BE THE GOOD

 

BE THE GOOD

Charlie Kirk was probably at the top of the list of people who did not deserve to die the way he did.  All he wanted to do was meet people where they were.  To join the conversation already happening in their minds, and to try his hardest to persuade them to the points of view he believed to be right, and good.

Charlie was a beautiful and unique soul.  More than anything, my heart cries out for his precious children and beautiful wife.  He left them with a foundation to build on that will last them a lifetime, but that is a small conciliation prize for the guiding light they have lost.  My best hope for them is that they will remember his example and strive to live by it for all the days of their lives.

But a moment this dark cannot be without a light.  It falls to all of us now to pick up the torch Charlie set ablaze.  It falls to us to light the torches of as many of our fellow Human Beings as we possibly can.

I know that many of us know someone who thinks that the world is a better place now that Charlie has been taken out of it.  Some of us even know people with a much bleaker outlook than that.  Those people have found themselves in a pool of darkness that is far blacker than even our grief.  I know it would be easy to fall into hatred against those people.  But to do that would be to dishonor the legacy Charlie built in his short 31 years on this Earth.

I call on all of us to choose EMPATHY over hatred and anger.  Talk to those people.  Try to reach them in their moment of utter blackness.  For they are more in need of the light than many of us can possibly imagine.  Not all of them are ready to be reached.  Not all of them are ready to start their long and arduous climb out of their own darkest moment.  Try anyway.  Because to try is the right thing to do.

And if you cannot reach them, then it is okay to love them from a distance, for now.  God is looking for them.  God is waiting for the moment they learn how to listen when He speaks.  So, try.  And if they aren’t yet ready, then leave them in God’s capable hands, and try again with the next one.

It is time for all of us to be unafraid.  To be bold.  It is time for the TIDE OF HUMANITY to RISE in utter defiance of those who would see us tear each other apart.

It is time to GO FORTH AND BOLDLY BE THE GOOD.

"I can't be quiet.  So I've got to be brave.  This is America.  Lately, it's scarin' us.  But one man can change it all in a day."  -Tom MacDonald

The Worst Kind of Human

What image do you conjure up when you think of "bad people?"  At the most basal level, it's probably something like thieves, rapists, and murderers, right?

If you look at the end result of someone's actions, the most notorious serial killer, the most successful thief, and the most abhorrent rapist are amateurs when compared to the average politician.

Worse than the worst serial killer

Even the most successful serial killers can only boast numbers in the dozens.  When politicians wage war, millions die.  And the vast majority of these deaths are innocent bystanders.  Take the Clinton sanctions against Iraq in the 90s.  By official estimates, more than 500,000 Iraqi children (not counting adults) were starved to death as a direct result.  When Madeline Albright, then Secretary of State, was asked if this horrible cost was worth it, she didn't even hesitate to say "we think the price is worth it."

Worldwide, war in the 20th century is estimated to have claimed more than 79 million lives. Even this is child's play when compared to Democide (death by government), which does not include war-related deaths and is estimated to have killed more than 260 million people in the same time period.  Individuals committing murder doesn't even hold a candle to the kind of carnage politicians unleash.

More despicable than the most "successful" rapist

In the United States in 2013, there were roughly 2.2 million people in State and Federal prisons.  (Side note: The United States houses just 5% of the world's population, but has 25% of the world's prisoners.)  Of these people, nearly half are incarcerated for non-violent crimes.  In the Federal prison system specifically, 86% of the prison population never harmed an actual victim.  To the objective observer, there are far too many people locked in cages who do not belong there.

Each year, more than 200,000 men are raped behind bars.  It stands to reason that about half of those people are among the non-violent offenders who should never have been locked up in the first place.  In other words, because of the arbitrary rules of politicians, roughly a hundred thousand innocent men are raped each year.

More insidious than the grandest larcenist

Each year in the United States, the IRS "collects" (steals) more than $2.2 TRILLION from people in the form of taxes.  This legalized form of robbery utterly dwarfs private robbery, which topped out at just $3.5 billion in 2014.  In fact, aside from taxation, police stole $5 billion from private citizens through their civil asset forfeiture program in the same year.

Civil asset forfeiture is where police "seize" property on nothing more than the suspicion that it was destined for illicit purposes.  Formal charges are never actually brought against the victims of this armed robbery, and targets are almost never able to reclaim their property.  All of this is on the say-so of some faceless politician.

It's time to stop holding politicians to a different standard than "ordinary citizens."  When the end-result of their actions is so demonstrably horrendous, maybe it's time to start considering alternatives to the way of life they have chosen for the rest of us.

“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”  -Robert Higgs

Taxation is Theft and Authority is a Lie

I have a couple of lines of questioning for you to consider.  The first deals with the nature of taxation.  The second, the nature of authority.

The Nature of Taxation


What is theft?  Or if you prefer, what is robbery?  From www.dictionary.com:

Theft.  Noun.  The act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.

Robbery. Noun.  The felonious taking of the property of another from his or her person in his or her immediate presence, against his or her will, by violence or intimidation.

I would amend these to include acts of fraud as well.

Fraud.  Noun.  Deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.

Put more simply, I see "Theft" as the taking of something that does not belong to you, either by force or fraud.

Does the government own you, and by extension, the product of your labor?  Or do you own yourself, and so, the product of your own labor?  Because of public school "education," this one gives some people pause.  But the obvious answer is that the government does not own you, and so, cannot rightfully own the product of your labor.

In light of this, is it theft when the government takes the product of your labor through taxation?  If not, there is really only one alternative.  If taxation is not theft, then the government owns you, and taxation is slavery.  You might try to argue that it is neither, because you voluntarily and happily pay your taxes.  And maybe that's true for you, but what about your neighbor?  Are they happy to be extorted with every paycheck?  Morally speaking, you don't get to make that decision for them, only for yourself.

Bottom line: Taxation is theft, or worse, slavery.  But it's more than that.  If you don't pay your taxes, then eventually, men with guns will show up at your house to take everything you own and put you in a cage.  If you resist, they will use deadly force against you.  Ultimately, taxation is armed robbery with a side of aggravated assault.  And as with all robberies, sometimes government-sponsored robbery "goes wrong," and the victim winds up dead.

"If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized."  -Lysander Spooner

Authority is a Lie


Do you have the right to use violence to force your neighbors to behave a certain way?  Assuming they aren't aggressing against you you, clearly, you do not.  If you tried to force them to do what you wanted, you would be seen by all as a wrongful aggressor.  People would fully expect your neighbors to use self-defensive force against you.

Can you give a right you don't have to someone else?  Said another way, can you ask someone to use violence against your neighbors on your behalf?  Clearly, you cannot.  And once again, you (and your accomplice) would be seen as a wrongful aggressor.

