The "Dangerous" Libertarian

Last week, people in positions of power reached a whole new level of hostility against the American People.  Obama's "phony scandals" line aside, Governor Chris Christie was interviewed saying "This strain of libertarianism that's going through the parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought."  Translation: "Individual Liberty is dangerous."  Mr. Christie has openly declared war on the idea of individual freedom.  He fully believes it is best for We the People to give up our freedoms so that our government can keep us safe.

As is typical of his ilk, Governor Christie uses knee-jerk emotional reaction to justify his views.  He believes We the People are too scared to look the families of the victims of 9/11 in the eyes and tell them our Constitutionally guaranteed rights should be enforced.  Christie: "These esoteric, intellectual debates - I want them to come to New Jersey and sit down across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation.  And they won't, because that's a much tougher conversation to have."  I call his bluff.  Given the opportunity, I would gladly sit down with anyone who was affected by 9/11 and explain to them exactly why their rights are more important than the "safety" offered by our government.  To quote Senator Rand Paul: "Christie worries about the dangers of freedom.  I worry about the dangers of losing that freedom.  Spying without warrants is unconstitutional."

As a side-note: Rand Paul is not quite the white-knight most Liberty-minded individuals believe he is.  In order to win votes, he is against ending the War on Drugs.  He is also not against drone strikes on a U.S. citizen, even within U.S. borders.  However, on most issues, Rand Paul's position is the right one.  Unfortunately, when it comes to Liberty, picking and choosing the issues to stand up for in order to win the popular vote makes you no better than Barack Obama.

Christie went on to praise Obama for continuing the policies of the Bush administration with regard to the war on terror.  "President Obama has done nothing to change the policies of the Bush administration in the war on terrorism.  And I mean practically nothing.  And you know why?  Cause they work."  Maybe this helps to explain why the website that spells out Obama's 2008 campaign promises, such as increased protections for whistleblowers, has been removed.  Obama's handlers don't want you to be able to easily view the string of broken promises he made.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again now: Question everything, particularly the motives behind what people tell you.  What motivates a Libertarian?  What does the Libertarian ideology want for you?  Freedom.  Libertarians want you to have the freedom to do as you please, as long as you don't hurt anybody else.  The only thing a Libertarian does not want you to do is try to take away their freedoms.  What motivates Governor Chris Christie and other Obama supporters?  What do they want from you?  Unquestioning obedience.  They want you to surrender all your freedoms to the government so they can "keep you safe."  The only "dangerous thought" here is that We the People are incapable of seeing to our own safety; that we need to government to handle it for us.  This is the line of thought that will lead to the continued enslavement of our nation.  It is this line of thought that must be brought to an end.

Fear nothing.  Question everything.  Stand up for your rights.

The true dichotomy of today is not Democrat vs Republican.  It is Liberty vs Tyranny.  Truth vs Propaganda.  Freedom vs Slavery.  The sooner we realize this, the sooner We the People can take the fight to our true enemy.

Reclaiming Your Liberty

"America in Distress"

"Reclaiming Your Liberty: Because you shouldn't have to work this hard to be this poor."

America, it's time to come out and say it: We are in trouble.  Continuing on this path can have only one logical outcome, and I think we all know what that is.  Our system is rampant with inefficiency and corruption.  It no longer works.  It's time for a real change.

Our leaders lack even the basic vision required to accept one inescapable fact: America is in distress.  We have some serious problems.  Because they will not accept reality, how can We the People ever hope our leaders will fix the issues we now face?  Rather than accept the facts, Washington bickers back and forth over petty issues and never makes useful agreements on matters of importance.  Instead, they continually kick the can down the road, which is only making the inevitable crash much more devastating.  America is on a bus hurtling towards a solid brick wall at 200 miles an hour, and Washington is squabbling over where they are sitting.  The few voices who try to bring attention to where the bus is headed are lauded as alarmists and ignored.  We need more leaders who see, accept, and rise to the challenges of our time.  We need representatives with enough vision to correct our current path to destruction and restore our once-great nation.

