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Life, Liberty, and Property

UN Agenda 21 – Coming to a Neighborhood near You

May 19

Posted by admin in Agenda 21, Freedom and Liberty, Land Grabs, Progressivism, Socialism | Comments off

Please take time to read the following and beware the government is breaching the Constitution by taking public rights away from the public lands and is moving in on private land holdings. Bad will prevail when good men do nothing.

By Scott Strzelczyk and Richard Rothschild
Most Americans are unaware that one of the greatest threats to their freedom may be a United Nations program known as Agenda 21. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development created Agenda 21 as a sustainability agenda which is arguably an amalgamation of socialism and extreme environmentalism brushed with anti-American, anti-capitalist overtones.
A detailed history on sustainable development, definitions, and critical actions can be found here. Section III of the Agenda 21 Plan addresses local community sustainable development. The Preamble and Chapter 28 discuss how Agenda 21 should be implemented at a local level. The United Nations purposely recommends avoiding the term Agenda 21 and suggests a cleverly named alternative: “smart growth.” The United Nations Millennium Papers – Issue 2 (page 5) says this of Agenda 21 and smart growth:

Participating in a UN-advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy-fixated groups and individuals in our society such as the National Rifle Association, citizen militias and some members of Congress. This segment of our society who fear ‘one-world government’ and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’ by undertaking LA21. So, we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management, or smart growth [emphasis added].

Undoubtedly, residents of any town, county, or city in the United States that treasure their freedom, liberty, and property rights couldn’t care less whether it’s called Agenda 21 or smart growth. A recent example of this can be found in Carroll County, Maryland, where a smart growth plan called Pathways was drafted by the County Planning Department. The plan, if enacted, proposed a breathtaking reshuffling of land rights:

• Rezoning of thousands of acres of beautiful, low-density agricultural farmland and protected residential conservation land into office parks
• Down-zoning of agriculture land to prevent future subdivision by farmers
• Up-zoning of low-density residential land around small towns into higher density zoning to permit construction of hundreds or possibly thousands of inclusive housing units, including apartments and condominiums
• Inclusive housing with placement of multi-family construction on in-fill lots within existing residential single family communities
• Endorsement of government-sponsored housing initiatives (subsidies) to ensure healthier, balanced neighborhoods

Carroll County, Maryland is one of 1,168 cities, towns, and counties worldwide that are members of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) – Local Governments for Sustainability, which is an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. The ICLEI mission statement closely resembles that of Agenda 21. In fact, the ICLEI has Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council and coordinates local government representation in the UN processes related to Agenda 21.

Community leaders working together in Carroll County recently defended their county against overreaching smart growth initiatives. Richard Rothschild, a candidate for Commissioner, emphatically remarks, “Smart growth is not science; it is political dogma combined with an insidious dose of social engineering. Smart growth is a wedding wherein zoning code is married with government-sponsored housing initiatives to accomplish government’s goal of social re-engineering. It urbanizes rural towns with high-density development, and gerrymanders population centers through the use of housing initiatives that enable people with weak patterns of personal financial responsibility to acquire homes in higher-income areas. This has the effect of shifting the voting patterns of rural municipalities from Right to Left.”

Smart growth plans usurp property rights and constitutional rights. Local officials, at the behest of State Government, revise zoning laws to fit into a “smart code” zoning template. A massive reshuffling of property rights ensues. Farmers may lose subdivision rights; conservation land adjacent to population centers may be rezoned into commercial employment centers; and low-density land in small towns is re-designated as growth area and rezoned to accommodate diverse housing including high-density apartments and condominiums.

Finally, a healthy dose of federal- or state-sponsored housing initiatives is embraced to ensure communities are properly balanced. The net effect of these plans is to create highly urbanized population centers throughout otherwise-rural counties, while simultaneously limiting the availability of land for suburban and estate subdivisions, as these are considered an unsustainable waste of land by Agenda 21 disciples.

Clearly, smart growth plans will impact Americans’ future choices in where and how they live. Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal and state agencies may attempt to deny grant funds to states and cities that do not adopt smart growth plans.

