This Fourth of July 2009

July 3, 2009 | Founders, General

The cold winter lay all around him as he stirred in the early morning light. His feet seemed numb, and the bitterness of the night made it particularly difficult to rise from the sitting position in which he found himself.

Flintlock in hand he headed for the nearest fire. Food was scarce, clothes were torn and tattered, and the war for Independence appeared untenable. With just a few round lead balls in his pouch he would face down the well-armed Red Coats. In a volley against a superior force he would fall, another casualty of the war for Freedom, and an idea that would blaze across history for millions to garner some hope.

His remains now rest in a cemetery, one of many who were long ago forgotten by most of today’s Americans. He along with thousands of others made the ultimate sacrifice for his friends, his family, and his country. I may not know his name, but he went before me, and I will never dishonor his memory.

In this short life that I have lived I have been many things. I was a husband, I am father, I have been a success, and I have been a failure. I tried my best, but at times I let fall the precious moments of life by the wayside. I have loved hard, but too many times I forgot to say I love you.

I have stood alone thinking that only the province of a Higher Being would see me through. I have stood in the company of good men, comforted by the spirit of comradery. I have seen evil in the faces of men I thought to be my fellow countrymen, and I have witnessed the cruelty of their actions for what seemed to be no more than the acquisition of some pretended power.

I have cherished the memory of the twists and turns in this life because they were lessons to be learned. Through all the deeds, and misdeeds, the joy, and the heartache, it was not necessary to continue down that particular path for it was a moment that would pass, and all that would be left was a memory of what might have been.

I am a veteran standing in the shadow of those men, and women, whose bravery I could only hope to emulate on some small scale. So here I stand with just a few words to spread the spirit that in the course of life some must sacrifice, some must charge ahead, and some must sound the alarm.

There will be injustice in this world until the day that humanity finds its way to a higher level of mind. Some will rise to meet the challenge and others will skulk in the shadows, waiting for the moment when they can feast on the dead carcass of the casualties of our indiscretions, and ignorance.

Among those who choose to live their life as if it has a purpose are those who have taken an oath, not only to their country, but also to the God above. Some Forty Years ago I took that oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As the oath goes, I took it freely, without obligation, or any mental reservations. I attempt in my actions to maintain that oath.

Sometime back when my youngest son decided that his service should go beyond the normal term, and beyond the simple function, I thought it appropriate to give a gift in which I would tell him of my thoughts on his contribution to this nation.

With the gift I wrote, and included these few words so that he would recall, as time passes, what he has done.

Remember that the enemies of freedom are all around.

Remember that you have assumed the greatest responsibility called for by the Constitution.

Remember that good men have gone before you, and laid down their lives to continue this great experiment.

Remember to uphold your oath to defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States until the Good Lord relieves you of that duty.

With those few words I hoped that I had expressed my approval of his commitment to duty, and to the fact that I try to live my life by those principles. If we don’t who will do it? If we fail to recognize that the oath is a sacred act upon which this nation may live, or die, then there is nothing left for us to ponder.

While I can only stand in awe of the men who founded this nation, I can for a time think that in the text of these short missives I compose, that I will send a message. For as the words so easily adapt themselves to paper upon which I sound the alarm for freedom, I am not lost to the fact that there have been years of waste, and the time grows short to right the wrongs that have befallen all of us.

Time is short as we go forward with a government more inclined to the destruction of this nation than has been the most vicious attacks of the likes of the Huns upon the poor and unarmed people that stood in the way of conquest.

Men and women who have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution are less likely to abide that oath than the most violent criminals to take a new course in life. The men and women who continually appear on the ballots, no matter what acts of horror they commit, are what we pay for, and as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” And our penchant for cheap goods reflects in our selections in the voting booth.

The struggle will continue as long as I draw breath, but I am doubtful of the future. Will there be those in the next generation so inclined to take up the pen, or for that matter the sword in the defense of liberty?

This Fourth of July, I will wonder, and ask questions about what course I will take? I will wonder about a life whose time has been spent in ignorance, feeble desires, fear, loath, and a host of other human foibles that once hindered the meaning for which I now so fervently quest.

And this Fourth of July, as I have done in the past, I will seek the guidance of those who have left us. Ask that they sit upon our shoulder guiding with silent nudges, and providing us the inspiration to go on.

And this Fourth of July I will pray on bended knee, that we will listen, and hear the silent whispers of our Forefathers.