We have far too many lawyers in our leadership.  Somewhere along the line, an unspoken agreement that a law degree is needed to run for office seems to have been enacted.  Where are all the doctors?  The scientists?  The farmers?  The mechanics?  The tech workers?  In short: Where are all the Americans?  All I see are people who, by some stroke of chance, were born into money and power.  In 2010, the average campaign budget for the House of Representatives (the lowest position in high office) was $1,163,231.  While just 1 percent of Americans are millionaires, 66 percent of senators are millionaires, as are 41 percent of House members.  The Constitution ordained a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Clearly, we do not have the type of leaders the Framers intended.  Instead, we have droves of wealthy lawyers making our laws.  The laws being made are so chalked full of ambiguous jargon, only people with a law degree can make sense of them. These laws are practically impossible for the average American not to break, and when they inevitably do, the lawyer friends of our "leaders" get to profit from your suffering.  All of this is unacceptable, and it needs to change.

Our system is rank with crony capitalism.  It is designed in such a way that a mega corporation like Monsanto - whose current and former members now occupy 18 positions in our government - can sell its "food" to hundreds of millions of people without adequate testing.  Even with the safety of the product in question, the system does not require any sort of labeling.  At the same time, the "mom and pop" organic farm is burdened with impossible regulations and licensing requirements before they are allowed to sell to even their neighbors.  People who try to grow food in their own front yards are being harassed by city officials.  Many laws on the books are subtly designed to allow large corporations and people in positions of power to do as they please while restricting the average American as much as possible.  This is the exact opposite of what our country needs.  "Leaders" who are more interested in money than your freedoms have complacently allowed our nation to come to this.

The fiat money system has created a situation in which we are being quietly robbed of our wealth every single day.  Each new dollar the Federal Reserve prints (and they print in excess of 85 billion per month) takes away just a little bit more of the purchasing power of the dollars you already have.  Combined with our unconstitutional tax system, this helps to explain why it is already too hard for most families to keep food on the table.  Bills consume most peoples' lives and distract them from the larger picture of the world around them.  Our "leaders" use your distracted state to start unconstitutional wars and pass laws that provide unlimited protections to corporations like Monsanto, and it's all done without any challenge from you.  They take your silence as consent.  This too needs to change.  We need to return to sound, gold-backed currency.  We need to eliminate the Federal Reserve's ability to destroy the dollar.  We need to stop attempting to draw Iran into the next world war.  Most importantly, We the People need to realize what is happening and explicitly withdraw our consent.

Despite President Obama's "eloquent" speeches and what the (borderline fraudulent) unemployment numbers claim, our economy is not recovering.  If we don't change directions, it will never recover.  The jobs that are being added are largely low paying, part time jobs.  Meanwhile, we are losing more full time jobs than we are gaining part time jobs most months.  Misleading free trade agreements have led to a mass exodus of manufacturing jobs.  As a result, we have been importing more than we have been exporting for far too long.  America has been living beyond her means for too many years.  The credit card is maxed out, and the bill collectors are knocking on our door.  This, too, is a major problem our leaders refuse to acknowledge.

The verdict is in and the results are all around us: The policies of our current leadership are failing.  It's time for some fresh ideas and a new direction.  Obama promised us "Hope and Change," but he has broken every promise he ever made.  He has delivered the opposite of "Hope" with the only "Change" being a further reduction of personal Liberty. Our leaders seem to have forgotten what they swore to when they took their Oath of Office.  We need more representatives in government who know and care about what the word "Constitutional" means.  Representatives who hold their Oaths of Office in the highest possible regard, as was intended by the Framers.  Representatives who will swear to and then actually protect, defend, and preserve the Constitution of the United States of America.  In short: We need representatives who will protect your individual Liberty instead of a corrupt system.

The time has come for a Return to Liberty.  Whether or not this return is successful will rest on the actions of We the People.

Organized Religion

Throughout history, people have sought religion as a way to find purpose and direction in their lives.  On the surface, turning to religion can seem like a much better alternative than a Godless and lonely existence.  For many, this is absolutely true.  And the majority of good people who choose this path are some of the best people you'l ever meet.  But for others, it's a different story.  Does organized religion truly offer the brightest path to follow in this existence?  Should we seek to live our lives according to the belief structures set out in Christianity's Bible or the Islam Quran?  Lets look at what has happened historically as a result of doing just that.

