatives would not ascent to the Constitution without the Bill of Rights which was taken from the Virginia document. It does not charge the government with a job but tells the government to basically lay off. These concepts are two very different issues. A societal contract between the government and the governed, states that a government will aide a citizen in protecting their “property rights only” that quite frankly is the extent of it.
It is up to the citizenry to keep the government honest and to protect their individual liberties alone, quite frankly that is how the system is set up. That throughout “”modern history, most notably since the 1960s, that the Attorney General has taken a leap and used certain passages of the Constitution to promote legislation is not the typical and not what is meant by the Bill of Rights. Usually the Attorney Generals office defends legislation against citizen’s lawsuits.
Remember too, the Constitution is also a document to protect the rights of the minorities in our society, not the majority. So at any time the majority may feel their rights are being violated by the government, i.e. their individual liberties are affected, but that is in the government’s and SCOTUS’s raison d’etre, to even protect the opinions and possibly even the actions of those found most reprehensible in society.
So, when the executive branch of government oversteps itself and tramples on individual rights, who do YOU suppose is to step up and square the situation away?
The Courts? But they are in collusion with the Executive! The Congress? But it is in collusion with the Executive. The opposing Political Party? But it is in collusion with the Executive. Washington DC is filled with communists and socialists- by whatever appellation. For example, Ryan’s insurance boondoggle is just as nutty as Obamacare, and just as unnecesarily complicated and expensive. Aside from the constitutional fact that the federal government has no business whatsoever in the healthcare industry, or any other, we don’t need a 2,000 page healthcare law. Why not state, in one paragraph, that all legal residents of the US are entitled to the same healthcare as is available to members of Congress?
I take exception to a point that this author wrote…the government is NOT there to protect individual liberty.
Then what the hell do you think that a government is for?
Before you deal with how a government is to be organized, you must first answer that question. Here’s the Founder’s answer:
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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — ***That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men***, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
I hope you noticed my emphasis.
What you describe are the answers to the immediately following question, to wit: Given the need for government, we recognize the danger posed by such an institution given its monopoly on the police power and the power to make war, and the thousands of years of history we have that documents the destruction of life and liberty that happens when it gets out of control. How do we properly constrain the government? How do we check and balance its power, uniquely dangerous among all human institutions?
The Declaration of Independence answers that first question of “why”; the Constitution is the Founder’s answer to the second and later questions of “how”.
Before you “take exception”, I suggest you pay attention and understand what others are actually talking about.
I’m getting tired of how ignorant of basic Americanism most Americans are. And I’m Canadian.
Then what the hell do you think a the government is for?
Before you even deal with the question of how a government is organized, you address the question of why you need government at all. That principle is the uniquely American answer.
The last two lines make no sense because they are editing cruft. Sorry!
If the internet has given us any chance of free ourselves from the control of our elites it is in exposing the public at large to the actions of these unappointed and unelected totalitarian wantabees. As a small step in that direction the PJM readers might like to see some of this years attendees from the US to the Bilderberg conference. They went to extremes to hide the fact of their attendence but in the age of Wikileaks it is getting harder and harder to be a poseur.
• USA Bilderberg Attendees to the 2011 June Meeting in Switzerland
• Alexander, Keith B., Commander, USCYBERCOM; Director, National Security Agency
• Altman, Roger C., Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
• Bezos, Jeff, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
• Collins, Timothy C., CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
• Feldstein, Martin S., George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
• Hoffman, Reid, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
• Hughes, Chris R., Co-founder, Facebook
• Jacobs, Kenneth M., Chairman & CEO, Lazard
• Johnson, James A., Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
• Jordan, Jr., Vernon E., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
• Keane, John M., Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
• Kissinger, Henry A., Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
• Kleinfeld, Klaus, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
• Kravis, Henry R., Co-Chairman and co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis, Roberts & Co.
• Kravis, Marie-Josée, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
• Li, Cheng, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
• Mundie, Craig J., Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
• Orszag, Peter R., Vice Chairman, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
• Perle, Richard N., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
• Rockefeller, David, Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
• Rose, Charlie, Executive Editor and Anchor, Charlie Rose
• Rubin, Robert E., Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
• Schmidt, Eric, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
• Steinberg, James B., Deputy Secretary of State
• Thiel, Peter A., President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
• Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
• Vaupel, James W., Founding Director, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
• Warsh, Kevin, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board
• Wolfensohn, James D., Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
YES!!!! THE…Bilderberg conference!!!
