Are Cops Constitutional?

I didn't start out thinking this way, but over the years I have become an ardent critic of American law enforcement. As Acton observed, power corrupts, and it is no longer debatable that our cops have too much power. Over the years the ranks of all departments have swollen, and it is clear - crystal clear - that police forces have become highly militarized.

By numbers and disposition, the police now constitute a standing army.

I've no doubt the Founders would share my alarm and moral outrage at these developments. I've done what I can, largely with anecdotes, to wake people up. Now comes a fascinating and scholarly examination of law enforcement at the time of the Founding. Turns out that this was another thing the people did for themselves, and, as usual, did quite well. Much better, in fact, than it's done today, and with far more checks and balances. The notion of government paid cops was quite simply unthinkable at the time, as it should be today.

Here's the abstract: "Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ "textualist" and "originalist" methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution's ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America's founding documents. The author argues that the growth of modern policing has substantially empowered the state in a way the Framers would regard as abhorrent to their foremost principles."

And an excerpt: "Law enforcement in the Founders' time was a duty of every citizen.32 Citizens were expected to be armed and equipped to chase suspects on foot, on horse, or with wagon whenever summoned. And when called upon to enforce the laws of the state, citizens were to respond "not faintly and with lagging steps, but honestly and bravely and with whatever implements and facilities [were] convenient and at hand."33 Any person could act in the capacity of a constable without being one,34 and when summoned by a law enforcement officer, a private person became a temporary member of the police department.35 The law also presumed that any person acting in his public capacity as an officer was rightfully appointed.36

Laws in virtually every state still require citizens to aid in capturing escaped prisoners, arresting criminal suspects, and executing legal process. The duty of citizens to enforce the law was and is a constitutional one. Many early state constitutions purported to bind citizens into a universal obligation to perform law enforcement functions, yet evinced no mention of any state power to carry out those same functions.37 But the law enforcement duties of the citizenry are now a long-forgotten remnant of the Framers' era. By the 1960s, only twelve percent of the public claimed to have ever personally acted to combat crime.38

The Founders could not have envisioned 'police' officers as we know them today. The term "police" had a slightly different meaning at the time of the Founding.39 It was generally used as a verb and meant to watch over or monitor the public health and safety.40 In Louisiana, "police juries" were local governing bodies similar to county boards in other states.41 Only in the mid-nineteenth century did the term 'police' begin to take on the persona of a uniformed state law enforcer.42 The term first crept into Supreme Court jurisprudence even later.43

Prior to the 1850s, rugged individualism and self-reliance were the touchstones of American law, culture, and industry. Although a puritan cultural and legal ethic pervaded their society, Americans had great toleration for victimless misconduct.44 Traffic disputes were resolved through personal negotiation and common law tort principles, rather than driver licenses and armed police patrol.45 Agents of the state did not exist for the protection of the individual citizen. The night watch of early American cities concerned itself primarily with the danger of fire, and watchmen were often afraid to enter some of the most notorious neighborhoods of cities like Boston.46

At the time of Tocqueville's observations (in the 1830s), "the means available to the authorities for the discovery of crimes and arrest of criminals [were] few,"47 yet Tocqueville doubted "whether in any other country crime so seldom escapes punishment."48 Citizens handled most crimes informally, forming committees to catch criminals and hand them over to the courts.49 Private mobs in early America dealt with larger threats to public safety and welfare, such as houses of ill fame.50 Nothing struck a European traveler in America, wrote Tocqueville, more than the absence of government in the streets"

I debated editing out those annoying footnote numbers, but decided to leave them in to show how well the author documented this work. This is the kind of research it will take to force cops back into a respectable place in society, if it's possible at this late date. Here's the whole thing, well worth reading and passing around: Are Cops Constitutional?

H/T to Pete at WRSA, linked in my blogroll.

I just don't make their kind of money...

This fun little gadget allows you to compare your writing style with the more prominent published authors. Such clever things we do on the net!

Several of my posts brought this comparison:

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

A few produced this result:

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Doctorow is a blogger with, disappointingly, leftist leanings.