Throughout history, and in the name of religion, Christianity has killed roughly 6 million people:

• 4 million during the French Wars of Religion: 1562-1598
• 1.5 million killed during the Crusades to the Holy Land: 1095-1291
• 17,500 killed during various Christian Inquisitions: 1184-1860

Sound like a lot?  It is, but it doesn't compare to Islam, which accounts for more than 15 million:

• 12 million during the Panthay Rebellion in China: 1855-1877
• 3 million in the Bangladesh atrocities: 1971
• 3,000 in the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York: 2001

The real "winner" is an organized religion that insists there is no God.  Atheists have killed about 67 million:

• 10 million in Holodomor: 1932-1933
• 11 million during the Nazi genocides: 1941-1945
• 43 million in the Great Leap Forward famine: 1959-1962
• 3 million in the Khmer Rogue Repression: 1975-1979

Without even accounting for all historical killings, we already have a total of 88 million people killed in the name of someone's religion or God.  Of course, these stats are completely dwarfed in comparison to Democide (death by government), which has killed about 262 million people in the last century alone, but that is a side point.

If I was going by the numbers alone, I would avoid organized religion as though it were the city of Detroit.  But I know lots of people out there can easily dismiss cold hard numbers, so I decided to break out my Bible.  Here are a few of the hundreds of verses and stories I came across:

"Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.'  And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him [because God liked Abel's animal sacrifice more than Cain's vegetables]." -Genesis 4:8

"Every living substance that I have made will I destroy." -Genesis 7:4

"That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him.  He was not aware of it when she law down or when she got up.  The next day the older daughter said to the younger, 'Last night I lay with my father.  Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.'" Genesis 19:33-34

Because King Abimelech believed Abraham's lie that Sarah was his sister, and before he ever touches her, God comes to Abimelech and threatens to kill him and all his people.  To make penance for the crime he never committed, Abimelech is made to give sheep, oxen, slaves, silver, and land to Abraham. -Genesis 20:3-18

"But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.  Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel." -Exodus 11:7

"You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you." -Leviticus 26 (Reward for Obedience):7-8

"They (men, wives, and children) went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned: the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community [for questioning God]." -Numbers 16:33

"Now kill all the boys.  And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Numbers 31:17-18

"And when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.  Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy." Deuteronomy 7:2

"But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me." Luke 19:27

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." Ephesians 1:4

Most religious texts teach a lot of the same lessons seen in the above verses.  Looking through these, it makes sense that 88+ million people have been killed in the name of religion.  Christianity alone seems to condone (or at least not condemn) merciless murder, mass genocide, incest, slavery, dishonesty, extortion, division, rape, intolerance, a lack of personal responsibility,  and above all, unquestioning obedience.

Given the above, I would argue that organized religion has been used by those in power as a way to maintain a complacent and obedient population while they commit atrocities.  More recently, it seems religion is no longer adequate to maintain control, which is why the propaganda machine that is the mainstream media has stepped up to the plate.

The biggest mistake in Human history was to take God and Spirituality and build religious belief structures around them.  Hundreds of millions of people have died and killed "in the name of God."  People should be decent human beings because it's the right thing to do, not because they live in constant fear of purgatory if they do not.

It's time to remove the shackles of organized religion and wean yourself from the mainstream propaganda machine.  It's time to start thinking for yourself, accepting personal responsibility, and asking your own questions.

Rufus: "Are you saying you believe?"
Bethany: "No. But I have a good idea." -Dogma

The War On Common Sense: Cannabis in America

"D.A.R.E. to stay off drugs!"
"Drug use is life abuse!"
"Mary Jane ruins the brain!"
"Just say no!"

We've all heard the slogans, seen the reasons, and witnessed the propaganda against drug use.  Generally speaking, the reasons are valid.  After all, drugs like methadone, cocaine, and black-tar heroin have been irrefutably proven to be extremely addictive and horrendously damaging.  But have you ever wondered why marijuana seems to be the poster child for most anti-drug ads?  It gets lumped in with black-tar heroin and all the other hard drugs so people can easily dismiss it as "bad," but have you looked into the facts behind cannabis?  What you find there might interest you.

Industrial hemp cannot get you high and has vastly untapped uses: Food, fuel, clothes, paper, building materials...Because almost any product that can be made from wood, cotton, or petroleum can also be made from hemp, there are more than 25,000 known uses for this plant.  One acre of hemp can produce as much usable fiber as 4 acres of trees or 2 acres of cotton.  It could essentially solve our food, energy, deforestation, and trade deficit problems, grows easily, and is much less damaging to the environment than industrial cotton.  In spite of all this, hemp was made illegal along with cannabis.