My favorite is: Varney, Christine A., Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. Now I don’t mind any tendency toward fascistic crony capitalism slipping into the public discourse, BUT to send the Assistant Attorney General of the United States to a secret meeting of crony capitalists.
As Larry the Cable Guy would say “Now that’s funny.”
Why not?
Did you notice that the Chairman of the National Security Agency is on the list?
How about Bob Rubin who both goosed the stock market and created the internet bubble and then went to Citicorp and helped create the subprime disaster. If you want a list of who has been behind most of the financial disasters both in the past and currently, this list is a good place to start.
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” – Adam Smith
Has anyone looked into the earlier Mass. “free” health care? A significant number of expectant mothers were arriving at delivery never having seen a doctor. Free health care to those who could not afford care on their own was mandated. The ten year follow up found the the number of parturient who had not seen a doctor during their pregnancy was essentially unchanged. Money can’t cure many social problems. I read Sir Thomas More’s Utopia recently. His is the perfect outline for this administration’s hope and change. We are hard wired in many things and hard to change; perhaps impossible to change.
Now that Newt has basically imploded it looks like the Establishment Republican Progressives are going to put their money and power behind yet another shape shifter, namely Texas Governor Rick Perry. Does anyone have any insights into the true nature of this guy? I know back in the 1980s he was a Democrat but so were many of us, so can he be trusted? Anyone from Texas who has some direct experience with this guy?
Excellent Dr. Hsieh.
I know you can’t list them all, but you forgot a very important one–education control. When the government is charge of the curriculum for 80% of school children, is it any surprise so many come out in support of government as the solution to all of our ills?
Well said. The slide to the left by the young people will NOT stop until the Federal Gov in no longer allowed to indoctrinate them.
Though not now to attempt to present a complete fix, but, I would say that, rectification of injustices and to be accomplished by any mere and solitary insistence that, governmental officers adhere to those legitimate functions which are inherent to protecting individual rights, will be insufficient. But much in another direction, in order for that to work, the societal milieu has to present a fabric in intellectual, psycho-social, spiritual environment upon which ideas of individual right and modalities of protection make sense—are reasonable; and, I kind of wonder if that doesn’t dictate a society of greater homogeneity than those of the multiculturalism persuasion, envision, . . . or maybe, gitin’ shed a some leftists, and from this perspective:
Malkin, . . . and, while we stay within the things of The Lord, unity is maintained, because, the various cultures share but little of the same nuance and kind in capacity for music, humor and emotion and for conversation in general, when meeting and interacting in neutral settings—say, at an unemployment office—this lack provides space for politeness in regard; but at an airport—on account of innate reliance upon profiling for type—that politeness may morph into wariness or even, suspicion.
In music ministry in a Kalamath Indian Christian Church (Oregon); presently, I’m playing for a Black Church (OKC); from inter-cultural relations with in-laws of various ethnic extractions; from spending time in college spent with lottsa foreign students, eating in their residences and so forth, yakking; from time spent in Canada and Mexico; and from experience among Alaska Natives (my birthplace) and in observation of societal diversity in other settings; and of course, from listening to Michelle
Also, to say that, one mustn’t profile—as that which were contrary to human nature—or, for that matter, contrary even to instinct in those creatures of the lower kindgom—is therefore unconstitutional for the fact that, to not “profile” is naturally unreasonable, . . . and impossible.
And if such were necessary as may be common, for instant example, upon seeing one in profile, while I might think: “H-m-m-m, now, that’s! a woman.”, upon hearing another, it might be: “H-m-m-m, he may be of foreign extraction.”.
When playing at the Indian Church, Chief Kalamath Jackson told me that, Indians were the most prejudiced people on earth and lived in the delusion that, the White Man’s society would fail and they’d take over, again. But then, I’ve heard something similar about the Japanese, . . . and, about Blacks, too; so, I don’t know. And, while it is true that, none of us are going to occupy our square foot of land on this earth for any great distance towards the idea of a long time, the strong likelihood is that, multiculturalism isn’t nearly so bad as the advocacy done for it as among anything which leftists seek to advance and merely so that, good, bad, or indifferent, they can crow about having done something.