A couple yielded this:

I write like
Arthur Conan Doyle

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

One of these:

I write like
Edgar Allan Poe

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

And one of these:

I write like
George Orwell

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I often re-read books, actually. That is the mark of writers I truly enjoy. Of all the authors named, only Orwell is one I re-read, and I try to read Animal Farm or 1984 roughly once a year. They were prescient the first time around, and just get fatter and fatter as the years pass. As writers go, I suppose Orwell's pretty good company, but he's certainly a small part of my reading list.

I took in a smattering of Poe(try) along the way, and there is actually a collection of Poe's work somewhere in my boxes of books. I read Doyle as a kid, of course, and Brown more recently. I wouldn't re-read Brown and haven't felt any inspiration to re-read Doyle, although I just might if the world would calm down a bit.

Many, probably the majority, yielded this:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Interestingly, Richard Mitchell's Underground Grammarian text a few posts down produced this same outcome, as did (with consistency) a few pieces penned by Jeff Cooper that I fed into the beastie. I've only heard the name - never read a thing Lovecraft wrote. It's intriguing that Mitchell, Cooper and I would test the same, since in both topic and style they rank among my favorite writers. This is getting interesting. So, I copied parts of letters I wrote 30 years ago, which consistently brought up Lovecraft's name as well.

That was long before any of Mitchell's works (and most of Cooper's, including all of his books) were published. If asked before today, I would have guessed that my own style might have been influenced by them. It now appears that just the opposite is true: Our style is our own, if we're genuine, and we're simply most attracted to the writers who think and express themselves the same way we do, regardless of the topic.

Makes sense!

Mitchell, Cooper, Fireplaceguy and now Lovecraft. That's another author I need to read, and he's now high on my used bookstore shopping list to infinity and beyond, at least until I satisfy my curiosity.

Running my words through this wringer was an interesting exercise. You never know what you'll find! Try it, a few times, for yourself, along with the words of a couple of your favorite authors...

Hasta la vista, baby...

...and if you'll allow me one more, will Ahnold become a REAL Austrian (of the von Mises kind) in this, his final role?

Yes, Kali-fornia belatedly declared a state of emergency over their finances.

Yawn.

After decades of advance billing, it's here: "Terminator 9: Fiat Money" Now playing everywhere. It's the only show in town, and the last picture they'll ever make.

You vill vatch it, und you vill liff it.

Along the laugh cynically/cry/scream/commit suicide continuum, I generally favor laughter. This recipe (with a bit of a scream folded in here and there) keeps the blood pressure down and the blood not spilled, which only they want. The cynicism topping is my fuel-saving shortcut to the truth.

Hence, and with a sardonic grin, I'm of a mind to start a pool: Will it be force (farce?) majeure/default? A bailout? Bankruptcy? Perhaps, if God feels any mercy for the rest of us, a 9.8 earthquake???

Pick your poison(s) and a date, prize to be determined...

Me? I vote for all of the above, in that order, commencing as soon as possible. I really didn't need that label on my new pry bar telling me that it contains something known to you Carnacs of the Environment to cause cancer, as if I was going to chew on the damn thing or stir my soup with it. And then there was the inoperable nozzle on the last gas can I bought. That was the last straw. I could shove it up your a** (wanted to, at the time) and it still wouldn't spill a drop. And maybe that's the point. You've converted it into an environmentally friendly safe-sex toy, one that closely mirrors what you did to your oil industry and, come to that, your entire state. Now you can't even self-immolate, which would certainly be the honorable thing.

Somewhere along the way, your imported/minority vote robots will turn on you, and they're smarter than you think. Hell, they're clever enough to unscrew that nozzle, and they'll burn your lesbian gay bisexual transgendered worker's welfare paradise to the ground for lying to them all these years and then betraying them in "the hour of their need". You'll also see the faces of a lot of your public employees in that madding crowd, and I'm sure you'll be sincerely shocked that your cannibal class turned on you...

Not me. I'll probably have to break down and buy a new flat screen and subscribe to cable, just to see the show. You, the kleptocratic screwers, will become the screwees, reaping what you've sown for lo, these many decades. Act surprised all you want, but being as foreseeable as tomorrow's sunrise, the popcorn will be ready at my house.

Economic oblivion couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. I do resent my forced participation, but at least I get to watch you stop twitching first. Since I'm prepared, I'll be watching from a comfortable vantage point, laughing on a full stomach.

