Freedom In America Is Now Illegal! ... J. D. Longstreet

Freedom In America Is Now Illegal!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
******************
Before you sigh and mutter to yourself:  "Oh, no! Another tome by Longstreet opining how we Americans have lost our freedom," consider the words of Eric Peters at http://www.ericpetersautos.com/

Mr. Peters says:  "Our slavery is ingenious because it’s so very subtle. Most people not only don’t see (much less feel) their shackles – they get angry when someone calls attention to them. Most people, in other words, still imagine themselves to be free. This despite the obvious fact that they must first beg – and obtain – permission before they may exercise any of their former natural rights."

Struck a nerve, did it?  If you love freedom, as I do, I am SURE it got your attention.

Mr. Peters goes on to say:  "Even the elemental right to choose your spouse, for instance, is no longer a natural right; the state demands the couple seek its permission to marry. Exactly as feudal lords once demanded of their serfs. And serfs we have become."

Mr. Peters continues:  "Thus, people beg the state’s permission. Much worse, they have accepted this as normal and reasonable. They do not  take umbrage – or even become mildly annoyed. Many – all too many – take pride in having begged for (and received) their permission slips. In having acquired a birth certificate (of ownership) for their children. A driver’s license, a Social Security number…. and so on."

Mr. Peters commentary continues to cut to the nub of the American experience today. 

We Americans are NO LONGER FREE!  We haven't been for a very long time. "Land of the free" ought to be scrubbed from our National Anthem because it is NOT TRUE! 

In a recent commentary, I endeavored to point out a few of the freedoms lost to Americans.  You may find it interesting.  Read it here:  http://flashpoint2016.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-shining-city-goes-dark-forever-j-d-longstreet/

America is now an oligarchy.  Our government is run by a small group of very powerful people.  Where did they get that power?  We, you and I, gave it to them.

America';s Founding Fathers were fearful that this day would eventually come.   Ben Franklin, upon being asked by a female by-stander what kind of government they had given us, is said to have replied:  "A republic, Madam -- if you can keep it!" 

Well, the plain truth is -- we DIDN'T keep it!

Freedom requires eternal vigilance.  You have heard that phrase time and time again -- and it is very true. Once freedom is gained it is hard work to maintain it. Apparently, it is work only a few citizens are willing to undertake.

To remain free, free people must constantly wage war against the passion of the few to rule the many.  Those who seek power, who thrive on power over their fellowman, are working unceasingly to grasp that power in manners too numerous to measure.  They are a constant and growing threat.

And they LIE! How they lie!  They will look America directly in the eye and -- with all the sincerity they can muster -- tell you a bald-faced lie.   We Americans have just undergone months of disingenuousness in the most recent presidential campaign.  And he won!

America spurned its last hope of recovering its freedom and its self respect.   That is why hundreds of thousands of Americans are petitioning the White House to allow their states to leave the so-called United States of America and create their own country ruled by the old, the original, Constitution.  (For those of you educated in America's public schools you may have to Google "constitution.")

Those rights granted by God, and God alone,  are now restricted, or forbidden, by the centralized authority of the US government.

Americans must now live in fear and dread, very much as the citizens of the old Soviet Union did, of the bureaucratic despotism of Obama's nameless, faceless, Czars, and despotic agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (a domestic version of KGB), the Environmental Protection Agency, and a myriad of alphabet soup agencies that have locked our freedom away -- and -- from whom we must beg permission to exercise rights that Providence granted us at birth.

As Mr. Peters says:  "Free men do not beg permission. They insist that their rights be respected. Come what may.

But before anyone can insist that his rights be respected, he must understand that his rights exist because he exists. Not because his rights were written on a document. Not because the state acknowledges them formally. Rights just are. And once he has such understanding, he will resent like hell ever having to ask permission to exercise them."            

There is a plethora of wisdom in Mr. Peter's article entitled:  "Permission Slips Instead of Rights." We recommend you read it in its entirety.  You will find it at:  http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/11/27/permission-slips-instead-of-rights/

Someone once said:  "Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush, mustache, and swastika armband -- it creeps up insidiously... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone."

Certainly there was SOME of that in old America.  (There is ALWAYS that ten percent who do not get the word.) But that excuse REALLY doesn't fly when applied to modern America.  Americans were warned -- loud and long -- that they were giving their freedom away for ONLY the promise of security.
Americans today are jobless, homeless and broke -- ripe for the picking.  President Franklin Roosevelt once said:  "People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."

To see the wisdom of Roosevelt's words we have only to look to the Oval Office in the White House today.

