The current administration made a point the other day regarding shifting their focus to jobs and the economy. Sometimes the best solutions to problems are right under your nose and you miss them. One that has apparently been missed is called ‘Fair Tax Act’.
The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. You take home your entire paycheck. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.
There are two versions of the Fair Tax Plan, one each in the House and the Senate. So it’s not like Congress is unaware. The are HR25 and S296. If you go to the Fair Tax website ( www.fairtax.org ) there is a calculator you can use to plug in your own numbers and prove that you would have more money to spend under this plan. In my case it would be about $15000 more per year. That’s a pretty hefty raise.
If it works for me, then it should work for a business. If it does, then the business can expand, hire more people, pay better wages, provide better benefits and generally prosper at a higher level, as can their employees. What’s not to like?
So why has this idea languished already for several years? Why has Congress refused to act on what appears to be a ‘lead pipe cinch’?
If that’s not enough, here’s another plus. The FairTax will, for the first time, tax undocumented workers who now evade U.S. income and payroll taxes. Under the FairTax, all persons living in the U.S. that spend any money will pay taxes, whether they are here legally or illegally. Where’s the downside on that?
Still not convinced? The FairTax rate of 23 percent on a total taxable consumption base of $11.244 trillion (from 2007) will generate $2.586 trillion dollars which is $358 billion more than the under the current system. And it gets better with time and the expanding economy. More people making more and spending more creates more revenue.
It’s a simple concept, easy to administer and economically friendly. Not to mention you’d never have to file another tax return. So, what are we waiting for? Write your Congressional representatives.
This actually upset me as well as making me realise that the Queen must have deliberately given assent to things like ROME, the SEA, Maastricht, Nice and Lisbon.
If a “Senior Adviser” to the Queen has asked for a meeting with the Asse-Hatte “Rowan” Williams”, then it must mean that the Queen asked for it to take place.
The Pope is perfectly entitled to try and “poach” “Anglicans” from England into the Universal Church, if he can. Equally, but sovereign constitutional precedent and settlement, the Queen as the Anglican Boss is entitled to try and hold on to her “farm animals”. But she ought to have spent most of the last 50 years resisting far far more dengerous and important threats such as the encroachment of the fascist EU upon especially and in particular British Sovereignty – no?
All politicians fudge on their promises. But this president manages to transcend the normal political exaggeration and dissimulation. Whereas past executives shaded the truth, Barack Obama trumps that: on almost every key issue, what Obama says he will do, and what he says is true, is a clear guide to what he will not do, and what is not true. It is as if “truth” is a mere problem of lesser mortals.
“…Department of Homeland Security – $42.7billion+$2.8billion from the Recovery Act
The Department of Homeland Security budget focuses on safeguarding transportation systems, strengthening border security and immigration services and increasing research and development for cybersecurity.
Major Department of Homeland Security Expenses
Transportation
15 new Visual Intermodal Protection Response teams to increase in random force protection capability – $50,000,000
DHS and DoT Planning and modernization of freight infrastructure linking coastal and inland ports to highway and rail networks – $25,000,000
Cybersecurity and Technology R&D
Increase resilience and security of private and public sector cyber infrastructure – $355,000,000
Ongoing support and improvement of surveillance technologies to detect biological threats – $36,000,000
Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Services
Expansion of exit pilot and key land points of entry and general border secutiry priorities – $45,000,000
Support of existing Customs and Border Protections – $368,000,000
Expansion of electronic employment verification system, E-Verify, that hlps US employers to comply with immigration laws – $110,000,000
State Homeland Security Activities
Addition of state and local level intelligence analysts – $260,000,000
The missions of the Department of Homeland Security are to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks; protect the American people, our critical infrastructure, and key resources; and respond to and recover from incidents that do occur. The third largest Cabinet department, DHS was established by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, largely in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The new department consolidated 22 executive branch agencies, including the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
DHS employs 216,000 people in its mission to patrol borders, protect travelers and our transportation infrastructure, enforce immigration laws, and respond to disasters and emergencies. The agency also promotes preparedness and emergency prevention among citizens. Policy is coordinated by the Homeland Security Council at the White House, in cooperation with other defense and intelligence agencies, and led by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security.
“…The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the United States federal government with the primary responsibilities of protecting the territory of the U.S. from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters.
Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the Department of Homeland Security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. Its stated goal is to prepare for, prevent, and respond to domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism.[3] On March 1, 2003, DHS absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service and assumed its duties. In doing so, it divided the enforcement and services functions into two separate and new agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services. Additionally, the border enforcement functions of the INS, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were consolidated into a new agency under DHS: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Federal Protective Service falls under the National Protection and Programs Directorate.
With more than 200,000 employees, DHS is the third largest Cabinet department, after the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.[4] Homeland security policy is coordinated at the White House by the Homeland Security Council. Other agencies with significant homeland security responsibilities include the Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy.
The creation of DHS constituted the biggest government reorganization in American history, and the most substantial reorganization of federal agencies since the National Security Act of 1947, which placed the different military departments under a secretary of defense and created the National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency. DHS also constitutes the most diverse merger of federal functions and responsibilities, incorporating 22 government agencies into a single organization.[5]
…”
“…
Structure
Organizational chart showing the chain of command among the top-level officials in the Department of Homeland Security, as of July 17, 2008.
The Department of Homeland Security is headed by the Secretary of Homeland Security with the assistance of the Deputy Secretary. The Department contains the components listed below.[6] Not all subcomponents are listed; see the linked articles for more details.
Agencies:
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services – Processes citizenship, residency, and asylum requests from foreigners
U.S. Customs and Border Protection – Staff border checkpoints, collect tariffs, and patrol the border
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Long-term investigations of border violations
Transportation Security Administration – Responsible for aviation security (domestic and international, most notably conducting passenger screenings at airports), as well as land and water transportation security
United States Coast Guard – Maritime security, national defense, maritime mobility, and protection of natural resources (assigned to Department of the Navy during times of war or at the president’s direction)
Federal Emergency Management Agency – Disaster preparedness, response, and recovery
United States Secret Service – Protective services for important officials and protection of the U.S. currency
(Passports for U.S. Citizens are issued by the United States Department of State, not the Department of Homeland Security.)
Advisory groups:
Homeland Security Advisory Council – State and local government, first responders, private sector, and academics
National Infrastructure Advisory Council – Advises on security of public and private information systems
Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee – Advise the Under Secretary for Science and Technology.
Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council – Coordinate infrastructure protection with private sector and other levels of government
Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities
Task Force on New Americans – “An inter-agency effort to help immigrants learn English, embrace the common core of American civic culture, and become fully American.”
Other components:
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office – Develop nuclear threat detection capabilities at all levels of government and in the private sector
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center – Interagency law enforcement training facility
National Protection and Programs Directorate – risk-reduction, encompassing both physical and virtual threats and their associated human elements
Federal Protective Service – Federal law enforcement and security for federal buildings, properties, assets, and federal government interests
National Communications System
Directorate for Science and Technology – Research and development
Directorate for Management – Responsible for internal budgets, accounting, performance monitoring, and human resources
Office of Policy – Long-range policy planning and coordination
Office of Immigration Statistics
Office of Health Affairs – Medical preparedness
Office of Intelligence and Analysis – Identify and assess threats based on intelligence from various agencies
Office of Operations Coordination – Monitor domestic security situation on a daily basis, coordinate activities with state and local authorities and private sector infrastructure
Office of the Secretary includes the Privacy Office, Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Office of Inspector General, Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of the General Counsel, Office of Public Affairs, Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement (CNE), Office of the Executive Secretariat (ESEC), and the Military Advisor’s Office.
National Cyber Security Center
…”
“…
In response to the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) to coordinate “homeland security” efforts. The office was headed by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who assumed the title of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. The official announcement stated:
The mission of the Office will be to develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks. The Office will coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.[10]
Ridge began his duties as OHS director on October 8, 2001.
