Response to a fellow Southron

Lynda wrote: "I think all this talk about the South leaving the US and becoming a separate nation is just plain unreal and makes no sense to me. I've been reading and listening to you all but I just think that is not giving the Southern people credit for our intelligence and hard work of making a contribution to our country."

Response I:
Lynda, here's my issue with your statement. I think you have the matter, as stated, standing on its head.

In the whole muddle and madness of the debate regarding secession one thing is clear: It is not southern partisans, but those who cannot separate their identity as Americans from the renegade, hostile, unconstitutional gang of thieves, corporatists and banksters in Washington who insult the intelligence of all Americans. It is those who teach others to acquiesce as they do, drink the government kool aid and get on the bandwagon to Uncle Sam's Plantation––it is those, and not southern partisans, who insult the intelligence of the Southern people.

You seem to be saying in order to be a patriotic American I must regard myself as joined at the hip with that THING in Washington. You seem to be saying I must support it in all its unconstitutional wars, frauds and policies clearly driven by elites and special interests to the great harm of We the People?

You mean to tell me that a true American must be, de facto, a mindless unionist; union no matter what? Even if union means bending the back to full blown socialism, communism, and total consolidation of all power in the presidency?--even if it means casting aside the appearance of having a constitution--even if it means accepting the lawlessness and arbitrariness of tyrannical, autocratic rule and complete centralized control of the entire populace? This is clearly where the present regime is headed, full steam. You mean we should embrace union even when it means these things?

Asking us to cling to union and Washington and asking us to accept and "work within" the abusive and lawless litany of things I just mentioned are not two different requests; they're one and the same thing. The list I gave is not some future 1984, it is a present, sorry reality.

The insult to intelligence of Southerners is to teach false history to their children, history filled at best with half-truths, history depriving them of the truth of their heritage; history designed to make them ashamed to be southern, ashamed of their ancestors, and telling them they must live a life as second class citizens, hanging their heads in perpetual penance, always being the suspect of bigotry and racism--and unable to prove themselves innocent--unable to have their message heard that all they want is to be let alone and have the dignity of their natural rights-which includes the rights of self-government.To intimate such things to Southerners is not just a supreme insult to our intelligence, but to our persons and the Imago Dei stamped upon our souls as well. To accept union is, ipso facto, to accept these slanders as truth, for one cannot embrace Washington and union without embracing them as the historical and cultural coin of the realm.

What is it we fight? We fight the cultural genocide poisoning the minds and hearts of our citizens in endless forms of propaganda--materialist propaganda spread by collectivists, by court historians, slickly presented to the ignorant and poorly schooled in their "mocumentaries" on the so-called History Channel. All Reich-approved to be sure, by those who would consolidate all power in the hands of a few, utterly disregard our Founding, our Constitution and our rights, and sell not only our birth right in liberty, but the very soil of our ancestors out from under our feet. (Government created core inflation is doing just that. War will not be necessary for foreign take over. Monetary collapse will do that without a shot being fired. Then the full-blown slavery will begin in earnest).

We deny that being a proud American requires union with this filth and corruption--this Treason posing as patriotism, this THING all decent humans should be ashamed of.

We believe people have a right to govern and rule their own lives, to live and be proud of their own culture and continue to grow and develop and appreciate the things that are good in it and correct the things that are bad as THEY see fit...all this being done by the free effort of honorable people, not by the corrupt and corrupting force of the crude and iron hand of government, enforced by the mindless military drones they send to invade the sovereign lands of sovereign peoples.

The monstrosity in Washington does not believe this. It believes you and I are below the state and the collective. They believe you are the servant of the government, not the other way around. And they couch this inversion of our great Revolution in pious sounding phrases like, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." To echo Ron Paul, I have a great fondness for the first part of that statement.

Their policies, their actions, their abuse of freedom and liberty, their constant trashing of the Constitution, their lawlessness and increasingly autocratic rule--these and many other like things form a virtual mountain of vindication for the secession of 1861. Resistance to these is why we fight.

Why do we persist in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds? Let me respond anecdotally.
Mother Teresa told a reporter who mocked her efforts of saving those on the Calcutta streets while thousands continued to die, "God did not call me to succeed. He just called me to be faithful."
Lott preached against the evils of Sodom, and no one listened. When asked why he persisted though it was plain no one would hear, Lott replied, "At first I preached to change them and thought they would. It has long been clear to me that they will not. I persist now, not to change them, but that so they will not change me."

These are some of the reasons we continue and do not give up hope--we KNOW we are the true Americans, we know we have the only authentically true American culture, we know we were and are the faithful ones to the Constitution, we are the principled ones and our cause is right and just.

Knowing that, it would be an immoral act to give up and become just another kool aid drinker--for those are the only two choices. There is no, as Aristotle would put it, middle way. There is no compromise with tyranny. To think one can work within its broken and corrupt system to reform that THING is a fool's errand. It is the apex of Quixotic madness. Washington will no more reform than Sodom would repent. It is a supreme insult to the intelligence of Southerners to continue to tell them reform is just around the corner of the next election cycle.

If we gave up the desire, longing and hope to separate ourselves from this irreformable evil it would be a betrayal of those who died a century and a half ago, of those who, since then, have persisted in upholding the meaning and rightness of the Southern cause, of those who have labored to rescue and preserve the whole truth; it would be a betrayal of ourselves and our consciences, and perhaps most importantly, a betrayal of our children and the generations that follow.

Barry Goldwater said extremism in the cause of liberty is no vice. Barry Goldwater was right.

We are not obstinate, we are not ignorant. Au contraire! We are simply unreconstructed. Stated another way, we cling to the American principle of self-determination and reject the centralizing force of the teleological principle underlying Lincoln's proposition nation: government enforced equality.

We rightly see the principle of equality for what it is: the false philanthropy the political tyrant uses to cloak the true reasons for his actions. As a principle, equality has been used in law to deconstruct the edifice of the Constitution one brick at a time, and philosophically to generated endless social revolution and to justify ceaseless and costly military adventurism all over the world.

Stated another way,"Ye shall know them by their fruits." So the Lord said. And what have been the fruits of government enforced equality, of Lincoln's teleological constitutionalism? These evils have cost We the People our liberty, our Constitution and countless amounts of blood and treasure--and FOR WHAT?!? For the enrichment of the ruling elites and increased consolidation of power in Washington, that's what: the very thing our Founding ancestors dreaded and feared most--the very thing they knew would be the death knell of our liberty.

