BP, White Sands, Oil Spills and the first Black President

“…Is it Obama's fault? Should be BP be let off…”

In case you're wondering, while the white sand beaches of the gulf are stained black from an oil spill, and Obamao truly becomes our first Black President (hey, it was such a cheap shot, I couldn't afford not to take it), my position on BP's Oil Spill disaster in the gulf, is that if you have to even ask that question of who is responsible, then you’ve admitted the actual problem - though in today's environment, likely you've done so unknowingly.

First off, in a free market rooted in property rights, the inviolability of contract and individual rights, the responsibility for property and damage done to it, is exceedingly clear.

Once you move away from a free market by introducing the abomination of Govt. partnership with corporations through the process of regulatory agencies and associations, agreements and laws... then although actual responsibility is still clear (if you look for it), the amount of plausible deniability explodes and runs rampant in all areas of operation - day to day functioning and planning, and responses to accidents and disasters, growing in direct correlation to the size of government and it's bureaucracies.

BTW - for those of you out there with your heads in their economic nether regions who actually think that corporations are proponents of the Free Market - philosophically (really... have you ever seen a Corp. H.R. Dept. up close?)- pull your head out and slap it.

Businessmen are in business to produce a product at a profit, and though competition is vital to the market, it is anathema to most businessmen. When they have no other option than to perform and compete under the watchful eye of the market as well as under unobscured and unbeholden legal oversight - they will do so, or perish, according to their ability.

In a Free Market:

• Flawed products or bad management, results in poor performance, lost profits, and eventually going out of business.
• Negligence and fraud result in fines and imprisonment.

Note: a Free Market means one where political favors cannot provide an edge in the market. When it can, it is no longer a free market. We haven't had one here in well over 100 years. If you want to blame our current economic woes on Capitalism... first you've got to find yourself a time machine and go back to the future we abandoned to the Proregressive Era.

If you provide businessmen with escape hatches, via the favors of politicians and Govt. agencies willing to use their political power to provide some businessmen an edge in the market which their own skills aren't able to provide them... the vast majority of those businessmen (not having the benefit of an education which focused upon history, philosophy and constitutional law - especially if they got their 'education' in a university) will take that loophole and perceived edge in a New York Minute.

In fact the speed with which the businessman will pay for political favoritism to provide them an edge in the market is exceeded only by the bureaucrat's and politician's (those two are pretty well equally matched) willingness to propose they be paid for it.

If through the growth of numerous regulatory agencies, their contradictory regulations, various partnerships between corporations and government, and corporations assessment that it benefits their profits to contribute to the political campaigns of candidates from both parties, in all levels of local, state and federal elections… then you will inevitably reach the point where you have to ask what would otherwise be very stupid questions.

The stupid questions at hand being:“…Is it BP's fault? Is it Obama's fault? Should BP be let off…”

Why do I say that?

Well… look at the headline level of facts available to us, which is all we have to go on until a further investigation is completed.

1. – The oil rig is operated under the direction of BP.
2. - Therefore It is BP’s responsibility to pay for any cleanup and damages done to the property and businesses affected by an accident occurring on property under their control.
3. - This one I don't see much in the headlines, but there was an explosion which killed 11 people. An investigation needs to be held to determine what actually happened, and whether the cause was truly accidental, or due to negligence, and if so whether or not there is criminal culpability on the part of BP, as well as any regulatory agency or other branch of the government, or of other vendors involved.

Barring later disclosure of further negligence or even conspiracy on the part of other parties, it starts and ends there.

At least it would under a system of justice centered upon property rights, where contracts (express and implied) were inviolable and operating under a government which adhered to the original understanding of our Federal Constitution, and those of the several States.

However… once you bring in the anti-constitutional developments of rulings, orders and directives issued by various and numerous agencies such as DOE, EPA, SEC, campaign finance (oh yeah… that’s involved too – watch the headlines), as well as congress’s various and numerous laws passed favoring or excusing one party, business, industry, pressure group or another, and extend that over the course of several decades, and then toss into the pot an administration that doesn’t want to bring in additional resources because it might be embarrassing politically… then you will reap the full blown fruits of Big Govt in a mixed economy, which inevitably culminates in finger pointing, obfuscation and even more importantly (and far more predictably) what is likely to come from President Obamao's speech tonight: A move to seize even more power, over the problem it has created, in order to create more loopholes which will enable even more power to be sold and traded.

Think of it as a proregressive agricultural plan for the planting and harvesting of Power.

Watch Obamao's speech tonight, and see if that isn't so.

And as for the people who, in addition to the 11 men killed, are the real victims of BP's disaster, the people and businesses of the Gulf (and we who depend upon them)... if they are looking to the Corporate/Government partnership for relief and Justice... well... a quote from Velociman (TW Joan of Arghhh!) seems very appropriate:

“There ain't nothing we can do as individuals that the government can't do more poorly, more insensitively, and more inefficiently."

PSST! If you are still wondering what my position is:

• BP is fully, legally, and perhaps criminally, responsible for the disaster and it's clean up.
• Obamao & Co. are fully responsible for anything they did to enable the accident or hinder the clean up... the details of which will only become known after an investigation in independently conducted.

Flag Day

You wouldn't know it by Google's background, I suppose it doesn't rate as highly as the anniversary of Pac-Man... but today is Flag Day.

I'd post a picture of our flag on it's own... but what with the kindered proregressive assouls of the first abomination President, Woodrow Wilson, who declared Flag Day (even a stopped clock is right twice a day) being in power in so many areas... it seemd like it ought to be displayed with some of it's defenders, and some of the reasons why it needs to be defended.

And of course the best thing you can do to defend it, is to to study up on the U.S. Constitution - test coming soon.

*BTW - I just switched my home page to Bing

First Amendment On Fire

Doesn’t look like I’m going to have time to finish the post I’m working on before the weekend, but I wanted to pass on something I was tipped off to this morning by Susannah, and it is one the more ominous events of the last few years, certainly one of the most depressing ones for the future of Freedom and Liberty.

To all of you leftists out there, please, if there’s even a shred of liberal understanding left within you, please tell me that even just the name of this program fills you with dread,

“The Federal Trade Commission just released what it called “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism,””

... and hopefully anger?! Hello... First Amendment?! Seriously?

If it doesn’t.. look at it this way (as I asked you to in a previous post), when the party in the Whitehouse changes, as it eventually will, do you really want those you consider to be evil, nasty, tyrants – Conservatives (maybe even religious Conservatives!)– to be in control of a ‘reinvented’ journalism? And how about when you add Net Neutrality on top of that (my posts on it from last year here..., here ...and here)?

Please, everyone out there - STOP looking at the Constitution as a document favoring the Right or Left, it is what makes a Right AND Left possible - without it, there will be only One... and Freedom and Liberty will be only those things which they decree to be 'good'.

