I’ve gone native in my hometown, Montela, where I am devoting myself to dirt, from dawn to dusk. It’s the time of delicious food and delighting flowers. The good earth and the call to cultivate is not the only reason I’m taking a break. My attempts to stimulate thought are doing more harm than good with those who need old Hank the most.
Here are some quotes passed along to me by a friend, who
alerts some people about my blog:
“I read the first four lines. Total bullshit. I've asked you
before, and I ask you again, please do not send me this warped crap.”
“I do admire how he makes no effort whatever to be
reasonable. It's almost like he's vomiting.”
“You've heard the term ‘wingnut’? This rant is what is
typical. Where does he come up with that crap?”
Yes, where on Earth does he get it? The news, baby, the
news.
Now that the feces has hit the fan, and even people in the
party in power are objecting to the lawless tactics, the incursion on privacy,
and the manipulation of what is supposed to be a fair, unpartisan practice,
will they admit to themselves that something is amiss, that their government
has over-reached?
As self-respecting liberals, these people should be ashamed
of themselves for accepting the government harassment of dissenters, and its attempt
to hide it. Outside their NY Times/ NPR nook – outside, where they report the
news – everybody knew. And now, even the New York Times does.
If they are true liberals, how can they dismiss the evidence
of dictatorial usurpation with such hostility? This is how:
When people resist with such hysterical intensity, it’s
because they know they can’t refute what they hear. If someone told them the Earth
was flat, they would laugh it off. They know the Earth isn’t flat, and don’t
need to rail against a person who says it is. But they’ve been hypnotized into
believing what their rulers and their go-along-press want them to believe. I am
not using the word figuratively. Hypnotized people clutch at straws and go to
great lengths to construct a world-view that encompasses the implanted
suggestion and the disparate evidence that comes through their own eyes and
ears. When the disparity becomes too great, and they can no longer do this, there
is internal conflict. The only outlet is anger – directed not at the hypnotist,
but at the messenger.
Unfortunately, that’s me. Maybe if I get out of the way, those
of my readers who have been “hypnotized” will be less defensive, and their
inherent intellect will reassert itself.
But I do want to leave all of you with something to think
about, and that is not Barack Obama. In fact, I wish you would forget Barack
Obama. All of you: Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. Raise
yourself above the partisan divide. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge,
government is something that gets out of hand and has to be kept under control.
Our founding fathers didn’t know, or care, which men, or
what political parties would dominate the future, but they knew that whoever
they were, their tendency would be to appropriate more and more power.
Once government has control of something, there is nowhere
else to turn when that something goes wrong. There is no higher body to appeal
to.
When we did away with titles of nobility it was because we did
not want to have one set of people elevated above the many. The people we send
to Washington are meant to serve
for a short while, then go home. But they don’t go home anymore. Donkeys and
elephants alike, they squat on federal lands and eat us out of house and home
to support their luxurious lives. They have become our rulers, not our
representatives.
You may not like the second amendment, or the first, or the
fourth (which was ignored in Boston), but altogether, the amendments –
especially the Bill of Rights – are what deny footholds to potential tyrants. They’re
what keep them from becoming full-fledged dictators.
We’re innocents here in America.
We’ve never known tyranny. We have the first nation in the history of mankind where
the government is responsible to the people rather than the people being
responsible to the government. We are not ruled. When the Declarers said that
“men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,” you scoff
because you don’t believe in God. But what is important is the acknowledgment that
you, as a human being, were born with certain rights, that this government did
not grant them, and cannot take them away.
Our elected leaders have forgotten their constitutional
role, and have taken it upon themselves to be our shepherds – to tell us how to
live. We are not sheep, and we don’t want to be herded.
Who are these guys who say they know what’s good for us? Think
back to your school days. They’re not the smartest. They’re not even the most
popular. They’re the guys who wanted to get behind the scene and control it.
They’ve bamboozled you. The person who knows what’s best for
you is yourself. It’s your right to run your life. That is what our
constitution is about. That’s why we broke away from England.
They thought you were merely their subjects. And Washington
is beginning to think that also.