Most Americans will remain unaware of the implications of smart growth and Agenda 21 until after it is promulgated in their own backyards. Ironically, these plans are more insidious than the Eminent Domain ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Kelo v City of New London. Under Eminent Domain rulings, property owners usually receive compensation for their losses.

Conversely, smart growth municipal plans, required by statute, enable municipalities to change zoning laws and engage in other regulatory actions that devalue property, restrict off-conveyances, and otherwise erode property values without payment of any compensation to the property owner.

Smart growth has another interesting unintended consequence: it can disrupt conventional alliances and lead to strange political bedfellows. Rural urbanization plans may raise the ire of environmental groups while simultaneously stirring the wrath of both conservative and liberal residents that want to maintain the rural fabric of their communities. Conversely, developers, sensing opportunity, may side with government smart growth bureaucrats in support of these plans.

Regardless of political orientation, two indisputable facts remain. Agenda 21 is a direct assault on private property rights and American sovereignty, and it is coming to a neighborhood near you.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_agenda_21_coming_to_a_neigh.html

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Feds Come Knocking for Home Inspections

Jan 17

Posted by admin in Agenda 21, Constitution, Freedom and Liberty, Water Rights | Comments off

Posted: January 16, 2011
6:06 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

A sanitation district in Pennsylvania has notified homeowners that its representatives will be making personal visits to every structure served by its network of drainpipes because that’s what the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding.

The letter informs homeowners the inspections will probably take only about 15 minutes, but that all properties “will be considered a source of clear water discharges until an inspection can be conducted.”

The effort, according to officials at the Coplay Whitehall Sewer Authority, is to prevent water from sources such as sump pumps or downspouts from being channeled into a water treatment process.

But homeowners are concerned about the mandatory government inspections of their properties.

“I do consider this the equivalent of illegal search and invasion of my home without just cause and [it] establishes a situation where I am guilty and must prove innocence,” one homeowner, who asked that his identity be withheld, told WND.

“This inspection is to determine if I am ‘discharging’ ‘clean water’ into the sewer system. At no point in the letter does it say exactly what will be looked at, (I guess leaky faucets will be a crime) what else may be being evaluated while my property is being inspected, what is on the ‘check list’ or report that is being done, and really exactly who is doing the inspection,” he said.

Officials with the sanitation district confirmed that they dispatched the letter and said the inspections are being demanded by the EPA. However, officials at the regional EPA office and those at its Washington headquarters declined to respond to WND questions about the process or its goals.

The letter to homeowners said the district was served “with a United States Environmental Protection Agency Administration Order which requires elimination of all Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs) and the elimination of all clear water from entering each respective municipality’s sanitary sewer system.”

“The Administrative Order carries severe penalties and fines if compliance with the Order is not achieved,” the letter said.

“In order to meet the requirements of the EPA Order, the CWSA finds it necessary to conduct door to door inspections of all properties connected to the CWSA system to ensure your property is not contributing clear water discharges to the sanitary sewer systems.”

The letter warned that “failure by the CWSA to comply with the EPA order will result in fines and penalties levied against the CWSA which in turn will be passed on to CWSA customers through increased sanitary sewer rates.”

The homeowner told WND, “I find myself becoming more and more angry as I process the ramifications of this whole issue. This may be just to look for ‘clean water discharge’ (what a joke – I wonder if they will look to see if I’m in the shower too long and not standing under the flow of water enough and I better not run the water for a glass of cold water), but this is, like the sexual assaults of the TSA, the beginning of accepting illegal and unwarranted searches.

“It is happening here, but from the letter I get the feeling that it is being done elsewhere with the goal of having the EPA visit every single home/apartment in America to collect who knows what information … and if this is for clean water, what will be next?” the homeowner said.

The sanitation district’s own website confirms there apparently are other ways to obtain some information, since it describes how it “utilizes a ’state of the art’ television inspection system, reviewing 30 miles of line/year to assure maintenance of an exemplary ‘tight’ system.”

The district website confirms that there are 13,500 properties served by the “approximately 120 miles of line,” meaning that the entire system could be reviewed once every four years with the separate system it uses.

It advises that “rainwater, downspouts, basement drains and sump pump discharges” should not be connected or piped into the sanitary district’s drains.

