Death of American Twins, Liberty and Freedom

Self

[Old philosopher]

Today, November 25, 2002, with the signature of George W. Bush creating the Department of Homeland Security, a milestone in the History of our great country was marked by the death of the Twin Pillars of our society, Freedom and Liberty.

The fight to keep alive these two foundations of our Nation has been a long and arduous one. The mercilous attacks on them have come from politicians on both sides of the aisle in their ever continuing grab for more and more power. Regardless of popular support for the twins, the political class has long sought to bring about their demise. In a "Bi-Partisan" effort both houses of Congress have voted to destroy the most important rights of the People, only a very few of the Congress opposed the death of these important twins.

Those of us who have known these twins for a long time will be very much saddened by their death, and those who have only known them briefly will soon learn how important they were to the Welfare and Security of our Great Country. With the death of Liberty and Freedom it will only be a short time until the Populace of this country will be living under a Dictatorship, controlled by an "Elite" class of politicians who will dictate every facet of our lives.

Requiem In Pacet!

[budwiesest]

This from the bottom of your post at #220 is pretty good:

Our " fate ", as you call it, depends , to a very large extent, upon more and more people waking up to the fact that the government isn't GOD, doesn't owe them the fulfillment of their every desire, and that Marxism ( in any form / permutation ) doesn't work. It would also help, a very great deal, if more people ( including a whole lot of FREEPERS ! ) took the time to stop demanding the impossible and worked towards the possible. :-)

I highlighted my favorite parts.
Today, while driving through my sleepy little town's main street I noticed a check-point set up for 'seatbelt' compliance, directly in front of the Post Office with an ATM across the street.

Here's where I break with the pro-govt conservative. Was this in any way a sincere attempt by local law enforcement to insure driver safety or could this have been a 'fishing' expedition? ie. running plates, driver's licenses, looking for a warrant, along with generating whatever revenues that might then have to be sent to the county for any violations.

I realize law enforcement has the power to enforce the many wonderful laws that our legislators pass re: motor vehilces, but is this warranted?

Should every holiday season be marred with gestapo-like attempts at reducing highway death tolls, forcing those who are not even suspected of a crime to enduring these types of searches?

My take is that "Buckle up for safety, buckle up" has been corrupted by something a bit more sinister.

[Cultural Jihad]

You are free to walk or ride your bicycle if the self-governed laws of a free people enacted by free will are too much of a burden for your shoulders to bear.

[budwiesest]

If the laws enacted by a free people exercising free will are subsequently abused by a government agency tweeking said laws and free will in order to fulfill a revenue enhancement/political agenda, then bicycling and walking amount to surrender.

Real Americans don't give up that easily. They rebel quite naturally against tyranny and sadly, have yet to be thoroughly vaccinated against socialism. Prescription medicines, anyone?

[Cultural Jihad]

---

They have assisted in the encroachment upon our privacy by probing our identities, activities, and belongings without cause. They have enforced an errant 'lowered expectation of privacy' in our vehicles pulling us over for whimsical reasons and intimidating us into searches. They have concocted transgressions and arrested us when we refuse their assaults on our privacy. They have placed video cameras on our street corners and highways to catalog victimless Non-Crimes, and extort money from inoffensive citizens.

They have hypocritically demanded that we not be armed during our interactions with them, for 'officer safety.' They have enforced gun registration laws, establishing a fundamental step on the way to complete gun confiscation. They have confiscated guns and knives for trivial reasons, severely damaging the American right to revolution, forcing us into channels of change that the authorities themselves control.

They have subverted our personal human interactions by requiring government permission for public gatherings. They have wrenched our public property away from us by closing parks at night, preventing loitering, and harassing skateboarders. They have waged a war on poverty- -outlawing panhandling, public sleeping, and hitchhiking. -allowing our justice system to be controlled by wealth, imprisoning small criminals, but allowing great criminals to go free.

They have harassed our children and stolen away the freedom of their youth by enforcing local curfews and underage drinking laws. They have contributed to an unhealthy social sexuality, declaring the human body 'indecent' by enforcing public 'indecency' laws. They have been the hand of censorship against 'obscenity.'

