It is a beautiful day in Salt Lake City, and I am feeling especially grateful for many things in my life! Among the things I am thankful for is the fact that I am self-employed -- I can work the hours I choose to work, I am free to try new things, and I answer to no-one except God, my clients, and those to whom I pay my bills!
I am free to succeed, and free to fail. Though it hasn't been without its challenges, I have found working for myself to be worth it. 100%.
I was not trained up to be an entrepreneur. Like most of you, I attended public schools where I had a few excellent teachers and several mediocre ones. I spent my early adolescent years awkwardly searching for my own identity and path amongst such things as MTV, sit-coms, fast food, and pegged jeans -- things I participated in not because I liked them so much as because it was what everybody else was doing!
I've had a lot of growing experiences through the years and the blessing to come across a number of people who have influenced my life for good, helping me find a path that is much more true to me.
I am saddened that our nation seems to be on an entirely opposite sort of path. We have gone from being a nation of immigrants determined to carve out their dream in the rugged landscape of a free country in spite of any obstacle, to collectively being fat, lazy, and weak-minded in our prosperity.
We have created a Big Brother and don't seem to mind that we now pay him upwards of 1/3 of our annual income, we look the other way as he kills and tortures people in various locations around the world, and we don't even blink that he now requests to see beneath our clothing with scanning devices pumping out radiation just a tad less toxic than microwaves, in order to make sure we aren't hiding bombs in any crevices or folds before boarding an airplane!
What will Big Brother think of next?! Watch this real commercial that aired in the state of Pennsylvania earlier this year --
Before you jump to say "Well, Tom deserves to have the government harass him -- he has broken the law", think again. The government knows where you live too, as well as where you work, how your finances are, what your spending habits are, and what you are posting on your Facebook status updates.
Big Brothers just like ours throughout history have a track record of turning against the very people they promise to protect -- law-abiding citizens who naively relinquish their liberties in the name of protecting society.
In the remainder of this post, I will share a few more of the 14 Signposts to Slavery that deal with such things as our ability to travel, assemble in each others' homes, and work and live unfettered from undue government intervention.
9. Laws limiting the number of people allowed to meet in a private home.
The right to assemble with whomever we choose for whatever reason we choose both publicly and in our own homes is an essential liberty (as long as we aren't infringing on the rights of others). Thankfully, this is one liberty that is still mostly honored in our nation. There are some notable exceptions. Recently seven individuals in Gilbert, AZ were prohibited from meeting together in private homes for Bible study. Some homeschooling families have reportedly suffered from similar over-reaching local homeowner's associations.
Let us be diligent to support the rights of everyone in our nation, even if we find their beliefs abhorrent, to assemble freely!
10. Any significant change in passport regulations to make passports more difficult to obtain or use.
In August 2007, U.S. passport agencies began exclusively issuing "e-passports" that contain a microchip, making it much easier to track an individual's travels (and also making it possible to disable an individual's passport with a simple keystroke). Further, face-recognition technology is now in use at all checkpoints tightening government control over individual travel. Can you imagine what the Nazi's could have accomplished with this type of technology in terms of cutting people off from travel?
This is yet another example of policy changes that have been made in the name of The War Against Terrorism. Too bad our intelligence and passport regulations have proven impotent against terrorists (ie. the "Underwear Bomber"). Instead, we have innocent 5-year-old children on the "No Fly" list who could potentially have their passports disabled for no reason because they are mistaken for a terrorist.
12. Any kind of compulsory registration with the government of where individuals work.
Besides the fact that the U.S. government is the largest employer in the nation (and those numbers will only rise with the implementation of the new health care bill), and the government is surely aware where each of its several million employees work, the government also knows where every tax-paying American lives and works.
Companies report their salaries given to their employees through W-2 or 1099 forms. Unless you are living a fugitive lifestyle off the grid, the government knows perfectly well where you work.
Further, the government now has GPS coordinates of the front door of each and every American home thanks to census employees who were sent out last year with hand-held devices to gather this extremely specific information. I guess that's how the state of Pennsylvania really does know exactly where "Tom" lives (in the commercial above)!