In 2002, the US Government Accountability Office was forced to admit cannabis use successfully treats AIDS, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, anorexia, cachexia, cancer, Crohn's disease, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV, migraines, multiple sclerosis, nausea, pain, spasticity, and wasting syndrome.  There is strong anecdotal evidence that suggests marijuana can successfully treat far more diseases, but adequate research has not yet been done.  It could replace every expensive pill from Advil to Vicodin and beyond.  Despite these findings, cannabis remains classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic by the DEA, which means it has "no currently accepted medical use in the United States."  Much like hemp, it grows easily with negligent (if not positive) impacts on the environment.

There have been several studies conducted on the addictiveness of cannabis when compared to other commonly used substances.  In order from most to least addictive, the results were: Heroin, cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and marijuana.  A primary indicator of whether or not a substance is addictive is the withdrawal symptoms suffered after quitting.  While it is not common, alcohol withdrawal has been known to cause death.  The most difficult withdrawal symptom of quitting cannabis is a moderate to severe mental desire to get high.  Interestingly enough, every year in America:

• 443,000 people die as a direct result of smoking cigarettes
• 98,000 people die as a direct result of preventable medical errors
• 75,000 people die as a direct result of drinking alcohol
• 38,000 people die as a direct result of prescription drug overdose
• 0 people die as a direct result of using cannabis: Historically, there has not been a single recorded death that was directly attributed to marijuana

Any time you think of the pitfalls of smoking marijuana, one "fact" inevitably comes to mind: Smoking marijuana kills brain cells and makes you dumb.  What you may not know is there was only ever one study done that "proved" this to be the case.  In this study, they placed a sealed gas mask on monkeys, then filled the mask with nothing but marijuana smoke.  As a result, the monkeys started to suffocate.  As you might imagine, one of the first side effects of a lack of oxygen to the brain is cell death.  Subsequent studies have shown marijuana to stimulate brain cell growth and activity, but these studies are not given the light of media attention.

Despite the mountains of factual evidence demonstrating the benefits and disproving the dangers of cannabis, it remains illegal in America.

Did you know that in America, the prison industry is largely privatized?

Let that sink in for a minute.

This means there are wealthy business owners all across America that stand to make money from your incarceration.  In fact, the average yearly revenue for the industry is $1.7 billion.  This helps to explain why America, which accounts for only 5% of the world population, has 25% of the world's prisoners.  Of these prisoners, about half are in prison on non-violent drug charges.

Here's the icing on the cake: There have recently been cases of police mistakenly invading the wrong home for drugs.  In one case, a 61-year old man in Tennessee attempted to defend himself and his wife against an apparent home invasion and was shot to death by police.  The officers involved have been declared "not at fault" by their supervisors and were placed on paid administrative leave.

As asinine as all this seems, there is an easy explanation: Billionaires want to remain billionaires.  If hemp is allowed to compete in the industry or cannabis is decriminalized, some very rich corporations stand to lose a lot of money.  The top 5 interest groups lobbying to keep hemp and cannabis illegal are as follows: Police unions, private prisons, alcohol and beer companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and prison guard unions.  And of course, dealers don't want cannabis legalized either for the same reasons: Money and power.

Don't get me wrong: Marijuana can absolutely be abused.  But so can cigarettes, alcohol, exercising, pornography, and cheeseburgers.  It's time we started blaming the abuser, not the herb.

The War on Drugs has been waged in the name of profit with unspeakable collateral damage to individual Liberty.  It is insane, it is expensive, and it should be brought to an immediate end.

Want to learn more?  The best documentary I have found on the matter is called The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, and can be viewed in its entirety on Netflix or Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT-UIe7l3-Q

1913: A Masterstroke Against Liberty

Today, it is generally understood that we have a Federal Reserve bank which creates much of the money our society uses.  It is also commonly known that we pay taxes to the IRS, mostly through direct wage garnishment and sometimes through a lump sum in April of each year.  A third tidbit of commonly accepted fact is that our money steadily loses a little bit of its value every year through inflation, and prices (and sometimes wages) rise to accommodate.  These things seem as normal to us as breathing, so most of us never stop to ask "Why?"  What if you found out that none of this is "normal?"  What if you learned the truth about the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and the abuses the dollar has seen?  What if you discovered that our money has been purposefully perverted to keep you always struggling to keep food on the table?  Would it stir you to action?  Lets find out.

