Badge of Honor for Obama.
Pretty ironic to be placed lower than a country stereotyped as surrender.
Zimbabwe, here we come !
(JF'nK approves)
Remember the words from our own Declaration of Independence?
Then, there is the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation and control by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited. Under this arrangement, "the People" were more apt to "enjoy the Blessings of liberty."
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 at that 1868 date 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
The saddest thing here is the FReepers blaming Obama. This has been going on since LBJ (including St. Ron).
You think a Republican POTUS in 2016 will try to make us MORE free? You think President Romney is going to reign in the TSA? You think President Christie is going to relax the drug war? Even if Cruz is elected, what do you think will actually happen?
It’s our fault. We lost our freedom while we were more interested in other things. It’s not coming back.