Stop looking for evil politicians of either party to fear and rail at; start looking closely at those in yours who want only to 'do good' without restraint... if you know anything of the history of Washington D.C., that should strike fear into your heart.

Memorial Day

The Concord Hymn - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

-----------

I really shouldn't... and I'd rather not have the picture on the same page, but it's too obvious to pass up.
Memorial Day honors those who fought and died in all kinds of weather,

You'd think that those charged with officially remembering them could manage to brave the rain to do so.

The U.S. Constitution vs The Bigotry of The Now And The Shamanic Eye-Roll

I was talking to someone the other day about the problems in the country today, and as I mentioned the Constitution, I noticed a familiar tick that passed across his face at the word… you might have seen it before too… a quick flick downwards of the eyes, a fleeting grin-twitch across the lips… almost as if I’d slipped in a “ya’ll aint” to an grammarian. When I asked what the matter was, there was the ‘Oh… you’re not really going to ask me about this are you?’ look, as if I was forcing them to embarrass me… and with a sort of “Yes, the world really is round” patronizing look, he said ,

“Well… it’s just… the whole ‘Constitution’ thing… I mean… we don’t wear wigs and leg hose anymore either, why should we be bound by something written centuries ago by people who know nothing of us?”

Ah. Well… in that case… do you mean we should just ignore the Constitution?

“Well… we can’t ignore it, it’s just that it means today what we need it to, not what they meant it to mean back then... kinda like the Queen of England... quaint by not especially relevant... we shouldn't let ourselves be bound by what guys in wigs said two centuries ago.”

"We shouldn't be bound by it" that's an interesting way of putting it... it certainly goes well with the world upside down nature of the news these days. Does that same sort of bigotry of The Now apply to other things too? Math for instance?"

"Oh... come on..."

"Ok... how about resisting tyranny? Is that old fashioned too?"

"Well... no... but...."

"Was 'Freedom of speech a bad idea too... or was that good then, but is it just outdated today?"

All I got with that was a sigh. Of course, being a flogger, I didn't let that slow me down, and while I couldn't remember the full quote, I tried the gist of this one from Jefferson,,"

""It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:388 "

Got the blank stare for that. "Just not too big on Jefferson, eh?"

Only got an impatient 'Nope'. Just disagree with him and the other wig wearer's?

"Yep."

"So you've read them and disagree with them?" I think he was about to answer 'Yep', but worried that I'd quiz him further (and I would've), but he just said "It's just not as relevant to our world today." I answered that his 'oh so modern' notion, is well over a hundred years old, and was many years old when Woodrow Wilson mouthed it, but that didn't help either, knocked down with another eye-roll - apparently some centuries old stuff is 'modern'... and some is 'outmoded'... depending on the needs of the speaker, I suppose.

Well... I couldn't do much against magic incantations like those eye-rolls and mutterings, spells which have the power to banish the accumulated wisdom of ages with a simple set of shamanic motions and mutterings. So after a moment I thought maybe I'd try out the meaning of Jefferson's quote on him...rather than just the words,

"Well in that case, it might as well be irrelevant, but if so, then what is the use of the Constitution?

If you're left leaning like yourself, I can see that you probably might be mostly happy with how things are proregressing at the moment... but if you know even only a smattering of political history, even just recent history, you know that following a President Carter, there was a President Reagan, right?; and from the other side of the aisle, the conservatives should know that following such a conservative even as that, there will likely be a President Clinton soon afterwards, or maybe just a mixed message like President Bush (I or II), who might lead into someone like an Obamao.

What that should bring to mind, is that while you may very well be happy with the current bunch in the Whitehouse, you may not like the next one, or maybe the one following that, right?

(A sigh and a nod)

So to prevent a future ‘bad’ administration from doing more to you than you’d like, and vice versa for the other sides point of view, don't you think that there should be limits on those in power to limit whatever it is that they want to do?

"Well... sure"

Well... handily enough, we do have just such a set of restrictions on the limits of power. Not only do we have such a set, but it is what our representatives and our judges - and even a President such as Obamao - all solemnly swear, pledge and affirm to uphold and preserve it - and in the case of our military personnel, it is what they pledge their very lives to defending against all enemies, foreign and domestic – it is what they are sworn to die for, if need be.

Given that... got any friends or relatives in the military? 'Yep' Given that they, and others, like my son, have their lives sworn to uphold it, doesn't that seem like something they - and we - should take at least a little bit seriously?

Uncomfortable silence.

At the very least that should give someone pause who might otherwise be tempted to snicker at the mere mention of our constitution, shouldn't it? Nothing else in this land receives such official recognition and is held in such importance and given such legal protection,
...not the President,
...not the Judges,
...not the Flag,
...nor anything else, only this short piece of paper – why?

This Constitution which our government, from its inception in 1787, to now in 2010, finds within this scrap of paper written by old dead white guys, not only every source of every one of it's powers to act, but also lays out the key Rights of our fellow citizens that are to be protected, and far more importantly, there are to be found within it those restraints upon what the government can do to We The People and to the country.

If you don’t trust politicians, or you don’t trust the other side’s politicians, then you should want to know, protect and promote this short outmoded piece of paper, because if you don’t, if you allow your politicians, while they are in power, to act beyond what is constitutional – and the ONLY thing which prevents them is the public’s awareness of their going too far (and believe me, it isn’t the Judges or Congress, it is YOU - if the Law ceases to live in We The People, it will cease to live - and cease to protect you) – then you can be assured that there will be even less restraint upon the other guys when They come to power, and they will be even more able to do whatever they want to do because they Too will feel that what they want to do will be the Right thing to do! And your feeble yelps of ‘not fair’ or even funnier (by that time) ‘that’s not constitutional!’ will fall on deaf ears.

And in that time you will find yourself at the mercy of the political power of the other side of the aisle... so ask yourself now, how will you feel then, and what you wouldn’t then give if you could just go back in time to our time, to today, and say – (or in other words vote) - Stop!

If you don’t do that today, then when some seemingly distant tomorrow becomes today – and in the blink of an eye it will - the opportunity may very well be gone.

The Constitution – use it – or lose it!

And that was of course the end of the argument. He couldn't answer... but with another magic incantation of eye-rolls, and muttered '... just can't talk to you people...like luddites', his spell was cast, absolving him from all need to think any further on this uncomfortable topic, and from the need of making his thoughts conform to reality... with the magic spell weaved... his contradictions were safe and secure, locked up within his super smart and cool leftist brain.

It is baffling... the contradictions the leftist requires that they live by. And while it's good to see that it's not just baffling to me, it isn't only Obama that's always contradicting himself, you simply cannot be a leftist, without blatantly contradicting yourself. Leftist thought requires arbitrary, contradictory positions - it fundamentally means opposition to reality.

It. Is. Unavoidable.