The Department of Homeland Security was established on November 25, 2002, by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. It was intended to consolidate U.S. executive branch organizations related to “homeland security” into a single Cabinet agency. The following 22 agencies were incorporated into the new department:[11]
Customs Service – Treasury
Coast Guard – Transportation
Secret Service – Treasury
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly Immigration and Naturalization Service) – Justice
United States Border Patrol (formerly Immigration and Naturalization Service) – Justice
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (formerly Immigration and Naturalization Service) – Justice
United States Federal Protective Service – General Services Administration
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center – Treasury
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – Agriculture
Office for Domestic Preparedness – Justice
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System – HHS
Nuclear Incident Response Team – Energy
Domestic Emergency Support Teams – Justice
National Domestic Preparedness Office – FBI
CBRN Countermeasures Programs – Energy
Environmental Measurements Laboratory – Energy
National BW Defense Analysis Center – Defense
Plum Island Animal Disease Center – Agriculture
Federal Computer Incident Response Center – GSA
National Communications System – Defense
National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) (formerly the National Infrastructure Protection Center) – FBI
Energy Security and Assurance Program – Energy
Prior to the signing of the bill, controversy about its adoption centered on whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency should be incorporated in part or in whole (neither were included). The bill itself was also controversial for the presence of unrelated “riders”, as well as for eliminating certain union-friendly civil service and labor protections for department employees. Without these protections, employees could be expeditiously reassigned or dismissed on grounds of security, incompetence or insubordination, and DHS would not be required to notify their union representatives.
The plan stripped 180,000 government employees of their union rights.[12] In 2002, Bush officials argued that the September 11 attacks made the proposed elimination of employee protections imperative.[13]
Congress ultimately passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002 without the union-friendly measures, and President Bush signed the bill into law on November 25, 2002. It was the largest U.S. government reorganization in the 50 years since the United States Department of Defense was created.
Tom Ridge was named secretary on January 24, 2003 and began naming his chief deputies. DHS officially began operations on January 24, 2003, but most of the department’s component agencies were not transferred into the new Department until March 1.[10]
After establishing the basic structure of DHS and working to integrate its components and get the department functioning, Ridge announced his resignation on November 30, 2004, following the re-election of President Bush. Bush initially nominated former New York City Police Department commissioner Bernard Kerik as his successor, but on December 10, Kerik withdrew his nomination, citing personal reasons and saying it “would not be in the best interests” of the country for him to pursue the post. On January 11, 2005, President Bush nominated federal judge Michael Chertoff to succeed Ridge. Chertoff was confirmed on February 15, 2005, by a vote of 98–0 in the U.S. Senate. He was sworn in the same day.[10]
In February 2005, DHS and the Office of Personnel Management issued rules relating to employee pay and discipline for a new personnel system named MaxHR. The Washington Post said that the rules would allow DHS “to override any provision in a union contract by issuing a department-wide directive” and would make it “difficult, if not impossible, for unions to negotiate over arrangements for staffing, deployments, technology and other workplace matters.”[13]
In August 2005, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer blocked the plan on the grounds that it did not ensure collective-bargaining rights for DHS employees.[13]
A federal appeals court ruled against DHS in 2006; pending a final resolution to the litigation, Congress’s fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill for DHS provided no funding for the proposed new personnel system.[13] DHS announced in early 2007 that it was retooling its pay and performance system and retiring the name “MaxHR”.[10]
In a February 2008 court filing, DHS said that it would no longer pursue the new rules, and that it would abide by the existing civil service labor-management procedures. A federal court issued an order closing the case.[13]
Related Posts On Pronk Palisades
United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Commerce
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Education
United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Health and Human Resources
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
United States Department of Interior
United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Transportation
United States Department of The Treasury
United States Department of Veteran Affairs
Front Page Magazine says the President should skip the State of the Union Speech and Make better use of his time by firing everyone around him.
Sounds good to me. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barney Frank…just 3 Democrats I can name off the top of my head that NEED TO GO!
While I am naming names please DO NOT VOTE IN Ben Bernanke to a second term as the Federal Reserve chairman.
That man needs to get out of the way so the Federal Reserve Bank can be audited and every American can see all where all OUR money has gone since it’s inception.
Ok so back to the State of the Union Speech.
I sat through as much as I could bare. Half way through the Speech which sounded like a desperate man grasping at straws;
Health Care reform got squeezed in…big surprise. Give it up already!
7 million people have lost their jobs over the last 2 years in America.
Who gives a Flying FUDGE about health care reform if they have no money or a job, to pay for the Health Care Insurance to begin with?
And if this government is truly concerned with Health Care Reform then why not make it available NOW to the unemployed,instead of 2014?
The president gave us the same old speech, feel sorry for me, when I came into the office there was this and that to contend with.
You are the President of the United States, get over yourself and stop crying about it. YOU ran for the job so just roll your sleeves up and get busy!
Stop the Faye Raye Impersonations. We are all over the drama. Hollywood might hire you in a dramatic role playing the Dying Swan act. Maybe?
Here are a few ideas to help you on your way to being a better and more caring President:
1.Throw a few less parties. The American people are sick of watching your lavish lifestyle on Television, while children go to bed hungry.
2. Stop humming around the golf course in your little golf cart and chatting with the media. This way Americans will not get angrier by the minute at the charade.
3. Next time you go to Hawaii on vacation, invite a few thousand out of work and desperate Americans!
4. Stop spending so much money and telling the American People it was Necessary. NO IT IS NOT!
5. The next time you try and pull the wool over our eyes about this recession being almost over, take a good long hard look around America. Search out children who have not eaten for days because their parents have no money to feed them. Reality check is in order.
One comment that had me screw my mouth up, and I quote: “The American people had to tighten their belts.”
Really, do you think so? So shouldn’t the government follow suite too? I love it…
It doesn’t matter to Americans anymore about personality, they want results and they want them yesterday. That is why Americans are so fed up.
Americans are all sick of this elitist mentality and let my superior brain, make it all better with my bandage speech.
BUT wait folks…..
We also heard some new tunes sung tonight too. Could there actually be a light at the end of this wet and gloomy tunnel?
Finally our government is waking up to the fact that other nations are beating America at Energy and finding new markets to achieve. So now the President announced that we will start off shore drilling and Nuclear power plants…..Oh boy I bet the Democrats are sucking huckleberries over that.
That was one of those… we don’t want to do things. Americans need energy and they need it now.
Then there was the other point about making Tax Cuts to ease the burdens. Oh but wait, that won’t actually happen to next year when we have a new budget. NEXT YEAR?
The Working Class American People will be lucky if they survive the rest of this year! Sheesh…
Another classic quote: “There are a lot of people in America who have lost trust in our ability to lead them.” I am so glad you are finally getting the idea.
Then the President went on to say “It’s not just Democrats or Republicans many people have lost trust in our policies.” Really, I hadn’t noticed!
I heard a lot about jobs and re-building America, but what will actually change and what will be a lot of eye rolling again is another thing. There are bills that need to be passed and argued about in Congress but in the meantime what will actually change?
Education was something I was interested in. I think if these concepts the President put the Country, actually change our Education system for the better, then we might actually have a chance. I know I don’t want to without pay for my sons education by selling a kidney or something.
America’s graduation rate is 21st out of 27 industrialized countries. Considering OUR status as world power, where did the US go wrong?
Well for what it is worth, that is my 2 cents.
“We Shall See” has become my favorite saying.
Like many people I KEEP HOPING for a brighter day, however I very much doubt our Current Leaders both Democratic and Republican will be able to make the sun shine out of their not so wonderful backsides anymore.
It’s Happening There: Britain’s Emerging Police State
[Peter Brimelow writes: Nearly forty years ago, I was immensely impressed with The New Totalitarians a brilliant study of Swedish political culture by Roland Huntford, making the point that totalitarianism, in the sense of complete political control of society, can be brought about by bureaucracy as well as brute force. (To my amazement, this book’s influence on my own book on Canada, The Patriot Game, is cited—currently—in its Wikipedia entry.) Sean Gabb reports here that it’s coming soon to another common law country near you—Britain. Indeed, the British government’s current drive to force the anti-immigration British National Party to admit immigrant minorities to membership is the very essence of totalitarianism: no private sphere can be allowed; in Mussolini’s words “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”. This is why the passage of the so called Hate Crimes legislation, lauded by President Obama in his recent State of the Union address, was such a disaster—yet almost unopposed by the Beltway Right. It’s happening there. It can happen here.]
By Sean Gabb
At the moment in Britain, the Labor Government’s Equality Bill is completing its progress through Parliament. The purpose of the Bill is to bring all the various “equality” laws and rulings made since 1965—race, sex, sexual preference, age-based, religious, etc—within a single statute, and to enable a single scheme of enforcement, the quasi-judicial Human Rights Commission. It also tightens these laws so that such “discrimination” as has continued to exist will be made illegal.
The exact meaning of any proposed law is hard to judge in advance. We need to see the final Act of Parliament. We need to see the hundreds of pages of regulations that it enables through its delegated legislation sections. We need to see how it will be enforced by the authorities, and how the courts will rule on its interpretation.