Read more: Feds come knocking for home inspections http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=251069#ixzz1BLoW8WeB

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Delta Group Aims its EIR at Watershed

Jan 17

Posted by admin in Agenda 21, Water Rights | Comments off

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 | Posted by Roberta Long

THE BLUE AREA is the primary planning area for the Delta Plan. The red area is the secondary planning area for the Delta Stewardship Council. (The map can be found here: http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/delta-stewardship-council-prepares-for-environmental-impact-report/attachment/delta-map/) An environmental impact report for the Delta Plan is now taking in the entire watershed and the area that uses Delta water. 

The only areas not included are the coast from Marin County north, the Klamath River Basin, the eastern Sierra, Monterey County, Death Valley, the Mojave Desert, eastern San Diego County, eastern Riverside County and Imperial County except for the Salton Sea.

People in the mountain counties who follow the new water laws, regulations and court decisions have been concerned how the Delta Plan, now in progress, might affect their interests or communities. This watershed secondary planning area could have a dramatic effect.

The Delta Plan is being developed by the Delta Stewardship Council.The Delta Stewardship Council was established as an independent agency of the state effective Feb. 3, 2009, with the charge to “provide for the sustainable management of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem, to provide for a more reliable water supply for the state, to protect and enhance the quality of water supply from the Delta, and to establish a governance structure that will direct efforts across state agencies to develop a legally enforceable Delta Plan.”

The council is entrusted to pull all the issues, such as water flows, water quality, environmental protection, emergency management, economics, the Delta as an evolving place, conveyance alternatives, upstream impacts, flood management and climate change, into one coherent management system by Jan. 1, 2012. The effects of decisions made for the Delta are already being felt beyond the Delta.

The science
To provide scientific expertise, the CALFED Science Program, which had been operating under the Resources Agency since 1994, was morphed into the Delta Science Program under the council.

Its mission is to provide the “best possible unbiased scientific information to inform water and environmental decision making in the Delta. Between July and September, the Delta Science Program was overseeing 20 grants and 15 contracts. The Lead Scientist is responsible for leading, overseeing and guiding the program. Clifford Dahm, PhD, was lead scientist for CALFED. His contract was extended so he could provide continuity for the science program for the council. Dahm has given notice that he will return full-time to his teaching position at the University of New Mexico at the end of June.

The legislation established a Delta Independent Science Board of up to 10 members to serve the council. This board replaces the CALFED Science Board. The members “shall be nationally or internationally prominent scientists to provide oversight of the scientific research, monitoring and assessment programs that support adaptive management of the Delta.” At the recommendation of Lead Scientist Dahm, the council approved 10 members on June 24. The board has met twice in Sacramento, on Sept. 30-Oct. 1 and Dec. 9-10, 2010.

Law and regulations
On the legal side, although the legislation says the two constitutional legal principles of reasonable use (not wasting water) and the public trust doctrine (mainly referring to environmental protection) should be applied, it appears the public trust doctrine has trumped riparian rights, county-of-origin rights and appropriative rights (first in time, first in place) in California.

That was the basis for the court decision that set the “Delta smelt rule,” and for regulations protecting other threatened or endangered fish. During one period, the pumps that delivered water to Southern California were ordered closed so the Delta smelt, whose numbers were dropping precipitously, would not be sucked into the pumps or eaten en masse by predators. On appeal, the judge ruled that other considerations be taken into account.

Folsom Lake, as the closest water storage facility to the Delta, is required to be the first responder when fresh water is needed to stem a saline advance in the Delta during low water periods. During a drought period, local residents, agriculture and businesses can be put on water restrictions to serve the needs of the Delta.
Another recent impact was the Central Valley Water Board’s decision to markedly increase the water quality standards in the water discharged in the Sacramento River by wastewater treatment plants. Bringing the treatment plants into compliance will be costly.

EIR gets rolling
Formal preparation for a draft environmental impact report on the Delta Plan was the primary issue at the Delta Stewardship Council meeting, on Nov. 18-19, 2010, held in the West Sacramento City Hall Galleria. The council is the lead agency.

