The Real Story of America’s Founding
San Francisco is considering a ban on the sale of goldfish. Basically, the government is afraid that people are getting fish as impulse buys and not treating them properly, so they don’t want to allow anyone to buy them at all. They’re also considering a ban on parents having their babies circumcised.
They’ve already banned Happy Meals, as they think they’re too enticing to children and parents can’t be expected to control what their own kids eat. Also increasingly regulating the daily behavior of its citizens is New York City under Mayor Bloomberg, who has banned trans-fats city-wide and smoking in most of the city and has considered a ban on salt.
The leaders of these cities have taken it upon themselves to place their own opinions of what people should or should not be doing above basic liberty. They’ve made it the government’s role to be a nanny and have ruled individual choice as unimportant. And I have one thing to say to them: Finally, someone is remembering the principles this country was founded on.
Back before the Unites States was an independent nation, people lived in horrific conditions under British rule. The British weren’t providing very good free health care (wait time for a poor person to get an MRI was over 200 years), they were refusing to increase taxes on the rich, and they had very few laws dictating what colonists were allowed to eat, causing many to become obese on the high-fructose maize syrup the Indians taught them to make.
So the colonists kept demanding that the British give them big government to regulate their lives and provide for their basic needs while confiscating all their wealth. “We’re stupid,” they’d cry out to the British. “Please rule us and make us do what you think is best!” But the British kept refusing, saying, “No, you guys are doing okay by yourselves. We want you to have the freedom to run your own lives.”
It was this laissez-faire attitude that led to the Boston Massacre, in which five people died of heart attacks in Boston from eating fatty foods a proper government would never have let them eat in the first place. Finally the colonists had enough of not being bossed around and decided if the British weren’t going to provide them the all-encompassing government they wanted, they had to make it themselves.
They started by throwing tea into the Boston Harbor since they determined it had too much caffeine and people shouldn’t have been allowed to drink it. Then they formed militias to collect more taxes from the colonists to spend on welfare and government works projects. The British tried to strike back by ending regulations and giving tax rebates, but the colonists were now ready to fight to make sure some large entity would tell them what to do. And many were rallied to the cause by Patrick Henry’s cry of “Give me a large government telling me what I can and can’t do while spending most of my money, or give me death!”
Soon, Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, which includes the famous line, “We hold these truths to be revealed after careful study by Ivy League-educated people, that all men are in need of constant care and supervision, that they are endowed by the highly-educated intellectual class with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are free Health Care, strict and expansive Regulations on all activities, and the pursuit of Big Government.”
Now we are America, land of the free and home of the obese. Few could get enough cheap sugar in the 1770′s to be fat, even if they wanted to. No one had heard of lung cancer.
You could go back and find all sorts of odd and repressive laws, blue and otherwise, on the books in our founding past. We have freed ourselves from those laws, but set up a new morality boss. Both the left and the right do it; they just hit you over the head with different clubs.
Overall, I don’t know if we were freer than, or now, but people died early and often. They did not know how to avoid that. To some degree, we know how to extend life way beyond the average of the 1770′s. What would the founders have said about retirement communities in Florida? Back then, old folks often became the responsibility of their community, but there were so far fewer of them.
Yes, Dwight, human nature is the same now as then. We had fools and control-freaks back then, too. It is just that such had higher mortality rates back then. Fools died of their own stupidity, and the bullies got killed by the bullied time-to-time.
Retirement communities? The elderly were cared for by their more prosperous progeny. Yes there were far fewer, because fools rarely lived to reach their dotage. Such is not the case now, so we have lots of elderly fools. These elderly fools pull the lever for Democrats as a matter of habit, and they buy into every Leftist calumny. Wisely, they all vote, and then they vote foolishly. This is what happens when you protect people from their own folly. You get more fools.
I say, “Let them eat Happy Meals!” and, “Let them not buckle their seatbelts or wear safety helmets.” Maybe we’ll have less fools.
Marc, spot on.
I was always vigilant about wearing seat-belts long before it was required by law and my vigilance saved my sister’s, daughter’s and my own life.
I’m also careful about what I eat (and how much I chew what I eat).
High fat isn’t bad as long as it isn’t coupled with high empty carb meals. The brain needs fat to function optimally.