It is an insult to our intelligence and an immoral suggestion to say we should give up and accept the present form of union as the inexorable and immutable existential fatalism of Americans. What claptrap, what utter asininity!

Response II:

Lynda, I really don't think you grasp what has been going on--I don't think you see the grotesque beast standing in the room that is the awful progeny of the union of the ménage á trois of the donkey and the elephant with Marxism. If only Joe McCarthy could see how right he was!

If there never had been a war between the states, if not one drop of Southern or Northern blood been shed, decent human beings everywhere would protest against what is being done to us in Washington and how their every move takes each and every one of us and our children deeper into penury and slavery. Decent people would be protesting against what this government has done and is doing to millions around the world in our name.

It doesn't take a Southerner to see this--I know, because millions who have no direct allegiance to the South are waking up to the horrible reality and beginning to see the government for what it has become--and they rightly hate what they see.

Any man who loves liberty cannot love this Great Imposture in Washington that has usurped our once glorious Republic. Sadly, not all men love liberty...

Response III:

Lynda, I believe what you and every American must answer, and answer with unflinching honesty is this:
Is the quintessential American principle that of "Union?"
Or is the quintessential American principle that of "Liberty?"

I believe the answer the Founders would give, with few exceptions, would be a resounding slam of fists upon the table of deliberation and a clarion cry of "Liberty! Liberty is our principle, Liberty, our sine qua non!"

What would our Founders say if they were faced with a reality that showed them that union was being perpetuated only at the continual loss of liberty? Who can doubt that they would stand with the great American poet, Robert Lee Frost, and say, "For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?"

Ask yourself, If, in union's checkered development, the central principle of liberty has been replaced with a foreign and even hostile metaphysic (equality) that has caused union to metastasize, so that its every development is an ever further abrogation of Liberty, can that union continue to be rationalized as truly American?

If those who have seized power carry the laws and the land further and further away from the vision of the Founders and ever closer to the tyranny and Jacobin madness of the French revolutionaries, can that government continue to be rationalized as truly good, as truly worthy of our wholehearted and unwavering support? Or should we desire and labor for separation from it?

What is patriotism? Loyalty to Union über alles? Or Loyalty to Liberty? Ask yourself these things and reflect long upon them. I don't think you ever have.

For a long time now the government and its leaders have been laboring day and night to make sure you never do.

S-1867

"What have the people become when they sit idly by and let this go forward without complete and total resistance? They have become slaves to the state, and they have become slaves voluntarily!"

Thoughts upon reading http://lewrockwell.com/barnett/barnett43.1.html

We all know that we suffer the consequences of our actions. Usually retribution comes swift and sure, especially to those of us not possessing of power or wealth.

Those who do possess such earthly goods are always able to use their power and wealth to shield them from consequences that flow from actions driven by their own stupidity, greed, malice or ignorance. Instead, the suffering is deflected to others, most usually others associated in some way with the malefactor.

If this is so with individuals who are rich, how much more will it not be the case with the institution that is the historical sine qua non for the consolidation of wealth and power: the Federal Government of the United States?!

The fact is, the failures of our leaders in specific, and our government in general, have already been repeatedly shunted off onto We the People.

The wars in the middle east were not caused by horrific government policy, but by the way We the People live–––our lifestyles; our economic woes have not been caused by the government's stupid restrictions, confiscatory taxation and costly, stifling regulations, but by We the People "getting a little bit lazy" in recent years. The evils of guns are not due to wrong-headed government policies and programs, but by We the People selling weapons irresponsibly to criminals and drug lords. (That, at least, was the scenario our so-called Justice Department hoped to create with Fast and Furious, to use it as an yet another excuse to take our guns from us and render us increasingly helpless before government might. (However, in the case of "Fast and Furious" there was just one little hitch: THEY got caught).

As future government schemes and policies increasingly fail, the blame will increasingly be put on us; We the People. Let there be no doubt about it. We the People will be made the scapegoats for the failure, folly and misadventures of an Obama administration or worse. And with blame always comes punishment--punishment the Federal Government will exact upon We the People. We the People, indeed, are to the Federal government what the whipping boy was to the British princes.

Once S-1867 is made into law, the stage will be set for the kind of military takeover and rein of terror analogous to what happened during the brutal rule of Argentina's military junta of the 1970s. In this period citizen after citizen vanished without a trace. But the American government will be like Argentina on steroids.

You say the NET can be used to call attention to our plight regarding the tyranny of the Federal leaders and the brutality of the military--our own sons and daughters shooting and killing us (like they have before), our own neighbors spying on us?

I say nonsense. The power is also being put in place to shut down the NET with the flick of a switch. Our Federal government is setting it all up so they can control every means of communication. Everything is being prepared to crush any kind of rebellion, and silence any kind of outcry as these incompetents visit brutality upon We the People; brutality that ought rightfully fall upon them. But let's face the cold facts. Even if a cry went out, who in the world would or could come to our rescue? Who would take on the military might of this government in a Quixotic effort to protect and defend us?

Brutal squads from the Federal government, analogous to those that terrorized Southerners for over a decade during Reconstruction, will be spread throughout the entire land. Paranoia will rein, because citizen won't trust citizen, and no one will know who and who isn't a government snitch and stool pigeon.

God help us. What we've seen up to now is only the beginnings of sorrows--sorrows flowing to We the People from where it historically always has: the People's own government.

Few reflect upon the truth that our government, due to its' brutal and unconstitutional invasion of the South, has killed more of its' own citizens than all other governments who have fought us combined. Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler---by far! Hitler killed more Germans than Stalin did! Mao killed more Chinese than any enemy in history, and Cambodia's government became the agents of intellectual genocide on its' own people.

History gives clear, clarion and unequivocal witness that the institution the people should fear the most is its' own government and its own rulers. It is not China or Iran that the American people should fear. We have little or nothing to fear from them. But we should fear greatly the rapacious beast that sits in our midst, hiding in plain sight on the banks of the Potomac river, in what was once a cesspool of a swamp. A swamp. How fitting! The swamp was drained to create the National Capital--but apparently the rats remained to infest what was built.

Count on the 2012 election to be the lowest, the dirtiest, the most violent and vicious since Lincoln's second election, which he clearly stole through military brutality and intimidation--especially in New York state.

We teeter on the precipice of an autocracy, tyrannical and vicious. And once it is officially declared the excuse will be that We the People have become disorderly, and autocratic power is needed as an "emergency" measure to restore order. Count on it! And count on the "emergency" to never end and the autocratic rule to never be rescinded.