Can you and your 10 best friends give away a right that none of you has individually?  Can the group of you decide to hire an agent to steal from your neighbor to fund a program you think would be good?  Once again, if none of you has this right, it cannot be given to another party.  The same can be said for any number of people.  You can all make a decision for yourselves - you can decide to chip in individually for a program or choose a leader for yourselves - but you cannot morally force these decisions on someone who has not voluntarily chosen to participate.

How, then, does a politician get the right to use violence ("law enforcement") and theft ("taxation") to run their organization?  If nobody can give this right to them - which they can't - then politicians do not have it.  In reality, politicians are nothing more than a gang of thugs who use violent, coercive force to form society as they see fit.  The only difference between the government and the mafia is that the general population thinks the government is legitimate, and the mafia is not.  Practically speaking, they operate in exactly the same manner.

The first step towards righting these wrongs is for people just like you to see the situation for what it is.  Spread the word.

"The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis." -Dalai Lama

The Bare Necessities of Firearm Safety

There are probably a million articles out there covering the topic of firearm safety, but a blog about Liberty wouldn't be complete if it weren't mentioned here.  If you are going to take up the means to defend yourself against any aggressor, you must be versed in using those means.  Which means, you must practice.

But before you ever pick up a gun, there are a few things you must sear into your mind.  Failure to follow proper safety procedures is the overwhelming cause of accidents involving firearms.  Much like a band saw, you must know how to handle the tool to ensure you don't lose a finger, or worse.

The basics of gun safety are extremely simple.  In order of importance (to this author), they are as follows:

1) Trigger Discipline.  Never put your finger inside the trigger guard when you are simply holding your firearm.  The only time your finger should ever touch that trigger is in the moments before you pull it.  For me, it is most natural to rest my trigger finger along the side of the gun, just above or across the guard.  See the photo at the beginning of this article for an example.

2) The Gun Is Always Loaded.  Even if it's not.  Always treat your guns as if they are prepared to fire on the next squeeze of the trigger, even if you just removed the magazine and cleared the chamber.  Which leads into the next item...

3) Never Aim at Something You Don't Intend to Destroy.  Always be sure you are pointing the end of your firearm in a safe direction.  Don't muzzle sweep your best friend's legs - it makes them nervous, and could end in tragedy.

4) Always be Sure of Your Target.  And what's behind it.  Most gun ranges have a huge berm of earth piled up behind the target area to soak up discharged bullets.  You never want to set up a target a quarter mile from your neighbor's house with nothing to halt your plinkers between you and them.

That's it - now you know the bare necessities of gun safety.  Obviously, there is a whole lot more to learn about the various firearms out there, but no matter what you have, these rules will always apply.  Next, it's up to you to get out there and make damn sure you know how to use your weapon, should the need arise.  Remember to exhale as you squeeze (rather than "jerk") the trigger!

Building the Future

Most people I know would agree that children are the future of our species and planet.  Most of them would also say that it all starts with a proper education.  It's true - we have to teach them to be good stewards of the planet and to continue to advance the Human species, but there is something much more important than teaching them math and science.

We have to stop producing fucked up kids.

Too often, there is a cycle of violence in families.  Your parents spanked (hit) you to gain your obedience as a child, and your grandparents did the same.  And so, you hit your children to illicit the same compliance.  It's easy to understand why - this is all you've ever known.  And clearly, it worked out okay for you.  But did it really?  If you are using physical force to make your kids behave, maybe your thought patterns need some adjustment.

Think about what it teaches a child when you operate under this paradigm.  They internalize the idea that violence is an acceptable means to resolve basic disputes.  They also learn that there are two classes of people: Those who are "allowed" to use violence against others, and those who are forbidden to defend themselves against this compliance-seeking force.

Given this, is it any wonder that most people don't think twice about such problems as police brutality?  Or the demonstrable fact that the political class does not operate under the same set of rules as the little people?  The whole of American society is currently based around using physical force against those who will not comply with what a few corrupt people in suits have scribbled on paper.  This force is applied even when the "criminal" has caused no actual harm to a victim.  To a healthy and rational Human being, this is a morally repugnant way to organize societies.

You might say that children will be forced into this paradigm anyway when they grow up, and for now, you would be right.  But people do not internalize ideas in nearly as permanent a way when they are adults.  What children experience during their most formative years becomes the bedrock of their worldview.  And while it can be unlearned (this author being an example), it takes a great deal more work and pain to shift how you see the world once you are an adult.  Too many people are not even capable of questioning the core beliefs they have always held.  And when they have learned the rule-by-force paradigm, the wheel continues to turn without so much as a second look.

The time to build a better future and break the cycle of violence starts right here, right now, with you.  If you want to learn more about Peaceful Parenting, here's a good place to start: http://www.peacefulparent.com/the-peaceful-parenting-philosophy/

"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think." -Margaret Mead

"Children are not things to be molded, but people to be unfolded." -Jess Lair

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." -Frederick Douglass

"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." -John F. Kennedy

Has your moral compass lost True North?

This message is for all the proud "law abiding citizens" out there.  The ones who think that, no matter what any law says, it ought to be followed to the letter.  The people who would happily vote "Guilty" on a case of illegally collecting rain water.  Or growing a garden in your front yard.  Or inhaling a leaf.  "Guilty," just because someone in a costume told you it was wrong for them to do those things.  "Guilty," despite that person never having harmed an actual victim.  "Guilty," ripping a family apart and throwing a peaceful person in a cage, effectively destroying the rest of their lives.  "Guilty," despite the knowledge that you are not compelled by any law to vote this way, no matter the evidence.  "Guilty," and damn it, you think they got exactly what they had coming to them.

What the hell is the matter with you?

Are you really not able to separate the morality of an action from the words written on a piece of paper by some faceless politician you'll never meet?  Do you not realize that the "law of the land" is nothing more than the law of men?  That these men, especially those who have sought and held positions of power, are nothing more than corrupted tyrants who couldn't care less about your well-being?  These people care for only one thing: Their own power.  And the worst part is that you know this!  Nobody thinks politicians are the most virtuous among us.  Everybody knows exactly how crooked they are.  How corrupt.  How untrustworthy.

Yet somehow, you think it's a great thing when someone is thrown in a cage on the say-so of these monsters.

If a person takes an action that does not cause harm to a victim, it is morally reprehensible to lock that person in a cage.  And if you participate in this imprisonment, or even think it is a righteous thing to do, you are the criminal.  And on some level, that's okay.  Just own it.  Stop trying to justify your actions as moral and righteous based on the words of corrupt men.

Of course, I do wish you would reconsider your thought patterns.

In any case, if you find yourself on trial for a victimless "crime" and I find myself sitting on your jury, I will not let your life be destroyed that day.  Maybe someday, you can offer me the same courtesy.

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.  I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."  -Thomas Jefferson

"If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." -Henry David Thoreau

Breath in your lungs, a Beat in your heart, and a Light in your eyes

Have you ever stopped to contemplate the sheer impossibility of your own existence?