Also, our country isn’t as ‘obese’ as people believe. The guidelines for obesity are ridiculous because muscle weighs more than fat and there are HUGE guys with massive muscles who would be considered ‘obese’ by height and weight alone. Just stupid.
Dwight,
I noticed three things in your post that need comment just for starters:
Are both the left and right really just the same with different clubs?
It’s “then”, not “than” when referring to time.
And what do retirement communities have to do with anything?
Dear Leap of Faith — now that you have penned your three for starters, it is obvious why subsequent points were not.
Dwight:
Enough sugar to cause obesity? What about fatty foods? Ever see a pic of B Franklin?
Never heard of lung cancer? They’d never heard of penicillin either. But, they had plenty of TB to go around.
So, what you’re saying is that in order to live longer and due to the fact that people live longer (both), we need to have the government tell us how much water to use to flush, to shower, to regulate what kind of light bulb to use ($50 if I want a 100-watt)and where to have lunch.
What is your PhD in?
u jes don get it either, do ya
Overall, I don’t know if we were freer than, or now, but people died early and often.
I didn’t know you could die more than once. Learn something new every day.
I’m reminded of those ads on tee vee where lawyers are drumming up business…
“Call this number RIGHT NOW if you’ve experienced any of these side effects from this dastardly drug !” and one of the side effects is DEATH.
And every time you die, the Democrats gain a new voter.
The depend-o-cracy (aka. the “Vampire Class”) mostly protects their right to fleece the rest of us. Happy meals, trans-fats and circumcision are marvelous theater…A government that grants itself special treatment at the expense of individual taxpayers is a dictatorship. period full stop.
Check out how to “weaponize your vote” & INSIST on a permanent government overhaul with the 535Project at http://www.libertysoup.org.
When was the last time you did something momentous?
Obamacare, that is the heart of it. If this law stands and the Supreme Court does not declare it unconstitutional, then Federalism, as well as this country, is finished. If Obamacare stands, then the Federal Governement will literally have endless powers to tell you what to do, what to eat, how to live, and where to live. Anything the government does will be placed under the heading of “public interest” which can be regulated by the governemnt. And that is just, plain, wrong. It goes against everything we stand for and certainly everything we should be. It may come down to one single vote in the Supreme Court. The fate of this whole nation could come down to the vote of one man. I don’t think that’s right, but it looks like that’s the way it is. Unless, of course, Republicans take over the White House and the Senate and we repeal this whole mess that is known as “Obamacare.”
ah, bs. this hasn’t been a republic in your lifetime or mine. It isn’t “the next” whatever that will end federalism, it happened in 1865 and the last nail in the coffin was in 1913. We’ve been pretending to be a republic since then.
Dwight
Now we are America, land of the free and home of the obese. Few could get enough cheap sugar in the 1770′s to be fat, even if they wanted to. No one had heard of lung cancer.
But Dwight how could lung cancer not have existed in 1770. Smoking was prevalent at the time with the founding fathers smoking as they debated the declaration,even washinton told congress send us our tobacco ration above all else!
Then we have the fact that RADON has always been………The EPA says 21,000 non-smokers die of radon lung cancer a year. You think maybe the epa lied again as they did with second hand smoke in their ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE study that was tossed as junk science by a federal court!
The Nanny state as the article implies is built on JUNK SCIENCE…….Its a progressive liberal agenda. Today its the libertarians and conservatives who are truly what the term liberal are………..for freedom and rights!
IT HAS TO END
Nevada just friday JUNE 17TH basically repealed their indoor smoking ban at least if you listen to tobacco control sources!
No doubt many more such state repeals will be forth comming.
I just find it so utterly a failure the anti-tobacco crusade. Like all movements their zest is real and their beliefs undeterred by actual science.
People who work together for the real common good, do so with the peoples rights left intact.
The second an agenda steps on people and criminalizes them they have set in motion their own movements failure. Without respecting the rights of the people a movement cannot stand!
Manipulation of science,the taking over of health depts,governmental health agencies,the stacking of politicians that favor your sides agenda…….Its anything but american and more describes a dictatorial roll rather than a constitutionally protected right to exist.
Public health and its advocates are fast becoming the most despised and hated group around the world as citizens find themselves criminalized for behavior that isnt a crime.
These ideals of such groups if left unchecked are the foundation stones of even more outlandish laws and less and less freedom for everyone.