The passage of this monstrosity, 1867, (we can thank John McCain for it and other horrific legislation) is a sad, sad day for American Liberty and freedom loving people every where. The loss and sorrow flowing from the consequences of this bill will be beyond the means of human telling to adequately communicate.

Many who are lovers of liberty and advocates of limited government rightly opined the election of Barack Obama. But when we reflect upon the nature of the legislation that John McCain has co-authored and promoted, it is clear that the choice of 2008 was no choice at all, much like the 2012 election will probably be---That is,unless We the People, for the first time since Grover Cleveland, are given a real choice: Ron Paul.

The Problem with Modern Liberalism

If the true problem with modern liberalism is to be properly understood, it is important to understand the classical standard that must be met if an act is to be considered virtuous (a truly good act).

An act can only be judged as virtuous if it meets all of the following criteria:

1. The act intended must be a good act.

2. The intent must be good.

3. The means used to achieve the act must also be good (it is not permitted to do evil that good may result).

4. The result must be good.

5. If any evil occurs as an effect of the act, the evil must be unintended and of lesser effect than the resulting good.

The Evils of modern liberalism result from the use of Corrupt Means

Modern Liberalism does not repeatedly fail because its goals and intent are not good, per se. They are often very good. Liberalism most often fails because it is driven by the immature; souls who lack both insight and patience to understand the true causes of a societal evil and devise a fitting plan or solution. As a result, they, in their haste, do not refrain from using means that are unlawful and/or unfitting.

Consequently, the resulting evil (collateral damage, if you will) is often much greater than the good achieved. In fact, the unfitting means may actually prevent the intended good from ever being achieved. Frédéric Bastiat points this out when he writes in his masterpiece, The Law, "Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the law should not also be used to organize labor, education and religion."

Bastiat's answer is as clear as it is concise: "Because it [the law] could not organize labor, education and religion without destroying justice."

He continues,"We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper function of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force."

In short, when the law operates beyond its lawful parameters it contradicts itself, creating great harm and falling short of the standard to which it holds others. The powerful who hold positions meant to preserve the law commonly do this, driven by their lust for more power. Thus they create a second standard of behavior for themselves and the institutions they run, a standard far below that which they hold others. The resulting evil is commonly known as "corruption."

How Liberals react to Liberal failure

When the good fails to be realized the modern liberal remains undaunted. Rather than admit and repent the corrupt use of means, he devises means even more unfitting as a "mid-course correction," that he hopes will bring things aright. This, of course, also fails. But undaunted the modern liberal continues to tinker with society, taking risks with the lives of millions, repeating the process, ad nauseam. This is insanity in action.

Self-proclaimed Conservatives acting like Liberals

Let's look at an example that might surprise some who call themselves conservatives. Rep. Michelle Bachmann says that if she becomes president she will promote and sign a bill saying that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Others are in favor of a law making English the language of the American Empire.

Protecting the institution of marriage is a good which all conservatives can and should embrace. A common language is important for many reasons. But the means to protect the institution of marriage as it has been historically known and practiced must be lawful--so says the true conservative, (aka the true Constitutionalist).

The problem with Rep. Bachmann's goal is her willingness to use the law to protect and defend a good that is beyond its scope and power. This unlawful means makes Rep. Bachmann's act a liberal and unconstitutional one.

True Republican Conservatism: Judge Bork and fidelity to the Law

Now, let's take a true conservative, like Judge Robert Bork. Judge Bork is a faithful Catholic. He, therefore, is personally categorically against abortion. Had he been appointed to the Supreme Court he would have voted to repeal Roe vs Wade, but not because he was personally against abortion. He would have voted for repeal because the Constitution does not give the Federal government the authority to make such a judgement. This matter, as Judge Bork has repeatedly pointed out, is a matter for the states.

One could almost be completely certain he would have the same opinion on the marriage issue. That is, if any governmental institution has the rightful authority to judge on language, or marriage or similar issues, it would be the states or the people of the states, with their unlimited and unenumerated Constitutional powers.

For Judge Bork the problem is not his opposition to the good desired, but the means used to achieve it. According to the law of the land only the states or the people of the states have authority to judge in these and similar areas. The judge, as a true conservative, refuses to make it legal to use the corrupt and lawless means to achieve a goal, even if that goal is a true good.

Lincoln, Modern Liberalism and Slavery

Finally, no one can deny that the goal of ending slavery was and is an indisputable good. But the horrific and unconstitutional means used by the Lincoln administration to accomplish it in America did not result in freedom. It resulted in the mere exchange of chattel slavery for political slavery--the slavery resulting when sovereign states and sovereign peoples are forced to remain in a relationship they despise and which they see as abusive and destructive to them as a sovereign people.

The central principle of the Declaration of Independence rejects the right of governments to subject a people against their will. The sovereign right to self-government and self-determination was the core justification for the American Revolution. When Lincoln used means contradictory to this principle, he began a process that reversed the victory of the colonists over Great Britain––a process that has once again enslaved Americans to a tyrannical, consolidated power: its' own government.

The political slavery resulting from the unconstitutional use of force by the Federal government has been much greater, more pervasive, more far reaching and much more destructive to liberty and than the chattel slavery we inherited from Great Britain.

The evil of political slavery was not the necessary price for ending chattel slavery. Political slavery was caused by the corrupt and lawless means used to achieve it: sectional hegemony and the subjugation of sovereign states and sovereign peoples to the brute force of centralized power--inhuman means clearly hostile to American Liberty.

Slavery came to an end around the world without the use of violence and force, save in only a few instances. In those instances where violence was used, slavery provided the excuse for the use of violence, but was not the real reason. The reason, in the case of America, was the desire of a few for all power to be consolidated in Washington.

The Southern States opposed such consolidation and were able to prevent it for the first seventy years of the Republic. Their subjugation was essential if northern consolidators were to achieve their goal. The war, carried out under the guise of the false philanthropy of ending slavery, was the means to that end.

The Sorry Results

Americans today are suffering in uncounted ways and their personal freedoms are in grave peril as a result of that consolidation...all flowing from the corrupt and lawless means used to end the evil of slavery.

We must commend the leaders then, because they did not hide the real reason for the means they used. The leaders stated again and again, before, during and after the war, their intent was to change the loyalty and fealty of the individual citizen from his family, his community, his region and state to exclusive devotion to the Federal government. Nationalism was to usurp patriotism. As Seward repeatedly stated, the desire of the Radical Republicans was "To make a man love his nation more than his state."

The ending of slavery was simply another means to weaken those sovereign forces that opposed a consolidated Empire, an Empire that was to be used by the few to achieve untold power and wealth for themselves at the expense of the liberty of the many.