One final question - will the last one of you turn off the lights or will Arizona have to do even that for you feckless girly-men?

Hasta la vista, you little babies. You did it to yourselves. And no, you won't be back. You're too well-marbled for that.

Sold Out

In yet another demonstration of the FACT that no branch of government cares what the law is or what the people desire, key provisions of the Arizona law attempting to stem the tide of illegal immigrants (invaders, if you're honest) were just struck down.

Further comment is unnecessary.

Recommended Reading

Searching through boxes of books for a now forgotten title, I came across "Less than Words Can Say" by the late Richard Mitchell, who wrote as The Underground Grammarian.

Somewhere, in yet another box, are his other three books and a thick stack of deckle-edged Underground Grammarian newsletters, a treasured library of pungent social commentary. The Underground Grammarian focused primarily on acts of war against the English language and the idiocy of educrats, but his tightly reasoned commentary meandered a far wider path than just academia.

Mitchell's writing will dazzle you. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but mostly you'll laugh. Here's a taste, particularly apropos in this dreary socialist era:

The Answering of Kautski

"Why should we bother to reply to Kautski? He would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his reply. There's no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautski is a traitor to the working class, and everyone will understand everything." - Lenin

TYRANNY is always and everywhere the same, while freedom is always various. The well and truly enslaved are dependable; we know what they will say and think and do. The free are quirky. Tyrannies may be overt and violent or covert and insidious, but they all require the same thing, a subject population in which the power of the word is dulled and, thus, the power of thought occluded and the power of deed brought low. That's why Lenin's bolshevism and American educationism have so much in common.

"Give me four years to teach the children,'' said Lenin, "and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.'' He wasn't talking about reading, writing, and arithmetic. He wanted only enough of such skills so that the workers could puzzle out their quotas and so that a housebroken bureaucracy could get on with the business of rural electrification. Our educationists call it basic minimum competency, and they hope that we'll settle for it as soon as they can cook up some way of convincing us that they can provide it. For Lenin, as for our educationists, to "teach the children'' is to "adjust'' them into some ideology.

Lenin understood the power of that ready refuge from logical thought that is called in our schools the "affective domain,'' the amiable Never-never Land of the half-baked, to whom anything they name "humanistic'' is permitted, and of whom skillful scholarship and large knowledge are not required. Lenin approved of the "teaching'' of values and the display, with appropriate captions, of socially acceptable "role models.'' He knew all too well the worth of behavior modification. He knew that indoctrination in "citizenship'' is safer than the study of history, and that a familiarity with literature is not conducive to the wholehearted pursuit of career objectives in the real-life situation, or arena.

On the other hand, Lenin knew that there was little risk that coherent thought could erupt in minds besieged by endless prattle about the clarification of values. He knew that reiterated slogans can dull even a good mind into a stupor out of which it will never arise to overthrow the slogan-makers. In this, our educationists have followed him assiduously, justifying every new crime against freedom of language and thought by mouthing empty slogans about "quality education.''

"Most of the people,'' Lenin wrote, not in public, of course, but in a letter, "just aren't capable of thinking. The best they can do is learn the words.'' If that reminds you of those bleating sheep in Animal Farm, try to forget them, and think instead of the lowing herds of pitiable teacher-trainees, many of whom began with good intentions and even with brains, singing for their certificates dull dirges of interpersonal interaction outcomes enhancement and of change-agent skills developed in time-action line. Lenin's contempt was reserved for the masses. These educationists, pretenders to egalitarianism, hold even their own students in contempt, offering them nothing but words.

If you think it too rash to charge our educationists even as unwitting agents of tyranny and thought control, consider these lines from a recent proclamation of the Association of California School Administrators:

"Parent choice'' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. "Family choice'' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the "wants'' of a single family rather than the "needs'' of society.

So what do you think? Would it suit Lenin?

And if you'd like to object, you'll see that these people also know how to answer Kautski. They'll just pronounce you an elitist, and everybody will understand everything.

FPG's notes: 1) "the power of thought occluded and the power of deed brought low" WOW! If only my use of the language were up to his!