But outlines of the law are already reasonably clear. It is, for example, illegal for a Jewish school not to accept gentile children. It is illegal for a Christian hotelier to refuse to let two homosexuals share a bed together. It is illegal for an employer to exclude job candidates who belong to a group of which he might—for whatever reason—disapprove, or to confine recruitment within those groups of which he does approve. The same applies to landlords.
It is also illegal for the British National Party to confine its membership to those it regards as indigenous to the British Isles—an unmistakeably totalitarian violation of the principle of freedom of association.
After a recent rare defeat in the House of Lords, the Government will not be able to force religious schools to employ teachers who are outside of or hostile to their religious values. But this defeat may be reversed when the Bill returns to the Commons in the next few weeks. Or it may be reversed by separate legislation. As said, a law cannot be exactly understood until it is in force.
Even so, the Equalities Bill must be regarded as one of the most important measures in the consolidation of what can only be described as the British police state, which has been emerging since the election of Tony Blair and his “New Labor” allies in 1997. (For more details, see my monograph Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, downloadable for free here).
The problem with opposing this sort of law is that opponents can be smeared as opposed to equality in general, or even as bigots. This has completely cowed the opposition Conservative Party, which has offered only token resistance. (My own Libertarian Alliance’s opposition statement is here).
Needless to say, this is an illegitimate tactic. As with freedom, everyone nowadays believes in equality. The real question: what is meant by “equality”?
According to the liberal tradition, as it runs through Locke, Hume, Mill and Hayek, everyone has—or should be regarded as having—an equal right to his life, liberty and property.
This means that everyone should be equal before the law. A married woman should not lose the right to own property, unless she agrees in advance. A Roman Catholic should not be prohibited from inheriting under his father’s will. An atheist or Jew should not be denied justice because he will not swear as a witness on the New Testament. Everyone should have the same right of access to the courts. Everyone should have the same rights to freedom of thought and speech and faith, and to freedom of association, and to freedom from arbitrary fine or imprisonment.
And that is it. The liberal tradition does not insist that everyone should have the same right to a job, or residential letting, or service in a restaurant or hotel. No one should have the right to be loved or accepted by others.
If the owner of a business puts a note in his window advertising that he will not deal with Jews or homosexuals, or the disabled, that is his right. As a libertarian, I would regard this kind of announcement with distaste, and I might refuse, because of it, to deal with that business. But that is the limit of proper disapproval. It is not a matter for interference by the authorities.
Now, I have argued so far as if I assumed that the projectors of the Equalities Bill were people of good intentions but limited understanding. But I do not assume this for a moment. The people who rule my country are best described as evil. They have not been led astray by bad ideas. Rather, they are bad people who choose ideologies to justify their behaviour.
There are ideologies of the left —mutualism, for example, or Georgism, or syndicalism—that may often be silly or impracticable, but that are perfectly consistent with the dignity and independence of ordinary people.
These are not ideologies, however, of which those who now rule us in Britain have ever taken the smallest notice.
These people began as state socialists. When this became electorally embarrassing, they switched to Politically Correct multiculturalism. To the extent that this is becoming an embarrassment, they are experimenting with totalitarian environmentalism. But whether in local or in national government, their proclaimed ideologies have never prevented them from working smoothly with multinational big business, or with unaccountable multinational governing bodies.
It is reasonable to assume that, with these people, ideas are nothing more than a series of justifications for building a social and economic and political order within which they and theirs can have great wealth and unchallengeable power. Their object has been to deactivate all the mechanisms that once existed in Britain for holding its rulers accountable to the ruled.
And that is what they have been doing since the Labour Party won the 1997 election. To a degree that foreigners do not often realise, Britain has, during the past 13 years, been through a revolution. This has been brought about by the Labor Government and by its collaborators in the MainStream Media, in the civil service and judiciary, and in big business.
They have swept away the constitutional settlement of the 17th century. Our Ancient Constitution may have struck outsiders as a gigantic fancy dress ball. But it covered a serious and very important fact. This was an imperfect acceptance of the claim by Colonel Rainsborough, leader of the radical Leveller faction in the English Civil War, that "the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he". It allowed this country to be at once highly conservative in its institutions and, at the same time, free.
All this has gone. Since 1997, we have had a bewildering 4,000 new criminal offences created—many dealing with censorship of speech and publication. They are usually enforced by a summary—and often arbitrary and even corrupt—process.
The traditional courts and their procedure have also been transformed, so that no one whose legal education ended before 1997 has the faintest idea of how to enforce his rights. We have been made formally subject to the European Union. The country has been deliberately flooded with immigrants, as former Blair speechwriter Andrew Neather recently boasted. And the purpose of mass immigration has been to break up the solidarity of the ruled.
I was born in a free country. People could speak as they pleased and live without constant supervision. If a policeman knocked on my parents’ front door, their only worry was that he might have bad news.
I now live in a police state. Recent legal reforms have completely displaced common law protections and all offenses are now arrestable. If I am accused of so much as dropping a sweet [VDARE.COM: U.S. = candy] wrapping on the ground, I can be arrested and taken to a police station. There, I shall have my fingerprints and a DNA sample taken. Even if I am released without charge, these records will be kept indefinitely. They will also be shared with several dozen foreign governments, who will often regard presence on a DNA database as evidence of a criminal record.
The natural response is that sensible men do all that is needed to avoid any police attention. That means prompt obedience to commands that may have no legal basis. And what is that but a police state?
I now live in a country where I have to be aware that private meetings and even private conversations are subject to paid informers and can lead to prosecution and professional ruin.
The Equality Bill is simply another step in the consolidation of this new order of things. It is a bribe to those groups—Muslims, Gays, racial minorities—whose electoral support is needed to keep Labor in power. It is one more excuse for making victims of known dissidents.
Above all, it is another message sent out to all of who is boss.
The only “equality” the rulers of Britain are working towards is equal fear of them—and of what they can do to us.
Dr. Sean Gabb [Email him] is a writer, academic, broadcaster and Director of the Libertarian Alliance in England. His monograph Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back is downloadable here. For his account of the Property and Freedom Society’s 2008 conference in Bodrum, Turkey, click here. For his address to the 2009 PFS conference, “What is the Ruling Class?”, click here; for videos of the other presentations, click here.
VDARE.com: 01/27/10 – It’s Happening There: Britain’s Emerging Police State
Joel Kotkin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, assessed the decline in world population and birth rates. He concluded that because the U.S. is at a 50% birth rate, far above all other first-world countries, the U.S. and our children will be fine on the world economic stage. Mr. Kotkin bases his conclusions on projections to the year 2050. As far as his comparison goes, he makes valid points. However, I think assessing economic and population trends up to, but not beyond 2050 is misleading. What happens to the U.S. in 2080 or 2110 when another two or three generations face the results of population loss?
Historically, population growth is the key to expanded economic success. The economic potential of a country or region is unlimited, but is always dependent upon a demand for products or services. When liberals speak as if there is a finite amount of money or resources available they ignore the human potential of America and motivated entrepreneurs, inventors and developers. In reality, there is infinite potential in a growing economy for both individuals and countries; but, only if there are consumers to purchase goods and services. With a declining and aging population the demand for all goods and services begins to fade away.
Certainly we face an immediate future where services are in demand for the baby boomer generation, but what will happen after they have passed on? While the human mind pretends that this will happen far into the future, the reality is that in a relatively short time span the U.S. will face a European existence.
In Europe entire towns have been shuttered because there is no demand for housing. In England health systems struggle under the burden of an aging population. Coupled with the lack of people trained to provide services or the financial resources to maintain basic levels of care the once great nation is a model of defeat. Latvia faces the very real possibility that it will disappear totally by 2050 because it is so far below replacement population rates. Other eastern European countries face a similar fate which promises to wipe out complete nationalities and cultures.
While the U.S. is not in as dire of a situation now, we must realize we are scheduled to arrive at the same place as Europe, just later. Throughout the history of the world countries which have experienced population declines have seen unusual economic hardship. Many were then over run, enslaved or their entire culture disappeared. So, personally, I don’t think the kids will be okay. Especially not beyond 2050.
A good expose on the effects of declining populations is the documentary, Demographic Winter.
To hear many Christian apologists, one might think that it was their religion that championed such enlightenment values as equality and freedom to the fore of Western civilization. That’s a lie. Christianity has had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from its righteous and pious grasp on political power and beaten into submission by law to take its place in the modern secular liberal democracy. But the fight is not yet over.
