Posted on 06/21/2002 12:29:24 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
For many years now, the federal government has been usurping the powers of the states.
Today, state governments mostly consider themselves subservient to the will of Washington – gladly accepting marching orders, pathetically holding out their hands for money extracted from their own taxpayers and generally serving as an extension of the federal bureaucracy.
It is only in that context that one can begin to comprehend the nightmarish, Orwellian nature of the latest federal-state power grab.
It's called the Model State Health Powers Act.
Financed by the federal Centers for Disease Control, it was hatched in Washington with the cooperation of the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the National Association of City and County Health Officials and the National Association of Attorneys General.
It was a big topic of conversation at the recent NGA meeting in Boise, Idaho.
What's so scary about the MSHPA?
It is a law being introduced in all 50 state legislatures granting emergency powers to governors and public-health authorities – powers so sweeping they would make Benito Mussolini blush.
The act authorizes the collection of private medical data and other records on you and your family. It authorizes the "control of property" – a nice term for confiscation of everything, including – but not limited to – your house, your car, your guns, your food, your clothing and your fuel. It authorizes the management of people – meaning forced vaccinations, incarceration and restrictions on transportation. It also authorizes the government to seize control of communications.
Now, as I read that prescription, it smacks of tyranny. It reeks of fascism.
Under this model legislation, which is gaining steam across America, one man or woman – the governor – can declare a public-health emergency and assume all of the powers above.
Many believe that because this act came up after Sept. 11 that it has to do with bio-terrorism or nuclear or chemical attacks. But the public health emergency doesn't need to have any tie to terror.
Already, 11 states have passed emergency health powers acts based on this model. Another 22 are considering them. Only six states – Idaho, Nebraska, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Washington state – have rejected them.
This is serious stuff. It leaves me wondering if Americans are threatened more by terrorism or by the war on terrorism.
It appears our government no longer considers Osama bin Laden public enemy No. 1. Now it's Joe Citizen who finds himself in the crosshairs.
We're on the verge of losing our constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures. We're being desensitized as a people every day.
Maybe you don't think your governor is a threat to your personal freedom. Maybe you just think this is one more law that won't amount to a hill of beans or affect your life. Maybe you're right. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
Remember, I told you that this legislation can only be understood in the context of the way Washington, D.C., has the states under its thumb. Remember where this legislation originated. Remember who paid for it. Remember who is pushing it.
This is no way to fight terrorism. We ought to be empowering the American people as soldiers, not reducing them to the enemy. We ought to be figuring out ways to protect the public, with shelters and air-filtration units and civil defense stockpiling. We ought to be asking the public to enlist in this war, not preparing to round them up and attack them.
This debacle is evidence of a failure of leadership at the very top – President Bush, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, etc. They have steadfastly rejected common-sense anti-terrorism measures such as firearms in the cockpits and instead favored a command-and-control bureaucracy building that will never make any of us safer.
It's easy being a civil libertarian when times are good – when there are no real threats on the horizon. The real challenge to constitutional government comes in times of crisis, in times of war, in times of attack.
There's no question we're in a real war against terrorism. But it's our own government, once again, that's really scaring me.
A point of view that does much to explain how a two-bit street thug and murderer named Padilla can conspire with the al Qaeda to destroy or disrupt tens of thousands of US citizens' lives with a dirty nuke and be transformed into a folk hero by his merely being taken into custody by the "true terrorists," the United States government.
America will be no more in a few short years. People have all too willingly accepted the excuse "America is still better than other places in the world" (as we have moved closer and closer to those places "We" didn't really want to live in ).
Instead as American's before us, we should have said "This isn't good enough and "We" won't stand for it."
Even now American's apathically accept the barage of socialism forced on us.
Hitler said "Tell the people a lie long enough and they will believe it."
The UN being a "Peace keeping organization" is a lie. It is a tool created by the elites to help create world rule.
The "Drug War" is a lie. It was used to steal our Right to privacy and illegal search and seizure.
Something "We" have willingly given up to stop the drug trade, something else promoted by the elites.
"Hate Crime Laws" are another lie. Created to curb Free Speech.
And willingly accepted by politically correct American's.
In my opinion those words cannot be used together and mean anything "politically correct American's".
Communism and Facism were other lies created to keep the world at odds, instead of at Peace. They are replaced today with the New Lie, Terrorism.
Something that bush is using to completely change our form of government and seal our fates in the new world order.
Don't believe me, listen to the horse then.
On February 1, 1992 president george herbert walker bush stated:
"My vision of a New World Order forsees the UN with a revitalized peacekeeping function. It is the sacred principles enshrined in the UN charter to which we henceforth pledge our allegiance."
It may be sacred to devil worshippers, but to a Free People it's very deadly.
And all I see is "American's sitting idly by while their country and heritages are stolen from them, and their children are doomed to a future of slavery.
Go figure.......
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