Our present leaders and their "court historians", as apologists for the War, are not so forthright. They insist the exclusive intent of the Federal Government was to end slavery. They conveniently forget there was, within the Constitution, a peaceful and constitutional means to do so. Their blatant dishonesty reveals that they are even more corrupt than the schemers who brought about the war in 1861, and their corrupt puppet, Abraham Lincoln.

These are only a few of the horrible, profound and long-reaching effects of the use of corrupt and lawless means in order to achieve a particular good. These means in the modern world are all but ubiquitous. Few in power refrain from the use of such means.

As long as there are those in power, regardless of their political label, who believe the ends justify the means and do not shirk from their use, the erosion of our liberties will continue unabated. That is why I am supporting Ron Paul for president, and not faux conservatives like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, both of whom would abuse the power of the office of the presidency to accomplish that which is beyond the scope of the authority of the Federal government, as defined and limited by the law of the land: The Constitution of the United States of America.

Christmas Casserole

Ingredients:

2.5 cups of chicken stock

1 10.5 oz can of cream of asparagus soup

2 stalks of celery chopped

1 large carrot chopped

1 large onion chopped

6 oz of (dry) angel hair pasta broken into 2 inch pieces

dried rosemary, dried sage, salt, pepper

3/4 cup of dried, sweetened cranberries

1.5 cup of fresh chopped asparagus

2.5 cups of cooked turkey, cut in 1/2" cubes

1. Sauteé celery, carrots and onion in a pan in butter until celery and onions are soft.

2.Pour chicken stock and cream of asparagus into large bowl and mix. Season them with 2 table spoons of sage and 1 table spoon of chopped rosemary.

3. In a dutch oven or large casserole bowl layer in all ingredients, alternating pasta, vegetables, cranberries and turkey.

4. Pour stock/soup mixture over the ingredients, cover, and bake in an oven at 350º for 70 minutes or until pasta is tender.

After casserole is done grate some Monterey Jack cheese over the top, and, uncovered, return to oven for 5 minutes.

Remove from oven, let casserole rest for 5 or 10 minutes.

You be done!

Answering Nick Gillespie

In an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano, Nick Gillespie, of Reason Magazine, asked the judge about the motives of the south in seceding. While the judge's response was not wrong it was, for me, unsatisfying. In its place I offer the following.

What were the motives of the South? If you look at the union after the first wave of secession you'll see there are more slave states in the Union than out. They didn't seem to be concerned about slavery being in peril by force of the Federal government or Lincoln's election. After all, Lincoln had stated in his Inaugural address that..
1. He had no authority to end slavery and no intention of doing so, and
2. He was ready and willing to sign the Corwin amendment (many believe he had secretly authored it) that would make slavery perpetual and unchangeable.

The amendment, introduced in the house by Thomas Corwin and in the Senate by Wm. Seward, read as follows:

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

The amendment passed both houses and sat on Lincoln's desk for him to sign. But before he could Ft. Sumter happened and with it the second wave of secession.

If you asked Southerners why they fought, especially after the aggressive act at Ft. Sumter by the Yankees (which was the catalyst for the second wave of secession) most would have said they were fighting to push back an invasion of their home and home state; they were fighting for self determination. They were also fighting because the union had become oppressive and confiscatory for the Southern States.

This is born out in a conversation Lincoln had with the governor of Virginia before the second wave of secession.

Lincoln asked, "What shall I do with these Southerners, governor?"

The governor responded, "Let them go, sir, until they are ready to return."

Lincoln shot back, "What will then happen to my tariff?"

To paraphrase what Charles Dickens wrote in 1861, every Englishman knows this war is about money and nothing else.

To repeat: there was no reason for the slave states remaining in the union to secede because of slavery. Lincoln and the Congress had guaranteed that slavery as an institution was not in danger--in either the short or long term.

Had the states returned and had Ft. Sumter not happened, there is little doubt Lincoln would have signed the Corwin amendment post haste. Why would he not sign an amendment he himself had authored and ordered to be submitted in Congress––submitted by two northerners in states that had voted for Lincoln?!?

After Ft. Sumter, the amendment sat on Lincoln's desk unsigned until the day he was assassinated. Because of the wording of the phony Emancipation Proclamation it had no effect on the force of the amendment were it to be signed, for in the union slavery was practiced by non-seceding states and continued to be the law of the land until the 13th amendment was passed in 1866. The Southern States readily signed the amendment. (So-called reconstruction did not begin over the slavery issue. It began after several southern states––and northern as well–– refused to sign the 14th amendment--the amendment that has subsequently been used to incrementally destroy state sovereignty).

So, with these few things in mind, I now answer Mr. Gillespie's question with a question:

Instead of asking what the motives of the South were in seceding--why not ask with at least equal force what Lincoln's motives were in forcing the war and refusing to even meet with Southern leaders and representatives? They came to him on scores of occasions during the war to discuss terms ending the slaughter. President Davis had repeatedly stated the South had no desire whatsoever to fight. Numerous times during the war President Davis sent representatives to discuss peace, and every time Lincoln categorically refused to even meet with them. Instead, he persisted in viciously prosecuting the war until over six hundred thousand Americans were dead, a million were mutilated, crippled and disfigured, tens of thousands were addicted to morphine and the Southern states were destroyed; their wealth robbed, their cities burned, the property of private citizens plundered and their state's sovereignty taken away. They were then reduced to the status of conquered provinces, put under military occupation and subjected for a dozen years of cultural genocide.

Why did Lincoln and the radical Republicans who supported him do such horrible things?

No one seems to ask such questions. No one suspects Lincoln. No one can suspect Lincoln--it is not allowed.

Are they stupid, brainwashed, ignorant of history--or just corrupt??

Only a few men of honor who love truth and freedom, men like Tom DiLorenzo, Thomas Flemming, Mel Bradford, Clyde Wilson, Tom Woods, Lew Rockwell, the Judge and Ron Paul ––only a few honorable and truly patriotic men like them have had the courage to ask and unflinchingly answer the hard questions.

The rest, the statists, their priests and their prophets, stop up their ears, pierce their eyes, and blindly fall down and worship the false Roman god Lincoln at his temple on the Potomac. They proclaim him to be the savior of the Union. And this is true. He did save the union--but by illegitimate means--by tyrannical force rather than by the compelling rhetoric of a free man appealing to free men. The result of such a salvation?: Millions of once free citizens made political slaves to an oligarchic elite.

