Storm’s coming

Deacon Kharma says:

So here I sit, contemplating this country and its direction these days. It’s a country that seems less and less the way the founders planned it. I see a storm that’s coming; will it destroy all that we’ve worked for? Possibly, it could. The country was built to weather storms but it has been weakened by poor stewardship. Most would say “look, we have it better than anyone else”. Yeah we have it better than any other country out there, as far as freedoms. Just because we use other countries as a litmus test, is that a true assessment? Shouldn’t we be comparing our rights to those we had, rather than those remaining rights of other countries farther along the primrose path to all the different “isms”, fascism, socialism, communism, and Marxism? There is an ominous cloud here in the United States that has been brewing for some time since, in my opinion Lincoln. Much like a storm cloud, it starts off small in the distance and grows until you have to turn in the completely opposite direction to avoid seeing it. Here I sit writing about the one that is hanging over our country also half covering the sky. We have kept ignoring that cloud but it is so big now you almost can’t ignore it. I find myself contemplating how we will turn to avoid seeing it. It’s getting harder because it’s almost, if not already, overhead.

I contemplate recent words that have been played over and over from the wife of our current Democratic Party candidate. She hasn’t been proud of her country in her adult life. On the surface, I immediately recoil from that statement but in retrospect, how far off is she? Of course what she meant was not relevant to my thought process. She means to refer to ridiculous accusations and assumptions of race and her skewed judgment of fairness and our lack of sufficient socialism. Wait though, is her basic statement of lack of pride in our country valid? Unfortunately, as much as I hate to agree with her, yes. The core statement is valid. We have drifted, no, violently swung toward socialistic and fascist viewpoints.

Starting with borderline unconstitutional removal of States’ rights of secession, to the worst offender in my opinion, FDR. We have given our rights away with thunderous applause, all to gain some little glimmer of security. Either the illusion of financial security to physical security, we have signed it away with glee. FDR and his government administrators gave us the illustrious Social Security System that is in perpetual distress and various throes of death. It is still kept on the life support of increasing funding from those who have been taxed without representation: us and our children! Further, he illegally confiscated gold and based the dollar on nothing, thus violating the Constitution. They also unjustly altered legal contracts that mentioned alternate payment in legal tender of gold. Such alteration of legal contracts is expressly forbidden in the same Constitution. Even the internment of Japanese citizens of the United States in “camps” happened under this much vaunted president, violating the Fifth Amendment. In my opinion the beginning of the end was under this criminal.

We have presidents using federal dollars to blackmail States into giving up their rights and those of their citizenry, like under Reagan, and a democratic congress, who elevated the drinking age to twenty one years old. No federal dollars for your state unless you deny adults their adult choices. Well, at least some of them. You can still vote and join the military! Whew, what a terrible thing that would have been to follow your own logic on adulthood and decisions by elevating voting and military decisions! Great communicator my rump! More like the great obfuscator and his complicit pals Congress.

We have removed rights to redress for grievances and even have found citizenry hit with “SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Private Participation) lawsuits when they sue for grievances. What about those who are ruined financially or had reputations ruined in legal battles for non-crimes just to have the government prove a point. The government can out spend anyone legally. Funny thing is if you look at it, is that our tax payer dollars are funding the government to sue us into submission. I think that Thomas Jefferson addressed this when he said “To compel a man to furnish money or goods to propagate that which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical”. We have Congress conducting hearings (court) on things that have no bearing on legislation. Barry Bonds, in congress and charged with perjury on something that is a local legal law enforcement matter (See much earlier post on Bonds on the Church Site)? All because they say he lied about something that wasn’t in their purview to judge? Wow!

Shall I continue further into this and not only look into the growing cloud that is here but step into it? Let us consider the wisdom of some of the decisions on “Eminent Domain” made by the Supreme Court, I.E. Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469. It looks like another great pearl of wisdom from the great defender of the Constitution. I thought you could take my property for “public use” with just compensation. Well now you can take my land and redistribute it for private use to generate a little more revenue for government use? Yeah, that’s what the Founding Fathers meant. (See also Berman v Parker (1954) “urban Blight” Public use is not Public purpose. Hawaii v Midkiff (1984), Penn Central Transport Co v New York (1978, )Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council,Inc v Tahoe Regional Planning Agency ( 2002))

We have free speech zones now enjoyed by both President Clinton and George W. Bush. Zones where you may exercise a right? Wow how gracious of the fatherland. So now freedom of speech is protected for offensive “art” and offensive musical lyrics but what the founders originally meant it for, we can only do where we are told to? The right to peaceably assemble, means only here and there? OR perhaps the latest push for federal ID? Super! Papiere gefallen?! We also have free speech lessened by to whom and when we can give to a campaign. (see Mcconnell v Federal Election Commission (2003) I.E. Mccain-Feingold) Not that I’m a fan of how much money is thrown at elections that could be used for more urgent needs, but it is a right.