2) Karl Kautski (Kautsky) lived in Germany, and was a true believer in democratic socialism (as if such a thing were physically possible). As such, he was a vocal critic of Lenin's totalitarian socialism. Kautski fantasized that socialism could be implemented fairly, and (in a glimmer of cognition) at least saw the Soviet reality of it as highly unfair.

It was this criticism that Lenin refused to answer, preferring to simply shoot the messenger. Kautski was probably the leading Marxist theoretician in Germany up through the end of WWI. He and his ilk plowed the philosophical garden in which National Socialism took root, although he personally became anti-war and anti-expansionist while witnessing the horrors of WWI. (When it comes to Marxism, one should apparently be careful what one wishes for.) As Hitler's power reached crescendo in 1938, he fled to the Netherlands where he died.

3) Look again at Mitchell's Lenin quote, which I now revise for our time: "Why should we bother to reply to Kautski the Tea Party? He they would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his their reply. There's no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautski teabaggers is a traitor to the working class are racist, and everyone will understand everything." - Nikolai Lenin Barack Obama, et al

See how they work? Over time, their tactics never change. As Mitchell put it "TYRANNY is always and everywhere the same". Identifying a totalitarian is the simplest of exercises, and we should all stop deluding ourselves that this current crew is anything but...

4) A search reveals that Mitchell's newsletters and books are archived at Underground Grammarian. Even his books are free downloads! If you care to think, it's a treasure trove.

Oh, Shit...

Fox News reports that the Mayor of Newark, NJ has ordered he city to stop purchasing toilet paper. We don't know how much that will save, but toilet paper must be a fairly significant budget item for something as full of crap as a municipal government.

They can always wipe with muni's, which were headed in that general direction anyway...

Vocabulary Word of the Millenium: Innumeracy

Innumeracy is to math what illiteracy is to reading. John Paulos wrote the book by that name, and yes, it's in my library.

While perhaps 15% of our population is functionally illiterate - a term indicating the inability to navigate through the basic paperwork of life - something approaching half of our population is innumerate.

This is no accident. The illiterate and the innumerate are the effluent of the public school system. One of the consequences of innumeracy is rampant liberalism - a condition which suits modern government just fine. Anyone conversant with math understands that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that lunch stolen from a third party isn't free at all either. Underlying this moral precept is mathematical law, and I would argue that mathematics and morality are in fact inseparable.

Innumeracy figures in many of the posts I'm working on, so read up...

A Note of Appreciation from the Rich

Let's be honest: you'll never win the lottery.

On the other hand, the chances are pretty good that you'll slave away at some miserable job the rest of your life. That's because you were in all likelihood born into the wrong social class. Let's face it — you're a member of the working caste. Sorry!

As a result, you don't have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us. In fact, you'd probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you. That's why we're so relieved to know that you still continue to believe all those silly fairy tales about "justice" and "equal opportunity" in America.

Of course, in a hierarchical social system like ours, there's never been much room at the top to begin with. Besides, it's already occupied by us — and we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way. But at least there's usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can easily find some poor slob further down in the pecking order to sneer and spit at. So be thankful for migrant workers, prostitutes, and homeless street people.

Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!

You also probably don't have the same greedy, compulsive drive to possess wealth, power, and prestige that we have. And even though you may sincerely want to change the way you live, you're also afraid of the very change you desire, thus keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo. So you go through life mechanically playing your assigned social role, terrified what others would think should you ever dare to "break out of the mold."

Naturally, we try to play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: high-waged workers against low-waged, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, male against female, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against.... We continually push your wages down by invoking "foreign competition," "the law of supply and demand," "national security," or "the bloated federal deficit." We throw you on the unemployed scrap heap if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits. And to give you an occasional break from the monotony of our daily economic blackmail, we allow you to participate in our stage-managed electoral shell games, better known to you ordinary folks as "elections." Happily, you haven't a clue as to what's really happening — instead, you blame "Aliens," "Tree-hugging Environmentalists," "Niggers," "Jews," Welfare Queens," and countless others for your troubled situation.

We're also very pleased that many of you still embrace the "work ethic," even though most jobs in our economy degrade the environment, undermine your physical and emotional health, and basically suck your one and only life right out of you. We obviously don't know much about work, but we're sure glad you do!