As the statists and useful idiots, miseducated in government schools, prate their litany of imperialist lies and propaganda, burn their incense and offer more and more blood sacrifice to the Sacred Union, it seems to matter not to them that Lincoln destroyed liberty and self determination. It seems to matter not to them Lincoln eviscerated the Constitution, gutting it of the core principle of liberty, and replaced it with an endless series of revolutions driven by the Marxist/collectivist principle of government enforced equality.

So it goes in the Empire of lies.

The Armadillo's New Amerikan Orwellian Dictionary

Amerika's Orwellian dictionary is drawn from various sources.

It is important to understand what the source is, for in Orwellian Amerika words and phrases do not have objective meaning. Rather, the meaning changes depending upon the source. Therefore sources are noted before the term.

The contributors of new definitions are designated in parenthesis (Con., ............).

(Con., Oblamer*) Americans: lazy people.

* This coming from some one who has never had a productive job, always lived off government largess in various forms, and who goes golfing, takes a vacation or plans to be out of the country when ever difficult issues are addressed and hard work is required. He has out-Owelled Orwell!

(Con., Democrats)
The Rich: The reason people are poor.

(Con., Democrats)
The poor: The victims of the rich.

(Con., Democrats/Republicans)
The middle class: rich fields for the harvesting of taxation.

(Con., Radical Muslims)
Muslim: a seeker of peace, an advocate of the religion of peace....Yea, Right!

(Con.,. US college economics professors)
Intellectual; a Marxist

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Relativist: an intellectual

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Conservative: a recidivist (also see troglodyte)

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)
Traditionalist; a cultural ludite--see narrow-minded. (Also see moralistic troglodyte, Nazi.)

(Con., Federal bureaucrat/SPLC/NAACP)

Racist: An individual (or institution) that fails to treat minorities (except white and orientals) as a privileged and protected class.

Politician: A slave of the monied elite and special interest that fund him. A thief and a liar that carries on the evil he does behind the veneer of governmental authority as he picks the pockets of the citizenry for the benefit of himself and the monied interests he serves, all done under the aegis of a false philanthropy commonly referred to as "the greater good." He, of course, judiciously avoids ever revealing whose "greater good" is it he's serving.


Political Slogan: A statement that encourages an enthusiasm, program or action without a defined goal, object or purpose: "Yes, we can!" ,"Forward," " A New Deal," "The Great Society," etc.

(Con., Federal bureaucrat)

Governmental equality: Having a special set of standards, rewards, and compensations for certain minorities from whom votes might be had.

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Moral absolutist: Nazi


Libertarian: An anarchist whose individualist philosophy cloaks the reality he is a Nazi, a racist and a white supremacist. Some racists to keep an eye on: Justice Clarence Thomas, Dr. Walter Williams, Dr. Thomas Sowell. 

Politically Incorrect: The courageous and open stating of truths various totalitarian minority groups on the illiberal Left find offensive because they are contradictory to their "smelly little orthodoxies," and because they expose them for what and who they are: a pack of savage, tyrannical swine who fly into a mad rage the moment any pearls of truth are cast in their direction.

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Truth teller: See "Orwellian"

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Orwellian: A visionary who sees the endless, creative and pragmatic usefulness in the malleability of language and meaning for personal advantage and gain. (See politician).

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

Politician: Orwellian

(Con., Intellectuals/Modern Liberals)

President: the Grand Orwellian Wizard (See "silver fox")

(Con., Marxists/Democrats)

The über rich: Those who have a disorder commonly known as "Scrooge McDuck Syndrome," and have succeeded in making large sums of money for the sole purpose and intent of making others as poor as possible.

(Con., Neocons)

Neocon: an advocate of peace and liberty whose primary means are sanctions, threats, saber rattling, intriguing and overwhelming military force.

(Con., Neocons)

Defensive foreign policy: A policy advocated by cowards, traitors and commies. (see Ron Paulism).

(Con., Neocons)

Pre-emptive war: War to prevent war.

(Con., Neocons)

Patriot act: A legislative act advocating the domestic application of the principle of pre-emptive war, giving the government the right to side-step the Constitution and the protections of the individual in Bill of Rights, and threaten, intimidate and place citizens in indefinite detention at the pleasure of the ruling elite. 

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Classical Liberal: an individual who believes in a society based upon limited government, and individual liberty lived in a context of natural law.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)
Modern Liberal: an individual who believes in unlimited government as an instrument for enforcing autocratic rule upon the collective, rooted in positive law as determined by mob rule (aka, democracy).

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Federal judicial review: The process by which the black robed foxes are asked to decide if what the red foxes and the silver fox have decided to do to the hens is constitutional.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Hens: The prey of foxes regardless of colour. (see Federal judicial review)

(Con., Neocons)

War: 1) The primary duty and purpose of the state, especially wars of conquest, control and confiscation. 2) The antidote to peace.

(Con., Federal government--aka, Linconia)

Affirmative action: 1) Governmental racism, the purported purpose of which is to counteract individual racism. 2) Institutional racism based upon low expectations of minority academic performance--placing minorities who actually do excel under the perpetual cloud of suspicion regarding tokenism and incompetence.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Lobbyist: The John.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Legislator: The Ho; the bought and paid for slave of special interest Johns.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Statists: The pimps. (also see bankers, military industrialists, the monied class)

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

We the People: That group which, through the system set up by the Lobbyists, the Legislators and the Statists, always ends up getting screwed.

(Con., the few sane people who remain in the amerikan orwellian state)

Peace: The absence of conflict resulting in social tranquility, cooperation between classes and races and economic prosperity, all of which are conditions generally understood to be intolerable to the state and dangerous to the ruling class.

(Obama administration)

Shared Sacrifice (aka, "fair share"): Federal CONFISCATION and TYRANNY in the form of increased PLUNDER and PILLAGING of ALL Americans for the benefit of vote buying, influence peddling, special interest serving, collectivist politicians and government elites, all carried out under the aegis of the false philanthropy of "the greater good."

Isolationism---really???

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_THE_RON_PAUL_FACTOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-18-18-27-33

Ron Paul speaking in Anamosa, Iowa talks about reducing foreign aid and military spending to bring a one trillion dollar cut in the Federal budget his first year in office.

Defending his foreign policy Paul stated,"Yes, we have to have national security, but we don't get it by bankrupting our country and being in everyone's face constantly," Paul said.

The lame stream press, siding with the neocon killers in government, routinely call Dr. Paul's foreign policy "isolationist."
Really?
Paul's foreign policy is the policy of the Founders.