Most of what has been done concerning cultural diversity is, as I think, a confounded jumble—as one of the Cuban Front leaders has said, teaching Spanish as a first language to Latino children is to simply keep them in the trap of second-class status and poverty—street signs and legal officials in two languages, forsooth! Could greater national folly be imagined—something expected perhaps, of the Canadians; but, . . . while ours is not a perfect world, as a world, it’s a place for us, and that’s perfect.
Anyhow, to my mind’s eye, the courts appear to be just a way, way out’n the brush on “profiling”.
Nor also, do I see a USA multicultural society in secular form, in development.
And then with treatment in regard of individual rights, the police and other governmental groups are expected to do their part in the larger work in maintenance and management of class-structure; so, you know, . . .
Finally, by every sign, BHO will be re-elected; and for a war president, maybe Biden will finish out the term; but, “If you always do your best, whatever happens will be for the best.”——Win 3.11, Tip of the day, . . .
We’re proud of our (Western)democracy and forgetting the premises of the Hegelian dialectics which states:
“Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time”
The triumph of the neo-Marxist doctrines like “Multikultism”, “Diversity” essentially sowed the seeds of anarcho-chaos in the West which is the first stage of the collapse of a nation.
The counter-measure to anarchy is the implementation of totalitarian controls, let it be leftist or rightist in its orientation.
We are descending into a chaotic, confrontational society due to “Diversity”, so urban revolts, gang wars, economic dissatisfaction, clashes between various cultures will lure the “power that be” to crush many aspects of the individual freedom.
Don’t believe it?
Look around in the West (ignore the 3rd. world) as cities burn, more and more draconian laws are created:
The first victim is the “Freedom of speech”.
There are more and more stringent speech laws are implemented to silence critical voices.
Seeing from a distance it appears that the US will turn into a Marxist “Strongman-ship” led by Obama and “his” people financed by “J”people; – watch for a primitive version of a Putin type authoritarianism.
The counter-measure to anarchy is the implementation of totalitarian controls, let it be leftist or rightist in its orientation.
“It is not whom the State controls, it is whom controls the State.” — old Marxist maxim.
“Watch the pincer movement. If you’re sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We’ve closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads—collectivism, and tails—collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council—or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun—but don’t forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul The rest will follow automatically.”
–Ellsworth Toohey, from Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”
“But it should otherwise leave honest people alone to live peacefully.”
That pretty sums up the core of my conservatism. If I could say one thing to the Leftists that seek to control me it would simply be “LEAVE ME ALONE!”
That pretty sums up the core of my conservatism. If I could say one thing to the Leftists that seek to control me it would simply be “LEAVE ME ALONE!”
That’s not conservatism, that’s libertarianism/Objectivism — the principle of individual moral sovereignty.
Conservatism, due to its religious roots, reserves the right to society to act to “curb your baser instincts”. It does not oppose authoritarianism, it merely prefers to keep the authorities local… as if local tyranny were OK.
Every American must have the right to purchase medical marijuana OIL. Marijuana oil has cured cancer and other degenerative diseases. Many people are in a desperate fight for their health and must have the FREEDOM to regain their health.
Daily Mail
Boy, two, with brain cancer is ‘cured’ after secretly being fed medical marijuana by his father
4th May 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1383240/Boy-brain-cancer-cured-secretly-fed-medical-marijuana-father.html
Biatch, you high!
You loadies always have a plaintive squeal. We cannot live safely in a society in which substance abuse is legal. Smoke your dope in the jungle!
We cannot live safely in a society in which substance abuse is legal.
Tell that one to Jose Guerena, or David Scott, or Eurie Stamps, or Jonathan Magbie, or….
You might want to wash your hands. That red stuff isn’t paint.
I have made my escape from Amerika, the land of the SWAT teams and affirmative action extortion gangs – to New Zealand. Please don’t try to come here to New Zealand (nor Australia) as there are already tens of thousands of Americans scrambling after the same few non-existing jobs.
Of course, if you have a lot of money and don’t need to work you’re welcome to come.
Well Well…the promised land of Helen Clark?
The whole Anglo-sphere is worshiping at the altar of PolCorr. Leftist crap.