Aristotle had a thing or two to tell us about contradictions, when he first identified it, and called it the 'Law of non-contradiction', here stated in his Metaphysics

"...For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect; we must presuppose, to guard against dialectical objections, any further qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be, as some think Heraclitus says. ... "

Impossible for anyone but a leftist, that is. Whether or not they aware of what they are doing, the embrace of contradictions (and they are often embraced quite deliberately and lifted up with admiring comments of 'paradoxical' and of complicated personalities) the use of arbitrary statements, the disregard of context, are the chief techniques of sophists and other dishonest fools (aka: Leftists), in order to equivocate and obliterate the possibility of meaning, and absolving themselves from obeying reality.

They have no grasp of Metaphysics or respect for reality... hopefully I'll finally get to that more in my next post.

Apologizing for America Early and Often - Slap yourself if you're surprised (updated)

U.S. Asst. Secretary of State, Michael Posner says that in talks with the Communist Chinese, he brought our 'situation' in Arizona up early and often,

this is better read as Gateway Pundit puts it, as stating that he "...apologized early and often to the Communist Chinese regime for Arizona’s ID check law during last week’s talks...." - hey, no surprise, it's an Obamao administration tradition.

Are you surprised? Really? If so, slap yourself for it, and begin getting yourself informed. Really. Sorry, I've little sympathy for you here in 2010, open your eyes.

Look around you.

I mean... really... if you think America is being run by Americans, in either the Gov't, the Press or Wackademia, keep in mind that the House Majority Leader Pelosi, the House Whip Steny Hoyer, the Senate Majority Leader Reid, and NUMEROUS other prominent politicians, have in one form or another chuckled at the thought of actually reading the bills they are voting on wittily summing it us with something like "I wouldn't have time for anything else if I did that!"... several, Pelosi & Hoyer for instance, actually laughed at the thought... well with that in mind, here's what James Madison had to say about bills that are too big to read in Federalist #62..

"...The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?...

Or how about the Attorney General of the United States of America (among others... like... the President... the Homeland Security Director... etc), denouncing a law duly passed by one of the states... which he hasn't read? Isn't that sorta like profiling?

Where from does your surprise spring from?

But wait, there's more!

But.. first... keeping with the theme, I'll go ahead and apologize too... for being blog-gone for so long and coming back with this as a greeting, but seriously, come on, this was just the latest in a string of slaps that should have roused you long ago (and yes... there's more below).

For now though, I'll just apologize for being AWOL for awhile... our household's been jostled between boot camp and Air Force and a new job (finally)... and really... my head has just been shaking from the headlines... the concrete stupidit of it all... isn't it enough to make you say WTF? Hold that thought through November of 2010 and 2012.

Aside from everything, I've been rereading my Aristotle... slow going, but good stuff, and one of the very few antidotes to what ails us in the world today, which I'll be blogging on soon (and applying it here as well). But while I don't have more than a minute this morning, I just couldn't let this latest one-two punch pass. I'm sure most of you have heard the latest idiocy form the Obamao administration regarding the Arizona immigration law (which apparently none of the Obamao's have read, but feel competent to comment on anyway), but still, that's not all... no no no... read on.

As I was receiving some good news from Gretchen Logue regarding the Race For The Top program getting another setback in Missouri (Franklin County just shot it down and even the MO's NEA is against it), when I saw this bit of insanity - which should make Michael Posner's position a little bit more understandable for you,

"...the Chinese education ministry has been extending its tentacles worldwide, from the 550 higher-ed programs (“Confucius Institutes”) already operating in 90 countries (including almost 70 on American shores) to the newer but no less worrisome K–12 language programs that are taking the U.S. by storm. One of Beijing’s chief U.S. partners in this venture, the Asia Society, has already opened 20 pilot sites in American public schools and seeks to launch 80 more by fall 2011. Some districts and states — notably North Carolina — are working directly with the Chinese government, while still more districts are turning to their local-university-based Confucius Institutes to get started..."

 The communist Chinese are teaching Americans in American Schools... maybe this makes the actions and words of the boob job Posner apologizing to the Chinese, a tad more understandable? After all, he's just the type who would have attended such classes and would likely send his own children to them.

"...The basic offer is surely tempting, and doubly so in a down economy: At little or no cost to you, the government of China will teach your students Chinese language and culture. Chinese nationals handle instruction (almost 5,000 of them currently roam the globe, secondary and higher education combined); their government subsidizes their salaries and pays their airfare. China provides a free curriculum, textbooks, and materials...."

... the Communist Chinese Govt, teaching Americans. Of Course Posner apologized to them. After all, they're only responsible not only for something like 90 million deaths of their own people just a few decades ago, and continuing brutal oppression of any dissent of their people... slave labor, not to mention a policy of killing or deporting illegal immigrants from places like North Korea back to them for certain execution, this administration is equating and apologizing for, Arizona's legally enacted laws against illegal immigrants... to the beasts of Communist China... I mean... it's not like they support 'freedom' or 'profit' anything really disgusting and offensive of that sort, so seriously, what's the big deal, right?

I'd like to say that I'm surprised by both Under Secretary of State Michael Posner and the fact that a communist Chinese program to 'teach' American students ... and you can be sure it involves officially or unofficially lessons in how to be 'ethical'... but I've been investigating the history and philosophy of the left for far too long - it. just. doesn't. surprise. me. one. bit.

If you really are surprised... please... slap yourself again, and start looking into the matter!

This article isn't a bad place to start, John Taylor Gatto's "Some Lessons from the Underground History of American Education", he gets a bit libertarianish, a bit too free and easy with the shallow blame 'corporations for all our ills' type stuff, but the educational info is spot on.  I came across Gatto's article this weekend while cross checking some references regarding a proregressive fellow named Ellwood P. Cubberley who'd written a history of Education in the early 1900's, and was pleasantly surprised to see Gatto (and Cubberley!) taking note of many of the milestones I've bee harping on for ages, like the Morrill Act, etc. And incidentally - if you ever want to hear proregressives say what they really think, you can either wait for an idiotic slip-up like Posner's, or you can just look at what they said flat out and in the open, in the years before Hitler made all their pet ideas look so bad.

Seriously. The Proregressive left is that bad... well, I suppose they don't want to gas you... but they do want to do away with your rights and liberties, and once that's done, the only thing that would prevent such a thing, is their inclinations against such nasty business. Does that really make you feel comfortable?

Again if you are surprised either by Posner's apologetic comments to one of the worst mass murdering regimes in all of history, or by the fact that the Communist Chinese are being welcomed in to teaching American students, and in some cases in American schools... please... for me...slap yourself, and begin looking into the matter.

Take some action, help out in primary elections taking place today,

That or prepare your own apology to your grand children on how and why you let America dissappear from the face of the earth.

Beating Bootcamp!