A movement such as this can lead to world wars as we saw in the past century…….basic freedom for the basic man keeps the balance and prevents a growing hatred against such movements from spreading their ever growing hate into even bigger arenas of political life.
What drives anti-tobacco isnt just a hatred of smoking its much larger with tobacco just one of their targets,its larger than the obese people they wish to criminalize or the alcohol industry they wish to destroy……….
Their hatred goes much deeper its a hatred of american ideals,its a hatred of anything or anyone who stands in the way of their ideal world!
Its a hatred so vast and deep it has its roots in a socialistic facist way……….
The same as hitlers own party of national socialists……….while not a carbon copy of the nazis the policies are a carbon copy. The fear of such groups is the eugenics attitude such groups hold and when collected together they are the foundings of such political beliefs to surmise the national socialist movement………
Its to this building ideology that tobacco control and their eugenics beliefs must be stopped.
Hey, I smoke a little, but don’t want to breathe in other people’s smoke inside. I always smoke outside, even at home. The tobacco folks cried wolf (or was it “no wolf”) for so long in their attempts to deny the link to lung cancer, that they lost ALL credibility. I will grant you that OUTDOOR smoking bans start to get a little crazy. I don’t care for the do-gooder, I will control you impulse, but care no more for the drama queen liberty howlers. They both love to hear the sound of their own remonstrances. (unlike me
This is only partially a satire. The Puritain colonies had elaborate sumptuary laws. Regulated trade i.e. mercantilism was what the colonists wanted (thus internal vrs external taxation) What happened was that the Brits began to use regulations against the colonies instead of a mutually beneficial system. Therefore seeing that they’d be reduced to “hewers of wood,drawers of water” separated.
This isn’t that far from my kids’ text books. They say history is written by the victors.
Or the ones with their brains still intact. I think that a daughter, or some female descendant helped write for this guy.
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=181
As in Mercy Otis Warren
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=328
A tipping point has been reached. Wealth or the prospect of it is no longer the driving force of political psychopaths.
Power is now the ascendant motivation of the maniacs who arrogantly imagine thamselves to be your superiors.
Such is the legacy of unimaginable lifestyle improvements created by 230 years of personal freedom. The average man in 1775 would have predictd eternal life sooner than he could have imagined an iphone.
With comforts available to vagabonds that kings would have envied 100 years ago, 21st century Stalins have turned their depraved lusts toward controlling your kids’ happy meals and forcing you to give up light bulbs that actually work. They won’t be happy until they regulate every morsel of food you put in your mouth and every square of toilet paper you use on your ass.
Yes. Milton Friedman said, “Today’s poverty was yesterday’s plenty.”
Written on JUNE 21, 2011 by V2A Texas ‘No Grope’ Bill Back On!
http://visiontoamerica.org/1741/texas-no-grope-bi…
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. G.Washington
Get a grip, people! This is SATIRE. Look it up if you have a dictionary.
Thank you, I was beginning to believe it was me going totally mad.
Could be a satire and your going mad.
One idea we must all get out of our heads is that these know it alls make these laws for our own good. Sure, some of the people at the bottom might be sincere (but misguided) but the people on top do this out of ego a driven desire to run things. They feel they have almost divine right to impose their will on others because they are better.
Sure the government over regulates. But what do we do to people who try to commit suicide? We lock them up or put them in therapy. It seems to me that the ignorance of the people both causes and allows this kind of regulation. We’re left with the ultimatum: bow to the government or bow to the corporation.
are you just depressed… see someone professional, please. man oh man.
But . . . what about . . . the children?
The mythology of our country is basically one built of the frontier. It is based upon self sufficiency.
These days, if you seek self-sufficiency, you’re considered to be some sort of wing-nut survivalist. My how times have changed.
I look forward to a new frontier launched by people who live in space. They’ll have to be self sufficient, because it is too damned expensive to constantly launch supplies from the Earth’s surface.
Only then will we regain our frontier spirit. This country will have to be reinvented.
Too late – we’ve been grounded! Time to tell the muzzies how great they are!
Gork,
I do really, in my romantic notions of a new America, wish what you said was true….