‘Nick’

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Why Americans Aren’t Protesting…..Yet

June 23, 2009 | General

Posted with permission.
Written by: Pondering not Pandering
GLP Forums.com

I am a born and bred US citizen, a military veteran, and this is why I believe Americans don’t riot, or even vehemently protest. In our history, it has been those with the least (or nothing) to lose that have rioted and or protested.

African-Americans in the 1960’s wanted a better life and had little to lose and everything to gain during the civil rights protests.

The decision to protest was between maintaining the second-class status quo and offering your children a better life. The decision was sometimes difficult, but there was much gain to be had for the risk. The youth in the 1960’s had a vested interest in ending the Vietnam war, since they were facing imminent drafts into the military. \

They were generally college students, away from home for the first time, asserting their independence and living very simply in a college dorm room. They didn’t have a lot to lose, but they could potentially lose their life if they were drafted and fighting in Vietnam. The risk was minimal with the gain of not risking life or limb. The decision to protest was simple.

Fast forward to 2009. We have been raised in a consumerist capitalist economy. With few exceptions we are very materialistic. Who you are is defined by the car you drive, the house and neighborhood you live in, what university you attended, who your friends are, what status is assigned to your job, and how many material possessions you have.

This may come as a surprise to outsiders, but most Americans are one paycheck away from being destitute. Savings are minimal, living expenses are many.

When you protest or riot, you put your present and future at risk. If you embarrass your employer by being shown on camera or being thrown in jail, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll lose your job. The potential gain of the protest needs to offset this risk. It’s hard to be altruistic if you stand to lose everything for the cause.

Especially if you have that little nuclear family to feed.

For those outside the US, I’ll describe the steps that would likely occur if you were to lose your job as a result of protesting some perceived injustice:

You attend a protest or riot.
You are arrested.
You’re in jail for 3 days.
Your boss finds out because you missed work and didn’t call to explain why.
You lose your job.
Your savings, if you have any, are gone in the first month on the following debts:

Mortgage: $2000 – $3000 a month on your $250,000 to $750,000 home (these are not mansions, simply nice homes in good neighborhoods in good economical areas)

Automobile: $300 – $500. Most household have at least 2 cars.

Groceries: Most Americans dine out 3+ times a week, and have lost the art of cooking healthy, nutritious meals.

Insurance: We are plagued by home, health, dental, auto, life, legal and in some cases pet insurance. This can total over $1000 a month unless your employer has a very generous health plan. The day you miss a payment you lose all coverage and the money you’ve paid in is gone. And when and if you recover enough to buy back in, you have huge penalties for being uninsured for any period of time over 60 days.

Children’s education: This can be from $10,000 minimum to $50,000 a year per child for a good education.

There’s plenty more in incidentals, such as heat, water, telephone, broadband internet, etc.

Eventually, you will lose your home. If you’re a renter it will be within 30 days. If you have a mortgage, it could take up to 9 months.

Now you have no job, no home, possibly no car and your savings are gone. Your spouse, who was also raised in that consumer capitalist lifestyle, will leave to cut his/her losses and look for better opportunities.

In most cases, the non-working spouse will win primary custody of the children in a divorce. You are now saddled with anywhere from $300 – $600 a month per child in child support payments.

If you cannot make these payments, you may end up as a “deadbeat parent”. This may result in your being sent to join our vast prison population.

When you are released from jail, you now have a criminal record. This makes it substantially more difficult to find a well-paying job with which to pay your debts.

You will likely never recover from these setbacks. Some do, most don’t.

These are the things that go through an American’s mind before they decide to riot.

We think we’re free, but there’s a lot we can’t do without huge risk to our lifestyles.

Is that really free?

I believe that we live in an artfully designed covertly oppressive society. No one will tell you not to protest or riot, but it will cost you. Think about it long and hard.

Is it worth it?  What’s in it for me? I’m not happy about the war in Iraq, but does it affect me? Does my life improve if I protest and we end the war? Nah, probably not. I’ll just go to work today, but I will think of the soldiers in Iraq.

That’s good enough. Americans will not protest until we have nothing left to lose, and for most people that’s a lot of material wealth (that which we value, unfortunately).

But it can happen in a very short timeframe. We are in a recession, headed into depression. Foreclosures are making more Americans homeless each day.

As I look at the empty homes in my neighborhood, I am reminded that every homeless American is another potential rioter. A person who has had a taste of everything, and will fight to reclaim it. At some point, survival instinct kicks in and desperation overrules reason.