Think about it.  The Universe, as far as we can see it, is at least 92 BILLION light years in diameter. And light is the fastest thing we know of: It takes it only 8 minutes and 20 seconds to traverse the 92.6 MILLION miles from the Sun to the Earth.  In a year, a beam of light travels 5,879,000,000,000 - almost 6 TRILLION - miles.  And that's just one year - our Universe is 92 billion of these years across.

There's a whole hell of a lot of space out there.  Much more than our brains can even begin to comprehend.  And it looks like our Universe gets bigger all the time.

In that space, as far as we can see, there are about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion trillion) stars.  We see more all the time as their light reaches us.  Each of those stars can easily have as many planets surrounding it as our own star.  Many of them probably have a lot more planets than our solar system.

That's a whole hell of a lot of planets.  Once again, far more than our brains can possibly understand.  There is truly little doubt that thousands or millions or even billions of those innumerable planets have conditions similar to our own Earth, and could support life exactly as we know it.

Given all this, is it even possible to calculate the odds that you, the person reading this, are alive and conscious in this time and in this place?  On the scale of the Universe, it isn't even a stretch to say that your existence is impossible.

Yet, here you are.

What's more, the atoms that make up your body are the very same atoms found in the stars.  You are literally made of Stardust!  And every single cell in that body is replaced once every 7 years.  No part of your physical makeup that was present when you were a child is present now.  Every cell has been replaced, multiple times if you're a more seasoned traveler.

So the next time you can't seem to get out of your head; can't quite shake that dark mood, just remember: You are a ghost driving a self-regenerating organic vehicle made up of the stars.  Your very existence in this time and place is a miracle of unimaginable magnitude.

And smile.  As with all situations and objects that have ever existed, this, too, shall pass.

What, exactly, did you expect would happen?

It's starting to happen all over the United States.  Stories are starting to spring up on a daily basis.  In the last few days alone:

"Dallas sniper attack: 5 officers killed"

"Not just Dallas: Attacks in three states target cops"

"Police say officers have been targeted in Missouri, Georgia, and Tennessee"

"Chaos in St. Paul - Police Injured"

"Gunfire hits San Antonio police headquarters"

"Report: Cop, Bailiffs Shot at Courthouse"

"Sunday Slaughter Baton Rouge: 3 Cops Dead; Nation Tense"

If we are being realistic, we should expect these headlines to continue to crop up in the coming months.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I do not, in ANY way, condone the use of deadly force against people who have not wrongfully harmed others.  This will always hold true, whether the wrongfully harmed is a police officer or just another civilian.  This is, and will continue to be, a life-shattering tragedy for the families being destroyed.

But if we actually take an objective look at the history - especially more recent history - of policing in America, can any of us truly say we are surprised it has come to this?  After all, you can only kick a dog so many times before he snaps and rips your throat out.

What we are seeing today is a involuntary, almost compulsive reaction by people who have been pushed beyond their limits.  People who look at the way things are and feel sick to their stomach. People who shake their heads and say "This is wrong, and it can't be allowed to continue."  Their methods might be wrong, but they feel like they have to do something, and nothing they have tried within official channels has changed a damn thing.

For the last 45 years, "law enforcement" has used the horrendously immoral War on Drugs as an excuse to commit endless unspeakable acts of aggression against people who would never have harmed anyone.  No-Knock drug raids are frequently employed, and too often on the wrong house.  Innocent homeowners who try to defend themselves against these aggressive and unannounced  invasions are gunned down in cold blood.  Flash bang grenades have been lobbed into the cribs of sleeping toddlers.  Countless millions of non-violent people are routinely brutalized, caged, and killed in the name of a war which was started by a power-drunk politician as nothing more than a means to suppress political dissent.

Another invention of the unconscionable War on Drugs is Civil Asset Forfeiture.  This allows police to "legally" seize peoples' property on the mere suspicion that the property (usually money, but often vehicles, homes, and more) was intended to be used to buy, sell, or produce drugs.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is then flipped on its head: You can't get your property back unless you prove in court that it was not going to be used for the reasons suspected.  Using this method of legalized robbery, police now steal more property from individuals than all private sector criminals combined.

It seems like almost every other day we see yet another story in the news about police activity that results in the death of (often) non-violent or otherwise innocent people.  In 2015, police were involved in the deaths of at least 1,200 people.  Granted, not all of these were unjustified, but far too many of them were.  Just last week, police executed a man who they had pinned to the ground.  And this week, an officer shot a man 4 times during a tail light stop, apparently because the man was licensed to carry a firearm and informed the officer of this before he reached for his Driver's License (as requested).  The man's girlfriend and her 4-year old daughter were in the car as he bled out.

At face value, it should be natural to assume that it is wrong to do these things to people.  But rather than being held accountable for apparently wrongful actions, police are almost universally internally investigated and determined to have operated "By the book."

People who defend the institution of policing claim that it's "just a few bad apples."  However, it is difficult to swallow this line when you consider what happens to the few GOOD apples.  Case in point: An officer who refused to make an illegal arrest was promptly relieved of his employment and black listed.  Crossing that "thin blue line" is one of the very few things that will get a cop fired.

People need to stop holding uniformed personnel to different standards than everyone else.  Any "officer-involved shooting" that was not done out of self-defense should not be called an "officer-involved shooting."  It should be called by its real name: Murder.  Taking peoples' property on the suspicion it was related to drugs should not be called "civil asset forfeiture," it should be called armed robbery.  Ticketing a driver who had caused no actual harm to anyone should not be called "traffic enforcement," it should be called extortion.  The list goes on, and encompasses any agent of the State on any level you want to imagine.

How can we be expected to teach our children to trust someone in uniform when you look at the situation objectively?  How are we supposed to differentiate between the "good apple" who will just let us know we have a tail light out and go on his way versus the one who just might murder you (and your dog) in front of your family at the drop of a hat?  How are any of us supposed to feel secure in a system that clearly holds its agents in infinitely higher regard than its subjects?  This is a system that objectively identifies law breaking by its own top agents, and then promptly dismisses the very idea of bringing charges against them.  Police now fill the role of the mafia goon in an objectively and abjectly corrupted system.  They have to.  Their very livelihood depends upon their willingness to "just follow orders," and "not make the law, just enforce it," no matter how disgustingly destructive that law might be to the clear-eyed witness.

It should be pretty obvious by now: People have lost respect and gained mistrust for law enforcement, and increasingly, this entire system of government.  If you can't see why by now, it is only because you don't want to see.  At this point, I don't know what can be done to regain that respect and trust.

At the very least, the following would need to happen:

• The war on drugs must be ended IMMEDIATELY.  This would be the single biggest good-faith measure that law enforcement personnel could make to show they want to bring an end to hostilities.  The roughly half of all prisoners now behind bars on non-violent drug charges should likewise have their families made whole.

• The "vast majority" of good police need to start aggressively weeding out the bad ones, and in the most public manner possible.

