Dear Obama,Please Leave Me Alone

RightBias.com ^ | February 8, 2011 | Nancy Morgan

[nancyvideo]

Dear Obama,

I'm not a member of the elite. I'm not a millionaire and I don't claim to have any power or influence. I'm just an average taxpayer who lives in fly-over country. On behalf of all the Suzy Homemaker's and Joe Six-Pack's who are my neighbors, I'd like to request a favor. Please, please, leave us alone.

With all due respect for your office Mr. Obama, you were...

[GailA]

DITTO, hubby’s pension check is $30 less per month than last year. Which was $10 less per month than the year before.

[GailA]

I forgot to add between SS and Pension we don’t make no stinking $250K, less than 1/4th of that amount.

[ClearCase_guy]

I have a neighbor who accuses Republicans of being nazis who want to oppress her and control her. I say, "No, we just want to be left alone. It's the Democrats who are always passing new laws to control what people can do, what they can eat, and how they can make a living."

She tells me I'm wrong.

Of course, what's really going on is that her politics is centered around abortion. Her party can be as oppressive as they want, but if they support abortion, they are the Good Guys. My party can promote liberty as much as it wants, but if we oppose abortion, we are control freaks.

[ozark hilljilly]

Add my name to that letter!

[gunnyg]

The Right To Be Left Alone.......

http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/the-right-to-be-left-alone-via-the-gunny-g-blog-e-mail-5/

[alecqss]

Morgan’s community has to be organized...

[gunnyg]

The Right to Be Left Alone

by Mark Skousen

http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/0205alone.html

“The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men—the right to be let alone.”

-JUSTICE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS

According to Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, one of the “repeated injuries and usurpations” committed against the American people by the King of England was the erecting of “a multitude of New Offices, and . . . swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Today, following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the American people face another troublesome threat—swarms of security agents harassing us at airports, borders, buildings, and highways. Like many of you who travel frequently, my wife, Jo Ann, and I have been subjected to these often overzealous security guards who ask inane questions; force us to remove our shoes, jackets, and belt buckles; and meticulously go through our carry-on bags. I’ve had my fingernail clippers confiscated twice. Jo Ann was frisked three times in one day. Others have fared far worse. My friend and IOL fellow columnist Walter Williams was almost arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, after he refused to be patted down. A congressman was required to disrobe. After these security encounters, I always feel my privacy, indeed my dignity, has been violated.

President George W. Bush has urged citizens to return to normal life, but business and domestic affairs are never the same when a war is on, and this war on terrorism is no exception.1 Bush’s proposed federal budget jumped 9 percent from last year, pushing the United States into a deficit again. Private enterprise has been forced to spend billions on security measures, a real burden on a recessionary economy. (Imagine, intelligent employees spending the rest of their lives trying to catch some nut out there, representing 1/1000 of 1 percent of travelers.) Airport security has now become federalized. And we have become, in the words of Sheldon Richman, “tethered citizens.”

In revolutionary times, colonists were so incensed by the invasions of privacy and other personal abuses by British officers that Congress’s first act was to pass a Bill of Rights, including Amendment III, “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law,” and Amendment IV, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Fourth Amendment forms the basis of a “right to privacy,” the right to be left alone, as Justice Louis Brandeis put it. The enjoyment of financial and personal privacy is fundamental to a free and civil society. True liberty is to be able to walk down the street, cash a check, buy goods, talk on the telephone, or take a trip without being hassled, hounded, followed, or interrogated by government agents. People should be able to get away from the madding crowds without being followed or asked stupid questions. When I travel abroad, there is no better feeling than walking through the green customs door marked “Nothing to Declare.” When I return home and close the door, there is a feeling of security, knowing that the police aren’t going to break it down in the middle of the night for a “warrantless” search. It happened in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, but surely not in America!

Privacy Eroding

Yet the right to privacy so cherished by Americans of generations past is gradually eroding. New airport-security laws require all travelers to carry a “government-issued” ID, usually a driver’s license or passport. Thus we have come dangerously close to creating a national identity card for all Americans. The war on drugs has made it virtually impossible to deal legally in large amounts of cash, the most anonymous form of doing business. Some banks are requiring thumbprints for identification. Mandatory drug-testing of students and employees is becoming commonplace without any reference to the constitutional principle of “probable cause.” Since September 11, police routinely check automobiles and trucks coming into New York City without a warrant. Tampa and other big cities are videotaping citizens in “crime-prone” areas around the clock. California and other states are capturing all drivers on film and issuing tickets for alleged speeders.