From Britain comes this appeal by the Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter and Chair of the Church Legislation Advisory Service, and Rt Revd Peter Forester, Bishop of Chester. Note that they are all men. This appeal is regarding the Equity Bill that threatens to subject the Church of England to – gasp – the same kind of equality ‘enforce’ on businesses and public services. Shocking, I know. Let’s read how these men phrase their concerns regarding the secular value of equality their faith supposedly champions:
“This Monday, as Peers meet to consider the Government’s Equality Bill, they will be asked to vote on an issue of great importance to Christians and all people of faith. At stake is how we, as a liberal democracy based on Christian values, strike the right balance between the rights and responsibilities of different groups to be protected from harassment and unfair discrimination and the rights of churches and religious organisations to appoint and employ people consistently with their guiding doctrine and ethos.
“The Christian Churches, alongside many other faiths, support the Equality Bill’s wider aims in promoting fairness in society and improving redress for those who have suffered unjust treatment.
“However, unless the present drafting of the Bill is changed, churches and other faiths will find themselves more vulnerable to legal challenge than under the current law.
Note how these religious men assume that the secular liberal democracy is based not on secular values and secular law, which is the truth, but on this ill-defined notion of ‘Christian values’. The truth is already being twisted here. Then they ask that we recognize that individual equality should be submerged in favour of rights and freedoms for ‘groups’, a set of rights for these groups that are in need of ‘balance,’ which is code for special rights for special groups like…. oh, I don’t know, maybe churches because they are very special and deserve exemption from anything as dirty and mundane as a level legal playing field. Something as dirty and mundane as equal legal rights is properly viewed to be harassment and discrimination! In the minds of these men, not being granted special dispensation to maintain discriminatory practices is… wait for it… discrimination! But let’s be clear, they reassure us, this church is all for promoting fairness and equality… in a ‘wider’ sense… so wide, in fact, that churches and other special interest groups under the banner of religious belief can avoid the equality law altogether so that they can continue unimpeded to discriminate all they want, exempt from prosecution under secular law.
I think it’s time to get ready for more kicking and screaming because these biased, bigoted, bullying, and chauvinistic theologies are not going to ‘champion’ any advancement in secular law that promotes equality and respect of individuals; they will do as they have always done and fight such progress tooth and nail.
I’ve spent the past several hours reading the Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United vs. the FEC; the document is available at the Supreme Court web site, and I encourage anyone who has an opinion about or interest in political expression and freedom of speech to read it. In other words, every American citizen, and our republic, would benefit from reading it and considering the ideas contained in it.
Like many others (such as Matt Welch and Will Wilkinson), I am stunned at and baffled by the misconceptions and the degree of deliberate misunderstanding of the provisions of the First Amendment that opponents of this decision are exhibiting (and that 4 jurists actually argued in favor of continuing to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of access to free speech). Even “right-wing” commentators like David Brooks oppose the decision (according to the comments I heard him make on NPR on Friday evening), and I think many opponents throughout the political spectrum are conflating, falsely, their desired concepts of speech and expression with their dislike of the outcome that is clearly divergent from their idealized notions of what a perfect polity would be.
Perhaps it is my innate cynicism, or it may be my universal disdain for politics and its inevitable cronyism that is seeing such high and visible expression these days, but I think that those who want barriers to corporate forms of political expression because of its injection of money into politics are naive in the extreme. Put another way, money has always influenced politics, and it always will, so comparing real-world politics to an idyllic, utopian republic is an exercise in futility. Wherever we use political institutions to decide outcomes that affect the well-being of any collection of individuals, those individuals are going to attempt to influence the processes leading to those outcomes. Even under BCRA restrictions on corporate political expression, lobbying, rent seeking, and money have continued to determine political outcomes. Government censorship of some speakers has not changed that, and has instead, as the Supreme Court’s decision puts it, censored political speech (pp. 38-39, pdf pp. 45-46):
The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach. The Government has “muffle[d] the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.” McConnell, supra, at 257–258 (opinion of SCALIA, J.). And “the electorate [has been] deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function.” CIO, 335 U. S., at 144 (Rutledge, J., concurring in result). By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests. Factions will necessarily form in our Republic, but the remedy of “destroying the liberty” of some factions is “worse than the disease.” The Federalist No. 10, p. 130 (B.Wright ed. 1961) (J. Madison). Factions should be checked by permitting them all to speak, see ibid., and by entrusting the people to judge what is true and what is false.
This decision makes it clear that what the First Amendment protects is speech, regardless of its content and regardless of the form of the speaker. That protection is essential to a healthy republic grounded in democratic processes, even if we disdain or distrust the speakers. As stated elsewhere in the decision (p. 24, pdf p. 31):
Quite apart from the purpose or effect of regulating content, moreover, the Government may commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.
One phrase that recurs frequently in the decision is “citizens and associations of citizens”. I find this phrase particularly meaningful, and to me it reflects the understanding that the American republic is grounded in individual rights, including both rights to free speech and rights to free association, including association with and within corporate entities. Those corporate entities are heterogeneous, from Exxon to the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association to the AFL-CIO to Citizens United. The Constitution and this decision respect and protect the importance of the rights of individual citizens to determine for himself and herself what speakers and what forms of speech are important and material. By placing restrictions on the forms and/or sources of speech, the Government impinges that right, and that is a right that is at the core of individual autonomy and self-determination.
This line of thinking gets to where I think the opponents of this decision misunderstand and misinterpret it the most. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights exist to restrain government power. By definition, government has a monopoly on force and can exercise coercion more readily than other entities in society, including corporate entities (for-profit and non-profit). If a company pays to publish a book that advocates for a political candidate, as individual citizens we have the opportunity and the right to listen, to ignore, to publish a counter-argument; increasingly with the Internet more and more of us have the means to do so at much lower cost. Different speech, different speakers, different forms of speech all compete against each other in “the ‘open marketplace’ of ideas protected by the First Amendment” (p. 38, pdf p. 45). Money will always be a part of that dynamic. Only by having the freedom for all ideas to compete can we hope to restrain the venal and illicit intersection of money and politics that has disillusioned so many of us despite the existence of the BCRA restrictions.
The federal government, however, is a monopoly, and its exercise of force and coercion cannot be undermined or counteracted through an “open marketplace of ideas” in the ways described above. For that reason, to have any hope of a healthy republic, our default should be to restrain government power and coercion rather than restraining the speech of corporate entities, because corporate entities compete with each other, and with other types of speakers, in political speech. The government, on the other hand, faces no competition — it has a monopoly on the exercise of the sort of force and coercion that results in censorship when the First Amendment is not interpreted to protect all speech.
Others more knowledgeable than I have written intelligent comments on this decision, including law professor Larry Ribstein, Tim Lee, and law professor and former FEC Commissioner Brad Smith. I also like Ilya Somin’s argument for why corporate rights and property rights are part of the bundle of human rights, an interesting twist on interpreting this decision; he says that opponents to this decision are inaccurately conflating a right with the means of exercising a right (which is a more eloquent way of saying what I did above, or of saying that the First Amendment protects speech, not speakers).
Note also that the decision leaves intact requirements for information provision and disclosure, which do not abridge the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech among citizens and associations of citizens. Finally, I like Will’s closing comment so much that I’m just going to take it:
I see this ruling as vindicating the importance of equality of voice by protecting the rights of individuals and associations to speak out on behalf of their interests and values. Progressives clearly see the ruling primarily as some kind of corporate-empowerment initiative. But you can’t really take on Big Agra or Wall Street unless you can organize to speak out against the Chuck Grassleys and Chuck Schumers when it really counts.
Roses are red, violence is too
Who’s to tell me, All violets are blue?
Violets in shade are short of true blue
And roses are read by perceptions of hue
So how do you account for parallax visions?
And differences in opinion on governing propositions?
True reason comes from doubt and observation
Descartes and Bacon shared insights, null of prophetic revelation
But the Holy Roman Church and State, stated all “truths”
That resulted in the land of conclusions, as in the Phantom Tollbooth
Where are the wild things? AoooooHHH!
Philosopher kings and tyrannosaurus
You fool no one, you’re assumptions erroneous
Your coercion and power, empowers the weak
For weeks on out your message is bleak
Welfare and high wages for the people!
Social security and public education will be a staple!