They have kept us from using fast, though safe, speeds that we know we can handle, becoming the willing tools in using us as a source of revenue. They have sped faster than we do to stop us from speeding.

They have undermined adult consent by waging a war on prostitution. They have wreaked havoc on prostitute's lives by surrounding their profession with danger and criminality.

And throughout all this, they have avoided citizen accountability by- -refusing to give their names and badge numbers. -interfering with documentation of their activities. -seizing private property to fund their departments, under the pretext of the 'War on Drugs.'

The enumeration in this declaration of certain grievances shall not be construed to deny other grievances retained by the people.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress of grievances both in our courts and on our streets. Our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injury and the foot soldiers of our oppressions have been protected by mock trials. "If you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy

---

The Declaration of a Renewed American Independence

[budwiesest]

Where the heck did this come from? 'Till it got to the part about skateboarding it was sounding pretty good.

Just wondering, you telling me that we've gotta take some bad with the good?

Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Campaign Finance Reform. "Ladies and gentlemen, step right up......(tap,tap,tap) "My buddy CJ will now demonstrate for you the wonderful results that you too may find in consumption of my fabulous elixir".

"Just a couple of bucks a bottle. Don't ask questions, just swig it down and reap the benefits."

[Cultural Jihad]

Where the heck did this come from? 'Till it got to the part about skateboarding it was sounding pretty good.

Where did it come from? From the writings of an alleged anarcho-cop-killer. We're gratified that you read astute and refined sentiments into it.

[nopardons]

I'm glad that at least part of my reply, struck a cord. :-)

Personally, I hate, loathe, and dispise seat belt laws ! Do I follow them ? Yes, I do ; I don't want to pay the damned fine. :-(

Seat belt laws and the now ubiquitous " check points ", are just another way fro towns & villages to make money; just like the damned " speed bumps " ! I doubt that they're used, as you assume they might be, for anything else. I'd rather they had these spot checks ( which they do here ) to check for intoxicated / stoned drivers. Getting people off the road, who are impaired, from one things or another, saves more lives than the seat belts do.

FWIW, I think that most laws ARE warrented. We may not like some of them ; however, NO society can exist , where there is an abscence of laws. Even with laws, prior to a government sponsered police force, crime was a terrible problem. I can quote you examples of this, from England and the USA; however, I don't wish to waste bandwidth and hope that you'll take my word for this.

[nopardons]

He isn't even that intelligent. Sorry for the typo; but, it still holds true.

[nopardons]

Let's see now, dear ... when we used to talked in chat, you flirted with me ( which I didn't appreciate ! ) ,you were overtly solicitous towards me, agreed with what I said, and never stooped to the intemperate , vile, smarmy, nasty, juvenile name calling, which you do here, whenever you see my nic. Me thinks that your " bile rises ", now, because you have been rebuffed and can't stand the fact that I and most others disagree with you .

I am just as " nasty " ( though I don't consider myself to be so; I'm just treating you in kind. ) in person, as I am here. No one has ever chastised me, hit me, nor anything else that you wish would happen to me in real life. I suspect, that you , OTOH, have been treated this way , in real life. We evidently travel in far different sorts of millieu, dear. ;^ )

You claim to respect Condi Rice ; yet you place her and the president in a compromising position, in order to slander me and others, who support him and most ( no, NOT all ) of his positions ? That's not only disgusting, uncouth, but also proves your inability to even grasp at, not only how I would react, but the nature of the people, you've involved in your pathetic " strawman " arguement. Shame on you !

Yes, again ( how many times will it take me saying the same thing over and over and over again, before you are able to retain what I say ? ), the FFs did set it up so that there were no political parties ; however, they saw that it did NOT work, when two dissimilar out looks were president and V.P. ! They NEVER set it up that way, so that the V.P> was a " check " on the president ! You're not only dense beyond words, you don't know American history at all.

As for " talking down " to anyone...I have to, when attempting to have any discourse with you. Any attempt to discuss something with you, must, out of necessity, be done on the lowest possible level and then, THEN, you still don't comprehend what's been said to you !