Of course, life could be different. Society could be intelligently organized to meet the real needs of the general population. You and others like you could collectively fight to free yourselves from our domination. But you don't know that. In fact, you can't even imagine that another way of life is possible. And that's probably the greatest, most significant achievement of our system — robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think and act for yourself.

So we'd truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work. Thanks so much for "knowing your place" — without even knowing it!

FPG's note: Full credit, and my thanks go out to the folks at Scroogle Scraper for this humorous bit. It's one of a number of fun things that appear on their home page. For those who aren't familiar with Scroogle, they allow you to search Google without having your searches permanently recorded in Google's archives. I highly recommend them.

Scroogle Scraper

Truth

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” —Ayn Rand

A Brilliant Analysis of Islam

It would be interesting to tally the death toll rung up by Marxist/socialist governments and Islamic governments over the last century, and compare that figure with the century's total dead by other than natural causes. I haven't undertaken the exercise, but am confident that such an accounting would shed much light on where humanity's real problems lie.

I regard left-liberalism and radical Islam as the two greatest philosophical threats to civilized society. The word Islam literally means submission, and Islamic doctrine divides the world into Dar al-Islam (House of Submission) and Dar al-Harb (House of War). Clearly, Islam's adherents always saw themselves at war with the rest of the world, and 14 centuries of bad behavior are there to clear up any remaining doubt.

Lately, I've been comparing the psychology of modern left-liberalism with that of Islam. The parallels are surprising - particularly in the areas of intolerance of competing views and the subjugation of non-believers. Like Muslims, leftists play for keeps. They're uninterested in reasoned debate, preferring to destroy competing views in much the same way Islam is commanded to subjugate, convert or kill infidels. Both are violent expansionist doctrines, and dhimmitude is rather difficult to distinguish from forced participation in Obamacare when you get right down to it.

I would note that despite the delusional BS of cowardly politicians, there can be no such thing as a peace loving Islamist any more than there can be peace loving Marxists/socialists. In both doctrines, adherents are commanded by their radical god to conquer and subjugate.

When your god is a violent radical, you have no choice in the matter. This fully explains the conspicuous lack of criticism of the barbaric acts of either leftists or Islamists by any followers of either.

I was delighted to discover a blog focused exclusively on the critical examination of radical Islam. It's called Citizen Warrior, and the link takes you directly to an older article that is outstanding work.

Enjoy!

The Other "Boxes of Liberty"

Just below, I commented on the ballot box - one of the four "boxes of liberty" - and made the case that it is no longer of use. It's high time Americans stop to reflect on the other three "boxes of liberty" and which of these boxes - if any - have remaining utility at this late hour.

The soap box (the First Amendment) is not one to be dismissed under any circumstance, but it's usefulness pales when, as now, the government simply doesn't listen.

The jury box might still be reclaimed, if Americans would just wake to their power to judge not only the guilt of the accused but the validity of the law itself. Jury Nullification is really just another arrow in our voting quiver, enabling us to vote against any law we don't like even if our representatives have acted against our own best interests in passing it. Clearly, the Founders intended this as another safeguard against the breakdown of representation over time - a most prescient concern. Nullification would be useful, if we knew it was there.

The box of last resort is the cartridge box. This looks more and more like the only box that might be useful to fix things, if we have the will left to fix them.

Our right to revolution is expressed in the Declaration of Independence itself. The Declaration notes the self evident truth that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life itself and liberty. (In the legal sense, alienable means salable or transferable, so unalienable literally means not transferable. An unalienable right is one that cannot be taken away. Under the doctrine of self defense, we're justified in fighting whenever someone tries to taker these rights!)

After establishing that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights, the Founders state "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." (Then we shot all the slow learners and threw rest of the bastards out at gunpoint. The Revolutionary War was so named for a good reason...)

Shortly after the war came the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. While flawed (another subject entirely!) it remains the most radical blueprint for the government of a nation in history, in that (if followed) it severely limits the scope and powers of government while guaranteeing widespread rights for the people. The Founders deliberately inserted several means of essentially perpetual revolution: Free speech. Unhindered assembly. A free press. Petition. Elections. Jury nullification. (The only peril they could not guard against was our own apathy, which is precisely where the train went off the tracks. More on that in a bit.)