Dead weight loss and zero sum games
Harburger’s triangles, it’s more of the same
I thought there was no such thing as a “free lunch”
But for cronies and bureaucrats everyday it’s time to munch
Scare tactics and propaganda is your mode of operation
Little effect has it on a nation built on free exchange calculation
When property and economic rights are devolved to the people
They possess a strong base of opposition, thus senses heedful
On the road to tyranny no society lays down
and willingly submits to triumph and breakdown
Truth speaks for itself, there’s no substitute to reason
The tutelage of central planning creates pathways to treason
Socialism leads to de-development and destitution
A daily menu of bread, potatoes, and pollution…
of the mind, body, and character of the soul
Let no one man dictate and posses absolute control
Dictators and bandits, go ahead, battle with me
For I’m on the side of Hayek, Mises, and Pete Boettke
The role of ideas will humiliate your gun
Not long, till you will be exposed as public enemy number one
Prices left unhampered give me the information I need
To generate the incentives and coordination you cannot foresee
So ask not what you can do for your country,
But as Milton said, ask what you can do for yourself
If roses are red and violets are blue
I need no one but me, to reason that this is
It has no due date, no deadline. Just a meaning on its own.
I continually ask myself what liberty and freedom of expression mean to me. And when words often fail to fully represent my personal thoughts – something finds its way to do so.
On a day of defeat. random mental processes ensued. and amalgamated itself into broke-beat English. accompanied by slug-like ink stains on paper napkins and jean pockets. The closer you look, the more you will see. Only one might ask, Where is the coordination? Where is the romping?… You tell me.
“Tis excellent to be spontaneous, though better to be brilliant.” -Jonze
What a difference a year can make! 365 days ago President Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Since then the President, along with Liberal Democrats in Washington have been pushing their radical agenda for higher taxes, more federal spending, stimulus packages, and a healthcare bill that would bring the American economy to it’s knees.
Running on the platform of Hope and Change, President Obama promised that his vision for the Country would turn our economy around, provide more jobs, and bring America back from the brink of financial ruin. However, after just a few short weeks in office American’s woke up to realize that nothing had changed. The President’s Hope and Change was a lie! With the President backing a healthcare reform bill that would make it illegal to not have coverage, and Democrats having a Super Majority, all hope seemed lost of ever defeating such a dangerous bill. American’s watched as the Democrats had their way with this great Country.
However, with a strong grassroots campaign that grabbed opportunity by the horns, Scott Brown and conservatives from around the country worked together to ensure a conservative victory much like the ones in New Jersey and Virgina. For the first time in 40 plus years a Republican was elected to represent the State of Massachusetts defeating Democrat Martha Coackley with 52% of the vote. While the mainstream media will characterize this as a fluke, many are seeing a new light beginning to shine. With the 2010 elections just around the corner now more then ever conservatives need to make their voices heard.
The conservative movement is alive in this country. And Democrats are shaking in their boots. Christie…McDonnell…Brown, whats next? Welcome back America. See you in NOLA.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Scott Brown’s stunning underdog victory over Democrat Martha Coakley to become Massachusetts’ next U.S. Senator is a crushing blow for the Obama administration’s big government agenda – not because Brown has an R next to his name, and not because of Judas goats like Glenn Beck who will attempt to hijack genuine populism once again – but because his victory was thanks to the 51% of Independents who are now the majority in the state.
“The victory caps a dramatic surge in recent days as Brown, a state lawmaker from Wrentham once thought to have little chance of beating a popular attorney general, roared ahead of Coakley to become the first Republican senator elected from Massachusetts since 1972,” reports the Boston Globe.
“In a race that became the center of national attention, Brown’s win is widely seen as a vote against the president’s agenda from one of the most reliably Democratic states. And in a particularly ironic twist, Brown, in succeeding Edward M. Kennedy — the late liberal lion who deemed health care “the cause of my life’’ — may well be the 41st vote to prevent the Democratic-led plan from moving forward.” Read the full article
There many other ways of getting out of a “single issue”
So UKIP wants to ban the wearing of burqas, niqabs, and/or hijabs in Britain. Is this their answer to getting away from being a single issue party identified strongly with their anti EU stand? Just which sections of society are they appealing to as we approach the next general election?
At times I feel a little sorry for Nigel Farage, a man with loquacious skills, wheeled out to perform and defend the policies decided by heaven knows whom, simply because nobody has ever heard of Lord Pearson of Ranoch.
“If I wanted to go into a bank wearing a motorcycle helmet, I couldn’t. And it’s not acceptable to wear a balaclava on the Tube or bus systems. Most large shopping centres even forbid hoodies because these tops disguise the wearer. The muslim veils are no different in having that effect but UKIP believes that security issues aside, they are also a symbol of a divided Britain.
“They are part of a cultural, not religious, garment. There is no requirement in the Koran to wear a veil, only to dress modestly. UKIP believes that the wearers are prevented from full assimilation into our way of life because of the feelings of unease they give rise to in the rest of the population.”
What a pile of crass nonsense to refer to Muslim veils in one sentence then say they are not a religious garment in the next! Farage is clearly in a right old pickle on this issue, he didn’t do himself any favours at all in this interview on the Daily Politics Show, he talks of ghettos, and of the state having no place in telling us what to wear, he clearly had no data or figures to back up UKIP’s claims of growing numbers of burqa wearers, and all the while representing a party known for it’s dislike of regulation!
I have no numbers available for South Shields but I suspect that no more than a few handfuls of women wear the full veil in this town, I have never felt threatened by them, I don’t consider my security to be at risk, nor do I see them as “dividing society” as Nigel asserts.
For the sake of doubt Nigel, the state has NO PLACE whatsoever in telling people how to dress, this policy is the most illiberal edict that UKIP could possibly have invented for itself, it will further an opinion that says you are looking to mop up votes on the very far right of British politics and makes you edge so closely towards racism. It is probably the most crass policy that UKIP has formulated as it tries to re-enter mainstream politics after last year’s Euro Elections.
As far as I am aware, the wearing of burqas, niqabs, or hijabs in this country should be, and should remain, for women, purely a matter of choice, the state has no more right to interfere in that choice than it has in telling all men over the age of 18 to wear dayglow green woolly hats in public! I won’t have the state telling me what I should or should not wear Mr. Farage, I want the freedom and liberty to make my own choices, I don’t want a government that behaves like some bunch of jackbooted tailors dressed as generals pinning blue stars on some and yellow triangles on others.
UKIP appears to be backing something which is inherently against the British way of life and customs, this policy is symbolic of UKIP, not symbolic of a divided Britain.
I am an avid Michelle Malkin fan, and her post on Garden-Gate was just phenomenal. I believe in local food systems, organic agriculture, and being able to produce your own food. I think that knowing how to grow food is the essence of being an American, and the Victory Gardens literally sprouting up around the nation are fabulous.
I am ready for real food, a real government with real representatives, and the kind of “real” liberty that we had when our Constitution was signed. REAL – I want real, and that includes a president and an administration that is not full of…. full of lies, deception, and fakery that is disturbing and insulting to this American citizen.
Thomas Sowell: The verbal packaging of consumer choice as business “control” has become so widespread that few people seem to feel a need to do anything so basic as thinking about the meaning of the words they are using, which transform an ex post statistic into an ex ante condition.
By saying that businesses have “power” because they have “control” of their markets, this verbal virtuosity opens the way to saying that government needs to exercise its “countervailing power” (John Kenneth Galbraith’s phrase) in order to protect the public.
(Galbraith being a Keynesian economist and prominent Liberal ‘thinker’ and a model for liberals like President Obama)
Despite the verbal parallels, government power is in fact power, since individuals do not have a free choice as to whether to obey government laws and regulations, while consumers are free to ignore the products marketed by even the biggest and supposedly most “powerful” corporations in the world. There are people who have never set foot in a Wal-Mart store and there is nothing that Wal-Mart can do about it, despite being the world’s largest retailer.
And I know such people.
Henry Ford pioneered in mass production methods and had some of the highest paid workers of his day — decades before the industry was unionized — and the lowest priced cars, notably the legendary Model T, which made the car no longer a luxury confined to the wealthy.
But none of these plain facts prevailed against the vision of the Progressive era intelligentsia, who in this case included President Theodore Roosevelt. His administration launched antitrust prosecutions against some of the biggest price cutters, including Standard Oil and the Great Northern Railroad.
Roosevelt sought the power, in his words, to “control and regulate all big combinations.” He declared that “of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.”
No doubt it was true, as TR said, that Standard Oil created “enormous fortunes” for its owners “at the expense of business rivals,” but it is questionable whether consumers who paid lower prices for oil felt that they were victims of a tyranny.
One of the popular muckraking books of the Progressive era was “The History of the Standard Oil Company” by Ida Tarbell. The book said among other things that Rockefeller “should have been satisfied” with what he had achieved financially by 1870, implying greed in his continued efforts to increase the size and profitability of Standard Oil.