Chairman Phil Isenberg and members Patrick Johnston, Gloria Gray, Randy Fiorni, Felicia Marcus and Don Nottoli attended the first day. Hank Nordhoff joined the council the second day.

Notice of Preparation
The Delta Plan will serve as a basis for future findings of consistency by state and local agencies with regard to “covered actions.”

A covered action might be any action that impacts the co-equal goals of the Delta Plan: providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. The coequal goals shall be achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place.

As engineer Gwen Buccholz, who is leading a team of consultants to prepare the Notice of Preparation (NOP) and Draft Environmental Impact Report, methodically went through the key points of the NOP, discussion centered around the scale of the Delta Plan.

What has been historically called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, or the primary Delta, is mainly agricultural. The Suisun Marsh is usually included. A small ring around the primary Delta is called the secondary zone. It contains urban areas such as Tracy, Freeport, West Sacramento, Rio Vista, Collinsville, Pittsburg, Antioch, Oakley, Knightsen, Brentwood, Discovery Bay and Stockton.

Several concurrent planning efforts will be reviewed during preparation of the Delta Plan, including the Delta Protection Commission Land Use and Resources Management Plan, Economic Sustainability Plan, and the studies used to develop the Economic Sustainability Plan; Central Valley Flood Protection Plan; Habitat Management, Preservation and Restoration Plan for Suisun Marsh; State Water Resources Control Board Development of Flow Criteria for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Ecosystem; Department of Fish and Game Draft Quantifiable Biological Objectives and Flow Criteria for Aquatic and Terrestrial Species of Concern Dependent on the Delta, among others.

Around 400 agencies and tribes were sent the Notice of Preparation.
Referring to the reach of the Delta Plan, Council member Nottoli asked, Does this mean that if an agency in Trinity County wants to do a project it would have to fill out all the paperwork to be consistent with the Delta Plan?
The answer was not definitive. Buchholz responded that because of the tight timeline, the strict legal requirements and the complex nature of the environmental impact report, there is no margin for revision if one of the “trustee” or “responsible” agencies is left out of the process. It will be easier to pare down than to add.
The council approved the Notice of Preparation, which was filed on Dec. 10, 2010.

Public scoping meetings
Seven public scoping meetings have been set throughout the state in January.

Local scoping meetings will be held on Jan. 24, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Resources Building Auditorium, 1416 9th Street, Sacramento, and from 6:30-9:30 p.m. in the Clarksburg Middle School Auditorium, 52870 Netherlands Road, Clarksburg.

The Notice of Preparation and Scoping Schedule are on the home page of the Delta Stewardship Council: deltacouncil.ca.gov.

Public scoping comments can be mailed or e-mailed by 5 p.m. on Jan. 28 to: Ms. Terry Macaulay, Delta Stewardship Council, 980 Ninth Street, Suite 1500, Sacramento 95814; e-mail deltaplanscoping@deltacouncil.ca.gov.

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Whistleblower’s Home Raided by Armed FDLE Agents

Jan 17

Posted by admin in Agenda 21 | Comments off

January 15, 2011 •

A 1787 Network Exclusive
by Adrian Wyllie

JASPER, FLORIDA – Robert “Bob” Burton is a deadhead logger in the Florida panhandle. In the course of his business, he stumbled upon some illegal activities carried out by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), including state employees dumping toxic waste in Florida water reclamation areas.

On Friday, Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies and Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agents, dressed in tactical gear and armed with assault rifles, served him with a search warrant. Agents seized his computer, cell phone, video camera, and other items. However, Burton has not been charged with any crime.

He also reported that the DEP had seized a logger’s entire season harvest, even though the logger had the proper permits, and was violating no laws. A judge later ruled that the logger in question had legally harvested the logs, valued at over $300,000, but the DEP has refused to return the logs. He contends that public records regarding this case were intentionally destroyed.

Burton recorded a telephone conversation with Ryan Tyson, the Chief of Staff for State Senator Charles S. “Charlie” Dean, Sr., in which Tyson may have made incriminating statements regarding DEP activities. Sen. Dean is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation. Burton published his conversation with Tyson, along with other evidence of corruption, on YouTube.com.

As of Friday evening, those videos have been deleted by YouTube.
All of that apparently led to deputies and FDLE agents in tactical gear with assault rifles paying him a terrifying visit.