There will remain a few who refuse to be silenced.  A few who will continue to point to the obvious, that America is now a Marxist state.  They are few now.  They will be fewer later as the fist of the dictator begins to crush them into eternal silence. 

Some will endeavor to keep the fires of freedom kindled and the spark alive.  As one of our Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams (a veritable thorn-in-the-flesh to King George)  once said:  "It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men."

Pass the matches, please.

© J. D. Longstreet
*******************


VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
*******************

Hypersmash.com

Ping Blog

Pingates

The Shining City Goes Dark -- Forever ... J. D. Longstreet

The Shining City Goes Dark -- Forever
America Can Never Be Rebuilt
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
******************

Move over North Korea.  Move over China.  Move over Soviet Socialist Russia.  Move over Cuba.  Move over Nazi Germany.  Room must be made for a new entry on the list of police states on earth. Now we must add the name of --  the United States of America.

Shocking?  No.  It has been in the works for a very long time and the terrorist attack that took out the World Trade Center on 9/11 simply created the right condition for the powerful to extend their powers over a scared, frightened, people who, like all humans since the beginning of time (except for a few strong individualists), traded their freedom for security.

Welcome to "post constitution America."  The Bill of Rights is DEAD.  Freedom for US citizens is a mirage.  It no longer exists. 

America is no longer a part of the so-called "free world."  Come to think of it -- I'm not sure if there is, indeed, a free world any longer!

George Washington University law professor, Jonathan Turley, wrote a piece a while back that spelled it out for anyone not yet convinced that America has moved onto the police state list.  You will find his article here:  http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/15/10-reasons-the-u-s-is-no-longer-the-land-of-the-free/

I'm going to highlight it a bit here.

Professor Turley says the list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company. (See the incomplete list of authoritarian states I mentioned above)

Professor Turley enumerates the "new" powers our government now holds over its citizens:

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism.  Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists.

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism.  The Administration continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion.

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice.

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party.

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries.

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance.

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy.

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. It is not defending the power before the Supreme Court — a power described by Justice Anthony Kennedy as “Orwellian.”

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
     
This, dear reader, is the description of an authoritarian government, a police state  -- and THIS is America today.

America lurches along today, struggling with every breath. Much like a wounded animal instinctively knows something is wrong yet hasn't the reasoning ability to understand that it is fatally wounded and will soon succumb to its wounds, collapse, and die. 

America, the wounded giant, struggles against the infinity of self-inflicted wounds draining the life from its once vibrant body. 

The lifeblood of the great constitutional republic, liberty and freedom, long since sacrificed on the alter of security, are no longer the life force of the once great titan that bestrode the earth.  The lights are out in the once shining city on a hill and darkness shrouds the land.

The weight of the heavy hand of an authoritarian government smothers the citizenry and emasculates thoughts of revival.

Too late Americans remember the warning of one of America's original Founding Fathers and our second President, John Adams. Freedom, once lost, can never be regained.  Adams said:  "A constitution of government, once changed from freedom, can never be restored.  Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

America is done for.  She cannot be rebuilt.  redemption is impossible.  The hollowed-out husk that remains has joined the league of mediocre nations destined to become the foundation of a global government on the planet.

At remarkable speed America "fundamentally transformed" itself from a constitutional representative republic to a socialist authoritarian (police) state to a "has been" nation.  As John Adams warned -- there is no going back.

© J. D. Longstreet
******************


VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
******************

Hypersmash.com

Ping Blog

Pingates

 

The Middle East Minefield ... Alan Caruba

The Middle East Minefield

By Alan Caruba

I often wonder whether Americans really care about the outcome of events as regards Israel. I know that a segment of American Jews are concerned and that evangelical Christians may care even more.

I can’t escape the feeling, though, that other than the horror of an Iranian nuclear missile blowing up Israel and killing its citizens (both Jewish and Muslim), that most Americans are not that committed to its survival. I suspect that most Europeans are even less committed.

I cite Israel because of the hostility of all others in the Middle East, but they may not be as hostile as things appear. Israel is a major deterrent to Iran’s ambitions.

Things are never what they seem in the Middle East.

 A recent article in CanadaFreePress.com by Doug Hagmann suggests that the Benghazi affair that the Obama administration is trying to get passed actually masks a major arms movement from Libya to the Syrian rebels in order to overthrow its dictator, Bashar Assad. Hagmann asserts that it was a CIA operation, not a diplomatic one, and what was attacked was not a consulate, but rather a site for the storage and transmittal of weapons. The attack was an effort to disrupt it by those seeking to keep Assad in power, both Russia and Iran.

