"Why are you talking about this? It's not important." That's why I'm talking about it. Because if you won't push back against the small-scale stuff, by the time they come for the big things you'll no longer know how to rouse yourself. In old, settled societies, tyranny starts at the edge and works its way inwards. And the essence of tyranny is its capriciousness.
Frog in boiling pot of water story!! We are being boiled right now and it’s too late to jump out.
Auction halls are in a panic to get anything with ivory out of their halls or warehouses for fear that armed fees will come in and confiscate and destroy anything they declare illegal
This includes such things as antique Steinway pianos with ivory keys.
Friends with booths at antique malls have been sent emails giving them a week or two to get anything with ivory out of their booths or the management will remove and destroy it
Importantly, the lever the feds you is the school lunch program. And for decades they have demanded that schools must follow their rules or be cut off from the lunch program.
However, there are now hundreds of requirements all threatening the same thing, so states are seriously considering allowing school districts to opt out of the federal program, if they can provide their own program at greater efficiency, that is, lower cost and more meals served.
This makes sense, if say, the feds offer $1 per student per day, but demand $3 per student per day back in unrelated compliance costs. If the school can raise $1.50 per student per day, they can actually save lots of money by canceling all the other federal demands.
Bttt.
5.56mm
Steyn ping ...
I used to get greatly encouraged reading Mark Steyn’s commentary. Now I just want to weep for my country.
Steyn is a great writer
Today's jobs situation, for instance, is the result of departure from our constitutional foundations. It has been brought about by the so-called "progressives'" takeover of the reins of government.
As for "job creation,"--just think about it. The most successful "experiment" in job and wealth creation is the one which began in 1776 in America, was protected and "secured" by a written Constitution that severely limited government, and it thrived for over two centuries. It provided an example of more liberty and opportunity, more productivity, and more goods and services than the world ever has seen.
It happened under what James Madison called "the benign influence of a responsible government."
While Europe struggled with oppressive government intervention, the genius Founders of America recognized enduring truths about human nature, the human tendency to abuse power, and the possibilities of liberty for individuals. Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:
"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'
Clearly the government of France laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof. Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."
Thomas Jefferson warned Americans:
"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
Note Jefferson's very last thought here. He declares that when government taxing and debt have reached certain levels, in order for individuals to survive, then their chosen "employment" becomes "hiring ourselves to rivet their (the government's) chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers."
Consider: in 2009, where are America's levels of employment highest? Is it in the once-thriving private sector, or in the ever-increasing government sector?
Have we reached that final phase of what Jefferson described as a logical end to what begins as letting "our rulers load us with perpetual debt"--a state where we actually become participants by "hiring ourselves" to make slaves of our fellow citizens?
Where to, America?
Trickle Down Tyranny.
If Obama doesn’t have to follow the Constitution, why should the police, or any other government official?
We’ve all seen it. Everywhere.