Why not call the neocon's policy for what it is: imperialist, aggressive, obnoxious, coercive, hegemonic?

Hey, what do you know! The Federal government treats foreigners just like they treat us!

As usual Dr. Paul remains the voice of reason amid an ocean of mad, imperialist rhetoric--rhetoric out of touch with the reality that we're broke as a nation! Hellooooo!

Why do congressmen ignore this reality and continue committing generational theft upon our children and children's children?
Paul makes an attempt at giving at least part of the answer:
"Congress and military contractors are too closely tied together."

Bingo. The wars are not to protect us; they are not to "defend the good." They are to enrich the few in the oligarchy at the expense of We the People through the confiscation and plunder of the fruit of our labor, either through direct taxation or indirect taxation: ie. generation theft and/or inflation.

This evil symbiosis, which Eisenhower warned us about, is nothing but neocon-style wealth redistribution in order to build political patronage and buy votes--not from the bottom feeding hoi polloi composed of We the People, but from top feeding industrialists; the killer scum floating on top of the ocean of humanity, those who make instruments of destruction and profit from aggression and death.

Of course, this is all sold to We the Tax Payers in the benign form of "patriotism."

The jingoist, Orwellian state is alive and well amongst us, and it infects both parties.

Only Dr. Paul, in the interest of We the People and his love of liberty, is courageous enough to stand up and proclaim opposition to these lies and deceptions.
He gives us a true glimpse into what authentic patriotism is while, ipso facto, exposing the phonies.

NO MORE WAR!!!

Neocon fear mongering intimidates all the Lilliputians running for president into slavish obedience to the UNConstitutional Bush doctrine of preemptive war--- behold the new American Orwellian construct for We the Brain dead: War to Prevent War!
One courageous man alone stands firm for the constitution and the liberty of a peaceful republic. How much death and destruction will be enough for those who will use "peace" as the excuse for more and more war?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57323686-503544/romney-gingrich-at-gop-debate-wed-go-to-war-to-keep-iran-from-getting-nuclear-weapons/

HOLIDAY DISH---

Double click on the image below for a recipe

you will say is the best pie you've ever had!

Make it for your holiday get togethers---people will flip!

Sean Hannity's incoherent Neocon Madness

"Son, all I've ever asked of my Marines is that they obey my orders as if they would the Word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every Gook there is an American trying to get out. It's a hard ball world son. We've got to try to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over." from Stanley Kubrik's Full Metal Jacket

If these words were set to music it would be the Neocon national anthem.

You've got to hand it to Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Bill Krystol and their Neocon buddies on talk radio and FOX. They are very critical of the execrable fiscal and domestic policies of America's incompetent leadership. Their criticisms have often gone across party lines. Not infrequently it is intense.
The impression any listener comes away with is that we have highly flawed leadership that pays little or no heed to the Constitution, thumbs its nose at the Bill of Rights and is destroying our economy and our liberty.

But when Hannity and his ilk begin to assess the decisions and choices of these same leaders, past and present, in regard to foreign policy a miraculous transformation occurs in these deeply flaw, inept souls. Suddenly, these leaders become brilliant---even infallible.

There is no war, it seems, that Hannity and his Neocon cronies will disapprove of except for reasons of political partisanship.

There is no place on the earth Krauthammer cannot find American interest that must be defended with military might. There is no place that Neocons do not see the possibility of aggression that must be stopped before it begins. Action must be taken preemptively before it's too late!

Men like Mark Levin are incapable of seeing that the lust of military power and aggression abroad destroys the possibility of his domestic vision of a humble central government and true constitutional federalism.

This military aggression, this insistence on growing American military might even poisoned Ronald Reagan's hope to reduce the size of government and re-embrace constitutionalism.

And God help the soul that dares to indicate there might be some flaw in America foreign policy that might possibly have caused the blowback resulting in the first attack on the World Trade Center, the Cole and 9/11.

To paraphrase Christ the Lord, "Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall have their eyes scratched out." This is most certainly true if one speaks in ear-shot of a Neocon.

The most recent Neocon "holier than thou" attack is the one now being unleashed on Tony Bennett for remarking that American foreign policy might have had something (not everything, just something) to do with the attack of 9/11.

Upon hearing such "treasonous blasphemy" from Mr. Bennett the indignant and "patriotic" self-righteousness of the Neocons would, as we say back home, gag a maggot.

When I consider the commentaries and opinions of the Neocons I find an inner contradiction there I am hard pressed to resolve. It is simply this: how is it leaders who are horrible and incompetent with domestic policy transform into infallible visionaries when it comes to foreign policy, and that those policies are above all criticism, whether that criticism comes from America's perceived enemies or our own citizens? And speaking of citizens, how is it Americans who level such criticism are instantly shouted down by Neocon chicken hawks who never served or fought? How is it those who protest are labeled unpatriotic and their comments condemned as treasonous? How is it our leaders' choices of foreign policy, wars, aggression and interventionism are all beyond questioning or fault? How is it that any action taken by foreign entities in response to American aggression and interventionism is labeled totally unjust and unprovoked? How is it Neocons are as tone deaf on foreign policy as the liberal left is on domestic policy? How is it the Neocons can claim that such actions are carried out by evil men who do what they do just because they hate us...and they hate us without a reason?

Such are a few of the incoherent, contradictory and arbitrary positions of the Neocons. Apparently, every act of aggression, control and intervention in their view serves to elevate American glory and is completely justified. They do not give equal respect to the sovereignty of other nations and peoples. They may not say it, but their actions show they think these other lands and people are inferior and do not have the same rights as we Americans. They think, with the colonel in Full Metal Jacket, that where ever they go, there's a gook with an American inside trying to get out...and that the world belongs to America. They, of course, would not openly say as much, but their actions betray their true feelings.

In the Neocon philosophy, dear friends, we see the very acme of American jingoism--the nationalism that has usurped and now charades as the pathetic and poor chimera of the patriotism of our original Republic. And it, every bit as much as the welfarism of the liberals, is destroying what little remains of the shattered fragments of our once free and glorious Republic.

Poor Tony, defenseless and alone, he has issued an apology that has served to assuage the outrage of the Neocons––not at all. They remain indignant and disconsolate; as childishly offended and unforgiving as the liberals.

Only one man inside the Beltway I know of has been consistent--and long before these Machiavellian talking heads posing as Conservatives got into the game. That man is Dr. Ron Paul.