• Politicians who flippantly break laws need to be publicly and permanently removed from office.

• Government employees need to be treated like they're actual human beings and not some God-like entity with their own special set of rules (or lack thereof).

• All law enforcement activities whose only purpose is revenue generation must be stopped.  Any time an officer interfaces with the public the only purpose of this interaction should be the protection of non-violent people.

• Police should start functioning like the fire department - we don't need them proactively patrolling the streets.  Realistically, you cannot "prevent crime."  All cops can do is show up in time to chalk the body and write a report.  We can still have them do this without them aggressively seeking reasons to take more money from people, either through tickets or civil asset forfeiture.  STOP STEALING OUR STUFF.

Even if these and other actions were taken, I don't know that it would be enough.  Personally, I will never trust someone who wants to be in a position to "legally" use violence against me in the name of conformity.

Politicians might be beyond hope at this point, but things don't have to be the way they are between the police and public.  We are being artificially pitted against one another by an authoritarian system that only cares about its own power.  To people like Hillary Clinton, we are all just disposable pawns.

Obviously, it would be reasonable for anyone to defend themselves from an attack.  The people who are currently targeting police should fully expect return fire.  I want to urge both sides to stop killing one another.  To the enforcement arm: The power-elite at the top will not give you the "go ahead" to take the necessary actions to end this fighting.  It will be up to you as an individual to choose to end this.  Stop looking to your superiors for the "wink and nod."  You have to look into your own conscience to decide what is right or wrong here.

Unless and until there are some serious overhauls to the way things are done now, violence between cops and the public will be inevitable.  He might have held it together admirably well for a long time, but the repeatedly kicked dog seems to have reached his breaking point.  Calling his lashing out "unprovoked" and saying there is "no possible justification" for it is more than a little bit disingenuous.  It may be true that the recently fallen officers did not personally harm innocent people, but they wore the mantle of those who do so on an alarmingly regular basis.

When is it acceptable to shoot a cop?  No sooner or later than the moment it would be acceptable to shoot anybody else.  If you think it is never okay to defend yourself against an officer, I want you to take a long hard look at the line of reasoning behind that thought.

"You always have to follow the lawful orders of police!" - German Gestapo circa 1939

Violence vs. Voluntaryism: There's Always a Better Way

Have you ever examined the basic mechanisms of the society in which you live?  From my perspective, there are two basic ways to organize society: Voluntary cooperation, or violence and coercion.

Most of us experience some mix of the two.

In our interpersonal lives - usually up to the neighborhood level - societies are largely based on voluntary cooperation, or at least the Non-Aggression Principle.  In other words, on this level, people know it is unacceptable to initiate violence against one another to force desired behaviors.  People know that if they do start a fight, the person they are starting it with is completely justified in using aggressive defensive force.

In America today, this is where civility and voluntary cooperation end.  There is still a thin veneer of civility; some illusion of the absence of violence underpinning the functions of society.  But that's all it is - an illusion.  From the town level on up to the Federal, the rest of American society has its basis completely in coercion and threats of violence, up to and ultimately including deadly force.

Don't believe me?  Try not paying property taxes.  Or refusing to comply with local government workers who order you to stop doing construction on your own house without their holy permission.  Or refusing to pay income taxes to the IRS.  Or consuming a plant deemed "dangerous" by the FDA.  The initial contact by government workers on all levels might start out civilly enough, but if you don't comply with their demands, it won't be long before they show up with an armed person to forcibly extract your wealth or put you in a cage.

And if you don't want to have your property stolen or to be kidnapped?  The person with a gun will shoot you dead.  This is the ultimate conclusion of every "law" now on the books.  This is the reality of how American society is now organized.  There is no element of voluntary cooperation - either you will do what your rulers say, or they will put you down.  In my view, this is an absolutely unacceptable way to behave towards other human beings.

Any human interaction that is not voluntary is inherently wrong.  If your ideas are good enough to be followed, you will not need to employ people with guns to force your neighbors into compliance.  And if you do need to employ such people, your ideas really sucked to begin with.  This is true whether you are homeless and on the streets or the President of the United States.

Bottom line: There is ALWAYS a better way to get things done than by using force.  The only time violent force is legitimate is when it is used in self defense or the defense of another.  Anything else is just plain wrong.

"The problem isn't the person who is sitting on the throne.  The problem is that the throne exists at all." - Larken Rose

Can We Agree?

I have a proposition for you.  Something I hope we can agree on.

It goes like this: I won't use violence against you if you won't use violence against me.  In fact, I won't even use some face in a suit who sits at his perch in the District of Criminals as an agent or excuse to use violence against you.  At least, that is, if you agree not to do the same.

Heck, I won't even use violence against your neighbor, even if they are a little bit inconsiderate sometimes.  They don't deserve to be harmed just because they're a bit of a prick.

Can we agree on this?  Because if we can, there's really nowhere we can't go.  And quite honestly, if we can agree to this, it really won't matter what the sociopaths who fancy themselves our "rulers" do.  They can make all the ludicrous demands they want - if you and I agree not to harm one another on their behalf, the fact that they want power and war and death and control won't matter.

If we can't: Why not?  Under what circumstances - other than self defense or defense of other - do you think it is okay to use force on one another?  I'm seriously open to suggestions.  These ideas would probably be interesting to contemplate.

“I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers.
I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be 'authority,' and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders.
I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in 'authority'.”  -Larken Rose

A Killshot to Corruption in the Legal System

I've written a lot about many of the problems facing people today.  I usually try to offer potential paths to resolving those problems.  One of the biggest problems still at hand is the unjust use of "law" by power-drunk bureaucrats for nefarious purposes.

Largely due to indoctrination that takes place in the public schooling system, most people believe the best way to "be a good person" is to do exactly as you are told by figures of authority.  To "follow the law," be a good "law abiding citizen."  Obedience is touted as one of the best qualities a person can possess.  The only problem with this thinking is that, far too often, the color of "law" is used to wrongfully devastate the lives of innocent people who have harmed nobody, and likely never would have.

The kinds of "crimes" to which I refer include, but are not limited to:

• Collecting rain water on your own property
• Adding to or removing from the structure of your own home
• Developing your own land to include such features as a pond
• Growing a garden in your own front (and often back) yard
• Walking down a sidewalk while not white, then refusing to comply with a "peace" officer conducting a "random" stop-and-frisk
• Selling individual cigarettes, even after paying taxes on the whole pack
• Driving a vehicle down the road with cash in your possession
• Putting "forbidden" substances into your own body
• Growing certain plants
• Possessing (not harming people with) dangerous objects
• Selling raw milk to a willing consumer
• Paying someone for the pleasure of company they can "legally" give away for free
• Refusing to pay taxes to a system whose operations are morally repugnant to everything you believe in
• Dancing at certain national monuments
• Selling products to willing customers without the holy permission of local government
• Passing out information pamphlets at a court house to inform people of their well-hidden rights as jurors

While some of these might not officially be classified as "crime," the end result is the same: Someone is wrongfully deprived of their life, liberty, and/or property.  You could probably think of another list at least this long with actions you don't think should land people in cages.  The root cause of this problem is that society allows a small group of people to decide what is "right" or "wrong" for the rest of us.  These people can then "legalize" whatever brand of aggression they think they need to use against us to get compliance.  What I call "Armed robbery, extortion, a protection racket, and slavery," they call "Taxation."  What I call "False Imprisonment with a side of assault and battery," they call "Making an arrest."  The list goes on.