On Friday, January 14 around 7:30 am, Burton got a knock on his door. Standing there was a Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy and several heavily armed FDLE agents. They presented a warrant. Not an arrest warrant, but a warrant to seize Burton’s computer, video camera, cell phone, and documents.

No one was arrested — they just wanted the documents and recordings Burton had made of state officials engaged in what appears to be illegal activities. Burton’s wife, who was in the shower at the time, was forced out of the bathroom. They brought in a female agent to observe her as she dressed. The Burtons were deeply shaken by the raid. “I’m rattled right now. They’ve confiscated everything,” said Burton.

“When they come to your door with assault rifles…if I had a phone or remote control in my hand at the time, there’s no telling what would’ve happened.” In Florida, both parties must be aware that the conversation is being recorded in order to comply with the law. However, when a citizen calls the Senator’s office, there is a recorded message at the beginning of the call that says, “This call may be monitored or recorded.” Therefore, both parties would presumably be aware that the call was being recorded, complying with state law.
Florida takes pride in the “Government-in-the-Sunshine” law, which assures that dealings between the public and state government officials are open to the public, and can be copied and republished by the public at large. “The way [the DEP Inspector General's office] has been destroying public records, we had to do something to expose what they were doing to us and to everyone in the State of Florida,” said Burton. Burton said he has been in contact with representatives for Gov. Rick Scott’s office.

Burton says he has official documents, recordings, and other evidence proving his claims. He says that the state has attempted to intimidate and harass him on several occasions in the past, but this is the most aggressive act toward him and his family to date.
Burton’s crusade against the Florida Department of Environmental Protection began years ago. His investigation has led him to believe that this corruption is part of a wider, perhaps more sinister plan.
According to Burton, many of the state’s illegal activities may be an effort to fulfill a United Nations plan known as Agenda 21.

The UN Division for Sustainable Development describes Agenda 21 as a “comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts (sic) on the environment.”

Under Agenda 21, the UN is promoting the forceful transfer of ownership of forests and natural resources away from governments and individuals to entities which they refer to as Private-Public Partnerships (PPP). These PPPs most commonly consist of partnerships between global corporations, universities, private foundations, and environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club.

At this time, there do not appear to be any charges against Burton, but the state has issued him a trespass warning on state-owned land. Because of this recent raid, Burton is deeply concerned for his family’s safety.

All attempts to contact Sen. Dean for comment were unsuccessful. Hamilton County Sheriff J. Harrell Reid did not return our call for comment. Keith Kameg, public information officer for the FDLE, said that he had no information regarding the warrant, and that they were likely there only to assist with serving the warrant at the request of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office.

We will have more on this story as it develops.

UPDATE (01-15-2011 15:47) 1787 Network has obtained a copy of the search warrant, and the complaintant on the warrant is Special Agent Eric Daniel of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

UPDATE (01-15-2011 18:30) Keith Kameg of the FDLE has now confirmed that this is an FDLE-led investigation. Kameg said he was unable to give any additional information because the warrant executed at the Burton home is part of an ongoing investigation. Kameg would not confirm if any charges were pending against Burton, nor would he comment on the nature of the investigation.
http://1787network.com/?p=295

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Immoral Progressivism Failing Miserably

Dec 5

Posted by admin in Liberty, Progressivism, Socialism, Tea Party Movement | Comments off

Immoral Progressivism Failing Miserably
by Arnold Ahlert
Posted 12/04/2010 ET

In England, youths are rioting. In Portugal, labor unions staged a national strike last Wednesday. A little over a month ago, France and Greece were subjected to large, violent demonstrations and riots. A common thread? In each of these countries, the unrest was engendered by economic austerity measures proposed and/or enacted by government. A far more salient common thread? The morally corruptive nature of the progressivist ideology.

As the four recent examples, along with others occurring all over the world illustrate, a group of like-minded “thinkers” is emerging. It is a group composed in equal parts of economic illiteracy and pathological self-entitlement. Only an utter fool—or a dedicated progressive—would riot or strike because someone else can no longer afford to underwrite your lifestyle.