Long ago Dr. Paul saw what the Neocons are apparently incapable of seeing: that an aggressive, hegemonic, imperialistic foreign policy is incompatible with and destroys the possibility of Constitutionally limited government. He saw an aggressive government abroad would, ipso facto, be a despotic one at home, that the lust and mania for power and control could not be limited by borders. Long ago Dr. Paul rigorously and rightly taught this along with a program of true fiscal sanity and restraint. And he did it when no one was listening. He was often ignored and even ostracized--yet, he continued undaunted and undeterred.

Countless times in the Congress he stood alone–––alone, just him and the Constitution.

If we had listened to Dr. Paul then and followed his ideas in the 1980 and 90s America would freer today and not teetering on the precipice of fiscal and social disaster.

As Jon Stewart put it, "All that small government grassroots business? He (Ron Paul) planted that grass. The other folks? They're just moral majorities in a tri-cornered hat. Ron Paul is the real deal. These others just recently showed up and started mowing the grass."

The Welfare/Warfare state has it easy. They are to government what Coke and Pepsi are to soft drinks. All they have to say is, "Coke is it!"---"The Pepsi Generation!"--and they sell their wares. How different is that from the jingoism of the Neocons? How different is "Coke is it" from the parroting of "You're a great American!" ? I'll tell you; it is no different at all! It is just as mindless, just as empty, just as vacuous, and just as destructive. These radio catch phrases destroy the true health and honor of a nation like these soft drinks destroy the health of the body.

In response I ask, "Where's the beef?" Where are the Constitution, limited government, American Liberty and peace and prosperity to be found in all this welfare/warfare-ism?

The fact is there is no beef, and following these twin pied pipers, with their false patriotism and false, misguided compassion, is leading America to ruin and her people to incalculable suffering.

Among those vying for the highest office in the land in 2012 only Ron Paul has consistently shown character, coherence, courage and dedication to the Constitution.

There is an antidote for the falseness of Obama's hope and change and Neocon aggression posing as conservatism. It is Ron Paul.

Dr. Paul has the cure for the twin poisons of the welfare and warfare state. May God, in His infinite Mercy, help enough Americans to see it before it is too late.

Remembering 9/11

Today we commemorate a terrible day in the lives of all Americans--a day thousands suffered and died and countless lives were changed. I note the news has been filled with programming that reveals more and more details of WHAT happened on that terrible day. The media is reflecting on and recounting those events in microscopic detail. It is touching. But in this great orgy of remembrance something screams at me by its absence. We know more and more about what happened, but programming is virtually silent on why it happened.

Who or what is to blame? Obviously, those who flew the planes make up the proximate cause and must bear much of the blame. But were these just evil men conspiring to do evil for evil's sake---psychotic mad-dogs attacking for attacking's sake--void of provocation? Was it just purposeless and senseless evil and violence they had in mind and nothing more? Some say yes. Others in the past, especially immediately after the initial attack, said otherwise. They said it was our fault; We the People--our lives and our freedoms drove them to seek to destroy us. Thus began the blame game, and few in Washington, either then or now, doubted that explanation. To repeat; We as a nation and a people did nothing to provoke these fanatics, BUT, if any one in America must bear any guilt of provocation it could only be We the People, our lives and our freedoms. Thus said the talking heads and government officials in lock step.

Let this sink into your ears. Here's the headline as it should have been written in the Washington Post on 9/12:

US GOVERNMENT BLAMES "WE THE PEOPLE" FOR MUSLIM ATTACKS.

We the people suffered and died on 9/11 because Muslim fanatics hated our life-styles and freedoms. But our brave government is doing all it can to protect us from the consequences of our folly.

Get the message: OUR GOVERNMENT blames us! We endure Muslim terrorist threats today because of how we live--there is no other reason. Muslims are simply jealous of our freedoms and they want to kill us.

Is this what the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism say?....Not exactly.

When asked, Muslim fanatics never mention the freedom or lives of Americans as the reason they attack us.

Let this sink into your ears: unlike our government and television talking heads, the terrorists don't blame us. They blame those who have blamed us: OUR GOVERNMENT and its aggressive, interventionist foreign policies in Muslim lands.

Who will we listen to? Our government which seeks to exculpate itself by pointing the finger at We the People? Or the attackers, who are in virtual unanimity about why they attacked and continue to attack America: Federal interventionist foreign policy in Muslim lands.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying the Muslim fanatics are completely blameless. What I am saying is the Federal government is, in some degree, clearly blameworthy. What I am saying is that it takes two to tango, and when you meddle, intervene, control and dictate policy to others, it is unreasonable to think they will continually take it and not try to strike back in some way.

In the past two months American planes have bombed targets in Libya, killing thousands there. Here is a place the CIA told Obama we have no strategic or economic interests--and yet we intervene and bomb in yet another shadow war--undeclared by congress. To the politicians and the media it is a "non-war." To the dead it must seem very real indeed.

Contrary to the Neocon's despot's-eye view of history, the collapse of the Soviet Union was not the sign that made us Kings of the World; it did not give us the right to use our military as a world police when ever and where ever the delusional Neocons see "American interests"---whatever that is.

Our non-interventionism in Syria and Somalia has had no effect on us as a nation or a people. In contrast, our government's needless intervention in Libya will see blow-back in the near future, and Libyans will be found among those Muslim fanatics who seek to attack us--NOT because of our freedoms, but because of the decision of the Federal government to bomb their lands and intervene in their domestic affairs.

Contrary to the Federal Government which points the finger at We the People as the reason for domestic Muslim terrorism, We the People are not the cause. But we are the solution.

We must stop electing those who make and maintain aggressive, interventionist foreign policy. We must elect those who support the Monroe Doctrine of domestic defense and reject the Bush interventionist policy of aggression and pre-emption; we must choose those who seek a peaceful foreign policy, who are willing to negotiate and end sanctions that harm the citizens of Muslim lands, starving their children (while having virtually no effect on the rulers). We must seek to elect those who are desirous of establishing peaceful trade with all who are willing to do so. THAT, not aggressive interventionism driven by the Military/Industrial complex and promoted by "manifest destiny" Neocon talking head progressives, THAT is the path to the restoration of American peace and prosperity.

Remember, peace and prosperity come together or not at all. And those who desire prosperity must seek and PRACTICE a policy of peace.

follow up letter to Jeff Bolton, KLIF talk show host

Mr. Bolton,

This will make the third time I've written you--the first two letters garnering no response.

My main subject in those previous posts was your unfairness to Dr. Paul and his foreign policy. I posted the second letter on my blog; avengingarmadillo.blogspot.com

This is a brief follow up to say just a few things.

I believe now...