A study done a century later, however, pointed out: “One might never know from reading ‘The History of Standard Oil’ that oil prices were actually falling.”
That fact had been filtered out of the story. The question whether Rockefeller’s pursuit of a larger fortune made the consuming public worse off was seldom even addressed.
How consumers would have been better off if a man who introduced extraordinary efficiencies into the production and distribution of oil had ended his career earlier, leaving both the cost of producing oil and the resulting prices higher, is a question not raised, much less answered.
Businesses that charge lower prices often lead to losses by competing businesses that charge higher prices. But, obvious as this might seem, it has not stopped outcries over the years from the intelligentsia, legislation from politicians and adverse court decisions from judges, aimed not only at Standard Oil in the early 20th century, but also later at other businesses that reduced prices in other industries, ranging from the A&P grocery chain in the past to Microsoft today.
In short, the verbal transformation of lower prices and larger sales into an exercise of “power” by business that has to be counteracted by more government power has more than purely intellectual implications. It has led to many laws, policies and court decisions that punish lower prices in the name of protecting consumers.
As a result of the spread of globalization, even if a particular company is the only producer of a given product in a given country, that monopoly means little if foreign producers of the same product compete in supplying that product to the consumers.
Eastman Kodak has long been the only major American producer of film, but camera stores across America also sell film produced in Japan (Fuji) and sometimes in England (Ilford) and in other countries, quite aside from the competition from digital cameras, produced primarily overseas.
In short, Kodak’s ability to jack up film prices without suffering lost sales is hemmed in by substitutes. The fact that Eastman Kodak is a huge enterprise does not change any of that, except in the visions and rhetoric of the intelligentsia.
The straining of words to depict businesses as exercising “power” in situations where consumers simply buy more of their products has been used to justify depriving people who run businesses of the rights exercised by other people. This attitude can even extend to putting the burden of proof on businesses to rebut accusations in certain antitrust cases and civil rights cases.
A somewhat similar mind-set was expressed in a question asked in the Economist magazine: “Why should companies be allowed to dodge taxes and sack workers by shifting operations overseas?”
In free countries, no one else’s right to relocate for their own benefit is treated as something requiring some special justification. Indeed, workers who relocate to other countries in violation of immigration laws are often defended by those who consider it wrong for businesses to relocate legally.
So are “Big Oil” and “Big Tobacco” and “Big Pharma” business successes that have to be punished for being successful.
That the people, the consumers, must be protected from their “power” by the government’s “power”?
So the Liberal Intelligensia want to destroy them, and replace them with their own.
And use the cudgel of Government “control” and “power” to save the people from something they actually don’t need saving from.
That gets THEM more “power”.
Because then the people will look to them to save them.
When in fact, they are being enslaved all over again.
Doesn’t that kind of sound like the “War on Poverty” started over 40 years ago?
And explain why the Liberals hate Bank CEOs because they dare to give bonuses to their employees. But if Congress porks certain groups or gives them special deals (Cornhusker Kickback, Union “Cadillac” Deal” etc) that’s ok.
CEO’s salaries must be “controlled” except for the government ones, Like GM, Chrysler, Fannie and Freddie. (Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Michael Williams and Freddie Mac CEO Charles Haldeman Jr. are each eligible for compensation of as much as $6 million this year, the companies said Thursday in regulatory filings.
In addition to the CEO pay, 10 additional executives at the two companies are eligible collectively for $30.1 million in compensation for 2009.–NY Post 12/24/09)
Have you seen them vilified in the Ministry of Truth Mainstream Media??
No.
Will you?
No.
Overall, pay for top executives of the mortgage-finance companies is down 40% from before they were seized, the regulator said in a statement.
So this “control” is considered “good” in fact.
Because they are defending the “middle class” person and “small business” against the “power” of “big business”.
After all, the whole of the last year of Health Care “reform” was about lower costs. But in the end it’s come down to “control” not costs.
Hence, the Democrats meet in secret to work out how to pass the “control”, and not actually address the “costs” because the “Control” is the “cost” to them.
Oy vey. I feel swamped with school stuff. I’ve only had about 2 hours of sleep each night this week, and people are starting to wonder if I’m loopy. I also got a new job waving for liberty taxes. It’s a fun job but I’m taking up yoga so my back will stop hurting.haha!
College is fun. I have to do a presentation in speech this Tuesday and I’m going to make some peanut butter cookies for everyone to try. I hope it all goes well cause I really don’t like talking in front of people…I’m not shy or anything. I just don’t like a lot of attention. Even this blog is hard to write. I know blogs are supposed to be like a diary or whatever, but I don’t like how it’s all about me. ooh! I know! I’ll write about what people did while I waved today!
One guy got really enthusiastic and practically fell out of the car waving, another person almost missed the green light so they could take a picture of me(Lady Liberty), some dude sang a ke$ha song for me while he waited for the light, and a car drove by with a blindfolded person sitting in the back waving. There was more but it was pretty much the same sort of stuff. Random nonsense oh and a wasp almost stung me! I flipped out! It landed on the dress and I stared jumping around. needless to say everyone watching laughed.
Random fact: I just got so sidetracked from looking up random facts, I ended up looking up how to crochet mittens. whoops.
Besides knowing he felt cursed with the names he was given at birth; names of dead people that wore silly white powdered wigs and dressed funny, Ben knew little about the country he lived in and cared even less. He knew there were 13 original colonies and they were rebel rousers. Still stinging from the missile burn on the back of his head and at thirteen, he felt rebellious, but maybe 13 was unlucky after all. “No way,” Ben answered his own question, “I’ll make my own luck.”
Ben was born while President Eisenhower was still in office, a Republican. The next president would be a Democrat, but each had a vision which would forever shape Ben future.
During the administration of Eisenhower, the Interstate Highway System was set in motion. Even though this was essentially a military plan to move planes, troops, equipment and supplies during an emergency or threat of war, the entire country opened up to commerce, trade and travel. This new road system definitely helped Ben’s father and increased his earnings and that had a positive effect on the whole family and Ben as well. The town they lived in was of medium size, but still had several colleges and an even a university. It’s location in the center of the state and its proximity to the Interstate brought a lot of people here. This made it possible for an amusement park to be built, which just happened to be adjacent to property owned by cousins of Ben. Motels sprung up, gas stations and fast food restaurants would soon be found at almost every exit off the highways. People began to explore the country, including the Silent family, for their annual summer vacation. The car and truck industry flourished both with commercial and passenger vehicles.
The next administration had a Democrat in the White House and his vision opened up space exploration, which culminated with men landing on the moon. But the real story here was how this was made possible. In a word it was – technology. In another single word, all this was made possible by computers. Ben’s father’s business was moving and storage. He often brought home things given to him that were no longer, needed, wanted or left behind from moving people and their stuff, all across the country. One time he brought home a used Texas Instrument Computer. It was crude and mostly played games, but it was like the granddaddy of the personal computer or PC. Ben was the fortunate recipient of this item and he instantly took a great interest in computers.
For once in his life, Ben was at the right place and at the right time and not just once, but twice. These two visions, by two different men, from two different parties, opened new roads and new vistas to Ben. Travel and computers would remain a part of Ben’s life and his knowledge of these two subjects would serve him well, later on.
His parents were Democrats and it seemed the whole town was as well. Ben could remember debating for his candidate in the first grade right before they had a mock election. His candidate was John F. Kennedy. Ben recalled saying something like Nixon was creepy and Kennedy was cool. Not much of a debate, but Kennedy won in their election just as he did in the real election.
Democrats were supposed to be for the “little person,” and the Republicans were for the rich people and big business. This is what Ben believed at the time. In a few years later he was in the 3rd grade and in class, when news that this young president had been shot. Classmates and teachers and other adults in the whole school were in shock and weeping. He never liked his third grade teacher, but he sure admired her in how she kept everyone together during such a horrible time.
If he despised American History and knew so little about it then, he hated politics now, because as far as Ben was concerned, it could kill you!
Ben did the only thing he could do. He put the whole thing out of his mind and just dreamed about possibility and opportunity and how great he would make his future.
American History came up again in the 7th grade with the presidential notebook he was supposed to make. But that was over; 7th grade was finished and it was summer. Today was the day of independence even though, it was just minutes away from being over. But Ben was declaring his independence.