This abuse of "law" by those in power is one thing the rest of us can directly fight, and we don't even have to step outside the bounds of their bizarre power cult to do it.  However, we do need to stop trying to get out of jury duty.  Serving on a jury can be the single most effective thing you can do to put an end to the mass incarceration and punishment of otherwise peaceful people.

Enter Jury Nullification.  Did you know that you, as a juror, have the power to judge not only the facts of a case, but also the law itself, and its application?  If you find yourself being asked to help put someone in a cage, you owe it to that person to stop and consider whether you think they should be punished at all.  When you observe that about HALF of all incarcerated people in America are in prison on non-violent, victimless charges, it becomes clear that there aren't enough people stopping to consider this.

For me, the single most important factor in whether someone deserves to be punished is whether or not they caused actual harm to other people.  If there was no victim, how could there possibly have been a crime?  And even if you think the person on trial was the victim (as in the case of "drug" consumption), how does locking that person up make the situation right?

It is well within your power to make this world a better place.  Refusing to punish someone who should not be punished is one of the best places to start.

"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just like the Mafia, but worse in every way.

I'm not sure I've written on this topic yet, but I've got it in my head, so I might as well get it out on paper before it's gone.

Have you ever known anybody who hasn't "paid their fair share" of taxes (according to the letter of the IRS code, at least)?  Or maybe even somebody who ingested something deemed "dangerous" by the FDA, like raw milk?  Or who entered into a voluntary transaction with another human adult in which nobody was harmed or coerced into doing anything?

That last one can literally apply to any kind of transaction you want to imagine.

Have you noticed what happens to these people when the government learns of their mortal sins? Families stolen.  Entire life's work, taken (and spent on margarita machines for the local precinct - "Money from Heaven," they call it).  Lives lost to a cage.  For participating in actions that harmed no person involuntarily.

People are still crucified in this day and age.  And it is on an unimaginably pervasive scale.  If any one of us "normal" people were to try a tenth of the crap the government pulls, we could be sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.  This has happened again recently, when Ross Albrecht was convicted (corruptedly, unconvincingly) of operating a website. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not 100% sure about the parole part.

If you or I tried to collect taxes from our neighbors for the privilege of living in their own homes or working at their own jobs,  we would be (rightly) seen as robbers and extortionists.  If we tried to pull someone over and demand money from them because we noticed they weren't wearing their seat belt, that person would think we were a lunatic.  If we tried to put someone in a cage for collecting rain water on their own property, we might be committed to an asylum.  Yet somehow, it seems completely normal to most people when someone wearing a costume claims the right (a "right" which was given to them by who, again?) to do these things.

I keep coming across people who simply can't imagine life without an overriding parental figure to watch over them and guide their life.  Keep them safe from bullies.  They can't see past the obvious questions because they don't want to.  And I can't blame them for that.

Have you ever stopped and wondered what the difference is between the government and the mafia?  Both steal peoples' money.  Both give people rules to live by, and punish them if those rules are broken.  Both will ultimately use violence against you - up to and including murdering you - in order to maintain their power.  I honestly can't see any difference at all between the two.  The only thing that makes them different is someone's perception.  Most likely because of the 14,000 hours of their most formative years spent in public classrooms, a lot of people perceive the thuggish actions of their government to be legitimate and just.  It doesn't matter how demonstrably horrible the people in government are, in the eyes of the indoctrinated, they can never be on the wrong side of history.

We have to move past this point in our history. Nothing lasts forever, and our current way of life is no exception. Too many people choose not to think critically about some of the "essential" services provided by the public sector. And so, they can't imagine life without a central authority using violent, coercive force to steal money from peaceful people and provide these services. There is always a better way than holding a gun to Peter's head and demanding money to pay Paul. There's always a voluntary way to get things done.

Why don't we tackle just the most obvious one? "Who will build the roads?" When I think about it, I think: The exact same individuals who build them now. I don't believe it is a monolithic leviathan that magically wills roads into existence. I think it's the work of people - people who want to get paid. If I want a service, I'd much rather kick a few bucks towards the people doing the job than sending money to some intermediary who's going to keep most of it just to keep its fat face full and its bombs dropping.

Are you comfortable with being complicit in something like the United States foreign policy? Or even (and especially) its domestic policy? I would never voluntarily agree to pay for most of the crap these sociopaths want. As is, I don't have a choice in the matter. If I refuse to go along with this system - a system which is morally repugnant to nearly all the values I hold most dear - men with guns will eventually show up at my house to demand their tribute. And we all know what happens when you refuse to cooperate with a psycho holding you at gunpoint.

Until the world changes, remember to pay the blood money.  One way or another, they'll get their pound of flesh.

"America is at that awkward stage where it's too late to work within the system, but too soon to just shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe

"So we keep on waiting....waiting on the world to change." - John Mayer

The Absurdity of the System

The level of corruption in governments around the world (both State and Federal) is reaching a boiling point.  This isn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last.  Unless, that is, we decide we've had enough.  And I don't mean enough of the current team in power, I mean the government-by-force paradigm in its entirety.

While their intentions may (or may not) have been noble, the Framers of the Constitution created the potential that has led to the absurdity we see today.  The only thing worse than being made into a criminal for owning a previously legal high capacity magazine is being made into a criminal for refusing to purchase health insurance.  As if to add insult to injury, President Obama is showing his true colors by celebrating his great "victory" of forcing millions of people at the barrel of a gun to buy health insurance.  This kind of celebratory behavior is what you might expect from a dictator looking down on those he has subjugated.  Then again, if you consider how Obama crassly jokes about murdering people with predator drones, this type of celebration seems right in line with his personality.

Only in a system as absurd as this do hundreds of millions of dollars per year get funneled into combating a drug which has never killed anyone in all of Human history while the pharmaceutical industry produces one pill after another that regularly kill over 38,000 people per year in the US alone.  In fact, roughly 50% of people in our overloaded prison system (which is largely private and for-profit) are there for non-violent drug related offenses.  Related: The legal alcohol and tobacco industry kill a cumulative 518,000 people per year in the US.

Only in a system as nonsensically absurd as this does the government spend untold billions on fighting a faceless "War on Terror" while leaving the Southern border of the country wide open to potential terrorists and illegal immigrants.  Mind you, I don't have any problem at all with people freely traveling this planet, so long as they do so in peace.  What is absurd is that the United States government would have you terrified of some shadowy threat they can't really define so that they can keep taking your money and limiting your growth.  In short, so that you never have time to stop and question the validity of their claims, or the validity of the fact that they exist at all in the capacity in which you think they do.