What part of “running out of other people’s money” don’t the complainers understand?

Such a complete disconnect from reality doesn’t happen on its own.

It is where moral relativism, the cornerstone of progressive thinking, inevitably leads. Decades of teaching people that the state is their bottomless benefactor hasn’t just ruined economies around the globe. It has ruined the people themselves. Economies eventually recover.

Can people recover their dignity and character?

Mankind has always been corrupt. We are, by nature, fallen creatures for whom doing the right thing will always be more difficult than taking the path of least resistance. Yet such difficulty is exponentially compounded by a progressive ideology that constantly encourages people to abandon character for comfort and worry about the moral ramifications after the fact. It is compounded by the siren song of perpetual victimhood that relieves the individual of personal responsibility and personal ambition. It is compounded by playing one group of people off another, without regard to individual achievement—or a lack thereof. It is not hard for people to be seduced by “we will take care of you,” or maybe even more accurately, “we will do your thinking for you,” once the moral component of the seduction has been calculatingly obscured.

Bottom line: A predominantly moral populace has little need for expansive government—and progressives know it. That is precisely why one of their principal targets is religion and their ongoing determination to remove it from the public square whenever and wherever possible. The codified morality religion represents is the ultimate distraction away from the progressive agenda—which is why it must also be belittled as well.

Just as importantly, people must understand that progressives’
seeming respect for Islam has nothing to do with respecting religion per se. The same people calling Americans bigots for not wanting a mosque built near Ground Zero are the ones routinely bashing Christianity at every turn. Islam is nothing more than another weapon for pursuing that task—until the time comes when it too must be jettisoned to make way for the progressive New World Order. The current alliance-of-convenience is based on an old Arabic saying: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Yet the main battleground for the progressive movement is public school education. Does anyone seriously think those who champion an ever-expanding state want people being educated to think for themselves? What constitutes better clay for shaping than a semi- educated populace indoctrinated to believe, not only that the world owes them something for nothing, but that such a concept is morally justifiable?

Thus, it is no accident that the emphasis in public school education has gone from teaching kids how to think to teaching them what to feel. Nor is it coincidental that educational establishment dominated by progressives has made a student’s self-esteem more important than his command of the facts. People focused on emotional self-gratification are far more pliable than those capable of independent reasoning. Progressives understand that substantial numbers of Americans taught to believe a debate on the issues can be “won” by calling someone a name, is a critical component of their power base.

Ask yourself how many times, for example, any criticism of the Obama Administration’s disastrous policies has been deemed “racist”—even as that characterization is dubbed the only “logical” explanation possible. Ask yourself why almost f40% of Americans would consider it perfectly acceptable to find out what’s in a national healthcare bill “after we pass it.”

How many Americans have been “educated” to believe that the only path to “fairness” is one which travels through a government bureaucracy administered by an “enlightened” political class?

When such thinking reaches critical mass, all things are possible.

It is possible to believe the world owes one a living. It is possible to believe that life is fair. It is possible to believe that the human condition itself, with all its inherent shortcomings, can be legislated into submission. And, as Europe is so amply demonstrating, it is actually possible to believe one can get blood from a stone.

In America, a resistance to such mindlessness has emerged.

Progressives desperately want to convince themselves that the phenomenon known as the Tea Party movement is strictly political.

They are wrong. Politics may be the vehicle for the movement, but the enduring quality of it—and it is enduring—is its moral component. It is a blow-back against the wholesale abandonment of dignity and character by the entitlement class and its progressive enablers. It is a movement with many aspects, but all of them center around one idea: The soul of a great nation is at stake, and the progressive agenda that is corrupting it must be stopped.

Europe shows us why. A substantial portion of their population has been infantilized into believing the government gravy train never runs out of gravy, and taking to the to the streets demanding the impossible is becoming routine. Such demonstrations are a deadly combination of hubris and ignorance, egged on by those promoting “social justice,” which is nothing more than a pleasant slogan attempting to rationalize many things, all of which can be reduced to one idea: Inter-generational theft is morally acceptable.

No it’s not. Not by a long shot.

