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?

A Message To My Senators Regarding Egyptian Aid

Dear Senator Coats/Donnelly,

I was very disappointed to learn that you voted to table the Rand Paul amendment that would have stopped the U.S. from sending aid to the Egyptian military.  It is United States Law that we do not send aid to a government that has been removed via military coup, and this is exactly what has happened in Egypt.  The military is still as involved as ever in the process to elect new leadership, and the leadership that is installed will have been heavily influenced by them, just like the last time.  Hence: This was not an overthrow by the People of Egypt, but rather the military stepping in before they completely lost control of the situation.

America has no place in the dealings of Egypt's government: They should be left to live by the system and leaders the People of their nation so choose.  Continuing to send aid to the military further bolsters their ability to control the situation and install the leadership desired, not by the people, but by the military.  I sincerely hope you will reconsider your position on America's place in foreign affairs in the future.

Sincerely,

Jordan Suwinski