It all started in 1913.  Up until that time, it was the Constitutionally enumerated power of our Congress "to coin money and regulate the value thereof" (US Constitution, Article I, Section VIII, Clause V).  Actually, since this was never amended, it is technically still the duty of Congress to do this, but they do not.  If I had to give one short opinion as to why that is, I would say "money."  Virtually everybody has a price tag, and the ones who control the money can always offer it.  Also up until that time, the American people did not have to pay a direct tax to the government.  Enough taxes were collected on import tariffs alone to fund the entire Federal government in their limited societal role.  But in 1913, everything was quietly changed.

There is nothing "federal" about the "Federal Reserve."

Despite what the name suggests, the Federal Reserve Bank is not a part of the Federal government.  They are a privately owned corporation who provides no open access to a full list of stakeholders.  The Federal Reserve Act was passed on December 23rd, 1913.  That's right: This history-changing piece of legislation was brought to a vote just before Christmas Eve, when 27 senators did not even get a vote because they were already home with their families.  It passed 43-25.  Because America abandoned the gold-backed standard to fund the Civil War in 1862, a private institution now has the limitless power to create new "Federal Reserve Notes" out of thin air.

The Income Tax is a lie.

If you were to ask an IRS official, they would tell you the IRS and income tax were authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment, which was enacted into law in February of 1913.  This amendment allowed the government to get around the part of the constitution that said "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states..." (US Constitution, Article I, Section II, Clause III).  Apportioned means that everyone pays the exact same tax, which is not how the income tax works.  There are a few things they don't want you to know:

• The Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified by the States
• There is not a law in existence that requires you or I to pay a direct tax on our wages to the government; no IRS official will be able to produce one for you, but they will point to the Internal Revenue Code.  However, the very text of the code states that the tax is collected through "voluntary compliance"
• Even if the Sixteenth Amendment had been properly ratified, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Amendment "...conferred no new power of taxation" (Stanton v. Baltic Mining, 1916): In other words, if you weren't taxable before the Sixteenth, you aren't taxable after it
• The definition of "Income," was given by several Supreme Court cases to mean profits or gains, not the exchange of labor for wages (Oliver v. Halstead - 1955, Lucas v. Earl - 1930, Conner v. U.S. - 1969, Edwards v. Keith - 1916, Lauderdale Cemetary Assoc v. Matthews - 1946).  For example, if you bought a stock at $20 and sold it later for $50, your taxable income would be $30
• Requiring you to file your income tax returns violates your Fifth Amendment Right not to incriminate yourself: If you make even one mistake on that form, you can be severely punished

In short: The IRS has been illegally enforcing an unconstitutional tax from the get-go.  The only reason people pay  this tax and don't ask questions is because if they don't, there's a risk of the IRS showing up at your door with a squad of heavily armed soldiers and attack dogs, then taking everything you have.  This is tyranny at its worst.  As if this wasn't bad enough, there was an independent audit launched on the IRS formally known as The Grace Commission.  The final result?  "...100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt and by federal government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services [that] taxpayers expect from their government."  This audit was performed in 1982, and not one of the recommendations that came out of it was acted on.

This has not gone unnoticed.  More and more court cases are being won by people who stand up for their rights.  If you ever find yourself sitting on a jury in a tax case, keep these things in mind while the judge is trying to get you to break out your pitchfork and torch.
 
Inflation: The hidden tax.

In its original form, the Federal Reserve had power to do little more than was already done by the free market system of money (let the demand for new dollars be met with a supply by decentralized banks).  This is because the original Federal Reserve Act placed strict limits on the amount of United States Treasury bonds it could buy: No more than $25 million per year.  In 1994, this limit was declared obsolete and has not been adhered to since.  Mind you, the Federal Reserve Act was never officially amended to correct this; the limit is simply ignored, much like the ever-moving "debt ceiling."  Today, the Federal Reserve is printing $85 billion per month and using it to purchase Treasury bonds.  This runaway printing of money has had disastrous consequences on the purchasing power of the dollar.  For every new dollar that is injected into the economy, the dollars you already have become just a little bit less valuable.  The Fed has a target rate of 2% inflation.  For some reason, Ben Bernanke deems anything less as bad for the economy.