Even in Canada the Human Right Commission censors your thoughts, the Irish has blasphemy laws, the Brits don’t let Micheal Savage and Geert Wilders in…no way out.
Learn German rather…they are much healthier than the Obamabots…
Exellent article and even better comments. WE THE PEOPLE are waking up to the fact there are “WE THE ELITE PEOPLE” in our USof A. These Washington self anointed, self appointed “egg heads” (and their media counterparts) have always planned for the “better future of our great Nation.” Look at where they have led us… to endless cycles of “boom and bust” economies, untold misery and hardships to WE THE PEOPLE and endless excuses of how our government ELITE will “even out the bumps in the road.” All the while, government ELITES, business ELITES and wall street ELITES literally fleece WE THE PEOPLE. Corruption on such a massive scale never before seen on the face of the earth. Throwing WE THE PEOPLE, Nations, a Country’s people UNDER THE BUS is now accepted MODUS OPERENDI for our USofA. Accountability, transparency, honesty, oath of office, are now replaced with one single, all important word…GREED.
What’s in it for me, and to hell with the rest.WE THE PEOPLE have to wake up to this cancer of WE THE ELITE PEOPLE. It has to be treated URGENTLY. It has to be ZAPPED, made irrelevant because if not…WE THE PEOPLE will surely become WE THE SERFS and vassals. Everything our Founding Fathers shed blood and fought for will have been for naught. VOTE!
“Freedom” for right-wing propagangists like Mr. Hsieh means only the freedom for greedy corporate overlords to exploit and rule. What good is “freedom” for the average person who is hungry, homeless, and sadly watching her own children die of treatable illnesses because only the rich have health care in the United States.
The TSA is a disaster becuase like everything else the government has done since the Bush Administration blamed Islam for the fall of the World Trade Center, has been a racist assault against Muslims. It fails becuase racism always fails. The genocides in Afghanistan and Iraq, like the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, have not or never will bring peace. The ovens and showers of Gitmo, like those of Auschwitz, have not made the world a better place.
Reasonable men can disagree about whether certain drugs whose safety is in question can be used when all other options are lost, but only when corporate greed is taken out of the equation. We need to have a health care system based purely on compassion that never makes money nor denies anybody any treatment due to lack of money. Until greed is excised from the system and patient care placed first, questions of drug safety are moot since all those questions are really about in the current system is how much money the greedy drug and insurance companies can squeeze from the illnesses of the poor.
Moron. Marxist moron.
Yeah, corporations and the Jews…
Once upon a time the slogan was to Kill the KULAKS! (kulak: Russian peasants with a small plot of land). If we kill the Kulaks we’ll have more food for the people – pontificated the Commissars so they went on a killing spree.
When nobody left to grow wheat the Great Ukrainian Famine visited upon them.
Next were the industrialists to go until no productive people left.
The same idiots preaching the same crap today: kill the Evil Corporations …yeah, let’s fire millions of working people for the benefit of “Humanity”.
And the idiot Marxist swooning over the Islamofascist Jihadist to Kill the Jews. When Marx embraces Sharia and the Muslim Head-cutters Allah wins.
Read some Moonbattery posts: The Corporation is Satan! Get rid of the Corporations!…
And who will provide for the millions of fired and unemployed if not the Corporation? They cannot even ruminate realistically on it.
All they want is to Kill the Kulaks and the Jews and worship Allah.
Thats all there is to it.
Lie after lie, after lie. There are no gas ovens in Gitmo.
And muslims are what race again?
Islam, The Religion of Peace (TM).
And you better believe it or we’ll kill you!
Amother Pallywood propaganda message from TY.
Meet his teacher:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
Well done TY!
A perfect pupil and follower.
But the “average person” is NOT, “hungry, homeless and without medical care”.
Do you expect medical professionals to work for free? Do you risk your money in hope of just breaking even? Get your facts straight and your head in a position to see something other than the interior of your colon.
Communism has never worked. It fails the tests of both logic and history.
Government control of the means of production of goods and services just shifts the effective provision of such from its providers to faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats, ignorant, malicious, and contemptuous of individual needs and rights. And they never get it right.
To Throbbin Yobbin,
More lies. There is no Israeli genocide against PA Muslims! PA Muslims are the most genocidal society ever known to man. In the Palestinian Authority, streets, summer camps, schools, tournaments, and city squares are dedicated to, and named after savage terrorist killers of Jewish innocents.