Arnold Ahlert is a contributing columnist to JewishWorldReview.com and FrontPageMag.com

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Charles Krauthammer’s true comments regarding Obama

Sep 9

Posted by admin in Ideology | Comments off

This blog post is a result of the fictional email going around regarding Charles Krauthammer’s comments at the American Experiment Annual Dinner. He is brilliant and below are links to his actual words.

Statement from Dr. Charles Krauthammer
about his American Experiment Annual Dinner Remarks 

 A number of people have asked about the availability of an audio recording or transcript of Charles Krauthammer’s brilliant remarks at American Experiment’s 2009 Annual Dinner on June 1.  We’re sorry, but Dr. Krauthammer has informed us that he does not disseminate comments made at private events.  He also has advised us that a summary of his speech on the Internet is “neither accurate nor authoritative.”  His full statement follows.  The Center regrets any disappointment or confusion. 


*  *  *   

 

This account is neither accurate nor authoritative. My views on Obama are well known. I’ve explained them in a series of five columns. (See below.)  

This email is somebody putting his own ideological stamp and spin on my views. 

One giveaway of the superimposition of someone else’s views on mine is the rather amusing use of phrases that I never use. To take just a few examples randomly: “God forbid,” “far left secular progressive,” “this is the first president ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!” “no country had ever spent themselves into prosperity,” and, the real doozy,”states rights.” 

My views are clearly spelled out in that series of columns and subsequent writings. Anyone who wants to know my views should consult those and not this email. 

Charles Krauthammer  

Obama: The Grand Strategy – April 24, 2009  

The Sting, In Four Parts – April 17, 2009  

Obama’s Ultimate Agenda – April 3, 2009  

The Great Non Sequitur – March 6, 2009  

The Obamaist Manifesto – February 27, 2009

© 2010. Center of the American Experiment. All Rights Reserved.

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I have this theory about Barack Obama

Sep 9

Posted by admin in Obama, Socialism | Comments off

Article from the Wall Street Journal – by Eddie Sessions:

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska . It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984’s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Now, nearly a full 2 years into his first term, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain .

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America.

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Remember Our Constitution? Statesmen Do, Politicians Don’t.

Jan 5

Posted by admin in Constitution, Ideology, Liberty, Socialism | Comments off

 
 
Our forefathers saw fit to write a legal document listing the reasons why King George exceeded

his authority and became tyrannical, our Declaration of Independence. Among other things,

common civil and criminal justice was denied, immigration obstructed, taxes of all kinds levied,

and acts of all kinds passed which crushed the economy of the colonists. The result was our

American revolution and a new nation.

 

Today, our government fails to prosecute criminal union members who beat down peaceful

protesters, confiscates the property of GM and Chrysler dealers and stockholders and gives it to

the unions, and strong-arms our banks into whatever behavior they see fit. Everything is taxed,

and they’re even thinking of another sugar tax…apparently the Sugar Tax of 1733 taught them

nothing. Our immigration/borders are totally out of control. Our Census is counting illegal

aliens and those that cannot vote in direct violation of the Constitution which will drastically

skew representative allocation and radically devalue your vote. Our government is importing

terrorists, giving them citizens rights to trial by jury, and forcing them upon the very people they

have viciously murdered. The government is (behind closed doors of course) executing the

takeover of our healthcare against our consent, because once they have this, they will control us

all. These are just a few of the examples of tyranny our government imposes on us. Nothing

good can come from this, and it is all the result of ignoring our Constitution.

 

We need Statesmen, not politicians. Don’t know the difference?

 

A Statesmen is motivated by the best interests of everyone, a politician by their own self-interest

or by special interests.

A Statesmen makes decisions based on a moral compass, using long term vision. A politician

has no moral compass and does whatever it takes to get elected.

A Statesmen does not negotiate their vote away for anything. That’s called bribery and extortion.

A politician on the other hand, being used to using bribery and extortion to get what they want,

has no problem selling their vote if the price is right.

A Statesmen prefers works in the light of day, where everyone can see what’s going on. An open

door policy is his/her motto. He/she would not do or say anything in private that would cause

harm in public. A politician…well, they have to work behind closed doors. Bribery, extortion,

vote selling, and slight of hand all require darkness to be effective.