As I read the conspiracy forums, I see postings that separately sound like fantasy. However, when taken as a whole, they start weaving an intricate web of insight, recent events, cause and effect, and plans that, from a government’s perspective (but not an individual citizen’s perspective), make sense. Planning that the government must certainly be doing to prepare for what might happen if we reach certain milestones, such as 30% employment and rising, retirement savings and futures lost, rampant homelessness, beloved children and parents ill and dying without healthcare.

That’s just the fear they must have of desperate Americans.

Add to that foreign interests and the now universal hatred of America and what we stand for, the havoc our Wall Street’s greed has created in the world economy. It’s nearly impossible to support what the government must certainly be planning, because it’s not going to be pleasant. If even a fraction of the conspiracy theories are correct, there’s a police state coming, because it will need to be to maintain order.

But it’s hard to imagine that they’re not actually planning this, creating their red, blue and yellow lists, detention camps, and using the Patriot Act to look for dissenters.

If you were in power, wouldn’t you? The Soviet Union fell, Rome fell, the British empire fell. We too could fall. We’re no one special, Just another momentary blink in the history of this planet.

We’ll be gone and forgotten by the next blink.

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Further Down That Path

June 7, 2009 | 2nd Amendment, Constitution, Judicial, Militia

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Some may know the relevance of the 19^th of April from the words of Henry Wadsworth Longefellow as he immortalized the beginning of the Revolution with the poetic tale of one of America’s Minute Men.

The Militia at Lexington, Massachusetts mustered some fifty to sixty men in response to the alert, and to show their displeasure with the conduct of the Crown, and his rule.

Captain Parker, a pastor, told the men of the Militia, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” Eight brave men of the Organized Militia died on that day.  They were not members of a National Guard, or some other pretend unit that the courts would refer to in order to limit the ability of the People to arm themselves so that they might have the resources to block a tyrannical state.

Yes, whether you believe it or not, the reason behind the Militia was to protect against not only lawlessness, but also an abusive government. And whether you believe it or not, we long ago proved that this government should have been torn apart, and reconstructed in its intended image.

For those who reason otherwise, I suggest you go to the local law library, and examine the length of the United States Code. Thousands of statutes, whose interpretations are periodically changed by un-elected officials, and judicial proclamations that are designed, with the intent, to keep the citizen off guard, and constantly struggling to survive the machinations of the legal system. There has to be a buffer, some apparatus that allows the People to fight back when words, and procedures fail.

In Federalist 29, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.”

We are engaged in a great war for the minds of the people of this nation. On the one hand there are those in government, subversive groups such as The Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, its allies in the media, and national corporations who work tirelessly in order that they might wrest power from the People. On the other there are the wary who see what conspiracies have been laid to promote such an agenda. It is to the benefit of the former group to deceive the witless tools so that their ignorance might be used to trivialize those who dissent.

The agenda to make the people toothless began when the federal government destroyed the military arm of the People, and created the National Guard, whose officers are not appointed by the states, and therefore do not meet constitutional muster.

Then slowly, but surely, the media began to demonize the word militia so that the simple minded who are seduced by the power of the press believe that the rightful organization is some sort of racist clan, and now, as recently labeled, a terrorist threat. As Hamilton noted, “a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price…”

How simple is it to read, and understand the words of our Founding Fathers. They were posted in the press of the day, are immortalized in our originating documents, and prolific in the diaries and journals of the men, and women who founded this great nation. It seems that we are unwilling to admit that the so-called experts are nothing but spin masters for the powers that be. Talking heads, as the current term details, for promoting the will of those whose only task appears to be the fall of freedom.

Now the current president has nominated one Sonia Sotomayor for the High Court, to conspire with the other rabid anti-constitution players he has gathered around him. Sotomayor has stated that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. Let’s examine the logic behind that opinion.

The Constitution was written as a document to outline the setup of the government, how it was to function, and what powers it was granted by the People. There are words in the document that worried men such as Patrick Henry who understood the nature of power, and how it seeks to pervert so that it may garner more power. The phrase ‘general welfare’ was of particular concern since it might easily be manipulated to create authority nowhere listed in the Constitution.

The Thirteen Colonies had just ended a long and costly war to throw off the yoke of a monarch. There was fear, and rightfully so, that a strong central government would emerge, and begin to draw all power to the core of those within its structure. The states demanded a clarification of liberty, and so the Bill of Rights was born. A further shackle placed upon the central government. It was simply held that while the Constitution defined the government’s limited powers, the Bill declared certain rights to be sacrosanct, and beyond even the mention of counter legislation; acts that would infringe on the rights of the People. The states were seen as the protector of those rights, and all other powers remained the province of the People as the Bill clearly states at Article 10.