The major actors in this are the U.S., Turkey, and Egypt. The main benefactor would be Saudi Arabia whose oil fields are within the range of Iranian missiles. The Russians are part of the picture because they do not want to lose a key Syrian port for its naval ships, but Russia, too, is a major oil producer and anything that might harm its interests is seen as a bonus.

After 9/11 when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked Americans supported an energetic response, but after George W. Bush committed troops to Afghanistan and Iraq it wasn’t long before Americans decided it was a bad idea. Too many memories of Vietnam along with too much cost in blood and treasure took the edge off of the reprisal in Afghanistan or the deposing of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Iraq is an oil producer as well, but is now allied with the Iranians where its president found sanctuary during Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror.

Leon Trotsky, an associate of Stalin, once said, “You might not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.” Wars occur in various ways, deliberate and accidental, but it is the latter that would seem the case these days in a Middle East where Hamas engaged in a lengthy barrage of rockets and then acted surprised that Israel responded, killing a number of their top people and inflicting a lot of damage in Gaza.

Hamas was acting under the orders from Iran. The president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, brokered a cease fire deal, but also decided he wants to be the next dictator of Egypt. Who saw that coming? The Egyptians had risked life and limb in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to depose Hosni Mubarack and then turned around and voted Morsi into office.

What were they thinking? Why didn’t they embrace a more secular leader? The answer is that Islam is everything in the Middle East. Muslims cannot change and it is foolish to think they will. If you loved the seventh century, you will love the Middle East.

Egypt is important to the U.S. What happens there determines much of the direction the Middle East takes. That explains why the Obama administration wants to forgive a billion in debt and to throw another billion or more at Morsi by way of enlisting him to act as a counter weight to Hamas. On Nov 24 Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad was on the phone to Hamas’s Ismail Haniya and with Jihad Islami leaders to assure them they would be receiving munitions to refill their arsenals.

Reportedly, Obama has agreed to send U.S. troops to Egypt’s Sinai to interdict the arms smuggling routes through the desert to Gaza. Indeed, it was this offer that is said to have gotten Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to back off a ground invasion, but in this three dimensional game of chess, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey are all working with the U.S.

The U.S. Navy has been busy throughout the brief conflict and earlier. For years it has taken up permanent residency off the coast of Iran and in the Persian Gulf. Other elements are presently positioned off the coast of Syria where their Russian counterparts can also be found.

Bashar Assad has made Turkey very nervous. Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus want to keep him alive. Turkey borders Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and is in proximity of Russia, bordering Georgia. It has its hands full just tending to the thousands of Syrians that have fled there. The U.S. is providing Turkey with Patriot missiles and AWACs, manned by U.S. military, and that could become yet another flashpoint.

None of the nations involved want a really big war to break out.

The wild card is Israel whose very existence is threatened by Iran. The U.S. is doing what it can to avoid that. So far the cooperation is working. If Iran announces it has nuclear weapons or Israeli intelligence determines that's the case, all bets are off.

The major beneficiary of all of this is Saudi Arabia and, as the leader of the majority Sunni Muslims worldwide, it has no love for Shiite Iran. In effect the U.S. intelligence capabilities and its military have become its mercenary army, eliminating Saddam Hussein, standing aside when Mubarak and Gaddafi fell and now working to eliminate Bashar Assad.

The U.S. doesn't mind working with dictators, so long as they are "our" dictators, friendly to our interests.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

**********************

Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

 

The Manchurian Electorate ... J. D. Longstreet

The Manchurian Electorate

America's Brainwashed Voters

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

****************

"So Europe got the American president it wanted – the one who would present no threat to its own delusions. The United States is now officially one of us: an Old World country complete with class hatred, ethnic Balkanisation, bourgeois guilt and a paternalist ruling elite. And it is locked into the same death spiral of high public spending and self-defeating wealth redistribution as we are. Welcome to the future, and the beginning of what may turn out to be the terminal decline of the West."   ...   Janet Daley, The Telegraph:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9668774/America-has-become-an-Old-World-country.html 

We hardily recommend that you click on the link provided and read the entire article by Ms. Daley.

Just as the Europeans have, for the most part anyway, seen the error of their ways and are attempting to dig themselves out, America decides Europe was right all along -- and we rushed to join them in their mass grave.

Government as omnipotent benefactor is now the model in the US.  Never mind that the very idea is totally un-American, Americans have embraced it whole-heartedly -- and the soul-rot that accompanies it.