[#3Fan]

I agree with Jim. It's just combining parts of government that already exist.

[bigunreal]

The Stupid Party's performance here must be making the Evil Party drool with envy. The party that still spouts rhetoric about personal responsibility, smaller government and lower taxes pushes the passage of the ultimate bureaucratic nightmare. How are we going to pay for this huge, intrusive department? Can they still actually tout lower taxes? More importantly, will the party faithful actually believe them? Well, it happened before under party legend Ronald Reagan, who passed one massive tax cut (that benefited almost exclusively the very top percent of income earners), while pushing through other tax increases, including huge Social Security tax increases. Still, the befuddled hard hats sung his praises, even as they read their paychecks, and saw a smaller percentage of take-home pay than ever before. The same thing will happen here; massive violations of civil liberties will occur, and the identity of the "enemy" in this "war" will vary wildly, yet the same hard hats will wave their flags and curse the evil liberals. Bush will go down in history, solely for proposing and then signing into existance, the most unconstitutional piece of legislation since the days of F.D.R., at least in the minds of true patriots, as the worst enemy of freedom to ever occupy the White House. Considering the corrupt band of criminals who occupied the place almost constantly over the past century, that's quite a notorious honor.

[u-89]

You write the Feds seldom do this or seldom do that. The fact is the Fed has no business legally doing 3/4 or more of what it does. Are you familiar with how to cook a frog? if you throw it in a pot of hot water he jumps out immediatly so you put him in at room temp. and slowly raise the temp. By time he realizes he's being cooked it's too late. Is today's idea of conservatism just to conserve what liberals have built? You started losing your freedom when the government laid claim to your property. If you read the philosophy of our founders you would understand the link of owing property and liberty. If others control your use of your own property then it isn't yours and you aren't truely free. And property is not just land it is also the fruits of your labor. Like income tax puts a claim on your property and the government takes theirs off the top and tells you how much you are allowed to keep. In case you haven't notice you do not have the right to say anything you like. We have PC codes, sensitivity training, hate crimes, etc. The list goes on and on in every aspect of life. Just because we are the freest counrty on earth doesn't mean we are free. But I do not expect you to agree. As the verse says in another context - he that hath ears let him hear- it's applicable in this case too.

[Indrid Cold]

As I heard it described in high school, freedom is when you can do anything you want, whenever you want. Liberty is when you can do anything you want WITHIN REASON (no shouting "Fire!" in crowded theatres, etc.)

[Tuor]

In other words, the two major parties are fighting, not cooperating at every level to pursue a single goal.

They don't have to cooperate at every level, they just have to cooperate in the main, which they do. That was my point. There are *cosmetic* differences between the parties, which is how they get people to buy into it, but ultimately they seek the same thing, and appear to have chosen to seek it together (for the moment).

Tuor

[Southack]

"There are *cosmetic* differences between the parties, which is how they get people to buy into it, but ultimately they seek the same thing, and appear to have chosen to seek it together (for the moment)."

That's pure nonsense. Democrats are pro-choice. Republicans are pro-life. That's hardly "cosmetic".

Democrats want the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming and they want the International Criminal Court. Republicans rolled both of those monstrosities back.

Likewise, the fight in the Senate over the 70 stalled judgeships is the antithesis of "cosmetic".

In your zest to view everything in America in a pro-third-party light, you've managed to miss some of the larger ideological wars of the last 40 years.

[sauropod]

" We haven't lost any of our essential liberty or basic freedom either."

Really? I find this statement profoundly ignorant.

[sauropod]

Uh-huh. Just ask Randy Weaver or David Koresh. Or that poor old soul in the Philly area that had his cat stomped by the Jackboots.

Uh-huh.

[Teacher317]

LOL, I guess the dripping sarcasm didn't seep its way to your PC. ;^)

I agree with your stance on this one.

[sauropod]

Whoops! My bad.

FReegards, 'Pod

[sauropod]

I've only read to post no. 62 and already I am sickened by a number of those that you have flagged.