The Thirteen newly formed states so agreed that the federal government had no authority to violate the enumerated rights listed within the Bill, and were thusly satisfied that the central government would be held in check. Further to that the Constitution binds each, and every judge, and “the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, …to support this Constitution.” It also holds the subscribers to guarantee to each individual a republican form of government.

The states, by ratifying the Bill of Rights, clearly showed that they believed that the Right To Keep and Bear Arms was, and should always be a part of our system of law that the federal government was barred from infringing. If they believed that this principle to be true, and Militia Acts of the several states verify this, then they must have believed that the states were also barred from infringing upon such a long held right.

Where would be the logic to holding one in check, and allowing the other to run roughshod over the very same principle? It is devoid of common sense to even imagine such an outlandish notion, but that has not barred the courts from ruling otherwise.

So the juggernaut moves forward with another judge that claims the courts “make policy” another act that is nowhere authorized in any of our Founding documents, or for that matter any following. It has all been done by subversion, and at the point of a gun.

As anyone can plainly see, the living Constitution crowd, whose true goal was to bring about the very problems that some of our Founders foresaw, long ago destroyed the principles of a republic. They left us with a rotting shell that is fueled by the promotions of dishonest people such as Sonia Sotomayor. If placed on the bench this woman would lend her weight to the idea that the People do not posses any right to defend themselves from enemies, both foreign and domestic.

We are engaged in a violent war, but the majority has failed to see it though it is plainly in their face. Acts of atrocity are committed on a daily basis by police, and the courts. We have little recourse as the politicians move inevitably toward the abolishment of all rights as the courts turn their collective heads, or validate the process with legal double-speak.

There will come a day when we will wake to find that we have nothing left in our arsenal but the butter knife to defend against the black-hooded minions of the powers that be.

‘Nick’

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Fed to Hire PR Wizard to Fight Against HR 1207

June 6, 2009 | Federal Reserve

As HR 1207 gains momentum and co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, the Federal Reserve is planning to fight the tide calling for an audit of its books by hiring a veteran lobbyist to “manage its relations with Congress,” according to a Reuters new article.

The Fed plans to hire Linda Robertson, who previously worked for now-defunct energy company Enron, as well as the Clinton administration. She is currently head of government, community and public relations at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Robertson “spent eight years in senior positions at the Treasury Department, working for three secretaries: Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers,” a bio posted on The John Hopkins University website states.

H.r. 1207: Currently 190 co-sponsors.

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve is on track to hire a veteran lobbyist to help manage its relations with Congress at a time of heightened attention to its role in national affairs, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

The Fed plans to hire Linda Robertson, who previously worked for now-defunct energy company Enron, as well as the Clinton administration.

She is currently head of government, community and public relations at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the hiring process was not complete.

The Fed believes it will be useful to add to its resources at a time when there is great public and congressional interest in the institution, the source said.

The U.S. central bank has been at the forefront of government actions to limit damage from the financial crisis that began in August 2007 and the impact of the deep recession that began in December of that year.

Members of Congress have chafed at the Fed’s bold use of its emergency powers and in particular its multibillion-dollar bailouts of investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group.

Critics also bristle at the Fed’s practice of maintaining the confidentiality of the companies that borrow directly from the central bank on the grounds that divulging their names would risk runs on those institutions.

Many lawmakers and private analysts also fault the Fed for failing to stop risky lending and flawed market practices that laid the groundwork for the crisis.

A non-binding budget bill approved by Congress in April opened the door for lawmakers to seek disclosure of the names of firms that receive emergency Fed loans and paves the way for a possible study of the Federal Reserve System’s structure of 12 regional banks and a Washington-based board.

Some officials believe lawmakers would like to go so far as to demand that the presidents of these regional banks — or at least the head of the powerful New York Fed — be subject to congressional approval. Currently, directors at these regional banks pick their presidents, subject to the approval of the Fed’s Washington board.

Robertson was vice president for government affairs at now-defunct energy company Enron Corp from November 2000 until she closed its Washington office in early 2002. Enron collapsed in scandal in 2001 and her work there may raise some eyebrows.

Before that, she was an assistant Treasury secretary for legislative and public affairs under then-President Bill Clinton.

Dennis O’Shea, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins, said Robertson was not available to comment.

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