Hatred and murder of Jews is preached in mosques, media, speeches and public education systems. It is a huge crime against humanity that the nations demand Israel surrender half her land to a people consumed with such a dreadful murderous hate for their fellow human beings.
Wow.
Are you currently living in a Socialist country or do you have managed med care or are you on medicaid? Because your Dr. missed your mental illness.
Ovens? Genocides? Racism of a religious group that forcibly converted,interbred with and enslaved people of every race?
I doubt physicians can live on compassion any more than Weiner can live on love.
At least you prove the biggest falasy of the US:All men are created equal.A 65 IQ will never be a 120 or a physicist.
I bet your pursuit of happiness includes the mass murder of Jews and white Christians.
Feel free to post all the proof you have of these atrocities.
Do you wear a tin foil hat while reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in your glass house?
Well the drive to central control of our lives has been going on for 70 years. Now in the hands of a real, true marxists it is indeed a terrible weapon. But it was George Bush who instituted the Patriot Act and the hapless Reps went along and renewed it. We have the unconstitutional searches at the airports. Unconstitutional seizures of property due to drug laws. Now, we have the Dept. of Education doing swat team arrests over student loans.
I hope to turn the gov’ment around. I’m backing Palin for Prez. She’s our clean up gal. She has a history of cleaning up the Rat Party which is why they hate her. They don’t want their little apple cart upset. If not, I’ll escape via Canada.
“Fortunately, we can rectify these injustices by insisting that the government adhere to its legitimate function of protecting individual rights.”
Unfortunately the majority of Americans have accepted the government’s faulty logic concerning all of these infringements on liberty and allowed them to believe they have the right to dictate and impose their version of “freedom” as they see fit. So I suppose these injustices can be rectified but who is listening, grasping the severity of the threats and motivated to take action?
America is no longer the country envisioned by the Founding Fathers, or the land that offered a welcoming hand to the tired, the poor, “the huddled masses yearning to breath free.” It is now the land where the hands reach out for what they’ve come to believe society owes them for the privilege of their unproductive existence. As the Government morphs further and further to the Left this entitlement segment of society grows like a cancer and the only “injustice” they recognize is the diminishing population of the “greedy” rich and their refusal to share their “ill gotten wealth” with them, the “downtrodden.” They don’t “pay their fair share.” They’re sitting on trillions of dollars that they refuse to invest. Etc.; the Class Warfare declared by the Left that continues to successfully encourage and inflame the irrational hatred of the malcontents unable to face their true enemy, the one whose reflection they see in the mirror every day.
We are witnessing an American version of Ayn Rand’s, “Atlas Shrugged,” played out before our very eyes. The gist? In parts one and two, profit is evil, private property ownership is immoral, competition is counterproductive and undemocratic, invention and entrepreneurship are no longer necessary and the purpose of Government is to claim the moral high ground, everything is “for the people,” as they surreptitiously fatten their wallets, favor those who “cooperate,” and micromanage all aspects of the economy so that all members of society have an “equal chance of success.” I’m half way through but expect, in part three, this idiocy and the havoc its already wreaked, to eventually be exposed as such and the fiction ultimately turn out well. Perhaps the reality for America will too but America is, figuratively speaking, in the first of three parts of the fictional book and eagerly gathering and marching towards part two. A diminishing few see what is happening and are increasingly frustrated by what is not being done to stop it.
Everyone is bitching and moaning about this idiot -we all elected. (not me) – Once you heard, “I just want to spread the wealth around a little” what the hell else did you need to hear?
We all had better hope more of U.S. go to the polls on Nov 2012 than those who got that little wealth “O” wanted to spread around. You give this idiot and his henchmen another 4 years and they will manage to create a dozen more Detroit’s! Tipping pojnt is 11, 2012
Addendum: If you want to see an uncivil war, just try to take weapons from law abiding citizens. That means any weapons and you will see a war really fast!
Check “6″ that is what we all should have done in 2008!
FREEDOM? New requirements to get a US Passport will make it IMPOSSIBLE for most Americans to get or renew their passport. Read this alarming article and get or renew your passport immediately before the new regulations.
IsraelNationalNews.com
04/28/11
Roadblocks to the US Passport
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143774
See the communist Obama act like a communist. Imagine that? We aren’t still in the discovery phase, folks.