Despite the twin stings of pain and embarrassment over wearing a patch over the back of his head, he was feeling rebellious. If he could have worn a hat to hide it he would have. He only hoped that in the darkness, no one would notice or he was not stopped by the police in route to his rendezvous with destiny. Yep, he was in a rebelling mood and there was more in store.
Ben knew he was rebelling against the authority of his parent’s rules and maybe even police authority. He knew he would most likely have to invent something if he were caught by the police and for his folks, if they found out. He knew he was rebelling, not only in sneaking out, but in hanging out with those he was meeting. He also knew that if he made it home and was not found out, he would be keeping secret, the lies of his true actions. There would be more rebellion and more secrets to hide, before this night was over.
Ben grabbed his bicycle and quietly walked it out of his back yard and down the street for about a half of a block. Then he jumped on and pedaled like crazy, careful to avoid major streets. He traveled with the shadows and knew all the back ways, through fields and down hills, to get to the closed public park where the group was to meet. He was almost there and was flying down the last hill when behind him he heard a high pitched whistle. At the bottom of the hill he heard, “Hey Ben, wait up!”
The voice was a blast from his past. Ben waited and then one of his best friends from first grade came into view.
After the first grade, someone or something saw fit to separate Ben, Bryan and Steve. Ben had not seen Bryan since they were forbidden to see each other after they were caught by Bryan’s father smoking on top of the restroom in a local park during 6th grade. The three all went to same elementary school, Jr. High School and high school. They all lived in the same neighborhood and just a few houses away from each other. Ben would later ponder how odd it was that he never saw Steve again. But for now and after nearly two years, here was Bryan, another example of Ben’s rebellion. Brian called out to him, “Hey Ben, where you going?”
Ben told Bryan he was meeting some friends at Egan Park. “Really,” Bryan spoke with enthusiasm, “How cool is this, that’s where I’m going.”
Maybe Bryan did not notice the patch on his head or maybe he just never said anything about it. Ben was grateful, for what ever the reason and they rode silently together, the rest of the way to the park.
Egan Park was closed at 11:00 PM each night. The one road which led to the center pavilion was closed by chain link. The park was surrounded by trees so it offered plenty of cover. Once in awhile, a police officer would park the patrol car at the fence and walk up the hill to the pavilion to check on things, but a shining flashlight always gave one plenty of notice to hide among the trees. None came this night, at least while they were there.
At the pavilion there were just a few others. A few more stragglers showed up and hid their bikes among the dense forest. Everyone was waiting for Ted, the leader or instigator of this band of misfits. Suddenly they saw car headlights and it was coming up the gravel road toward them. Fearing the possibility that this was the police, they all ran for cover.
Nearly blinded by the headlights, no one could see what type of car this was. Then the lights went off and the driver side door opened. It was Ted. “Hey you guys hiding or what,” he called out into the darkness, “Let’s get this party started!”
The front seat passenger door opened and another guy Ben did not know, got out. Ben was the first to come from out of the shadows and soon everyone else followed. There were a total of 13 hellions including Ted and this other guy, standing in front of the car, with the engine still running.
“Where’d ya get the cool ride Ted,” Ben asked?
“It’s my old man’s, Ted replied.
Incredulously Ben went on to inquire, “You mean your Dad let you borrow his car?”
“Oh, hell no, he’s asleep. Me and my friend Scott here opened the garage door, rolled it out, pushed it into the street, rolled it down the street about a block from my house, then popped the clutch and well, here we are,” Ted explained. In those days, if the vehicle had a manual transmission, the only thing you needed a key for was if you did not have a downhill incline or sufficient ‘people-push-power’ to get it up to speed to pop the clutch and engage the engine. Ted didn’t have a key.
Ben was closest to the car and it was a good thing. Ted spoke again, “Four in front and four in back, the rest of you guys are out of luck.” With that, there was a mad scramble to get a set in the car. Of course Ted was driving so he had his. Scott guarded his by holding onto the door he got out so everyone else knew he was riding ‘shotgun.’ Ben ran to rear door on the driver’s side and claimed, “Window seat is mine!”
Soon the car was full and they were off, leaving the rest staring, disappointed and disgusted as they backed down the long gravel road and then disappeared.
The joy ride crew drove around side streets and avoided any major roads or intersections. Several were smoking and then Ted produced a single beer he had lifted from home. One beer shared among eight was not going to do much, but it was still exciting.
After driving up the longest and steepest road in town, they turned the corner and Ted turned off the lights and slowly drove past the largest house in town. Even at night, it was the most beautiful home Ben had ever seen. Soon the car pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Ted opened his door and said, “Scott you stay here and drive if it’s needed. The rest of you guys, let’s go.”
Everyone was thinking it, but no one asked, ‘Go where?’ They would find out soon enough. Ben was close to Ted now and wondered, “Hey Ted, whose house is that big white mansion back there?”
“Oh, that’s old man Peterson’s house and that’s where we’re going.”
The instructions were given explicitly and with precision. Ted barked out orders like a general,
“You two guys, go scout out a wagon, there’s plenty of kids that live around here. Go find a wagon or cart and bring it back here. The rest of you follow me and be real quiet.”
Fortunately for Ben, he was right next to Ted and there was no way he wasn’t going to go along with him, just to see what he was cooking.
This was years before security systems, motion detectors, outside lighting and spot lights were common. The large estate sat on an acre of land, but there was no wall or fence surrounding it. The grounds were nicely landscaped with trees partially bordering the property, ornamental trees, shrubs and flower beds surrounded the house. The driveway to the house was partially obscured by trees, but the house could still be seen from the road.
Peterson’s estate was dark except an area about twenty feet from the front door. A single gas lamp around ten feet tall cast its soft glow upon a ornately tiled patio ten foot by ten feet. The lamp and patio had been placed here for a reason. In the center of the patio was a white statue. It was not until they got closer that Ben was able to make out the form.
As if anticipating Ben’s question, Ted whispered, “Don’t worry, Peterson doesn’t have any dogs.”
The cloud covered moon, streetlights and the lamp near the patio provided both sufficient light and enough darkness to hide their approach. They waited behind some bushes near the patio. Ted sent one of them back to see if the other two guys had found a wagon yet. In a soft, but stern voice, Ted told him to go get the other two, “Bring the wagon back here. Be quick and quiet about it. We’ll wait right here until you get back.”
Just after the one guy left was when Ben saw the form of the statue on the patio. It was a white concrete elephant about three foot tall, prominently display in the center of the patio. It obviously had some meaning and importance to Peterson, but Ben had no idea what it was.
While the rest waited for the other three to return, a couple of them lit cigarettes including Ben. Hiding in the bushes, they were far enough away from the street and the house to be seen.
Soon the other three returned with a child’s red wagon. The group moved slowly and quietly into position around the patio. Ted directed with gestures and pointed at each person. It took four of them to lift the elephant and place it into the wagon. Ben and another held the wagon steady. It was good that it had not rained for sometime and the ground was dry. Otherwise it would have difficult to pull and push the wagon through the grass, making ruts or worse, getting stuck.
Pushing and pulling the wagon they made it to the street. Scott got out of the driver’s side of the car. Ted opened the back door, driver’s side and grabbed a screwdriver laying on the floor board in the backseat. With the screwdriver he was able to pop the trunk like a professional carjacker. The elephant was carefully lifted from the wagon and laid on its side in the trunk. The wagon was left behind a bush just off the street in someone’s yard. The group got back into the car, slowly drove about a block from view of Peterson’s house then Ted turned on the headlights.
There was just laughing and meaningless chatter inside while Ted drove seemingly with purpose. They kept to side streets and back roads. Soon lights fade in the distance behind them. It looked as if they were driving somewhere out in the country. After nearly 20 minutes they had seen another vehicle on this road.
They went up a small hill, Ted turned off the lights and the car came to a stop in the center of an older one lane bridge, little used, but well maintained. This particular bridge was just a few miles outside of city limits and it crossed over the Interstate highway around thirty feet below.
Ted was the first to get out and everyone else followed his lead. Once again he popped the trunk. They lifted the elephant out and then balanced it on the handrail of the bridge and pushed it off. As it fell, a semi-truck crested the top of the hill on the highway and came barreling down towards them. The elephant smashed into innumerable pieces and scattered all across the two-lane highway. Just another second or two and it would have hit the truck.
Ted raced back to the car and got in, with everyone quickly doing the same thing. They backed off the bridge, turned the car around and headed back to where they came from.
It was real animated and vocal inside the car now. “WOW, I can’t believe it,” one one comment. Another said, “Yeh that was too cool.”
They ‘high-fived’ and slapped each other on the back; congratulating each other for a job well done. There was laughter and cajoling and even Ben participated, but? But he silently wondered if anyone else felt like he did?