I've only got a couple minutes of wi-fi access, but wanted to put up a quick post for Ryan, who graduated with honors - the top 10% of the class was eligible, and those recommended by their Training Instructor made it - from Lackland Air Force base, Lackland, Texas.

("01/01/2006"? Yeah... and if we still had a VCR, the time would still be flashing.)

Tea Party on tax day

Awesome day at the Tea Parties today.

The day began with several hundred in the early afternoon in St. Charles, and while the conservative estimate for the evening St. Louis Tea Party in Clayton was 1,800-2,200, from my vantage point, circulating through the crowd, signing people up for activist training, to be local block party captains, and to help ensure that the Nov. 2nd, 2010 election whacks the socialcrats at the ballot box, I put the number between 2,500-3,000, but no matter, an excellent turnout all the same.

We did have a couple of infiltraitors (correct spelling), but with the welcoming committee of folks like Adam Sharp of SharpElbows (video), they weren't feeling the love and soon skedaddled. Dana Loesch has a similar report with a repeat offender in St. Charles, and Jim Hoft has a post up on Gateway Pundit about other infiltraitors here and around the country... while it's true that you can't fix stupid, you can sure have fun laughing at them!

Jay Stewart	Michelle Moore of A Traditional Life Lived has the full evening online (I've got a few short clips below), including speeches from John Burns, Stephanie Rubach, Adam Sharp, Gina Loudon, Lyda Loudon, Jay Stewart, Jim Hoft, Mo Lt. Govenor Peter Kinder and a pair of particularly rousing efforts from St. Louis Tea Party founders Bill Hennessy & Dana Loesch. (If you're on Facebook, Keyboard Militia has some quality pictures)	MO Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder
Gina Loudon	Stephanie Rubach	John Burns

We got several score of tea partiers to sign up for duty on the front lines, as well as for training classes (check St. Louis Tea Party for upcoming info)... the kettle's on the burner, time to turn up the heat!

Two dad's with son's in bootcamp, myself and Bill Hennessy	Dana Loesch as the Tea Party winds down	Newly discovered New Dad to be, John Burns and myself packing up
	I got to tag along to a local nightery for food and adult beverages, with the Loesch & Loudon families, John, Bill, Jay Stewart, and a few others which my feeble ability to recall names forces me to leave blank, but it was a fun end to a promising day. Even when winding down, there are still points to be made...

Some short video clips of the day:

Peter Kinder	Bill Hennessy
Jay Stewart	Gina Loudon
Dana Loesch

No Representation Without Taxation!... Yea...(blink)... WTF?!

No Representation Without Taxation!... Ye...(blink)... WTF?!
Well, another post developing out of some replies. The rapid fire and usually sure shot Gunslinger had a post which, while I fully understand the sentiment, I very much disagreed with. Responding to some truly aggravating news that nearly half of US Households pay no Federal Income Tax, The Gunslinger fired off a shot in response, that if you don't pay the taxes the rest of us do, then you shouldn't be allowed to vote,

"You don't get to decide who pays how much in taxes, what it goes for, and to whom... if it ain't your money."

There was some back and forth between a number of us, over everything from the danger of giving the ability to determine who would be 'allowed' to pay taxes - and so vote - and who would be conveniently loop-holed out of the electoral process... it would be a proregressive's wet dream.

The immediate backlash of maybe excluding anyone who depends upon Gov't for their income, likewise ran into other obvious issues (which I missed) such as what about the military?

But I think the post was simply an understandable outburst at the general injustice of the current system, and as she noted later in the comments,

"Actually, I think the whole problem is the monstrous government we've allowed to grow.
If we had a Republic that ran according to, I don't know, the Constitution of the United States, for example, the government would be too small and powerless to bother bribing and trying to influence."

Which is exactly so.

The only 'safe thing' would be to restore the property qualifications (economic property, not only real estate) which were originally in place in all states, you had to have attained a minimum threshold of property, indicating a sober amount of ties and responsibilities in the community and so a direct interest in seeing that government remained good government, government which was respective of, and diligent in respecting the property rights of its citizens... and so you can guess which measures were among the very first targets of early proregressives, yep, striking all property qualifications for voting from the constitutions of all of the States.

A worthy goal for the near future perhaps, but other issues are on the boil at the moment.

There is another angle from which the issues of Representation and of Taxation bears watching though, the cry of the original Sons Of Liberty, was "No taxation without representation", not because the taxes being imposed upon them were of such ruinous percentages - they were laughably small compared to what we pay - but because they were imposed upon them without their having any voice in the process; they were not represented in the decision, and so they began to realize that the government ruling over them was not theirs since they were barred from being a part of it - they were not of the body politic which had power over them. Soon after that, they realized that not only were they were not of the body politic which controlled them, but that they were thought of by that body as being merely a convenient body to be fed upon by it - and that they didn't like. Not one little bit, and so the Boston Tea Party soon led to the confrontation on Lexington Green, and the rest is history.

I've certainly no, zero, zilch, interest in seeing that bit of history updated and replayed out again. No Thank You.

So I ask you, as we hit the point here today, where one portion of the body politic is coming to the realization that not only is it being unfairly used for the support of others, both big businesses and little leaches, but also that our voice is not being represented in the process (two or three thousand page bills unread before being voted upon by our 'representatives' allows NO representation, not for Republicans, not for Democrats and not for Independents)... what do you suppose the result is going to be?

TEA Anyone?
As upside down as "No Representation without Taxation!" is, that perverted view is and was but a mile marker which we are already rapidly moving past, and we are now coming full circle towards the point where "No Taxation without Representation!" is becoming relevant once again.

And I noted that while on the one hand, we've got congresscritters who think like this genius from across the river, Rep. Hare (D), who neither knows nor cares about the constitution, but on the other hand, and why I don't see the inevitability of history exactly repeating itself, is that we've got people, very many people, more each day, who are like this guy that embarrassed the hell out of Rep. LoBiondo (r) at his town hall, they know, or are learning about our Constitution, and they don't like what is being done to it.

These folks aren't beholden to party politics and the status quo, they don't give a rats ass whether you've got an 'r' or a 'D' or an 'I' after your name (or their own), if you don't care about the constitution, they're coming after you.

And for the people whose historical knowledge was vacuumed out by public schooling, a great many of us are offering and teaching classes on a weekly basis on what the constitution is and means, and people are showing up for them, young and old, and are themselves talking about what they learned with their friends, etc.

Will this make a difference? Well, we'll see... are the odds against us? Sure they are. Are they as stacked as much against us as the were for us in 1776? Well, I said that if you think that things are as dark today as they were then, then you're a girly man! We've already got the Constitution we want in place, we've already got the right to peaceably assemble and demonstrate and challenge our elected officials. We've got ready and easy, easy access to every bit of wisdom and argument to refute our opponents spin as anyone could ever hope to have.