#2 Throbbin Yobin:
YOU are the propagandist! What a dirty lie that only the rich have healthcare in America! In New York City there are long tables set up inside some of the hospital lobbies or outside the hospital or just on a sidewalk. They eagerly sign up low income people who don’t have health insurance to give them FREE health care.
A racist assault against Muslims? Another disgusting lie! Just as in Britain, Europe, and other countries to where Muslims have emigrated, Muslims have been given special rights and privileges not given to non-Muslims. Given time for Islamic prayers during work; special footbaths for Muslims in airports and other places, etc.
What do you expect from an over-educated, petulant community organizer?
Even with the Ignorant in Chief gone, it ain’t gonna change.
I expect an enormous American slum, with laws to fit, for my grandchildren.
Thank you for starting your article with that obscene comment from horny old Ben.
I would say to you and Ben that our country is founded on the principal of inalienable rights.
That means neither you nor Ben get to decide who deserves liberty, life or the pursuit of Happiness. And, as it turns out many of us Americans are people whom you think don’t deserve what we have.
Deserving liberty is not what America is about, Pal.
By the way, the slob mob on the left made persistent use of that quotation to sabotage Bush’s fight for America during his administration. so I guess all closet totalitarians think alike, Huh?
Thank you for starting your article with that obscene comment from horny old Ben.
I would say to you and Ben that our country is founded on the principal of inalienable rights.
That means neither you nor Ben get to decide who deserves liberty, life or the pursuit of Happiness. And, as it turns out many of us Americans are people whom you think don’t deserve what we have.
Saying and believing that you don’t deserve something does not equate to actually taking it away from you. The first is protected by the First Amendment. Freedom of thought and communication, biatch! Your inability to notice this distinction disqualifies you from discussing what this country is founded upon, as you plainly don’t understand how those principles work.
And again, I find myself annoyed at having to school an American on basic Americanism when I’m not even an American.
Now shut up, child, adults are talking.
Gun control rumblings again? Legal gun ownership has nothing to do with crime.
The government,states and counties know exactly where illegal guns,drugs and criminals are.What do you think would happen if the ATF and DEA actually did their jobs and went door to door through Compton,Detroit,N.St.Louis,Gary,IN etc.? It is easier to offend tax paying legal gun owners with laws than face armed drug dealers who will shot first then will scream racism,religious persecution blahblahblah.A law makes it appear official, proactive and saves money on all the expensive raids,trials,deportations and incarcerations.
We’ve already experienced the governments refusal to charge terrorist fund raisers and to closely monitor muslim travelers and immigrants.Hassling kids and grannies makes the TSA appear to be actively enforcing security,it’s much safer than actually looking for muslim boxer bombs and less offensive to Allah.
Obamacare hahaha.Yes,turning the medical system into a meat processing plant will certainly stop the oxycontin express,medical supply fraud that exports funds to Bosnian and Serbian muslims,welfare mommas from mass reproduction for money and rid the disability system of mass abuse.Lawsuits will be greatly reduced-can’t sue if your dead from lack of prompt treatment.It will reduce SS payouts to the elderly ,see previous explanation.Medical treatment for cancer,pffft,it’s about paperwork not radiation as a cure.
And all will be good in the governments fairytale democracy.
Tax payers may be unhappy but everyone knows they are to blame for the financial mess,racism,offending muslims,not educating children,illegal drug use,pornography,greed and guns.Maybe there should be laws against being employed,white and middle class…….
The government has been encroaching on our freedoms my entire life. I just hope enough Americans are waking up in time.
I see many good and logical comments here. But, if we want to change the course of history we have only one action available to us. We must vote our current elected officials out of office. Not just a few, we must vote them all out. If we don’t do that the message will net be received. Vote them out, vote them ALL out.
Lots of interesting view points. Some very much misinformed. “Indeed, it was the passengers who stopped the would-be bomber in Detroit of Northwest Airlines flight 253, not the TSA — a classic example of what blogger Glenn Reynolds calls “An Army of Davids.”” TSA did not screen this guy he came from Europe. That place where they have the type of security you are advocating.