If you sense the government is infringing on your rights,
speak up. Make a fuss. If it’s infringing on your neighbor’s rights, speak up
just as loudly. The right you save may be your own.
Let’s take a snapshot of where we are now. 2013, here’s what
we have:
The federal government tapping the phones of journalists and
their families; recording their private and professional lives.
The federal government lying to us about why they let an American
ambassador die at his post, refusing to give him aid.
The IRS choosing sides in a political battle and putting on
hold for years, tax exempt status for people with one set of beliefs, while
facilitating the same for people with another. The rest of the government piling
on. Not just on the organizations, but on members and donors, unleashing FBI,
EPA and OSHA harassment. And lest you think this is just the Democrats, the
Republican establishment dislikes/fears the Tea Party even more. In a sense,
this has been a bi-partisan offense. If the Tea Party organizations had been up
and running, it’s quite possible that Romney would not have been the candidate.
Obamacare would have been a campaign issue. And the terrible things we’re
finding out now would have been bared in that election. Whatever side you’re
on, you’ve got to be appalled that the people’s right to know and debate is
being taken away.
The (unintended?) consequences of the federal government
taking over the entire funding and management of the healthcare system. This
increases the cost of insurance, as much as doubling it for some. Organizations
are laying off people and cutting hours so they don’t have to give them any
insurance at all. The law’s restrictions diminish the number of hospitals, clinics,
doctors, and treatments available to everybody, rich and poor alike. There are
new and insidious taxes on every sector of your life to pay for this. They are the
bulk of The Affordable Health Care Act, which, as the Supreme Court said, is a
tax law.
The Congress, and even the IRS employees union trying to exempt
itself from the above plan for obvious reasons. You would too if you could.
The Congress having exempted itself from other rules that
they wrote to govern us, such as the prohibition of insider trading.
Key figures whose appointments were deemed unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court, deciding important issues.
The military being downsized while world problems escalate
and potential enemies are building significant fighting forces.
The war on terror being cancelled before the terror abates.
Your taxpayer dollars being handed over to foreign
governments dominated by people who hate us.
A federal government infringing the right to keep and bear
arms; that is, taking away your ability to protect yourself, your family, and
your neighbors.
The growth of an enormous executive branch that oversteps
its constitutional bounds and makes laws, when that is the job of our
representatives in the legislative branch.
A congress that does not represent the people who elected
it, but represent themselves, and strive not for the betterment of the
populace, but for the betterment of their own lives.
A federal government that refuses to close the border
between ourselves and Mexico,
against the rule of law, welcomes illegal immigrants to take part in our
welfare system, and has proposed an amnesty agreement which, it is estimated,
will cost you, over their lifetime, a half a million dollars for each currently
illegal alien.
A federal agency that smuggled guns into Mexico
knowing people would be killed by them. The purpose? Making a case for taking
the guns of our law-abiding citizens away from them.
A federal government that supports the useless drug wars
that create a black market and a huge criminal class, and fights states that
want to end it for marijuana within their borders.
A federal government that wants to tax the Internet, and put
out of business anyone small enough not to be able to afford a battery of accountants
to make sure every locale in the country gets the tax it feels is their due.
A federal government so hungry for your money that they
watch every move you make in hopes that a quarter they missed will fall out of
your pocket
A police lock-down and house-to-house harassment of a large
part of a large city to catch a criminal who was caught only after the ban was
lifted and a citizen was outside and discovered him.
A federal government ready to sign onto UN Treaties that
would supersede our Constitution.
A government that writes open-ended laws, to be filled in
later with volumes of regulations written by unelected bureaucrats – laws that
are, even before the regulations, thousands of pages long and passed without being
read; that is, no one in congress, yea or nay, reads the bill.
A government seeking to end political dissent, claiming it
gets in the way of their governing.
And all of this paid for by you through taxing, going into monstrous
debt, and inflating the currency via the printing press.
Enjoy the rest if the summer. Take a good look at this great
country we live in, “from California to the New
York island.” Pursue your happiness. Try to figure out
what “liberty” means. As an American, it’s so much a part of you that you can’t
understand you can be separated from it. Freedom’s not “just another word for
nothing left to lose.”