And we've got not only a fixed constitution, but one that is repairable - one that was deliberately designed as such - so that when things get out of whack, we can amend it - if the amendments prove faulty or stupid, as did the 18th (prohibition), we can repeal it with another, as we did with the 21st.

People get entirely flummoxed about the thought of something requiring a constitutional amendment - what is the big deal about constitutional amendments? Do realize how many were passed in just the last 100 years? We've had something like 10 or 11 passed in that time, with five in the last fifty years, It's not easy, and it shouldn't be, but a shaking in your boots type of daunting task?

Gimme a break.

At the risk of getting all Nike on you, all we have to do is to just do it!

However others have a problem seeing that as feasible. I've had exchanges with Trubolotta about the nature of power before, I say at root, it's Ideas that move things, even armies, he says it all comes down to money, force or the threat of it. Trubolotta zinged his point in with,

"Prior to 1776, the American colonists fought a war of words against the greatest empire on earth. King George and the British Parliament, seeing the wisdom of those words, gave the colonies representation to participate in the process of formulating the laws under which they would live. Of course it never happened and someone had to fire that first shot heard around the world."

, and that Gandhi wasn't entirely successful in peaceful revolution in India,

"...Britain responded to civil disobedience with violence and Indian patriots were killed, maimed or jailed. That brought the British people and Parliament to their senses in granting India independence."

, and that our Civil Rights movement required years of unrest, double dealing and unfulfilled promises before,

"... the conscience of a nation was awakened by the brutal response to civil disobedience.

In each case, the girly men were still talking while real men (and women) put life, limb and property at risk."

Well, those are all good points, if, with the partial exception of the Civil Rights movement, a bit out of context with our world today. But even so, what are we to do about it? Dump Chevy's into Lake Michigan?

Or to those chattering about secession and revolt, are you really going to face down Apache Helicopters and M1 Abrahm tanks with shotguns on the village green? My Son and yours will be piloting them - and you're damn sure not getting my support with that, will you even have your own?

If those are the ideas you've got in mind, you really need to have another look at history. Ladies and Gents, we all know the phrase that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but part of the lesson that should be learned from watching history, is that history doesn't repeat itself like episodes of Gilligan's Island, it repeats similar themes in different settings, nothing but the plot remains the same - the characters and setting and action change even more than did Cyrano here and Roxanne there, it is far more a case of Rhyming, as Mark Twain said, than repeating.

So what are the new historical plot devices that are to take the place of stores of ammunition defended upon Lexington Green? Well, first I can tell you what it's not, it is not piles of black powder and lead shot. That was for the time of a traditional war for the control of real estate - that is not the battle suited to the struggle over America's soul. America is not a nation of boundaries or blood types, it is a nation of ideas, and that is where the battlefield is, and as is true of every war, that requires weapons suited to the landscape.

The oldest mistake of those who plan for the next war, is to do so with the tools and strategies of the last one.

The last one doesn't apply anymore. The new battleground is the same one on which we have been fighting on, unawares, for the last nearly two centuries - the field of ideas.

What are the tools suited for such a battlefield? First of all of course - Ideas. Second of all, the communication of those ideas. Third, just as overrunning the enemies territory is demonstrated in traditional war by capturing some plot of land and planting your flag, in this modern revolution, we must demonstrate the breadth of ground which your ideas have taken control of, and that is done here in America, through the Vote.

Ya Can't fight city hall - what use is one vote?... and other concessions to the enemy
Another commenter to the exchange though, John, came in from a different angle on this, he said,

"I understand, but that is how democracy is designed to work." and also "Voting, I think, is going to fail America, and a more voluntary system of societal cooperation must be instituted. This needed change will be difficult, at times chaotic, but it can only occur if individuals voluntarily agree to the change needed.
I don't have all the answers as to how to make this happen, but I am doing all I can, voluntarily, to make it happen. I won't vote on it."

Well the first thing I thought needed to be done there was to remind all that we are not a democracy, but a Constitutional Representative Republic, which I won't rehash here, having done so recently, but his actual view, and that of Tubolotta, turned out to be not that we were designed as a democracy, but that our Republic is no longer one because it is being run as if it were a democracy. Now there is far more truth to that perspective than the other - but IMHO, to think that is a fixed matter of substance and fact, is to mistake mere appearances for facts, which is just what those slight of hand artist's who deal in appearances, such as Houdini and Obamao, would be very pleased for you to accept as fact.

It is not.

And every time attention is drawn to some 'new' boondoggle or abuse of power (such as the Corn husker Kickback, etc), there is a flurry of action and words trying to either recast it, or express shock over it and move it as quickly out of the spotlight as possible. But back to that in a moment.

Another thing that concerned me about that comment, was the whiff I thought I detected coming off "a more voluntary system of societal cooperation must be instituted", which if I'm correct, needs to be identified right off as some hint of ultra libertarian anarcho-whateverism (anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, and so on), which to give just a brief check to here, I said,

"There is no surer prescription for the complete loss of liberty, than a Rothbardian form of libertarianism.

And it isn't 'Voting' that has failed America, it is Americans that have. Americans who have allowed themselves to forget the meaning of their Constitution, and why it is the greatest political document ever written. I don't have all the answers either, but knowing the next guy, I'm pretty sure I'm closer to getting them than he is, and IMHO, I think the road goes through the repeal of the 17th amendment, and the 16th amendment, and then, bit by bit, nearly all of the legislative output of the 20th & 21st century."

John replied that,

"Voluntary cooperation between individuals must start somewhere, no matter how small.

I think you, I, Gunslinger, and other individuals are standing at the same barricade attempting to restore liberty and freedom in America, even though our weapons of choice may differ."

I read through a number of his posts and links (including some to Ed Cline, whom I generally like a lot), and his post is worth reading, a well written vignette of how things should be between individuals - how one should seek to help them self, and how another may choose to aid him - and the truth of the message that people should be decent towards each other, is, I hope, obvious - but that is not enough in itself, and while such voluntary cooperation and generosity which John and his unknown friend displayed is vital (and was once far more the norm than the exception (before govt agencies inserted themselves between the charitable and the grateful recipients - more later)), and I'd even say such habits and sentiments are necessary for a society to have any hope of remaining one, but even if such good will was the norm, it would still not be sufficient to replace Laws or the Rule of Law. More to the point though, it also points towards why the anarcho-x theories won't work, and would be more likely to result in the doom of liberty in society.

Individual decency and a sense of justice is not sufficient to maintain the peace, for as his own post showed, he was mere split seconds away from a misunderstanding - an honest misunderstanding - but if he had spoken first with the sharp words he had in mind on answering the door the second time, the scene would have gone differently, even though it would still have involved two, decent, honest, well intentioned people. Now, very likely that instance would have quickly resolved itself into a similar conclusion; but such things often do not resolve themselves well, and so they escalate, and without the existence of a single entity which both parties involved, and those who may be observing, can turn to for either arbitrating the dispute, or reining in anger and retribution, even a society of good and decent people would soon reduce to the tribal warfare which Hobbes represented as lives that are

""solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", and eventually, after untold bloodshed, a Hobbesian State, where the Sovereign is all powerful, and no Rights exist but what he divines to be useful."