1....your patriotism is misplaced, for it supports Federal foreign policies that only grow government, bringing American to penury at home and make us increasingly hated abroad.

2. ...you have been fooled into thinking a Wilsonian/T. Roosevelt-like progressive foreign policy, a la the Neocons, is both conservative and patriotic. You are tragically wrong on both issues. True conservatism is non-interventionist--non-nation building--non-aggressive and does not act preemptively.

Your failure to acknowledge this as a possibility, your refusal to see it as an historical fact, and your refusal to consider that Dr. Paul's foreign policy might bring peace and prosperity to America is either blindness or intransigence driven by the stubbornness of human pride.

Your refusal to consider that continuing to waste our wealth and the lives of our youngest and best in wars that are driven by profiteers and hegemonic propagandists makes you complicit in the criminal acts and policies of our government that are destroying our economy, our nation and the future for our children.

I will be posting this on my blog as I did my previous post to you. Thank you for showing who you really are by completely disregarding the thoughtful communiques of your listeners. I thought you were a courageous man by how you comported yourself when Beck attacked Medina. But I am now sad to see you've swallowed the Neocon propaganda now, hook, line and sinker--and both your intellect and your courage have failed you.

sincerely,

Tom Ridenour, Duncanviile

An Open Letter to Jeff Bolton, KLIF radio, Dallas

Dear Jeff,
It looks to me like you're being very unfair to Dr. Paul. By presenting his policies and ideas isolated from one another you are missing the fact that his policy positions are all integrated and interdependent--that a part cannot be rightly and fairly understood without looking at the whole.
For instance, you are constant tearing down on Dr. Paul's foreign policy as "nuts", but have occasional good things to say about his domestic fiscal policy. I say these two policies reinforce and support each other and the success of one depends greatly upon the success of the other.
Let this sink into your ears: You'll NEVER have a successful domestic fiscal and social policy if it runs concomitant with an aggressive and hegemonic foreign policy. The success of such a combination have never been know in history.
But it seems to me you have bought into the Neocon fear mongering to the point you seem to be blind to that. And what has listening to that fear mongering gotten us the past two decades? It has gotten us in massive debt, in foreign policy quagmires that seem to have no purpose and no end, and generally hated throughout the world.
The Neocon's policies are destroying us just as the aggressive imperialist policy of the leaders helped bring the Soviet Union down in the 1980s. But do you see the correlation?? Dr. Paul does.
Next, this morning you asked if any listeners would want Ron Paul in the White House during a 9/11--I ask in response what if we had a foreign policy that was not hegemonic, that did not scatter our military around the world in places where our presence is resented and even hated (while at the same time leaving us virtually defenseless at home) and that did not invite and aggravate the possibility of a 9/11?
Why do you focus on what to do during a 9/11 but ignore what we can honorably do to avoid one? It boggles my mind. What could you be thinking?

In doing what you're doing you're behaving like the blind man feeling of the elephant, and to any one who is thoughtful about these matters it looks like you're either simplistic and not very bright, or you're doing your best to attack Dr.Paul without allowing any adequate response. And if you think some caller who is given limited time to speak, is probably nervous and has no time to prepare is adequate response I beg you to reconsider.

If you want to be fair let me encourage you to have an extended give and take with Dr. Paul on the air--give him time to explain the inner coherence of his policies and how they can bring about the deep systemic changes we need to re-establish constitutional norms, bring about an honorable peace, reduce the raping and pillaging government is doing to feed the policies of the welfare/warfare state and protect and restore our liberties.

Since they have no coherent, interdependent vision that I can see reporting the isolated policies of the other candidates does them no great disservice. Reporting their policies is doing little more than reporting how each would arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Not so with Dr. Paul. His interdependent, coherent view of systemic renewal will result in healing the breech in the hull and uprighting our ship of state, and it needs to be presented in an organic fashion to be properly understood.
Personally, as one who is thoughtful, and seems to have libertarian sympathies I'm shocked that you have failed to see this.
Sincerely,
Tom Ridenour

kook pt. II

Consider the graphic posted here--now compare it to the Neocons who are still trying to pick fights in the world, still fear mongering to promote endless wars, still trying to cram democracy down the throats of the nations (something very undemocratic), still trying to use the US military to right every perceived wrong in the world (an impossible task), still trying to maintain a coercive military presence in dozens of countries----all this. And they call Ron Paul a kook! Good God Almighty. Which do they hate the most: peace or prosperity.

Welcome to Rome 450 AD.

FOX NEWS ANNOUNCES NEW BROADCAST POLICY

Proposed Congressional Reform Act of 2011

Polls clearly show most Americans (rightly) believe Washington is broken. One of the main problems is career politicians living as a special class. Ending the conditions that have created an elite ruling class will not solve every problem, but I believe it is an excellent beginning at turning us back from the brink of disaster and make the politicians more responsive to the people they represent. Please note the following:

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, the internet, before cell phones, etc.

Seven (7) of the 27 amendments to the Constitution took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each person who reads this to send this link to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

If each of you does this in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. Those who agree should petition their congressmen and senators for passage of this Act. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.

12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security like the rest of us.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can and should purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.

Congress has done a horrible job by any objective measure. Yet, its members have

shamelessly passed laws making themselves a ruling elite, a political aristocracy, living by a different set of laws and conditions from average Americans–conditions that allow them and their families to perpetually feed at the public trough for free healthcare and retirement benefits. (Even many who resign in dishonor and commit shameless acts draw these benefits till they take their last breath). So much for all the pious rhetoric you hear from them about fairness and "equality."

In contrast to such abuses of power, the Founding Fathers envisioned Citizen Legislators; citizens who would serve their term(s), return home, go back to work, and live under the same laws and conditions as the rest of us–laws they helped make and conditions they helped create. The Founders thought that having to live under the same laws and restrictions they created would make law makers circumspect about which bills they passed into law. But our lawmakers have gotten around that by passing legislation that makes them, as a political class, immune to many of the laws they pass; laws that are injurious and burdensome to the rest of us.

Just think, what if you ruined your employer's business and then boldly walked into his office and told him you're the one in charge, that you're taking another raise and that he will pay your family's healthcare and retirement benefits for a lifetime? How do you think your boss would respond to such delusional, self-assuming arrogance? He'd mostly likely call you mad, throw you out of his office head first and tell you never to show your face there again!

Isn't it time we returned to the wisdom of the Founders, put an end to career political elitism and restored government of, for and by the people?

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe now is the time. If not, when?

LET'S begin turning things around by FIXING CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree, pass it on. If not, just delete.