This inflation effectively steals money from you.  In fact, inflation has stolen so much of our money that if you had $100 in 1913, today you would have only $4.  Why anybody thinks this is a good thing is beyond my comprehension, especially considering wages rarely rise to compensate for this theft.

The solution to cure this sick money is very simple, yet it will probably not be acted on: We need to return to a gold and silver-backed currency.  Until we do, all we hold in our accounts are little pieces of paper that only hold value because someone with power says they do.  Of course, you can also always opt out of the fiat money system by bartering with people to get the things you need.  This can be difficult, but not impossible if you know the right people.

Unfortunately, the damage our money has suffered cannot be overstated.  It requires its own article.

"Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think paper was so valuable?" -Kurt Vonnegut

Gun Control

 In this day and age, comparatively few law abiding  citizens choose to carry (or even own) a firearm.  It's easy to understand why: Having a weapon is a huge responsibility that could have disastrous and tragic consequences.  It also seems likely that a constant anti-gun agenda that has been blasted out by the mainstream media has played a part: Because of what they see on a regular basis, many people believe at their core that "guns are bad."

If someone bombs a building, do we blame the bomber or the bomb?  If someone stabs a person to death, do we blame the stabber or the knife?  If a motorist runs over a pedestrian on the sidewalk, do we blame the driver or the car?  Why is it that when someone loses their mind and shoots innocent people, we blame the gun?  Something tells me that if you were to load a gun and set it out, it would not get up and start killing people of its own volition.

People do not need guns to kill other people.  If you were to look at the crime statistics on fbi.gov, you would see that more people are killed every year by hands and feet than are killed by the dreaded "assault rifle."  Far more people are stabbed to death.  In fact, if you rule out the leading diseases (many of which can be attributed to genetically modified foods and chemicals) and unintentional injuries, the number one cause of unnatural death in the country - which kills twenty to forty times as many people each year as all firearms combined - is medical malpractice.  The bottom line is this: Guns do not kill people.  People kill people.

In 2011, there were about 11,500 total deaths attributed to guns in America.  Of those, about 325 were caused by an "assault" rifle (which, incidentally, is a misused and misleading term).  This means that an "assault" weapons ban would address less than 3% of the problem.  Every single year, it is estimated that anywhere from 800,000 to 2.5 million violent crimes are prevented by the legal use of firearms.  In other words, on the lowest end of the scale, nearly one hundred times more crime is prevented every single year by law abiding citizens than the total deaths caused by guns.  The argument for an assault weapons ban is disingenuous at best.

Lets say you don't agree with any of that and you still want guns to be banned and confiscated.  Getting all the guns off the streets would clearly curb violent crime, right?  You're forgetting one self-evident fact: by their very nature, criminals do not obey laws.  If every single law abiding person were to willingly disarm themselves, we would not see a reduction in violent crime.  History and current events prove that we would see the exact opposite.  Citing the fbi.gov statistics: Over the last 20 years in America, there has been a steady increase in gun ownership and a corresponding decrease in all crime.  The United Kingdom and Australia recently banned guns and they have seen increases of up to 40% in violent crime.

If you saw a gazelle being chased down by a cheetah in the Sahara desert, you would not argue that the gazelle should have to lay down and be eaten.  The argument that the gazelle should not use its horns and hooves to fight for its life simply cannot be made.  Gun control is akin to removing the gazelle's horns and expecting the cheetah to be less likely to attack it because it is now less able to defend itself.  It is a nonsensical argument that does not stand up to even the slightest bit of logic.

Gun Free zones are another example of how laws do not deter criminals.  On the day 26 innocent people were killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School, the shooter broke 41 different laws.  How would passing another law prevent this type of thing from happening?  Obviously, the shooter had no regard for the laws already on the books; what would breaking one more be to him?  What do you think would have happened that day if every single teacher in the school had been carrying a concealed weapon?  All mass shootings in recent history have happened in these "Criminal-Safe" zones.  Instituting a gun free zone is like advertising to a psychopath that there are fish in a barrel inside, just waiting to be terrorized.

