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To: Delacon
Here we go! Divide and conquer is their strategy - they'll have so many hot button issues on the table that protesters on various issues will just be labeled fringe kooks and we'll lose on every front. I believe we need a unifying figure to command media attention ... anyone? :-(

"Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the "Fairness Doctrine" without actually calling it such."

8 posted on 02/16/2009 6:07:51 PM PST by Tunehead54 (Nothing funny here ;-)
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To: Tunehead54; All

Tunehead54, I do agree that divide and conquer is one part of their strategy.

Divide and conquer is a great strategy for the liberals, after all, that is their bread and butter in their policital world, playing one minority group off against another, each vying to see who can be the biggest victim or special interest group. Conservatives, in a lot of cases, didn’t even have to take any action to get the liberals involved in vicious infighting against each other, often with hilarious results. But the left did it much more effectively to us, and with intent. The Democrats pulled the stinking carcass of immigration out of the bag and threw it on the table, then sat back and never said a word, figuratively speaking. They knew we would go after it, as we should have. It was and is a worthy issue, but they used it as a tool. That can be effective on passionate people, even smart, thoughtful ones. We are all human. But I digress.

I don’t think having one unifying issue or grievance is the key.

However many the list of grievances, keep in mind that a blizzard is not one massive snowflake, it is a lot of small, individual ones. That collection of single snowflakes could bring down the strongest oak tree. It is that accumulation, the death by a thousand cuts that occasionally moves more earth than the largest earthquake or tidal wave could ever accomplish. (A good example is to compare what erosion over time does to land versus an earthquake or tidal wave.)

Just Look at the list of grievances our forefathers had:
******************************************************

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

******************************************************
That is a long list of a lot of grievances.

Someone asked in a post the other day: “What will it take to wake up the giant?”

The way I see it, there are two major issues that will wake up enough people and bring enough people together to breathe life back into this country of ours. Those two issues are:

Freedom of Speech and The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The “Fairness Doctrine” is a direct attack on freedom of speech. It is not even oblique, cloaked or subtle. it is head on. But it simply isn’t a monolithic attack on loud, opinionated talk-show hosts. It is this, in conjunction with a lot of other issues dear to liberal hearts, including chillingly Orwellian inventions such as Hate Speech and Political Correctness. Even campaign finance reform. Look at the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform legislation. Most Americans who were paying attention didn’t see at all for what it was, and the rest, well...they simply weren’t paying attention. It was a high stakes political poker game, and our Freedoms of Speech were the bargaining chips. Make no mistake, it was the liberals who were pushing it, because they knew that CFR had absolutely nothing at all to do with money, and had EVERYTHING to do with freedom of speech. What could be worse for a liberal than for someone to get vocal leading up to an election and attempt to point out the Emperor ain’t got no clothes. If they could find a way to legally duct tape those mouths, it only benefits them.

My President signed it into law. To this day, this man I supported and still think did a great job, signed that anti-constitutional bill into law. He failed badly when his pen hit the paper that day. He punted it down to the courts to overturn...he NEVER should have done that. But he did. And...the courts didn’t. And in my eyes, he bears the brunt. He abdicated his duty as President. But that bill is law, the Fairness Doctrine could become law, extensive Hate Speech legislation at the federal level cannot be far behind.

And the next thing you know...you have to be careful. You have to watch what you’re saying. You find yourself looking over your shoulder before saying something. You hear about people getting arrested for saying things. You see laudatory reports on the news about kids who reported what their parents said to officials at school. We have seen it all before. You would think people would recognize it. But they seem not to.

I think this steady erosion of freedom of speech will turn out to be one major galvanizing point among Americans.

The other will be the effort of the government to disarm the population. Five years ago, I was not a gun owner, and I would have ranked gun rights below some other issues. I now understand what it means to own a firearm, the responsibility that comes with that right, and the ultimate reason our founding fathers thought it was important enough to put as number two on the list of rights. The ownership of guns can prevent tyranny by the very government that is supposed to serve us. Most dictatorships understand they must disarm the populace. The Second Right insures The First.

Anyway, I got carried away, but the bottom line is, we have room for a lot of grievances. it isn’t a zero-sum game. The more grievances you throw on top, the better the odds become of fixing at least some of them. Liberals allude to that in “Rules for Radicals”, but their motivation, focus and intent is very different from the “worse is going to be better” approach by many conservatives. True Liberals want to take your rights away. True Conservatives want to keep them.

What set me off on this long response? I finally purchased my own copy of “The Road to Serfdom”. I read it a few years back, but it didn’t seem very relevant at the time, so while it left an impression on me, it didn’t affect me the way “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers did. However, as this last election progressed and I began to see very ominous signs that the country didn’t seem to be all that upset that a committed socialist was running for the Presidency. As I watched this, culminating in the famous “Joe The Plumber” episode, my mind turned more and more to “The Road to Serfdom”. I began to try to dredge up pieces of it, then finally checked it out from the Library. It is stunning and heartbreaking. After reading the first two chapters, I stopped on my way home from work and purchased a copy I could mark up and keep. So far, the book is a clear, unequivocal and chilling warning not only with respect to the economic dangers of socialism and the descent into tyranny it always results in, but in our empty headed willingness to continually dally with it. “Nobody has done it right yet...” So we forget socialism only leads to misery, pain, tyranny, poverty and war. Witness Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union.

Yet, to avoid it, all we must do is open our eyes and pay attention...look at the past, and try not to repeat it. But with both eyes tightly closed (literally) our elected officials signed this horrific legislation and many Americans are now holding out their hands with their eyes tightly closed as well.


12 posted on 02/16/2009 8:20:34 PM PST by rlmorel ("The Road to Serfdom" by F.A.Hayek - Read it...today.)
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To: Tunehead54

This is one thing that I would go To Washington DC,along with Hopefully a large percentage of fellow Radio listeners,to shut down that pathetic city to show those Commie Bastards what we are thinking ,We believe in FREE Speech and there is still a small vestige of America Left


17 posted on 02/17/2009 3:08:43 AM PST by ballplayer
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