13. Any attempt to restrict freedom of movement within the United States.
If it's not bad enough that the government can now prevent anyone it chooses from traveling internationally with e-passports and face recognition technology at airports, recently US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) proposed the Vehicle Miles Traveled fee that would allow the government to install GPS tracking devices into each and every private vehicle of every American. Not only would this allow the government to tax us for each mile we drive, but it would allow the government to know where our vehicles are at every moment of every day.
Let us thank the heavens that Obama threw this draconian legislation out, and let us make sure nothing like this is ever implemented in the United States of America!
A wise man once said that he who would trade his liberty for security deserves neither. It is so easy to justify many of the types of laws that have passed, particularly since 9/11, that appear important and necessary for our longevity as a nation.
But let us be diligent against potential tyranny from within lest we someday find ourselves hostage to the Big Brother we empowered to protect us from threats from without!
After a few weeks' hiatus, I am back on the scene of the Fourteen Signposts to Slavery. Before I get into the details for this week's red flag of impending tyranny, I wanted to make just a few comments about myself and how it is that a blog that I originally started a year ago to share my story of recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome, has now been turned into an outlet for sharing my views on politics.
And how did I go from where I was a few years ago, blindly and dumbly voting Republican, getting my information from the nightly news, and trusting that those in charge had my best interest in mind, to where I am now?!? Some people who know me are baffled at the views I now broadcast, as they seem contrary to what some may consider "normal".
I don't know for sure, all I know is that in 2007 some things began to click in my mind. The years I spent in grad school studying Soviet history and the Soviet government's cruel tactics of control and manipulation for the "good" of the masses, and an awakening to the awful situation of medicine and the sick care industry through my own experiences with cfs -- all of this led me to espouse the belief that if I want to know about any given trend, event, or even health concern, I must do my own research. I must push past the veils of marketing tactics and propaganda schemes to see what really lies behind the green curtain, if only to catch a glimpse!
I still know next to nothing. But what I have found has caused me to want to research further and share my findings, meager though they may be, with anyone who cares to take a look.
With that, here is the 8th Signpost to Slavery --
8. An official declaration that anti-Communist organizations are subversive and subsequent legal action taken to suppress them.
Today we live in a world where threats of modern-day Communism, Socialism, and Fascism are poo-pooed by the general media as ridiculous, hyperbolic claims. Those who warn of encroaching tyranny are labeled as kooks at best, and at worst -- potential domestic terrorists. It's even gotten so bad that those who oppose President Obama's bailouts and health care bills, considering them to be an assault to our liberties, are dubbed "racist". The same thing goes, of course, for those who are against illegal immigration.
But do we see the government and the media denouncing anti-Communist organizations? Well, are there really any big anti-Communist organizations left to speak of after they were so denigrated in earlier years?
Certainly The John Birch Society comes to mind as one of the most vocal anti-Communist (and anti-Big Government) organizations in America, but it hardly retained much national influence after the barrage of assault against it in the 60's. Interestingly, the initial blows to the John Birch Society came from Communist organizations with ties to Moscow. After a time, the American mass media joined the bandwagon. How disturbing to see a collusion between foreign Communist agencies and our own mass media!
Even more frightening is that fact that in 1963 upon his failed bid for President, New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the most prominent elitist family in America, gave a speech before the Republican National Convention denouncing members of the John Birch Society and equating them with the Klan:
"These extremists feed on fear, hate and terror, [they have] no program for America and the Republican Party... [they] operate from dark shadows of secrecy. It is essential that this convention repudiate here and now any doctrinaire, militant minority whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Birchers." (1)
The tactic of associating a group or person you wish to discredit with other groups and persons known to be of ill repute is a common one in political smear campaigns, and Nelson Rockefeller used that tactic quite proficiently in this instance. Because of Rockefeller's speech and other negative pieces in the mass media, the John Birch Society was effectively black-balled from mainstream America. No direct government involvement was needed to shut them up.