The cartridge box - the guarantee of our right to revolution - was enshrined in law as the Second Amendment. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." These words, taken with their meanings at the time (original intent) establish (no surprise here) a philosophy of complete rebelliousness. A militia is the people, well regulated meant well trained and a free State was just that - a State that was not under the thumb of the newly created Federal government and could potentially go to war against other states or the Feds. The right itself was expressed after the philosophy was stated - the right of the people (a phrase used repeatedly in the bill of rights, totally clear in meaning) to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms (guns) shall not be infringed.

Only the profoundly dishonest could "miss" the clarity of these words.

Although Acton's warning wasn't penned until a century later, the Founders understood all too well the tendency of even a small amount of power to corrupt men. They weren't shy about using guns against their oppressors, either. They wanted us armed because they believed we'd be smart enough to shoot 'em all before things got this bad!

Of course, human nature prevailed. Softened by the blessings of Liberty, we the people became apathetic - if not altogether blind - to the usurpation of our natural rights, and to the ever growing (and illegal) Federal power assumed through deception and lies.

Too many of us came to feed at the resulting government trough, and I'm not just talking about welfare/entitlement recipients. We have millions and millions of government workers at the Federal, state, county, city and special district levels. Then there are the contractors, and the mercenaries. The grant recipients. The schools. Many businesses and all professions are likewise beneficiaries of government power, shaping and using regulations to maximize revenue and/or to minimize competition. Also, too many good people looked the other way as we were colonized with a new kind of immigrant that came, often illegally, intending only to feed at that trough.

Now, when matters come to a vote, it is quite likely that these various groups of feeders form the majority. Obviously, such an "election" is an exercise in foregone conclusion, and the rights of the minority (us) have been handily eliminated. Our votes, and our rights, are meaningless.

de Juvenal observed that "a nation of sheep must, in time, beget a government of wolves" and that, deservedly, is what we have today. The miserable burden of socialism weighs on every aspect of American life today, and the weight will only grow till we're crushed.

We've come nearly full circle in the Fatal Sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to courage;
From courage to freedom;
From freedom to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to fear;
From fear to dependency;
From dependency back into bondage.

Courage has all but disappeared, but we see the apathetic, the fearful and the dependent everywhere. People are waking up, but it's too little, too late. All that's left to us is the descent from dependency back into bondage, and I don't think it can be a controlled landing. It's just too late.

I doubt that the Repubs would repeal anything Obama enacted, and even if they did it would be a pyrrhic victory. The interest on our trillions of free lunches has finally come due. That interest cannot be paid with what we have left to offer, which is more free lunches. The rest of the world is in no better shape. Our only path out of this mess is forward through a collapse. We fiddled while Rome burned, and now the last resort has become our only option.

If we have the courage, this next fight will be a rude combination of the two major domestic wars we've already fought - a revolution and a parallel civil war. If we fight, we will fight not just FOR liberty but also AGAINST slavery - that second fight being as much against our own countrymen as against the king.

It's high time time you ask yourself - which side are you really on? Do you just talk a good show, or do you walk the talk? Are you a senior citizen unwilling to acknowledge the unconstitutionality of Social Security and Medicare? (The fact that these programs are mathematically doomed is irrelevant. They're morally wrong, and that's all you should need!) Are you an accountant, doctor or lawyer who owes his nice income to government regulation/government created monopolies? Are you a government bureaucrat, or do you owe your job to government even though you work in private industry? Are you on welfare? Are you a high tech/internet player, an investor, stockbroker, Realtor, contractor or mortgage broker who took their cut of the fiat money bubbles? Did you use your house as an ATM, or did you buy one you couldn't afford with an interest only mortgage? Do you vote for your own gain or do you hold out for the good of the nation? Or, are you a leftist who simply votes against the nation, irrationally seeking to burn down the house you live in?

The answers to these questions matter, and even many so called conservatives have some real soul searching to do. And quickly. That soul searching, no matter the outcome, still beats the predicament of today's liberals, who have nothing left to claim but shame.

Insanity. Our sheeplike apathy has produced dependence on a government of wolves, whose only interest in us is as a source of labor and revenue. Now it's harvest time, and we're the crop.

So, back to into the bondage we clamored for. We've become the Eloi, and we've begged the Morelocks to take "care" of us. Are we so diminished a people that we will settle for this bloody slavery? Or, deep down, do we yet have the will for the slightly less bloody fight to retake that precious gift we let slip with so little thought?