I find it ironic that a news organization, Pravda, which was formally the mouthpiece for the Soviet Union's Communist Party government is able to see Obama for what he is when Americans were -- and are -- too dumb and/or too dense to see the Marxist agenda of Mr. Obama. (Frankly, I don't think Americans even understand, anymore, what Communism, Socialism, and Marxism really is/are. I mean, think about it.  Americans don't even know we used to have a constitutional representative republic.  Most think we had a democracy.  Now that we are a socialist state -- they don't know -- and can't tell (can't discern) -- the difference.  Such is the ignorance of the average American about his government today.)

In an article by Xavier Lerma entitled "Obama's Soviet Mistake" at Pravda.RU, the following is stated: "Putin in 2009 outlined his strategy for economic success. Alas, poor Obama did the opposite but nevertheless was re-elected. Bye, bye Miss American Pie. The Communists have won in America with Obama but failed miserably in Russia with Zyuganov who only received 17% of the vote. Vladimir Putin was re-elected as President keeping the NWO order out of Russia while America continues to repeat the Soviet mistake."  (Emphasis mine)  SOURCE:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/

The article in Pravda goes on to really rub it in by saying:  "Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises them." 

OK, so now Lerma's Pravda article really pulls the covers back on Obama:  "O'bomber (Obama) even keeps the war going along the Mexican border with projects like "fast and furious" and there is still no sign of ending it.  He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. (Emphasis added by me) How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia.  Obama's fools and Stalin's fools share the same drink of illusion." SOURCE:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/

Comparing Putin and Obama, the article continues:  "President Vladimir Putin could never have imagined anyone so ignorant or so willing to destroy their people like Obama much less seeing millions vote for someone like Obama. They read history in America don't they? Alas, the schools in the U.S. were conquered by the Communists long ago and history was revised thus paving the way for their Communist presidents. (Emphasis added by me) Obama has bailed out those businesses that voted for him and increased the debt to over 16 trillion with an ever increasing unemployment rate especially among blacks and other minorities. All the while promoting his agenda."SOURCE:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/

Then, there is this line that made the small hairs on the back of this ole southern boy's neck stand straight up:  " ... residents in all 50 states have filed petitions to secede from the Unites States. We'll say that these Americans are hostages to the Communists in power. How long will their government reign tyranny upon them?"  SOURCE:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/

And finally, the line that put the stopper in the bottle for me:  "The question is how long will the once "Land of the Free" remain the United Socialist States of America?  Their suffering has only begun. (Emphasis added by me!) Bye bye Miss American Pie!" SOURCE:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-11-2012/122849-obama_soviet_mistake-0/

(We highly recommend that you "click" over to Pravda.RU and read the entire article.)

I must tell you, it is one thing for me, as an American writer and commentator, to poke fun at American political ignorance, and even the ignorance of Americans in general, but it is quite sobering (to say the least) to read in the foreign press, especially a news organization in a formerly communist country -- the hub of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire," Russia -- an article that makes  fun of the "ignorant Americans" who elected a communist President for the second time because the American public education system was taken over decades ago by communists who indoctrinated our young scholars in Marxism.  The implication is that -- like Pavlov's dog responding to Pavlov's bell, Americans responded, as they were taught, and voted for the communist candidate, Obama, when told to do so.

I couldn't help but think that someone ought to write a book (if they haven't already) entitled:  "The Manchurian Electorate!"

It is more than a little worrisome that America's enemies and former enemies understand what Americans have done to themselves and to their fellow countrymen.  It is clear to anyone willing to see that America is irreversibly divided and can no longer be considered a leader on the world stage. 

America is now a global joke!  Our President is considered a communist clown with the autonomy of a hand puppet.

There is no easy fix.  We first must decide whether we are to all be slaves, or if we are all to be free men once again. Or -- will we separate ourselves, one from the other?

America is now infected with communism and will surely die a slow agonizing death.  That cannot be reversed.  America IS terminal. 

The only question remaining, then, is how will those of us who desire freedom extract ourselves from the corpse that America is quickly becoming?

© J. D. Longstreet
********************


VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!) 
********************

Hypersmash.com

Ping Blog

Pingates

 

 

The U.S. is Blocking Energy Wealth and Jobs ... Alan Caruba

The U.S. is Blocking Energy Wealth and Jobs

By Alan Caruba

What if I told you that the government was blocking America’s prosperity in the form of enormous untapped energy reserves that represent wealth and jobs that would once again put America on the path to fiscal security and growth?