Gone are the days of old-school Red Communism, bomb shelters, and rampant McCarthyism. If you want to know my opinion, Communism as it was during the Cold War is never to be again. The Soviet Communist experiment came to an end in the early 1990's for a reason -- the command economy of the Soviet state was unsustainable. And some of the Soviet state's tactics of secluding its people from the rest of the world were failing.
Today, China is the shining star of Communism, and it looks a little different from its Soviet cousin -- at least on the surface. China's market economy emphasis and PR with the West to portray it as hip and savvy have done wonders for the nation's economic growth as well as its standing in the world (never mind that political prisoners still languish away in China's vast Gulag and the average farmer or worker struggles just for basic subsistence).
Never again will we see a Communist state emerge that totally resembles the USSR, though there are still a few struggling nations, such as North Korea, who appear to be hanging on to old-school Communism for dear life.
Today we have a different kind of tyranny that has been spreading like a super-virulent swine flu virus to practically all of the nations of the earth. Unlike the swine flu, however, no government agency exists to hedge its progress, and no National Emergency has been declared to warn the populaces.
The type of tyranny I am referring to has been quietly bankrupting 3rd world countries for decades, and since then has set its desires on bankrupting the rest of the world including the coveted U.S.A.
This type of tyranny might be referred to as Corporate Fascism, or the New World Order in which a few, self-appointed elite gain control of all big business and set up a global government with themselves at the helm. This New World Order has many faces, only one of which is Communism, and it can shape-shift to please and appease the minds of the unsuspecting masses in any nation.
Just as the John Birch Society was a "voice in the wilderness" against Communism and Communist infiltration in earlier years, today there are those who actively speak out against our current breeds of tyranny. Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Alex Jones of Infowars.com, Chuck Baldwin, and others are vocal critics of world government run by a tiny elite -- the "new Anti-Communists". And they are also at the brunt of attacks by the media and politicians alike, and accused of the very same crimes with which Nelson Rockefeller accused the "Bircher's" -- hate, racism, gross ignorance, and militism.
In February of 2009, the Missouri State Police issued the MIAC report instructing policemen to consider people driving vehicles displaying militia symbols, including the famous "Don't Tread on Me" flag, as potentially dangerous.
The report went on to specify that individuals who support candidates such as Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin (of the Constitution Party), Bob Barr (of the Libertarian Party), and anyone who was against such things as gun control, illegal immigration, and abortion on demand should be considered a possible threat.
Recently, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a list of individuals it considers as threats to America. The list of course, includes most of the individuals I have already named, and comes complete with their bio, mugshot, and fake criminal alias (one man is dubbed the "Apostle of Disunion", another "The Repentant Taxman".) One by one, each of these activists for small, Constitutional government is mocked and discredited.
On June 16 of this year, MSNBC will air a new documentary characterizing the Tea Party movement, Constitutionalists, and those who expose tyranny in our nation as dangerous extremists.
Rand Paul's recent win in Kentucky caused him to be the focus of media attack for supposed racism because he happens to espouse Libertarian philosophies in regards to business and private organizations and who they associate with.
Lastly, in my mind the most unsettling move of all to discredit and silence those who speak out against our new breed of tyranny is the law proposed by White House Information Tsar Cass Sunstein that would curtail the freedom of speech of bloggers, reporters, and independent media organizations. Cass Sunstein is the author of a book entitled "Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech", and is a proponent of the "Fairness Doctrine" that would criminalize "hate speech" and conspiracy theorizing.
Under Sunstein's watch, nobody would be allowed to voice an opinion that discredits the government or goes against mainstream media's talking points without first proving to a government agency that their points are moral and correct. Because, of course, government agencies are the ultimate authority on that which is moral and correct. . .
Such a law would effectively silence small fry bloggers like myself and would severely limit the ability of anti-establishment media outlets to operate freely, while big media would continue to spout its rhetoric untouched.
How similar this is to the state monopoly over media in Communist nations! The Soviets worked feverishly to silence the dissidents in their nation, China will throw you in the slammer if you go against the grain, and now the U.S.A. is considering muting the voices of certain non-mainstream views?!
Whether you consider yourselves Conservative or Liberal, if you are an American this should appall you! Our nation was founded on principles of free speech for majorities and minorities alike!