But unfortunately, Space Settlements will be the ultimate triumph of socialism/totalitarianism my friend…
Because no one will ever concievably be able to travel to another planet of their own dime, of their own means…there will be no rugged individualists, setting off on their own, creating a new home for THEMSELVES.
All the “settlers” will be government agency employees, because Space Settlements will simply HAVE to be funded as government projects by an Uber powerful Nanny State that will regulate every single thing about their creation….
How much food, fuel, oxygen, building materials…what type of structures, power systems, sleeping arangements, personal autonomy, and means of “self defense” if the concept is even considered…The agency will decide in advance exactly how many people, in what genders ratios will go there…the Agency will define skill sets, education and loyalty requirements, genetic and DNA compositions, temperments, communication, rank and hierachy…
Its a facinitaing prospect, settlement beyond earth…but the level of technological support it will require from the “mother host” is simply astounding.
And no “mother host” government will ever allow their EMPLOYEES to be free, to simply do as they please on “company time”. Every second of their experience will be planned and accounted for, for the advancement of “the settlement”…
They will not be there for themselves….that entire possibility will have been eliminated before the very first day of “ground training school”
There is still hope for the country if THIS can happen in California:
Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:56:25 -0400
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s controller took the rare step Tuesday of halting paychecks for all 120 state lawmakers after he determined they failed to meet a voter-approved requirement aimed at getting the Legislature to approve balanced budgets on time.
Controller John Chiang said he reviewed the budget approved last week by Democrats on a simple majority vote and determined it was not balanced. Chiang, a Democrat, said lawmakers therefore did not meet the requirement for getting paid under Proposition 25, which voters approved in November.
Lawmakers can start receiving their salaries and expenses again once they pass a balanced budget. They will not be retroactively paid for the days the budget was late.
(Someone is actually requiring lawmakers to do their jobs or face consequences? What a novel idea!)
San Francisco has children?
This woman, social x-ray Kathleen (“cough into your sleeve”) Sebelius, has been traveling around the country showing obesity maps and giving obesity speeches.
That is, when she’s not cracking the whip over her legion of underlings writing regulations for all the arcane stuff in the 2000+ page Obamacare bill.
Sebelius’ partner in crime Michelle Obama has developed “my plate” that we, the dumb, fat peeps, can start “using” right away to make better food choices.
Now that the government is going to be more involved in your “healthcare”, Kathleen wants you to stop eating Cheetos.
Another chapter in the intrusion of meddling morons into daily life
After two-plus years of Barry’s rule, here’s your change!
Avg.. Retail price/gallon gas in U.S. as of Jan. 2009: $1.83 … TODAY: $3.44 … % chg … 84% … Source: 1
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel) as of Jan. 2009: $43..48 … TODAY: $99..02 … % chg: 127.7% … Source: 2
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel) as of Jan. 2009: $38..74 … TODAY: $91..38 … % chg: 135.9% … Source: 2
Gold: London (per troy oz.) as of Jan. 2009: $853.25 … TODAY: $1,369.50 … % chg: 60.5% … Source: 2
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL as of Jan. 2009: $3.56 … TODAY: $6.33 … % chg: 78.1% … Source: 2
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL as of Jan. 2009: $9.66 … TODAY: $13..75 … % chg: 42.3% … Source: 2
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. Fob as of Jan. 2009: $13..37 … TODAY: $35..39 … % chg: 164.7% … Source: 2
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall as of Jan. 2009: 7.6% … TODAY: 9.4% … % chg: 23.7% … Source: 3
Unemployment rate, b l a c k s as of Jan. 2009: 12.6% … TODAY: 15.8% … % chg: 25.4% … Source: 3
Number of unemployed as of Jan. 2009: 11,616,000 … TODAY: 14,485,000 … % chg: 24.7% … Source: 3
Number of fed. Employees as of Jan. 2009: 2,779,000 … TODAY: 2,840,000 … % chg: 2.2% … Source: 3
Real median household income as of Jan. 2009: $50,112 … TODAY: $49,777 … % chg: -0.7% … Source: 4
Number of food stamp recipients as of Jan. 2009: 31,983,716 … TODAY: 43,200,878 … % chg: 35.1% … Source: 5
Number of unemployment benefit recipients as of Jan. 2009: 7,526,598 … TODAY: 9,193,838 … % chg: 22.2% … Source: 6
Number of long-term unemployed as of Jan. 2009: 2,600,000 … TODAY: 6,400,000 … % chg: 146.2% … Source: 3