Shall I continue on to the abuse and outright ridiculous application of the Interstate Commerce clause? Perhaps how it has been used as a bypass around the second amendment and allows a non-elected-unaccountable-to-the-people entity to abuse the citizens that dare take the second amendment at face value? Or perhaps it’s application of the second amendment in the Miller case without the defendants present or represented? Or even the other portion of the Second Amendment with regards to militia, being trashed. Now if you want to have a gun you cannot be a member of a militia, which was the other half of keeping and bearing arms in defense of or nation. So half of the Second Amendment is cut out?

Perhaps it is even foreign entanglements and alliances that were warned about by the founding fathers and our UN membership? What wonderful things have we seen come from this? We have seen our taxpayer dollars go to embezzlement, backdoor deals to countries we have embargoes against, and hosting those who hate us and allowing them on our soil. Speaking of allowing on our soil, what about the storage of dangerous phosgene without our consent or knowledge?

What about the recent disastrous use of public safety as a ruse to erode rights? From no knock raids and resultant deaths of innocents when the wrong house is attacked, to the shameless use of law enforcement as alternative revenue generation for the government. Instead of citizens who volunteer to arbitrate and help keep the peace we have professional ticket writers and professional thugs who are less concerned with the Constitution and more about that next ticket or that adrenalin rush as they kick in that door to grandma’s house.

On that public safety point, we find ridiculous things like seatbelt violations which should be a personal choice made by an adult, but instead is a revenue item? Let me get to that item here too. Instead of a competent adult’s personal decision on his own body and property and life, an impersonal lawmaker’s decision is substituted. Perhaps we’d like them to decide what foods we eat too? Or since those terrible tobacco and alcohol products are health hazards, we should get those folks and tax them too? We have lawmakers who continually make more laws until we are all criminals at some point or another. We have too many ways to be taxed, fined or have to pay a fee for everything we do. I won’t dwell on this too much because real public safety such as border enforcement has run completely amok.

Our borders have been open to the foulest of criminals yet nothing is done. We get tickets and jail for the slightest infractions yet a significant portion of Mexico and South Americans are here breaking laws, murdering and enjoy sanctuary in cities such as San Francisco and New York. Our citizens are kidnapped in places like Laredo Texas and nothing is done. We have incursions of Mexican military escorting drug lords and caught on film wearing the very night vision equipment we gave the Mexican Government and we do nothing. Yet when we have people, even legitimate police and border agents of the U.S. defend themselves the Mexican Government demands and receives their prosecution.

My God, I could drone on and on but the hour is late and the storm is indeed overhead. I leave you with the corruption in politics and the favors that our congress receives for all they do for those with money. Or perhaps we could consider a president that was impeached for perjury about fornicating in the sacred office that our forefathers held dear. Or perhaps we could consider the current refusal and excuses about the ten years it would take to get oil prices down if we drilled now despite the fact it is exactly ten years since the last time we heard that. Maybe we could consider the bathroom Bing Crosby, Larry Craig, tap dancing his way into the bathroom hall of fame. Wait, even funnier is the story of William Jefferson and the FBI catching him “cold”, bribe money in the freezer. Another example of corruption is the recent Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and his undocumented gifts for votes that we have recently been made aware of. I might even have you remember the death and the subsequent attempts to hide that death of Mary Jo Kopechne. I would also invite you to remember Patrick Kennedy slamming into a police barricade after a night of hard drinking and blaming it on Ambien. Then he further refused to comply with the arresting officer stating he was a US congressman. Further, since he was on official congressional business, they couldn’t detain him.

We have a storm upon us and maybe we too should consider exactly what to do because we can ignore it no longer. The time is at hand and what will we do? The founding fathers lay their very lives property and sacred honor they held dear, at the altar of freedom and liberty. They suffered and died to build what we have in answer to the last storm. This time, I see an “everyman for themselves” mentality instead of a consideration of good for the people and the republic. I fear we’ll get what we can and let everyone else get their own God-damned goodies. Wonder what it’ll look like after this storm? Maybe it’ll resemble the looting in New Orleans, just maybe?