Lets say that you still don't buy any of it.  Guns are still bad and you don't like them.  Okay, that's fine - don't own one.  But don't try to tell me that just because you don't want a gun, I can't have one either.  I don't tell you you're not allowed to have that Obama-Biden sticker on your car, do I?

Another issue to consider is the intent behind the Second Amendment.  This law was created at a time when severe government oppression from England prevented the colonists from so much as defending themselves against said oppression.  The Framers of the Constitution created this law so that a corrupt government would never again have a monopoly of power.  The Second Amendment exists as a last line of defense against an out-of-control government, which is exactly what we have today [1][2][3].

Even if you don't see where we are headed right now, you need only look at the history of gun control in the 20th century to understand why it's a bad idea to leave the monopoly of violence in the hands of a corruptible few:

Soviet Union: 1929 - 20 million dissidents exterminated
Turkey: 1915 - 1.5 million Armenians exterminated
Germany: 1938 - 13 million Jews (and others) exterminated
China: 1935 - 20 million dissidents exterminated
Uganda: 1970 - 300,000 Christians exterminated
Cambodia: 1956 - 1 million exterminated
20th Century Post-Gun Control deaths: 55,800,000

I'll leave you with this: Which sign would you rather a criminal see when considering entering your space?



















"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong

The American Dream

The American Dream was a concept I was taught as a child. I was told that America was the land of opportunities where anyone could pull themselves up by the boot straps and obtain the All American Lifestyle - great job, new car, marriage, a house and of course 2.5 perfect children. Well I am sorry to tell those of you who have not realized it yet, but the American Dream..... IT IS DEAD.

Currently the National Unemployment Statistic for June states that 7.6 percent of the population in our country is unemployed. 36.7 percent of those counted in that 7.6 percent have been looking for a job for more then 27 weeks. That is an average of 6 months of unemployment. Of course these numbers are only referring to people who are currently searching for employment and are getting state benefits. The Real number of unemployed, which includes those who have exhausted their search and who have had to settle for part time odd jobs, is 14.3 percent, and in June that number when up another 0.5 percent. That number does not count those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and those who have given up the search for employment entirely.  Because of the method used to calculate unemployment today, when someone's benefits run out, the unemployment rate actually goes down. The Labor Force Participation Rate for our country in June was 63.5 percent, which is all eligible citizens of working age who are working or looking for work. I am sorry but in school a 63.5 is a D- and I feel that is a suitable grade to give our current Administration.

Unemployment is one of the leading causes of the destruction of our nation. If we cannot work, we cannot pay our bills. Therefore no new cars, no house payments, no food, no consumer products and the list goes on and on. No chance of obtaining that pretty American Dream.

Am I one of these people? Absolutely - but I am not counted in that statistic since I am not receiving any unemployment benefits. I am one of the lucky few who is married to someone with a job and we just moved to a place where we can actually afford to live on one persons salary, which is crazy I know. However that does not make me immune to the hardships of finding employment.

I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. I was told my whole life to "get an education and you will go far." I not only received my Bachelor's Degree but I went on to obtain my Master's Degree as well. At the time I was thinking these student loans were a Godsend, and with my fancy education I could go on to get my fancy job to pay them off. Well obviously that has not happened. So I am sitting here with a mountain of growing educational debt and an education that is doing absolutely nothing for me. I apply for jobs and they tell me I have too little actual work experience or I have a Master's Degree and am over qualified. Could I have selected a more important degree? Sure, but currently I do not think it matters what experience you have.  Who you know is more important. The opportunities are so few and far between it's ridiculous - we have middle age Americans working at McDonalds and Wal-Mart so they can make ends meet. Currently 284,000 college graduates, including 37,000 Advanced Degree Graduates, have had to take a minimum wage job in order to pay their bills. What the hell has happened to our county?

Well as I sit here and vent my frustrations for all of you to read, I have decided I am not just going to be sitting around here hoping someone will throw me some scraps. On top of continuing my employment search I am going to be researching all that I can on how I can change these policies that are taking jobs out of America and creating strain on employers, who then in turn are not hiring more staff. While I am at it I will find out who I can be talking to about my concerns for our country. I strongly believe everyone who is currently unemployed should be doing the same thing. If I cannot find employment then I will be damn sure to make our politicians work for theirs!!!