Recently, Matt Vespa, on CNS.com reported that the International Energy Agency released a report that said the United States has the capacity to outpace Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s leading producers of oil. It projected that the U.S. could become a net oil exporter around 2020. It could become entirely self-sufficient.

Even so, the Obama administration just moved to cordon off 1.6 million acres estimated to represent one trillion barrels worth of oil in the name of conservation. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to so encumber hydraulic fracturing—fracking—with so many regulations it will thwart increased use of this extraction technology that has been safely in use for decades.

As Dan Kish, Senior Vice President for Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, warns, there is a major government effort “to federalize hydraulic fracturing regulation” which is already being done by states “in a very professional and knowledgeable way. Take fracking away, the oil and gas production drops.”

For years, through many administrations, the federal government has been doing everything in its power to restrict drilling domestically and off-shore where billions of barrels of oil remains untapped. In October, a Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.”

As far back as 1976, Congress designated the Reserve a strategic oil and gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation”, but oil and gas that is not extracted meets no needs. It keeps the nation dependent on imported oil and gas. In an August 22 letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar from the entire Alaska delegation in Congress called it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.”

Noting that “Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from the acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby” the Journal pointed out that drilling on privately owned land has seen North Dakota pass Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas.”

According to the Congressional Research Service, “The federal government owns roughly 635-640 million acres of the land in the United States. Four agencies administer 609 million acres of this land; the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, and the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service, all in the Department of the Interior.” The Bureau of Land Management manages 248 million acres and is responsible for 700 million acres of subsurface mineral resources.

Mostly by stealth, more and more privately owned land is being purchased by the federal government. In September 2011, Audrey Hudson, writing for Human Events, reported that “The Obama administration is spending $35 million to buy 30,000 acres of private property across the U.S. this year to make permanent homes for mice, fairy shrimp, mussels, prairie bushes and beetles. Those are just some of the 70 critters and plants to benefit from the land purchases in a dozen states as part of the government’s habitat conservation plans for endangered species.”

Quoting Rob Gordon of The Heritage Foundation, Hudson reported that “The federal government already owns more land than Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Poland combined.” The Endangered Species Act is just an excuse to secure ownership of more land and, in particular, to restrict development of every description from housing to hospitals.

Instead of a future in which our oil and gas reserves could unleash all manner of economic growth and the generation of thousands of new jobs, Ben Wolfgang, reporting in the November 22 edition of The Washington Times, “The drilling process that has brought the U.S. energy independence within reach faces renewed scrutiny from the Obama administration and an uncertain future in many states.”

“Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a draft of its long-awaited report on suspected links between water pollution and fracking, which uses huge amounts of water, combined with sand and chemical mixtures, to crack underground rock and release trapped oil and gas.” Fracking, however, occurs well below underground water levels and has been shown to have no effect on it.

What we are witnessing is the deliberate effort by the Obama administration, in concert with earlier administrations, to deny the economic benefit of tapping the nation’s vast reserves of oil and gas domestically and off-shore. This was evident, as well, in the President’s decision about the XL Keystone pipeline on the grounds that it threatened aquifers if allowed to proceed. Thousands of jobs were lost in that single decision with no evidence of the truth of the assertion.

As the nation sinks further into economic decline and default, it is obvious that the nation’s energy sector is being thwarted at a time when it holds the promise of lifting it out of growing unemployment, higher energy costs, and the drumbeat of utterly false environmental claims about greenhouse gas emissions.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

****************************

Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

AMERIKA: The Police State ... J. D. Longstreet

AMERIKA:  The Police State
You Asked For This!  No. You Demanded it!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
********************

The old adage: "be careful what you ask for --  because YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT" is absolutely true when applied to America today.

More evidence that America is not just "becoming" a police state but is already deep into that brutal condition slapped me right in the face at the top of the Drudge report on the morning of November 20th, 2012.  The screaming headlines read:  "SENATE BILL LETS FEDS READ YOUR EMAIL."

Reading a bit farther and I learned the bill is even worse and more dangerous than the headlines would lead one to believe.   It actually allows allows the feds to read your e-mail WITHOUT FIRST OBTAINING A WARRANT!   And it gets worse.  It's not JUST your e-mail, either.

The "teaser" line to the article says: "Proposed law scheduled for a vote next week originally increased Americans' e-mail privacy. Then law enforcement complained. Now it increases government access to e-mail and other digital files."  (emphasis mine!)

We recommend you read the entire article which you will find here:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552225-38/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

Welcome, Comrades, to the bold new "Obama World!" 