Only in a system as patently absurd as ours does Congress abdicate its responsibility to create money to a private bank, then borrow from that bank at interest.  The debt our government owes to the Federal Reserve has grown so far out of control that virtually every penny of your Federal income taxes go directly to paying the interest alone.  That's right: Your income taxes do not pay for the services you expect.  Instead, they pay for the interest on a debt our government only owes because it gave up its duty to create its own money.

Only in a system as absurdly corrupt as this do the same people creating genetically modified foods also get to set the safety regulations for those foods.  These same people are also authoring legislation that prevents any sort of cease-and-desist order being filed against them even if it is found that their "foods" are causing harm to humans or the environment.

Only in a system as ridiculously absurd as America's can you be sent to prison for not paying taxes - where you can't earn more to pay off your "obligations" even while costing taxpayer money for your stay - without absolving you of your tax debt.  If tax collection were about revenue generation, the last thing the government would do is lock you in a cage at the expense of tax dollars.  But taxation isn't about revenue.  It's about control at the barrel of a gun.  The situation is literally no different than when a common street thug holds a gun to your head and demands "Your money or your life."  The number of thugs and caliber of the gun being held is of no relevance to this scenario - they are identical.

While we are on this topic, it is worth revisiting a heavily self-evident fact: The initiation of aggression is inherently illegitimate.  Even if you believe your friend should behave a certain way, you know it is unacceptable for you to threaten violence against them to illicit the behavior you want.  You also know that if you choose to initiate violence anyway, your friend is fully justified in using violence against you in their own self-defense.  You live by this Non-Aggression Principle every day you interact with others without harming them.  If this is the standard applied to individual people, should it not also be applied to governing bodies?  Anything that must be done at the barrel of a gun - taxation, drug law enforcement, Obamacare - should be seen by all as inherently illegitimate because it removes the element of voluntary interaction.

It's time for everyone to see government for what it is - a concentration of force which uses threats of violence and ultimately the promise of death to obtain compliance.  Having "slightly less stealing and threats of violence" isn't good enough.  If Liberty is truly to thrive, we must remove the ability of any single person to legalize whatever brand of aggression they see fit.

Reading words like these might make you feel uncomfortable.  They seem to be calling you out to you directly to change some subtle thing in your life, something you know would work towards making our existence what it could be.  And I wonder - will you answer this call?  Or will you continue to live your life as if there is nothing wrong?  Because as Grant says in The Iron Web, "Some of us are done trying to help you.  If you crave servitude and can't live without it, by all means, keep it.  But leave us the hell alone."

"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence."

It's Not a Democracy, Stupid!

In recent discussions about liberty, self-ownership, and non-aggression, a common misconception has been rearing its head: "We live in a democracy, so you're ruled by your fellow voters."  Democracy, as pointed out by the photo on the left, is like two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

What we are really supposed live in is a Constitutional Republic with a democratic election process.  The idea is supposed to be the protection of individual rights - the slight majority cannot vote itself the rights and property of the vast minority.

• Because of my First Amendment, a home-owner's association cannot legally forbid me from flying an American flag in my front yard, nor can an entity like the IRS restrict my ability to share my message with the rest of the country.  Similarly, the government cannot force me to forsake my religious beliefs in the name of health care.
• Because of my Second Amendment, my right to protect myself and my family with firearms is not up for discussion, no matter how much fear and propaganda people want to believe.
• Because of my Fourth Amendment, my property cannot legally be permanently removed from my possession on mere suspicion of wrongdoing, nor can my vehicle be stopped and searched at a police checkpoint without probable cause.
• Because of my Fifth Amendment, I cannot legally be required to provide information that could incriminate myself.
• Because of my Sixth Amendment, I cannot legally be thrown in a cage without ever being given a trial by a jury of my peers.

These (and many other) examples hold true no matter what vote the majority makes.  Inevitably, people argue that "this is the way things are."  After all, HOAs frequently violate free speech.  To this day, the IRS is restricting certain groups with dissenting political ideologies from participating in the debate.  Gun rights have been under relentless assault on both the state and Federal level, particularly with the overused cry of "For the children!"  The NSA is spying on every single American's phone calls, emails, and social media posts.  The IRS requires you to submit a document each year that could land you in prison if you make even one mistake.  And people are indefinitely detained without a trial by our own government all the time, often merely on the suspicion of "terrorist" involvement.

It's true.  This is the way things are today.  And that is exactly the problem.

We still have some semblance of the freedoms our forefathers paid for in blood, but they're diminishing every day.  When you shrug your shoulders and dismiss the person trying to get you to question this reality, you are doing exactly what we have all been bred to do.  From the moment you hit the public school system, you've been taught to sit down, shut up, and blindly obey authority figures.  Blind obedience is rewarded while any questioning that challenges the status quo is punished.  You have no right to free speech and no right to privacy.  It is in this environment of intense indoctrination that we spend our most impressionable years.  And it is because of this indoctrination that so many Americans choose to sit idly on the sidelines while their freedoms are systematically removed.  It was Adolph Hitler who said "The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions.  In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed."

So if you choose to sit on the sidelines, that unfortunate choice is yours to make.  This fight truly needs you in it.  I only ask you do the rest of us a favor: When you see people like me fighting to reclaim the freedoms we are losing, continue to sit on the sidelines.  Don't hand us over to your masters with hope of praise or table scraps.

The Collapse of The American Dream Explained in Animation

This is absolutely critical educational material for any American citizen to be appropriately informed.

A Legacy of Lawlessness

Why is it that officials in government can declare some laws "the immutable law of the land" while arbitrarily choosing not to enforce others?  I can't count the number of times I've heard people (not just government officials) trumpet "Obamacare is the law of the land!" with a smirk on their face.

Well, so are our immigration laws, which aren't being enforced.  Marijuana is still (erroneously) illegal, yet Attorney General Eric Holder is choosing not to pursue legal action against banks who take deposits from admitted marijuana businesspeople.

The last time I checked, it was illegal for you or I to sell firearms to known criminals, and we'd be charged as an accomplice to murder if those guns were used to kill people.  But the government doesn't even bat an eyelash at the botched Fast and Furious operation which ended up doing just that.

On a larger scale, it is illegal for me to forcibly take your money from you, yet the IRS has been directly (and illegally) taxing us into oblivion since 1913.  I would be charged with violating your God-given and Constitutionally recognized right to privacy if I were collecting all of your phone calls, social media posts, and emails, but the NSA does these things to us all.  I would be charged with false imprisonment and violating your Sixth Amendment rights if I were to lock you in a room indefinitely without giving you a jury trial, but the government claims this very "right" of indefinite detention.  What's more, the government is now claiming and has executed the "right" to assassinate any person (even American citizens), anywhere in the world, for the crime of being "suspected of terrorism."  This alone should send chills down every Freedom-loving person's spine: Either we all have the right to a trial by jury, or none of us do.  Furthermore, It is illegal for me to poison you, yet the federal government protects biotech giants like Monsanto who are doing just that.  You would be charged with counterfeiting if you printed your own money, but the Federal Reserve (private) bank has been granted this authority.