Lets use some logic. What happens to anyone who is exempt from screening at the airport? Everyone who is in that make-up of person becomes a target of terrorists. So if grand ma or the person in a wheel chair does not get screened those people and their loved ones become targets of terrorists. Is that your goal? Do you have any idea how many “old” or “handi-capped” people are arrested for bringing guns or large quantities of illegal drugs to an airport security checkpoint? The numbers would surprise you folks.
I am just glad the folks who want to implement the security plan from September tenth are not in-charge of security in our country. Keep in mind that planes had been getting hijacked for years prior to TSA and tougher regulations regarding security. One other note regarding the private companies many of the people in our government that advocate the private companies stand to make lots of money from companies that want to get those jobs for their own private security companies. We had private security companies on September tenth, remember how well that worked out.
The new system works. It is good enough to have deterred a terrorist in Dallas, TX to give up an attack on the airport and instead try to attack fountain plaza in downtown Dallas. His reason after watching the airport for a while was the security was too tough for him to have any chance of success. You folks can do a web search and find out about that little bit of info.
Lets use some logic. What happens to anyone who is exempt from screening at the airport? Everyone who is in that make-up of person becomes a target of terrorists.
Sure. Because terrorists are like weather, right? They have always been there, will always be there, and there’s nothing that can be done about it (like ending states that sponsor terrorism); we have to give up our freedoms and shrink into a defensive funk because that’s how you win wars like this. /sarc
You are the misinformed one. All that security does with each stop of a terrorist, is to help his colleagues refine their methods (well, that didn’t work…) The TSA’s MAginot Line is merely slo-mo surrender; eventually the terrorists will wise up and start hitting other targets. What are you going to do, put a TSA agent in every car?
You’re an idiot. The solution to terrorism is to cut off their government support — end states that support or sponsor terrorism. A terrorist that isn’t enabled by the considerable power and wealth of a government, is just a criminal, and we’ve been dealing with those successfully for two hundred years without a police state. (Well, minus the catastrophes of drug and alcohol prohibition, which are almost as good as government sponsorship at putting powerful economic resources at the disposal of criminals.)
Dr. Hsieh describes an excellent overview of how government control of individual citizens is eroding our freedom, which means limiting our ability to live life.
Freedom is a big responsiblity, but human life, and medical care, are not possible without it. Government forcing us to accept state-run medical care will shorten all our lives.
Well done in showing the same forces at work in some of the other areas of our lives.
Roxanne A.
We need to defy the TSA by not flying–let make the July 4 week a no fly week.
We have 70 Congressmen and women that are also members of the American Socialist Party. They are all Democrats but not one Republican has spoke out on what should be seen as out right treason. What else could swearing an oath to the Constitution then joining a group that’s goal is destroying the document be?
Any American that took a little time to find what little history obama still had out there did not cast a vote for him. His lone stand of keeping the practice of denying babies born alive to be left to die without food, water or any care what so ever, some tossed in dumpsters to die, was the only reason needed to know one who would support the murders of the most innocent and helpless of us all is neither Muslim or Christian but a godless cruel sub human. There are thousands as obama.
It is a Government run education system that is as the national media in this country who teach our young not truth but what they would have you believe. All a parent need do is open your child’s government or social studies book. More than once I have cornered these so called teachers on their lies. One in 25 doctors can’t practice in the medical field. One in 25 lawyers are unable to practice law. One in 2,500 teachers are unable to teach.
The only way a voting booth will bring this nation back to Constitutional law and common sense is to replace the voters age requirement with a voters IQ requirement. These voters are as 6 year olds casting their votes for the one they think will give them the most ice cream. Being neither party would ever allow an educated voting block to happen we have only one option. It is written in the Declaration of Independence and says it is not only our right but duty to make happen at all cost.
With Federal agents now able to write their own warrants and investigate anyone they like with or without probable cause and obama now adding to the Patriot Act allowing any citizen to be imprisoned with out charges on what the administration say a crime they know you will comet in the future if we don’t stand and do our duty soon we will be bowing tomorrow.
Title reminds me of, Dude where’s my car?. But seriously I totally agree that we need to stand up for our liberties. I am concerned for our future here in America, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. Thanks for the article, interesting piece.
That of course is exactly what the Republican Congress could do if they refused to raise the debt ceiling. That however would require Congressional leadership with cajones. Not likely.
IT is about time we helped give the Republicans a chance to develop a backbone or find alternative employment.