 

Have you ever heard of HR1359, the Enumerated Powers Act? Of course not. Introduced in

1995 by AZ Rep John Shadegg it states that for all laws passed, the appropriate authorizing part

of the Constitution must be specified. It has not been passed because Congress refuses to obey

the Constitution, instead choosing the path of Tyranny! Stop Them! Call your legislators and

insist that HR1359 be passed before any other legislation! Force Congress to obey the

Constitution before it’s too late!

 

Mark Smith USMC (Fmr) DAV

Garden Valley

The Right to Health Care

Dec 18

Posted by admin in Health Care | Comments off

Mr. Obama has claimed that Americans have a right to medical care. In a certain sense, he is right, but not at all in the sense that he intends. By way of analogy, consider the right of self defense. It entitles one to use physical force to counter an immediate threat of bodily harm from another person. Note that this is a right to take certain actions. It places no obligation on anyone else; it simply entitles one to act in a certain way under certain circumstances. Note also that it is not enumerated in any bill of rights. (The Right to Bear Arms is a corollary of the right of self-defense; it assumes the existence of a right of self-defense, but it is not identical to it.) The right of self defense is so obviously a condition of freedom that its existence goes unquestioned and its formal affirmation is considered unnecessary.

In the same way that a free man has a right to defend himself against assault from another man, so has he a right to look after his own health care as he chooses. A man who is not free to choose his own doctor or his own medical insurer—or to choose to have no medical insurance—is not a free man. This right to manage one’s own medical care is one of that vast array of rights, along with the right of self defense, that is contemplated by the neglected Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Consider, then, the irony of Mr. Obama’s conception of a right to medical care. If one man has a right to receive medical treatment, then another man has an obligation to provide it. Not only does Mr. Obama’s conception deprive individuals of the life-sustaining freedom to manage their own medical affairs, it also enslaves some men with the unchosen burden of providing medical care to other men. Whereas the right to manage one’s own medical care, as I have described it, is a necessary condition of freedom, Mr. Obama’s right to medical care is a major step down the road to tyranny.

Tom McCaffrey
El Dorado Hills
December 18, 2009

Illegal Aliens

Nov 22

Posted by admin in Immigration, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Illegal Aliens

Last week Nancy Pelosi said she is in favor of sending persons to jail who refuse to buy health insurance because when they show up at emergency rooms they become a burden on the insured, who must, indirectly, pay their bills. This episode exemplifies a phenomenon that is all too common today. First, government institutes a wrong-headed policy— requiring emergency rooms to provide care for all comers regardless of ability to pay. Then, when the predictable harmful consequences occur, the government institutes another wrong-headed policy to solve the problem— the nationalizing of health care. (In this case, the consequences of the “solution” will dwarf the problem itself.)

Our recent history is rife with examples of trying to solve the consequences of one bad policy by instituting another one. We allow repeat drunk drivers to continue driving, and then we try to lessen the resulting carnage by subjecting law abiding drivers to drunk driving checkpoints. Or we regularly let violent felons out of jail and then try to reduce the ensuing mayhem by prohibiting law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms. Or we impose on heavy industry one wrong-headed policy after another—government-enforced unionization, a sea of health and safety regulation, environmental hyper-regulation, and then, when our industries begin leaving the United States in droves, we try to pass laws to prohibit their leaving or we advocate protectionist duties on imports, which will only raise the cost of living for all Americans. (Notice that these wrong-headed policies are all liberal ones, and the “solutions” all involve infringing the rights of the law-abiding.)

I was reminded of this phenomenon by last week’s demonstration against amnesty for illegal aliens. When government began paying persons not to work, it helped to create an artificial labor shortage. Partly in consequence of this labor shortage, illegal aliens began pouring into the United States. Then, when it became possible for illegals to get free health care, free education, and all the other goodies of the welfare state, the influx of illegal aliens became a deluge. The liberal welfare state is causing the flood of illegal aliens—as it is intended to do, because liberals see every one of these illegals as a potential liberal voter. The solution to the problem of illegal aliens is to abolish the welfare state. Until we do that, we will be having—and possibly losing— this debate about amnesty for illegals every twenty years or so.

Tom McCaffrey