For those reasons and more, Laws are necessary for a peaceful society, and a government is needed to declare and maintain them (which I touched on in "What does Athens have to do with Justice?"), ideally that should be a government rooted in Reason, Natural Law and the consent of the governed. By far, of course, the best system ever constructed to "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" was that of our Constitution (I will defer the rest of the argument on the hyper libertarian view of anarcho-whateverism issue to the end of my series on Justice, since that was the very issue which prompted it in the first place, and which I'm still building up to an answer for - a short answer is totally inadequate).

If a Vote is cast in an election, and nobody pays attention to it, was a Vote ever really even cast at all?
Though the Vote of the people was, and should be, a much more limited and defined qualification (such as some property measure of your means) for being exercised (which unfortunately was cast aside early on by We The People in our own States - most of these issues, such as property qualifications, were repealed in the states - they can be re-amended and done so far easier(we've nearly got one finished here in Missouri, and several other states have amended their constitutions to conflict with ObamaoScare on grounds of the 10th amendment) than the 21st amendment corrected the idiotic 18th amendment to the US Constitution), and a lesser input into the system, it is still a vital component of our system as a Constitutional Representative Republic, and its importance extends far deeper than a recorder of yays and nays.

"America was designed to be a Constitutional Representative Republic, but today America is far from that."

Well... the fact is that even with the damage of the 17th amendment, America is still a Constitutional Representative Republic... on paper... it's just that We The People have allowed those we Vote into power, to ignore that fact and to do as they please, because We The People were pleased to let them do it, we were foolish enough to think that Laws existed on paper - they do not. They are recorded on paper, but they must exist in the hearts and minds of the people, they must live there, or they do not live at all and can exercise no restraint on power at all.

It is not the Vote that is the culprit here, and the Vote alone will not be the solution. The Rule of Law requires that the the Law should live in the hearts and minds of the people... for the law to have the true force of Law, it must be a...

law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts...Jeremiah 31:33

No matter how fine and pure the Constitution and it's Laws are on paper, if the people are not intent that it be revered and followed, then you will have in its place, the rule of Men, not of laws.

Where I just asked "If a Vote is cast in an election, and nobody pays attention to it, was a Vote ever really even cast at all?", I didn't mean that if you vote, and your representative doesn't listen to your vote, then the system is broke - no - I meant that if you vote (or not) and do nothing else at all to communicate with your Rep to let him know your judgment and that you are paying attention to his votes and reasons for them, and if you do nothing to ensure that others in your community keep at least some focus and input into the system... then YOU failed the system, YOU let your vote fall unheard into the system, and if that is the case, then it is YOU who are the problem... not your crooked congressmen, he's just the one with the wit to take advantage of your moral and civil negligence.

No matter the two and three thousand page bills or blatantly unconstitutional statements and actions your congresscritter may engage in, if you let that happen, then something like the 'Pottery Barn rule' applies, you accepted it being broken, and so you are paying for it.

Oh, is it hard keeping tabs on politics? Wahhhhh... poor baby. Shut up, stand up, look in the mirror "You are a Girly Man! We must pump your civil sense up! We must put muscles on your voice and make it more powerful! You are WEAK! But vee vill pump you up!

Pumping up the Voting FUNduh!Mentals
Starting with some basic reps... grab those dumb bells, here we go. Voting, Rights, Law and Govt are all derived from our nature as human beings, from the observable requirements of living a human life, and I think I need to make a quick review of that process.

• Our Rights begin with thinking. As with a cow in a snow filled pasture which its said will starve to death, being unable to think of looking under the snow - no thinking, no eating. But thinking alone won't do it, it's got to be productive - you may not get much for your efforts if your thinking tells you digging & refilling a ditch will spontaneously produce food and shelter - don't laugh, FDR based a program on it - your thinking has to respect reality, be purposeful and to be effective it should follow orderly methods of self checking to make sure it's worthwhile from start to finish - in short Reasoning.


• Respectful awareness of your surroundings is vital for creating any wealth - wealth being food, shelter, relationships, gizmos to perform tasks efficiently and productively - aka Property, and our individual lives as well as society, are based upon it.


• To be able to reason, and to be reasonably productive, you have to not only be able to act on your conclusions, but to do so without being forced to act against your own reasoning. You have to be able to say what you think needs to be said, do what you think needs to be done, make the choices which you see and believe need to be made, without being forced to act against your own better judgment.


• Being free to think and act to produce property is all intertwined with your need to confidently retain what you've spent your time and effort in producing, confident that your efforts won't be stolen from you, and in realizing the necessity of that, you must recognize the necessity of extending the same consideration to others - in order to enter into civilization, rather than just preying on it.


• All of your productive actions are based upon, and directed towards getting, keeping or consuming the wealth of property which you have created, and you have succeeded in doing so to the extent that you see and respond to the nature of things as they are - what is true, benefits you, what is false, hinders or harms you. Honesty and integrity contributes to the wealth of all in society, while thievery steals from all in society.


• Thievery, legal or otherwise, destroys not only your wealth, but the purpose of all of your practical actions and thoughts, which are required by your nature and ability to live as a human being.


• To prevent or deprive someone of their ability to think and act as they see fit, and retain what they've produced, is no different than plucking the wings off a bumble bee or removing the fangs & claws of a lion - neither would then be able to do what they need to do in order to live as their nature requires.

So in that rapid fire summary of our Rights and Liberties and the criminality of violating them. Our Rights are nothing but the recognition of what is required by "nature and natures God" in order for us to live as Men, and from that fact we are able to derive our rights of property, free speech, self defense, sanctity of contract - and most important of all is the fact that all of our Rights come not from words on paper, but because of the nature of being human - Natural Rights from Natural Law.

It is because of not seeing, or denying, those simple facts that entire societies have been condemned to rise no further than that of tribal savagery and piracy and widespread poverty.

It was the recognition of these basic rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' in our Declaration of Independence, and given structure in the Constitution and particularly the first 10 amendments to it in the Bill of Rights, for all to see, know and follow - that has formed the basis of our nation and our laws to translate those Rights into the guardrail rules for societal interaction known as Law, and Govt is the institution for upholding and enforcing them within society. Just don't mistake the means of recording and displaying the law, for the real law itself.

Clearly defined laws animated by the spirit of these rights, written and enforced by some few whom most agree will honestly oversee them, observe the laws to settle disagreements and misbehaviors, and this gives us the incomparable value of objective law, and that institution charged with maintaining and applying it - government.