This is a "told you so" moment,  if there has ever been one.   And it is only going to get worse. But, hey.  This is what America said she wanted -- cradle to grave monitoring by the federal government.

The article goes on to say the following:  "A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, (emphasis added) giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law."

The " ... rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge."  (Again -- Emphasis added)

The article by Declan McCullagh at CNET NEWS goes on to say:  "The list of agencies that would receive civil subpoena authority for the contents of electronic communications also includes the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission."

More freedom and liberty -- gone!  Of course, there is a chance this bill will not clear the full Congress.  (It is due to come up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday, November 29th.)  But don't count on it.

Many Americans now believe we have a government out of control, a rogue government bent on sealing America off into a new form of police state, a leftist dictatorship with Obama at it's head as President for Life, or some such grandiose title.  For those who still do not grasp what is happening, maybe the veritable blizzard of Presidential Executive Orders about to bury America after January 20th, 2013, will convince them.  But I doubt it.

Whatever happened to the Constitution?  If you are not familiar with the US Constitution you are most likely in the majority of Americans today.  Those of us who DO remember when the US was a constitutional republic understand that this is more evidence that the US Government has abandoned the constitution in favor of a socialist dictatorship.

I know. I know.  It's not a police state -- until the police come for YOU!  Believe me -- they are coming.

A commenter on a blog asked recently:  "What on earth would give the people we elect to represent us the idea that we want to live in a society which is monitored and controlled to this extent?"   To this scribe the answer is clear: The people we elect.

The police state is not coming to America -- it's here.  It may be a form of a "soft" police state, but that won't last.  A nation cannot flirt with despotism.  America did in 2008 and it gave us the election of 2012 and unless the people of the nation rise up and state "ENOUGH" it will lead us to another even more powerful dictator -- if there is a change, at all, in the occupant of the Oval Office.  After all, when the government no longer feels constrained by the constitution -- anything is possible.

So, this is the way American freedom and liberty dies, huh?   We're going out with a whimper, not a war cry, on our knees rather than on our feet fighting like hell to protect our birthright.

In my naïveté, up 'til the election on Tuesday November 6th, I had thought my fellow Americans would make a fight of it.  On the following morning I was disabused of that deeply mistaken belief. It was as if the revolution had been called -- and nobody showed up!

I think Americans will be surprised at the rapidity with which the change-over from constitutional republic to socialist dictatorship will proceed.  The lightening speed of the transition is due to many decades of advance planning. 

Like the many executive orders now resting in a secure vault somewhere have been written, rewritten, and finessed, (even before the election) to expedite their issuance and enforcement early next year, the installation of America's socialist dictatorship was planned long ago. The foundation has long been laid.  Like a prefab building, all that remains is for the pieces to be set atop the foundation and bolted in place.

Now we are ALL just gawkers watching our prison being constructed right before our eyes.

© J. D. Longstreet
********************


VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
********************

Hypersmash.com

Ping Blog

Pingates

 

 

Reaping The Whirlwind ... J. D. Longstreet

Reaping The Whirlwind
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*********************

A whirlwind is a vertical column of air whirling around itself as it moves over the surface of the Earth.  Think about that for a moment.

Now.  Consider this:  "For they sow the wind; and they reap the whirlwind."  That is from the Old Testament book of Hosea chapter 8 verse 7.

Like so many of the conservative commentariat,  I am STILL trying to analyze why America deliberately decided to turn a corner, or choose a path, that will unquestionably lead to its own destruction.  

The choice to forsake a constitutional republic for a socialist, collectivist, Marxist, form of government is surreal.  It's like something from a bad science fiction movie in which the population is entirely controlled by some malevolent entity intent upon controlling the world.

I made a terrible mistake (concerning the recent Presidential Election) when I assumed the American people still had enough common sense, enough discernment, enough honor left to do the right thing. 

The American electorate proved me wrong.

Our ship of state was (is) (so obviously) headed toward the jagged rocks I assumed we would remove the less-than-adequate helmsman and replace him with a real mariner who would stir us away from certain destruction on the shoals and rocks. I was wrong. 

The reelection of Obama was a grand victory for ignorance.  It is the pay-off for years of indoctrination in our public schools.  The old Judeo-Christian ethics have been purged from our public education system in favor of secular humanism.  You can lay the blame for paving the way for it at the feet of our leftist, radical, Supreme Court and the Court's rulings from as far back as the 1960's. 

Abraham Lincoln is given credit for saying: "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."  Whoever said it -- it was spot on. 