Poverty rate, individuals as of Jan. 2009: 13.2% … TODAY: 14.3% … % chg: 8.3% … Source: 4
People in poverty in U.S. as of Jan. 2009: 39,800,000 … TODAY: 43,600,000 … % chg: 9.5% … Source: 4
U.S.. Rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings as of Jan. 2009: 5 … TODAY: 9 … % chg: n/a … Source: 10
Present Situation Index as of Jan. 2009: 29.9 … TODAY: 23.5 … % chg: -21.4% … Source: 11
Failed banks as of Jan. 2009: 140 … TODAY: 164 … % chg: 17.1% … Source: 12
U.S.. Dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate as of Jan. 2009: 89.76 … TODAY: 82.03 … % chg: -8.6% … Source: 2
U.S.. Money supply, M1, in billions as of Jan. 2009: 1,575.1 … TODAY: 1,865.7 … % chg: 18.4% … Source: 13
U.S.. Money supply, M2, in billions as of Jan. 2009: 8,310.9 … TODAY: 8,852.3 … % chg: 6.5% … Source: 13
National debt, in trillions as of Jan. 2009: $10..627 … TODAY: $14..052 … % chg: 32.2% … Source: 14
Sources:(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. Of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury
p.s. The Dems and liberals said that Barry would be “ready to rule out of the gate.” I hate “rulers.”
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. George Washington
Updates on Thomas Jefferson and the MSM
With news evolving at warp speed today, it’s challenging to keep up but I can do it, at least if the news relates to developments of some significance. When the news involves Thomas Jefferson and the mainstream media, it’s definitely in need of updating.
For example, contrary to popular African-American belief, the principal author of America’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, may not have authored children by his slave, Sally Hemings, and she may have been the concubine of Tom’s allegedly randy younger brother, the much less distinguished Randolph Jefferson.
No doubt the debatable Jeffersonian DNA evidence will cause widespread consternation among America’s African-American community which has claimed a Jefferson connection for a decade now, a Thomas Jefferson, not a Randolph Jefferson connection, and has to deflate their genetic pretensions.
The only definite link established by the 1998 DNA match between one of Sally Hemings’ six children, Eston Hemings, and a Jefferson was merely that, a male Jefferson match, not necessarily the Jefferson link.
Robert F. Turner, former University of Virginia professor and Chairman of the Scholars Commission, announced the release of his new book which exposes fallacies in the theory that America’s third president fathered Eston, fallacies largely predicated on circumstantial evidence.
Predictably, the new claims by 12 of the 13 members of Turner’s commission are disputed by various parties with a dog in the Jefferson paternity fight, groups and individuals with a vested interest in the matter.
Leslie G. Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, objectively noted that, “Like the scholars commission . . . the foundation acknowledges there is no way to fully prove or disprove the issue. Our evidence is the same as their evidence–our interpretation of it is different.”
Absent testimony by Sally, Thomas, and Randolph, we will never know the truth.
The truth about the MSM–that it is dominated by liberals, leftists, Democrats, and Obamalovers–is indisputable even as most of the mainstream media continue their absurd pretense of journalistic integrity and objectivity.
Led by the “Old, Grey Lady,” the New York Times which gets greyer and more partisan by the day and which prints all the news it sees fit to print, Obama’s media antedated Obama in their decades-long campaigns to distort news in favor of liberals and liberal points of view at the same time they disparaged, ridiculed, and denounced Republicans and conservatives.
As far back as Dwight Eisenhower whom the media often depicted as a militaristic dolt, through Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom were customarily characterized as nincompoops–and worse–the media portrayed anyone who didn’t tow the leftist line as serving far above their pay grade.
Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush 41 escaped those characterizations, Nixon because he carried so much other baggage that attacks on his intelligence would be superfluous, Bush 41 because he was a war hero and a closet liberal. Ironically, those presidents the MSM delighted most in attacking, Ike, Ronaldus Magnus, and GWB, all won second terms.
Dutifully serving as Barack Hussein Obama’s election vanguard, the so-called mainstreamers trotted out their expected salvos early and often in their efforts to decimate Republican contenders for the presidency of every stripe before they could mount a viable threat to their tainted hero. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5329.)