Note that Govt produces nothing itself, but it enables a sense of trust and security to be enjoyed by all people, enabling them to work, to safely live in proximity to each other, to invest in each other, and to grow their society and expand their wealth and prosperity.

Any honest study of political science and fact based economics, will show that infringing upon or forcing someone out of their basic rights and property, will damage or destroy their prosperity, lives, families and eventually their entire society.

The Vote
However, however fine and well reasoned those documents and rules are, People will have to administer them, modify them and/or add to them, and monitor the administering of them - and one of the most absolute genius features of our Constitution is how those people are to be put into place, and how they are to reach their decisions regarding them - by Vote.

It shouldn't be necessary to say, but we are not a direct Democracy we are a Constitutional Representative Republic, and in our Republic the Vote is used to transmit the reasoned judgments of a representative group of the population at each level of government upwards, and then back in the form of law, which is to be respected and obeyed by the people, in order to open and close a reasoned circuit of judgment from the individual, on up into the govt and back down into our lives.

There are a number of layers within our representative republic within which voting occurs, each is an attempt to guage the optimal level and quality of decision making appropriate for the quantity of citizens represented within it. That process begins at the individual level as we vote for our local and state legislators and executives, as well as our Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives. Within those bodies there are other layers, such as in the States house and the U.S. Govt House of Representatives who vote and send the bill up to the next layer, the Senate, and again with the President - and there is a feature which allows the people to engage with the finished results of the layers, by calling a piece of legislation to the attention of a meta-layer in the Supreme Court (since the collosally bad judgment of the 17th amendment, the Senators are voted upon directly by the people, upsetting the structure structure of checks and balances so carefully crafted... another amendment to be repealed).

Did I leave a position out of who we directly vote for? The President? No, I didn't. Your vote isn't cast as a vote for the President, your vote is talleyed and guides the vote of an Elector in the Electoral College, and the electors of your state then cast their votes for the President, and yes, it is a good thing that it is done that way.

The President is not elected directly by popular vote alone! Leaving out the issue of delegates, the popular vote determines who the states delegates will be awarded to, and it is not only very possible, but has happened several times, that the candidate elected President, is NOT the one with the most popular votes, but the most delegates via the states - or maybe more to your understanding, the President is elected via the popular vote within the states, and then (typically) by the majority of the total votes of the states - as determined by each State.

There is a purpose behind this, though every few years, some would-be demagogue makes another stab at eliminating the Electoral College (I believe Hillary made a few speeches to that effect). You ought to ask yourself why.

Their purpose is, that by making it possible to eliminate the necessity of getting votes from the interior flyover states like Missouri, Nebraska, Idaho, etc, you could elect a president through the most populous states like New York, California and a few of the urban areas of major cities (read: likely by fellow elites and easily swayed poor inhabitants), and the rest of the counties and suburban areas, and indeed entire states themselves, could safely be ignored.

If the president was elected by popular vote alone, there would no longer be any need to refer to him as the President of the United States of America, but as President of a few populations centers and the rest of the states be damned! One way you can identify would be tyrants in America, is by their eagerness to push for, and rely upon, the 'popular vote!' (btw, the 17th amendment was their last big victory).

Try as the Progressives have to eliminate the states influence in the federal government (we came perilously close to having the electoral process dumbed down to your level in 1970), they do still play a major part in our federal system.

The Point of the Vote
The important point to take away from this review, is not that Votes are used to elect people and pass or fail legislation, the Vote is used as a method for the transmittal of judgment, which, as on the part of the elected officials IS NOT to tell them what to do, but selects them as being who the voters judged to have the values, ideals and ability of judgment they think will enable them to vote and act in a way worthy and justifiable.

NOTICE: to my fellow Tea Partiers, even if everybody in a district told their Representative they want him to cast his vote a particular way, while that may influece his judgment, he is IN NO WAY obligated to vote as the vast majority of his constitutents demand he does. Not even if a million plus show up on the mall in Washington D.C. shouting "Kill The BIll!" (as I did locally). Candidates aren't voted for so that they can behave as virtual vote-a-grams, delivering this or that vote as a majority of their constitutents demands, but to use his own judgment to vote as he sees best - just as it is wrong for them to force us to buy their obamaocare, it would be wrong for us to force them to vote against what they saw fit - they are Representatives, not proxies. Now, it might be politically wise for him to consider his constitutients views, especially when it came time to vote again come election time; if the constitutency disapproves of their voting record, then they are free to exercise their vote for or against the person, and that is part of the due diligence each voter owes to his vote in each election.

The Vote doesn't garauntee that elections will go your way often or ever, it only garauntees you an opportunity to participate in the process of governance - how much you participate in the process, is up to you, but rest assured, punching the ballot card, or carrying a protest sign - or sitting it out - are the barest minimum of input open to you.

That is a dead Parot! It couldn't oomph those bars apart with 3,000 votes!
But, again, we are NOT a direct Democracy, and not only for reasons of size and practicallity, but because we are a representative republic, we elect our officials to use their judgment as they see fit, within the structure, rules and guidelines of the constitution.

We do not vote to elect parots. We cast our votes to become part of a process of reasoning, not as an exercise in bubble testing.

If you feel your vote didn't matter, there are two likely reasons in play, one, you never understood the place of the Vote - or that of yourself - in the process in the first place, or you didn't pay enough attention to the principles and character of the person you voted for, and/or the person you voted for felt no particular requirement to present himself honestly to you, or to pay attention to the constitution which should guide their reasoning and actions.

If your representative doesn't feel concern over his office when you are displeased - it is probably your fault for not giving him Reason to - Note: Reason - not threats or threats of force, Reason.

The real problem here is those of us who have enabled this disregard of the part of the office holders for their constitutents and our constitution by not ensuring that these officials remain fully aware of the need to present their opinions and beliefs to the voters in an election. Those who not only pay little attention to their vote, but who enable their elected officials to think there is no need to worry about paying attention to them or the constitution, are at the root of our problem today.

If you pay little attention to your vote, and/or if you pay little attention to seeing that your elected official is aware that you will hold them responsible for their actions, and if you pay little attention to ensuring that your fellow citizens are aware of the candidates and issues, or if you cast your vote, by NOT voting, for officials to have even less concern for their constitutents, issues and constitution - then when you next moan that the system is broke, you can easily discover how and why it is broken by following these steps:

1. Walk up to a mirror.


2. Open eyes


3. Gaze into your own eyes - quary found, mystery solved.

The Vote is not simply a mechanism for tallying checkmarks, it is also a mechanism for registering the will, or lack of such, of We The People. Yes, quite often, our vote for candidate or issue "A" or candidate or issue "B", may both damage our freedoms, but that doesn't mean opting out of the process is a sensible option. If the issue on the vote is to put you to death by chugging bleach, or by injecting you with a long term degenerative disease - and your not voting is not going to take the issue off of the table - the issue is still going to be voted on - then voting for the long term degenerative disease is your only rational option - however, it would be irrational to leave the issue there, pleased and satisfied that you've bought some time before being put to death, which has been the behaviour of Republicans and of many Conservatives as well.