I wrote the first book on financial privacy in the early 1980s.2 It was a huge underground hit, selling over 400,000 copies. Clearly, vulnerable Americans felt the need for protection against potential lawsuits, government surveillance, prying relatives, aggressive salesmen, and professional thieves. From time to time, I am asked to do an updated edition, but I have refused. Why? Because the law has changed and become so complex that it takes a full-time professional to stay up on all the dos and don’ts. However, I can recommend an excellent newsletter that focuses on privacy issues: The Financial Privacy Report, published and written by Michael Ketcher (to subscribe, call 1-866-429-6681; P.O. Box 1277, Burnsville, MN 55337).

Despite the recent intrusions into individual personal affairs, you can still maintain a certain degree of privacy. You can take a car, bus, or train, and go to most destinations without being noticed or tracked. In small transactions, you can still pay with cash instead of using credit cards or checks. You can buy a large number of gold and silver coins with cash and avoid reporting requirements. You can refuse to give your Social Security number to schools, hospitals, dentist and doctor offices, insurance companies, and most private organizations (but not banks, brokers, or the IRS). You can open a foreign bank account with less than $10,000 and not have to report it. You can use a post office box to keep direct mail promoters from contacting you. You can demand a search warrant before allowing the police to come into your house or business, or to search your automobile.

In short, by maintaining a low profile, you can usually avoid the scrutiny of overzealous bureaucrats, nosy neighbors, or jealous relatives.

1. Historian Robert Higgs makes this very clear in his excellent article, “How War Makes Government Bigger,” Ideas on Liberty, December 2001.
2. Mark Skousen, The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy (Alexandria House Books, 1979; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983).

http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/0205alone.html
–

[jnsun]

That is a very accurate anecdote, and the common one. I call it bigotry - the only thing she can see is her own agenda. Leftist bigotry. One could, and should, go on and on about the stupidity and ugliness of leftist bigotry.

Incidentally, she can do what she wants about her own abortion, that's her sad business, but to force others to pay for it, is quite literally criminal. It's not like we haven't had explicit sex education in public schools for the last fifty years, along with patrimony legislation which has always been in place. Ala leftist bigotry.

Johnny Suntrade

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

You should say this to your moonbat neighbor....

“If it were possible for me to travel back to a point in time when your mother was three months pregnant with you in her womb, would you be OK with it if I talked your mother into having an abortion?”

“If not, why not?”

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Remember “get in their face”?

[gunnyg]

try the wayback machine...

http://web.archive.org/web/20080429085239/http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/0205alone.html

[deadrock]

Please, please, leave us alone.

Too late. The colonoscopy tube ain't coming out anytime soon.

[ClearCase_guy]

I've actually done that! She says that her situation was different. Her parents loved each other, wanted a child, and had financial resources. Therefore, talking her parents into having an abortion would have been wrong and immoral and unthinkable. No, no, no. What she's talking about is the important task of making abortion available to the people who are beneath her, and need her guidance. She wants to help them.

The arrogance is sickening.

[screaminsunshine]

She had an abortion and is feeling the guilt. Bet on it. Having one does severe mental damage to the woman.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

You certainly have my sympathies having this woman as a neighbor.

I only have one neighbor here in the sticks of Maine and he’s a conservative.

[snowrip]

Love it... copied and sent to friends.

Like the author, I am not a millionaire. I don’t move in the circles of the elite or the politically-connected. In fact, I work in health insurance. My company has laid of nearly 4000 employees, and our company stock has gone from $58/share to $9 in eight months. My income is down nearly 50% in the past six months. These developments are due entirely to the pressures that the Obamacare legislation has exerted on my company and the industry in which I work, and the results are the same across that industry. Conversely, my family’s insurance coverage is up almost $250/month for the same reasons.

Obama is a communist POS who deserves to burn for what he has done to America and ordinary Americans.

[rockinqsranch]

“With all due respect for your office Mr. Obama,.....”

Don’t ya wish he did?

[divine_moment_of_facts]

You nailed it my FRiend!

[The Comedian]

NO

Today is a good day to die.
I didn't say for whom.