If you, perhaps, thought those of us who warned for decades of the trouble ahead for America due to the secular (and even religious) humanism being taught in our public schools were just blowing smoke -- consider the following carefully: Expanding upon the role the public education establishment should play to bring about the goals described in the Humanist Manifesto II, John Dunphy wrote: "I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being...The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist_Manifesto      

The generation of Americans who elected -- and then reelected -- Obama were graduates of this public school system.  They were programmed to act as automatons, to choose loyalty to the state over loyalty to God and their family.  They marched to the polls and did as they had been told, indeed, had been taught -- indoctrinated to do.

Author Ron Taylor, in his book  "Agenda 21: An Expose of the United Nations" in which he writes of  the  "Sustainable Development Initiative and the Forfeiture of American Sovereignty and Liberties" says the following:  "It is their stated goal...to steal one generation of children and teach them to place loyalty to the state above loyalty to family."

See, this generation knows almost nothing of American history.  They know next to nothing about the Judeo-Christian origin of America.  They are ignorant of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.  The only thing they know about capitalism and the American system of free markets is what they were taught -- that capitalism is bad.  They know far more about the benefits of Socialism and Marxism and "equality." 

"Those coming out of years of humanistic brainwashing masquerading as public education know little of the Bible, America's Christian origins and founding documents, and the blessings of free-market capitalism. Instead, they know a great deal about sex education, values clarification, moral relativism, Darwinian evolution, Socialism and Marxism, earth worship, multiculturalism, one-world globalism, Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and appeasement foreign policy. Products of these schools comprised the Obama voters in 2012."  SOURCE:  http://www.bibleprophecyblog.com/2012/11/there-arose-another-generation-after.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BibleProphecyBlog+%28Bible+Prophecy+Blog%29#                    

The definition of discernment is:  The cognitive condition of someone who understands.  It also means:  The trait of judging wisely and objectively.  We learned on November 6th that "discernment" is something that is "verging" on extinction in America today.  We no longer know our right hand from our left -- nor good from evil.  Thanks to moral relativism, better known as political correctness, modern Americans believe there is no such thing as good and evil, or right and wrong.  Everything is, well, relative. 

It no longer matters what scripture teaches us, what history teaches us, what experience teaches us, what common sense teaches us, nor what plain old morality teaches us. No.  Now it is -- how do I feel about it.  "I," and/or "Me," is at the center of their very existence. 

For a perfect example of this self-centered life, one has only to listen to one of our President's speeches.  Try to keep a running tally of the number of times the words "I" and "Me" and "MY" are spoken in a single address.  What is equally troubling is how effective the narcissism indoctrination of our young scholars has been.  For the most part, they don't even notice the over-abundant use of those personal pronouns "I" and "me" and the  "possessive" adjective "my,"  because,  to them, it's NORMAL!   How inexpressively sad that is.          

Some years ago, I left my church when I "discerned" it was swinging away from the Gospels and embracing the apostate teachings of the leftist political agenda.  Now, we have social justice, environmentalism, inclusiveness, tolerance, multiculturalism, all lovingly spoken of from the pulpits of our religious community. 

With all the respect I can muster for those of America's religious community who have sold out to mammon, allow me to ask:  Are you REALLY surprised that the leftist agenda you supported, and led your flocks to support, would come back to bite you?   As you have now learned, you cannot pick and choose which parts of the leftist agenda you will support and which parts you will not. It is all -- or nothing!

The reason so many are so concerned about the reelection of Obama is not JUST his Socialist/Marxist agenda only.  It is the sudden understanding that this was a culmination of all the work the progressive left has done in our schools and our churches since, at least, the late 1940's.

The progressive left has successfully created a hybrid American. They have created a society wholly dependent  upon others for, well, everything.  Easily led these new Americans can be made to do, say, and believe anything their masters want.  They are the perfect slaves.  And they are self perpetuating.

Ultimately, it means the death of America -- the stabilizing force on the planet. Without America, chaos will reign on planet earth. 

THAT is why we are so troubled and upset by the results of the election.  Obama's reelection was the final step toward a single world-wide government or "global governance."

For many decades now we have diligently sown the wind.  Now, we shall reap the harvest from that which we have so blithely sown -- the whirlwind.  