If the only issues on the table are a swift and gruesome death or a prolonged and lingering death, then it is your responsibility to, at the very least, to do your best to see that another issue is put upon the ballot, that of promoting Life. And it is up to you who see the problem to rouse those who haven't been aware of the issues being voted upon at all, to open their eyes and see what they've been allowing to occur through their negligence. It is up to you who are aware and who do see the danger, to slap into awareness those who were mindlessly comfortable and satisfied with the prospect of a lingering death, to snap out of it and realize that that is an idiotic position to hold, and that a healthy political life, because it does affect your actual Life, is worth demanding and fighting for!

It is up to you to not only wait and see what other such choices the ballot will bring next, but to attempt to affect the available options that will be considered for putting onto the ballot (LOCAL ELECTORS). But even more important than that, it is up to you who do see, you who are aware, to educate your fellow citizens to understand that it simply isn't enough to have an option to choose between instant or slow death or life, and that it is insane to allow such a decision to even be considered. Issues of sudden or lingering death are entirely inappropriate issues to be debated at all, but in order to do that, you've got to help make your fellow citizens become aware of what the requirements are for Life, before they'll realize the folly of even considering choices that can only lead to their deaths.

Casting your ballot is the least part of the voting process. Learning about the candidate, the issues, communicating to your fellows, letting your officials know that you are, and if dissatisfied, taking part in the process, are all needed for a balanced political life.

There Is No (long term) Political Solution
The System doesn't create the people, the people create the system - or through innattention, abandon themselves to it, but even so, it IS answerable to them, and the way it is seen to be answerable to them is through voting. Voting, and working to affect what will be voted upon, and working to have the best options win the election are vital things to do, but they are short term tactical actions, they are not a long term strategy - win the battle, yes, certainly, but don't forget that there is a war going on.

The United States of America is at war, and though it may be a news flash for many, it was invaded, long, long ago. As with our situation with the islambies where we were being warred upon long before we finally became aware of it on 9/11, We The People have only recently roused ourselves to realize in the last two years, that there is an enemy is here among us, but it didn't just parachute in two years ago, it has been here and warring upon us for a very, very long time, at least 200 years, and here in strength for 150 years.

The enemy we are at war with is a smart one and the battlefield chosen by this invader has had nothing to do with territory, either real estate or electoral - those are just where the smoke from the skirmishes become visible, it has been attacking us in the only area that any enemy ever could have hoped to damage a nation founded upon Ideas, laws and liberty - on the field of ideas - in a sustained attempt to invade and topple the American mind.

Anti- and Pro Americanism
Generally speaking there are two tactics people will tend towards, or away from, which whether or not the people involved are philosohpically aware of why they do so, nevertheless they still will, because of the philosophy which influences them (knowingly or not), itself inclines towards; and those are on the left hand

1. laws which are based upon opinion and legislation, and opposed to Natural Law


2. as well as a fetish for x-spurts and consolidation,

On the Right hand they will

1. tend towards Natural Law, reflected in opinion and written into legislation,


2. and a distrust of experts, preferring something which reflects common experience, as does the Common Law.

If the legitimate function of National Gov't, is to provide for the defense of the Rights of its citizens against enemies, foreign and domestic, and to arbitrate disputes, etc, that government which is closest to the people, their wards, townships, etc, is going to be most appropriate and able to properly make the arrangements they think useful for their general population, being more likely to reflect and be influenced by their common experience, but the further removed from their direct input, the more centralization and consolidation of power that takes place, and the less that individual interests and concerns can or will be reflected in them. This was a deep concern of the Founders, as Jefferson wrote,

"What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate."

What we need to do today, is to focus on our concerns, not try to mimic their concerns and tactics - they don't fit together. The MSM has a near mania for trying to consolidate the various Tea Parties under one umbrella - they can't fathom it's decentralized 'structure', it is the very opposite of their ideals. We need to be thankful for that, and not seek their approval or be always looking towards top level ends like changing all of Govt, while we do need to do our best to halt it's advance, that isn't where we will win any long term victories.To win the war, we need to focus on changing not only govt on the lower and local level, but the minds and understanding of the people who make it work - only then can we work within the system, to bring the system into it's proper alignment with the rights of its citizens again.

DeToqueville remarked so long ago upon our willingness and ability to form voluntary association, we naturally seek to voluntarily associate with people who you may or may not know but are united on in one area of interest or another. Whether it be book clubs, church groups, Rotary Clubs, or Shriner's... people not so much concerned with fixing, as with doing what interests them... the American people tend to spontaneously unite along a shared interests and work together to promote those interests and goals and the Tea Parties form in the exact same way... a heartfelt issue draws people together from out of the woodwork, and soon you've got thousands of people joining together across the country, to accomplish something.

The progressive leftist can't comprehend this. The invisible dark hand of the anti-american philosophy instinctually attacks that local individual level of associating, they want to replace local concerns with national ones, They keep coming up with things like Coffee Talks, formed by A person at the top, looking to add followers to oppose Tea Parties... they don't work - to adapt to their mindset, it would need to have followers assigned and given tasks to accomplish, their concern is to Fix other peoples problems, not to pursue their own interests - other peoples issues are their interests - but with no pay, and no power to be gained or exerted, such efforts fall apart.

Such associations to be successful require self starters, and that also doesn't mesh with such groups.

But through the drumming in of the progressive, the proregressive, mindset in schools, govt, etc, that model has become the default assumption for how to get things done, even among those of us who dislike it, we find ourselves looking at our vote being ignored, and reach for a top down explanation "They control things", "They have the power", "They have Acorn and we can't fight that", or even "We must replace it from the top down"... snap out of it guys!

They don't have the skills, knowledge or mindset which we do, and as the Tea Parties over the last year have shown exceedingly well, with little or no coordinated or mandated effort, in less that a year we very nearly stopped the century long effort of ObamaoScare in it's tracks... we at the very least dragged out what was expected to be a slam dunk effort of a season, to a year long death march and from which Democrat Senators and Representitives are still dropping like Stupak flies from the exertion, announcing retirement, after retirement, after retirement.

We are winning. It is happening. But it needs your help, it needs your efforts, it needs your voice... talk to your neighbors, talk to the folks who come knocking on your door to offer their services - offer yours right back to them.

Our system is understandable, and theirs is easily demolished. Be a verbal wrecking ball to their ideas, and a sower of the ideas of our Constitutional Representative Republic of Natural Law, Liberty and Free Markets.

If you attempt to propose an alternative, an alternative is what you will end up with.