I wish I knew the answer...

Insanity

A fine definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

Like voting...

The Repubs, who have betrayed our trust over and over, are about to be given another chance at power - a chance they have not earned and do not deserve. It's like the Peanuts cartoon - the Republicans are Lucy and the conservative voters are Charlie Brown. That football will be yanked away again, just the moment we vote for them. I guarantee it.

Admittedly, we have a distinct left and right wing in politics, but can't everyone see these wings are attached to the same bird? Vote for the Left wing - get a big government police state. Vote for the Right wing - get a big government police state. Sure, the Dhimmicrats gave us Hillary Clinton where the Repubs gave us Condi Rice, but beyond the aesthetic there are no meaningful choices.

And for God's sake, can't everyone see the obvious power behind the throne by now?

Even if such weren't the case, the ballot box is so compromised as to be useless. Both parties squabble for power that means something to them, but nothing to us. They fight to align districts to invalidate elections. Blatant manipulation, intimidation and outright vote fraud goes not just unpunished, but largely unnoticed. The arrogance of Barry and the Dhimmicrats goes beyond his personal narcissism and their vast power - it stems as well from their intent to pass "comprehensive immigration reform" and thus never face an honest election again.

There's an old bumper sticker that said "don't vote - it just encourages them" and there's a lot of truth in this. Regardless of who we vote for, the act of voting ratifies the fraud. Participation is a form of consent, after all. A low single digit voter turnout is precisely the lack of consent our political system deserves, and robs the machine of any claim of legitimacy.

A Good Crisis...

"You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid."

Although the crisis ploy has been around for decades, one might, in observance of Rahm's now famous words, be tempted to call this the Emmanuel Doctrine...

The Deepwater Horizon incident is the perfect illustration of not letting a good crisis go to waste, sort of. Sort of, in that the hoped for results could not all be readily produced. There's no doubt that the Obama-ites did everything they could to magnify the environmental damage of the catastrophe. They paid as little attention to the whole incident as possible, while behind the scenes they delayed and denied every proposed mitigation. When that charade began to really unravel, the boy king made a speech about looking for an ass to kick and they got busy with a shakedown of BP.

They are now on their second attempt to halt drilling in the Gulf. We'll see if it plays any better than the first attempt, but is is useful in that it exposes the underlying agenda: with a crisis for cover, deprive America of it's own energy production and keep America dependent on enemy states for oil. In other words, weaken America in every situation, regardless of how tortured the "logic".

Destroy America. It's the Prime Directive of the left...

This brings me to an uncomfortable thought that is weighing heavier and heavier on my mind: When the government of the day has the oppression of its citizens and the destruction of the country as it's main goal, and when capitalization on crisis is the main tool they use to advance the agenda, what will they do when they need a crisis and don't have one handy?

If you don't believe this is how they think, here's a recent example: "The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership," says Rob Shapiro (former Clinton official and Obama supporter) "He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that." (Such words, coming from the mouth of a former Clinton operative, bring back memories of reports that Clinton was jealous that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch, since it was such a great opportunity to appear "presidential"...)

Google the term "false flag" and read up on the long history of contrived crises and subsequent power grabs by their perpetrators. Be very suspicious of the origin of any "crisis" between here and the election, and during the lame duck legislative session that follows. (For that matter, be suspicious of any crisis at any time.) After all, the Reichstag Fire wasn't patented, and anyone can use the ploy.

Reason and Logic

I've long held that committed leftists are inaccessible by way of reason and logic. Yet, being reasoning and logical people, most conservative arguments including my own remain rooted in reason and logic. From there, it's easy for us to end up on the defensive against emotional arguments.

It's time to change the conversation...

The most effective change we can make is to take a page out of the left's own playbook, and start asking questions like:

"Why do you hate freedom?"

"Why are you ruining the economy?"

"Why are you depriving America of oil?"

"Why are you ignoring the law?"

"Why are you bankrupting us?"

The point is to cut to the chase and identify their end game in our questions. Don't just complain that they're doing it - ask why! Everyone knows what's going on here, and it's high time to acknowledge it with questions that put THEM on the defensive!