© J. D. Longstreet
********************


VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
********************

Hypersmash.com

Ping Blog 

Pingates

UN Climate Change Thieves Gather in Qatar ... Alan Caruba

UN Climate Change Thieves Gather in Qatar

 

 

By Alan Caruba   Unlike previous gatherings of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 18th one occurring in Doha, Qatar between November 26 and December 7 is likely to shun media coverage of their schemes to enrich participants who want massive transfers of money from developed to undeveloped nations. Thieves work best in the dark. These are the folks who came up with the Kyoto Protocols that were intended to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), in order to save the Earth from becoming a crispy desert as the result of global warming. Adopted on December 11, 1997, the protocols set “binding targets for 37 industrialized nations and the European community with the goal of reducing 1990 levels of CO2 over a five-year period 2008 to 2012." Two major emitters, China and India, were exempted from the Protocols, thus rendering it even more idiotic than it already was. The UN explained this, saying “Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibilities.'” In other words, developed nations have more money and any “industrial activity” must be punished for causing “global warming.” The problem for the Protocols was that the United States Senate unanimously rejected to signing on to this hoax. Then, in 2009, the exposure of emails between the “scientists” responsible for the data the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was putting out to scare the pants off of everyone about “global warming”—since dubbed Climategate—revealed they were not only rigging the computer models, but were increasingly worried that the planet had entered a new, perfectly natural, cooling cycle. It is worth noting that, in 2011, Canada, Japan and Russia announced they would not take on further Kyoto targets. The Canadian government invoked Canada's legal right to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on December 12 2011. Having initially committed to cutting its greenhouse emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, Environment Minister Peter Kent had earlier cited Canada's liability to "enormous financial penalties" under the treaty unless it withdrew. Smart people those Canadians, leading the way for Japan and Russia to depart as well. The Kyoto Protocols were an international deception perpetrated by the UN. The Earth has been cooling for the past sixteen years. Carbon Dioxide has nothing—zero—to do with the planet’s temperature and all warming comes from the Sun. Even so, representatives to COP 18 are gathering to create a “Green Climate Fund” for the same purpose that existed in 1997. Not long ago Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was interviewed by Elizabeth Kolbert of Yale Environment 360, and it appeared in the Nov 21 edition of The Guardian, a British newspaper. She babbled on about “the inevitability of world economies making the transition to a low-carbon future” and “the need for politicians to feel the same urgency as climate scientists about the threats posed by global warming.” As we have seen, there are bad climate scientists who rig the computer models representing a huge rise in the Earth’s overall average temperature and there are good climate scientists who have waged a long and increasingly successful effort to debunk the greatest hoax of the modern era. The bad ones profit from the grants and other financial support they receive. They good ones are defamed as “skeptics” and “deniers.” In 1992, Al Gore launched his global warming career and road to riches with a book, “Earth in the Balance.” Among his more insane recommendations was the elimination of the internal combustion engine within twenty-five years. Those engines can be found under the hood of the millions of cars that are a very popular form of transportation. Ron Arnold, Executive Vice President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, recently cited a report by the Virginia-based Science and PublicPolicy Institute—a leading opponent of global warming—regarding the complete futility of any effort by the U.S. to reduce CO2 emissions. Its author, Paul Knappenberg, based his assumptions on an IPCC report spelling out a scenario in which “the U.S. as a whole stopped emitting all carbon dioxide emissions immediately.” He found that “the ultimate impact on projected global temperature rise would be a reduction or a ‘savings’ of approximately 0.08 degrees Centigrade by the year 2050 and 0.17 degrees Centigrade by the year 2100”; results that would be negligible. Arnold noted that “not only do the rest of the world’s new emissions completely replace ours in just 6.6 years, but China’s growth alone replaces them in less than 11 years.” If you want to know about the Earth’s “balance” than it is useful to know that the release of carbon dioxide comes in part from its several hundred active volcanoes, from forest fires, and from the many animals, including humans, who exhale it. Without CO2, every tree, every blade of grass, and all the crops of the Earth would die and, shortly thereafter, all human and animal life would die as well. The Earth balances CO2 emissions with carbon sinks that absorb and release it as they have done for much of its 4.5 billion years of existence. If there was any truth to the claim that CO2 is heating the Earth, one would have to ignore all of its previous ice ages that were followed by natural warming periods, including the most recent mini-ice age from about 1300 to 1850. In addition to COP 18, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to unleash an avalanche of new regulations all aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by everything from utilities to major industries, as well as smaller ones such as your local bakery. The “science” the EPA cites is totally bogus. It will close many of the coal-fired utilities that produce the bulk of the nation’s electricity. Inside of a decade the EPA may put them all out of business. There are vast forces, all masquerading as “saving the Earth”, at the international and national level that are seeking to wreck all the technological advances the people of the Earth take for granted and the citizens of the United States need to survive. That’s all you really need to know about COP 18 and the EPA. © Alan Caruba, 2012 *************************** Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.