As a side note, and on the largest scale: If it is wrong for me to do "it," it is wrong for me to ask an agent of the state to do "it" for me.  This is true whether it be forced taxation (aka: theft/slavery) or holding you at gunpoint to stop you from an activity that harms no one outside yourself (such as using cannabis or growing a garden in your front yard).

Bigger picture aside, the current administration's arbitrary and unilateral decision to selectively enforce laws has set the stage for lawlessness.  And make no mistake: It may not be necessary to have a government to steal our money and start wars on our behalf, but it is important to live by rules that prohibit people from harming one another.

Related - The Non-Aggression Principle: Being the initiator of force in any situation is inherently illegitimate.

"Anarchy: Not without rules, but without rulers."

Starve the System Through Gardening

If you've been paying attention, you probably know that things in our country aren't going so great.  Mega corporations who place profit over human and environmental health are running rampant, destroying the financial, physical, and ecological health of our nation.  Monsanto, by far the largest offender, does everything they can to pump their genetically modified "foods" into our homes while blocking any attempts to so much as label their product as modified.  But what can we do about it?

The single most potent answer: Start gardening.

If you grow your own food, you do something about both greedy mega corporations and genetically damaging foods in one fell swoop.  Growing your own food is like printing your own money, and the money you grow holds actual value by its very nature, rather than because someone in power says it does and forces you to accept it as payment.  Growing your own food purchases the kind of security money cannot afford.

Growing a garden for just yourself and your family can be pretty intimidating, especially if you're short on land, but there are ways around this.  In Switzerland, communities work together so that individual families can specialize in one type of food.  Each member of the community grows one or two specific foods on all the space they have, and community members trade with one another so that everyone can get every type of food needed.  In addition to starving mega corporations and keeping GMOs out of your pantry, gardening with your neighborhood in this manner builds incredibly strong communities.

Another idea that is starting to catch in is the idea of a community garden.  Local city governments can designate otherwise unused plots of land that are repurposed to plant massive gardens.  These gardens can be voluntarily tended to by members of the community, and the food can be freely distributed to those who need it.  Any excess food can be used to barter with neighboring communities.  This fosters the same sense of community and security as coordinated neighborhood gardening, and can also help keep kids out of drug and gang activity by giving them something productive to do.  If you want this idea to catch on in your community, attend the next City Council meeting and bring it up.

Sustainable gardening is enormously beneficial.  Not only is it good for the ecosystem, it also allows people to reconnect with a basic part of the Human experience that has been largely lost to the supermarket.  Most people today have no idea where their food comes from before it is nicely packaged and put on grocery store shelves.  The loss of this connection is terrible; regaining it is fulfilling and inspirational.

Gardening is one of the most revolutionary acts in which you can engage.  A return to gardening is one of the most effective ways we can have a true Return to Liberty.

The Many Lies of the Commander-In-Chief

I have a confession to make: In 2008, I voted for Barack Obama.  At the time, it wasn't a hard choice to make.  He was promising to deliver the "Hope and Change" America truly needed.  He was promising to bring an end to unconstitutional behavior and laws within government.  He was promising to zealously protect our rights.  He was promising an end to the death spiral our economy was in.  He told us exactly what we needed to hear after we were utterly molested by the Bush Jr. Administration.  And if we're being honest, I didn't think McCain's heart could handle the stress of a victory.  And yes - the fact that Obama is half African American also played into it: America needed a drastic change, and he was the very embodiment of this change.  So of course I believed in Obama - he promised to be everything a President was supposed to be and drastically change the direction of our country's path to destruction.

I supported Obama for a while.  After all, he'd inherited what I could only describe as a "train wreck" from Bush, and he deserved the chance to set it right.  Like most Americans, I stopped paying attention to what he was doing and went about the endless cycle of bills and trying to keep my head above water, confident that he would deliver on his promises.  At the next election, I came up for air and examined what he had actually done during his first term.  To put it simply, the Liar-in-Chief has lost every bit of support he once had from me, and my vote went to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.  Let us count the promises Obama made and the ways in which he has broken them:

• Guantanamo Bay will be closed, unconstitutional activities like warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention without a trial will be put to an end
• Obama has decided it is "probably impossible" to close Gitmo due to political barriers, and instead of closing it, its use has been expanded.  In signing the NDAA, Obama has expanded the practice of indefinite detention without trial of anyone (including U.S. citizens) he deems a threat.  Under Obama, use of the drone program has exploded, and drones have been used to murder American citizens without a trial, along with at least 360 innocent children overseas.  Warrantless telephone monitoring has exploded to encompass the entire country under new NSA programs, and under PRISM, all electronic communications are now monitored as well.  Tying into this: Obama has knowingly supported terrorists by sending arms and financial assistance to Syrian "rebels," who have been publicly noted as pleading allegiance to Al-Qaeda.  By Constitutional definition, this is Treason.
• The Bush era tax cuts on the wealthy will be allowed to expire
• While Obama at least appears to have put up a fight for this one, the tax cuts for the wealthy were extended under his watch.  What's worse: Due to the 2% increase in the payroll tax, the "bottom 98%" have seen a tax hike under Obama to the tune of about $1,000 per year, and that's for lower income families.
• There will be a foreclosure prevention fund established to aid people who cannot get a bank loan
• While the fund has been created (using money from the Wall Street TARP bailout fund), it has not delivered as promised.  The program was supposed to help 3 to 4 million families keep their homes, but to date, only about 500,000 mortgages have been adjusted.  Even among those "helped," this program has been a failure.
• Our immigration process will be reformed and the illegal immigrant problem will be addressed
• This one has received only token efforts.  Obama has instead opted to push all his political clout towards jamming healthcare nobody wants down everybody's throat.  The efforts that have been seen have been ridiculous at best, with the sacred "Path to Citizenship" placed far above the actual problem of people crossing our borders illegally.  In short: Obama is pushing amnesty for people who have broken our laws.
• Lobbyists will be restricted from serving in government positions
• There are currently 18 different people from Monsanto alone (let alone any other lobbying group or corporation) serving in government positions.  This helps to explain why Obama has passed legislation that prevents legal action against the GMO-Giant, even if they are proven to be committing crimes against humanity.
• The Iraq War (which was based on lies) will be ended within 16 months
• Troops were not fully withdrawn until December 2011, 35 months after Obama was sworn in. 
• I will not take your guns
• Obama has danced in the blood of the innocent Sandy Hook victims more joyously than even Dianne Feinstein.  He has led an outright assault on the Second Amendment, pushing for as much gun control as he can without crossing the dangerous line (wide-scale confiscation) that would wake the sleeping masses.  His most recent push is the signing of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which would grant the "legal" precident to disarm the American populace.
• Everybody will have affordable healthcare; your premiums will go down, and you can keep your current provider/doctor if you like them
• Under Obamacare, it is estimated that 30 million Americans (a full 10% of the nation) will still not be covered.  Families are seeing their premiums jump up to 72%.  We are only seeing reductions in premiums in a select few cities such as New York and Los Angeles due to their preexisting health plans.  Across the country, large insurance providers of small businesses and individuals are pulling out of the market because they cannot comply with new mandates, causing millions to lose their existing coverage.  As if this wasn't bad enough, it was decided in early August of 2013 that Congress and members of the White House will have their Obamacare premiums covered by the government, which means We the Taxpayers get to pay for the increased costs to our "leaders" as well as to ourselves.  I still cannot understand how it is legal for our government to fine us an increasing amount of money each year (starting with at least 1% of your income) for not buying something they think we should have.  I can only hope that multitudes of people do not comply with this totalitarian mandate.

Most of these tie into the biggest broken promise of all: Obama's Oath of Office.  He did not vow to eradicate terrorism.  He did not vow to keep us safe.  He did not vow to provide healthcare for all.  He vowed to protect, defend, and preserve one thing: The Constitution of the United States of America.  This is Obama's charge, and he has failed.

I don't know about you, but I'm done blaming Bush for Obama's shortcomings.  It's time to accept that Obama is not the man he promised us he would be.  No amount of elaborate speeches are going to change that fact.  It's time to hold the right President's feet to the fire.  It's time for We the People to create the Hope and Change our dying nation so desperately needs.

Is Your Representative Representing YOU?

When the Amash amendment to defund unconstitutional activity in the NSA came up in the House of Representatives, I was disappointed to learn that my representative, Luke Messer, voted against it.  I took this as a direct vote against the Constitution, and so, a direct violation of his Oath of Office.  And I informed him as such.  But that got me thinking: If he would willfully violate his Oath in this circumstance, where else might I find unsavory activity?  So I did some digging.


The websites I used for my research were The U.S. House of Representatives Roll Call Votes and Luke Messer on the Issues (can search a different candidate), among others.  Here is what I found:

• 2011-2012 campaign funds: http://www.fec.gov/disclosurehs/HSCandList.do - a total of $745,068 personally contributed, or nearly 75% of his total campaign fund.  This alone demonstrates that Mr. Messer is not just another rank-and-file citizen, and further demonstrates the fact that our government is no longer "Of the People."
• 3/6/2013: Messer voted "Yea" on H.R. 933, which included a provision that has come to be known as the "Monsanto Protection Act."  This act has shielded the GMO-giant Monsanto from any legal action that would prevent them from producing and distributing their genetically modified foods, even if it is found that these "foods" cause harm to humans.
• 4/12/2013: On unanimous consent (Including Messer): S.716 (introduced by harry Reid) was passed.  This legislation removed the barriers to insider trading in Congress, which places all elected representatives above the law in terms of making a profit from the stock market.  They can now freely trade on insider information, and as such, their stock portfolios tend to outperform any in the private sector.
• 7/25/2013: Vote results for Amash Amendment to defund NSA wholesale violation of 4th Amendment: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml.  Messer voted against this amendment.  This demonstrates a clear lack of reverence for his Oath of Office, in which he swore to protect, defend, and preserve the Constitution of the United States of America.  Meanwhile, Mr. Messer says he supports protecting the Constitution (http://www.ontheissues.org/IN/Luke_Messer_Government_Reform.htm).  Which is it, sir?  You cannot have it both ways, and your actions thus far have spoken louder than your words.
• Once again ignoring our Fourth Amendment rights, Luke voted YES on CISPA (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll117.xml)
• Mr. Messer opposes same-sex marriage as well as pro-choice policies.  As for me, I would not personally choose to get married to a man, nor would I push a woman to get an abortion in the case of an unwanted pregnancy.  In the pregnancy case, I would suggest she give the child up for adoption.  However, it’s none of my business how someone else chooses to live their life – it is not fair of me to deprive another of their right to live as they choose.  For this reason, I am both pro-choice (before the first trimester is over) and pro-same sex marriage.
• As a positive note, Mr. Messer supports gun owners (http://www.ontheissues.org/IN/Luke_Messer_Gun_Control.htm).  While it is great that he supports at least some parts of the Constitution, his Oath does not permit him to choose not to abide by the Fourth Amendment.  His Oath omitted the words “The parts of the Constitution which I deem relevant.”
• He has no declared stance on Social Security, which is an issue of National importance.  As for me: I know SS is completely bankrupt, and it’s because our leaders borrowed every single penny from the Trust Fund that was supposed to last until 2036.  The program is broken and is further bankrupting our country.  This must be addressed, and a neutral stance on the issue is not productive.
• What about his opinion on free trade?  On this, he is also undeclared.  Free trade has led to the mass exportation of jobs from the U.S. overseas, which has been one of the leading causes of the decline of our country.  We must eliminate Free Trade Agreements and once again institute tariffs on imports; this would both incentivize the USA to produce more than it consumes as well as provide an additional revenue stream to fund government.
• Messer is neutral on maintaining US sovereignty from the United Nations.  This is directly contradictory to Messer’s stance on guns when you consider the U.N. small arms treaty.  While he was with the unanimous vote against funding for this treaty, he needs to take an official stance on U.S. sovereignty from the U.N.
• Messer seems to support expansion of the Military Industrial Complex.  He supports this expansion under the name of “giving the military what they need to keep America safe.”  The US military spending dwarfs all other countries’ spending combined.  To keep the U.S. safe, we would only need to bring all our troops home and deploy them to defend our own borders.  We need to get out of undeclared illegal wars in countries where we have no business.
• Messer has not publicly taken a stance on staying out of Iran.  He needs to do this: Remaining complicit in the U.S. involvement in Syria will allow us to be led into World War 3.  Mr. Messer – where do you stand?
• On green energy: While it’s true we should continue to use coal and domestic oil, it is folly not to at least look into alternative energies.  On the surface, Luke seems to completely oppose looking into green energy.
• 8/2/2013: It is agreed that Congress will have 75% of the cost of their Obamacare covered by the federal government.  In other words, We the Taxpayers (including businesses) get to cover the increased cost for Congress in addition to the 72% increased cost to ourselves.  This does not seem like equal application of the law, and I am curious to get Mr. Messer's feelings on the matter.

This is what I found about my representative.  He looks great on the surface, but underneath it, I do not feel he has my best interests at heart, nor can he really connect with his constituents on a personal or financial level.  As such, until he changes his stances or publicly declares stances on the above issues, I would not vote for him.

So what can you find out about your representative?