Ben had never done anything like this before. He had broken some stuff belonging to his older brother and tried to hide it, but always got caught. He had snuck out of the house before and with his brother. He smoked cigarettes and even once in awhile stole some change from his Dad’s pocket or from his mother’s purse, but, but never anything like this. He tried to mask his true feelings growing now inside of him and went along with ridiculous chatter inside the car. Yes, he had gone along with the whole thing.
Soon it grew quiet inside the car and Ben was feeling quite uncomfortable. He saw an opportunity and took it. “Hey Ted, could you drop me off at the park. My brother and my Dad both have to get up real early and I need to get home before they do.”
“Yeh, sure dude, no problem,” Ted answered. It all seemed to be accepted as a plausible reason for him to end the night of mischief. He could detect no contrary feelings among the group.
As they approached the gravel road to Eagan Park, Ted said, “Hey, Ben, how’s this, I’ll even give you curb-service.” “Cool, Thanks Ted,” Ben replied.
They drove up the road and stopped at the chain across the road at the entrance to the Pavilion and doused the lights. As Ben got out of the back seat, incredulously, the same five guys they left, all emerged from the shadows.
Ben walked up to the driver’s window and said to Ted, “Hey, Thanks Ted.”
“Yeh, sure, dude.” The words no sooner left had left Ted’s lips when he turned towards the other five and asked, “Got room for one more of you dudes.”
One got in, the car backed down the road. His friend (formerly separated since first grade and 6th grade friend), Bryan from his neighborhood, stayed in the car. Ben never looked back or said another word to the other four guys left standing at the pavilion. He grabbed his bike and took off for home.
After getting back home, going through the basement window and changing back into his pajamas, Ben quietly walked past his parent’s bed, opened the doors to his room and got into bed. He glanced at the clock on his night stand. It was right at three O’clock in the morning.
Ben had snuck out and snuck back in without being caught. He had navigated to Eagan Park without detection. The juvenile group he joined had successfully stolen a car, a can of beer, cigarettes, a white elephant, a kid’s wagon and hurled the elephant off a bridge watching it smash into bits and all without encountering the police or any other adult. That’s all pretty huge and reason to celebrate. But the grin on Ben’s face soon soured and as he stared at the ceiling, reality came crashing down.
Why had he done this? Was it just to be part of a group; to be accepted? He gasped at the possibility of that truck driver being hit by the elephant. What if it did; what if it caused an accident or worse, what if the driver was killed? Ben remembered laughing about this along with everyone else in the car. It wasn’t so funny to Ben now.
Ben new it would only be a couple of hours before his brother and his Dad would be up and that meant everyone would have to be awake and eat breakfast together. Two hours of sleep was not much and Ben’s brain was running at breakneck speed thinking on these things.
Still, somehow he finally drifted off. The three things on his mind were wondering what else the group did after he left, why was that elephant so important to Peterson and who was he anyway?
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” was the question introduced by the opening scripture from the Sunday morning message. Mark 8:24-37 Or, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
This message contained strong warnings against “making deals with the devil”. The devil never shows people the end of the deal… never shows the true cost… yet payday always comes.
Several quotes:
The devil has people chasing rainbows.
Money can buy: a bed, but not sleep;
…food, yet not an appetite;
…medicine, yet not health;
…a house, but not a home;
…diamonds, but not love;
…a church pew, yet not salvation.
All that glitters is not gold.
Romans 8:12-13 If you give the flesh what it desires, you will pay for it. The devil and the flesh will come for payment. Our souls have value, assigned by God. We owe everything to God for all we have. Referenced the song, “Jesus Paid It All, All to Him I Owe” (shown below).
James 1:13-15 Temptations work on strong desires. Yielding leads to death and destruction.
John 10:10 The devil comes to steal, kill, destroy.
Matthew 26:14-15 Judas made a deal to trade Jesus… his Saviour… his salvation.
Matthew 27:1-5 When he realized what he had done, he tried to back out… too late.
2 Peter 2:18-22 Promising liberty, yet bringing into bondage… the latter end so much worse than the beginning!
He closed with reference to the song: “It Pays to Serve Jesus”.
JESUS PAID IT ALL (Elvina M. Hall)
I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Refrain:
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim;
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.
And now complete in Him,
My robe, His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.
Lord, now indeed I find
Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.
When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.
And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down,
All down at Jesus’ feet.
IT PAYS TO SERVE JESUS (Frank C. Huston)
The service of Jesus true pleasure affords,
In Him there is joy without an alloy;
’Tis Heaven to trust Him and rest on His words;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.
Refrain:
It pays to serve Jesus, it pays every day,
It pays every step of the way,
Though the pathway to glory may sometimes be drear,
You’ll be happy each step of the way.
It pays to serve Jesus whate’er may betide,
It pays to be true whate’er you may do;
’Tis riches of mercy in Him to abide;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.
Though sometimes the shadows may hang o’er the way,
And sorrows may come to beckon us home,
Our precious Redeemer each toil will repay;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.
Exit strategy? Flowers are seen placed in front of the headquarters of Google’s offices in Beijing. Credit: AP Images
After an attack that required staggering skill and resources, the company threatens to quit China.
By Erica Naone
Google’s threat to withdraw its operation from China has shed more light on a remarkably sophisticated computerized espionage network originating from the country, experts say.
Last night Google announced that it would no longer participate in government censorship of the Chinese version of its site, Google.cn, and threatened to shut down its operations in China altogether. In a blog post, David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer at Google, wrote that the decision was taken in response to a series of Internet attacks against Google and other companies, as well as covert Internet surveillance of human-rights activists.
Though Google has not disclosed the exact nature of the attacks, Drummond wrote: “In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.” He added that the company has gathered evidence that 20 other large Internet, finance, technology, media, and chemical companies were also attacked.
In Google’s case, the attackers tried to get into Gmail accounts belonging to Chinese human-rights activists, Drummond said. The company believes that the efforts were not successful, but that hackers have been targeting human-rights activists based in other parts of the world through a range of hacking techniques.
Amichai Shulman, CTO of Imperva, a data-security company based in Redwood Shores, CA, says Google probably called the attack “highly sophisticated” because the hackers got into the heart of its database and password list. “The intellect and resources required to pull off such a surgical attack are staggering considering the defenses Google has put in place to protect digital assets,” he says.
The hackers probably used “social engineering” techniques to breach Google’s defenses, suggests Nart Villeneuve, chief research officer for the Canadian company SecDev.cyber, and the director of operations for a censorship circumvention tool called Psiphon.
In March 2009 Villeneuve uncovered “GhostNet,” a cyber-spying operation originating in China that was said to have targeted the Dalai Lama and other human-rights activists. Though Villeneuve has no direct knowledge of the attacks discovered by Google, he says it’s likely that they match the methods he has been monitoring.
Villeneuve says the hackers he has studied start by sending users within a target network system a carefully crafted e-mail full of personal information. This isn’t the same as a spam message, he says–instead it’s “someone crafting an attack.” The attacker will attach a PDF or Word document loaded with malware that compromises the user’s computer when it’s opened. Users can protect themselves to some extent with antivirus software, but Villeneuve says that such programs only identified about six out of 41 of the infected documents he has checked. Once a PC has been infected, the attacker can command it remotely.
Once the attackers control one computer on a network, they branch out from there, probing other computers on the same network and raiding e-mail accounts to get more ammunition for social engineering attacks. “They’re basically tricking users into exploiting themselves,” Villeneuve says, adding that perimeter defenses are useless if attackers can trick humans into handing over information or infecting themselves.
However, since many hacking groups operate using these tactics, Villeneuve says it can be devilishly hard to trace attacks back to their source. “We often don’t know [the exact details of attackers'] relationship with the Chinese government,” he says. Still, Villeneuve believes that the Chinese government would certainly stand to benefit from the activity.
Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge, agrees that “the sort of tricks” used against the Tibetan movement likely provide clues to the recent attacks against Google and other companies.
Shortly after Google made its announcement, Adobe posted an announcement of a “computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies.” Adobe says it learned of the attack on January 2 but did not confirm that this attack was the same as the one that struck Google.
Google plans to negotiate with the Chinese government over the next few weeks to see if it is possible to run a standard version of its search engine in China. “These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Drummond wrote.
No other major U.S. search engine has so far said it would change its operations in China. A Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement, “We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose.” But the search engine was silent on the question of whether it would make any changes to its own policies. A Microsoft statement read, “We have no indication that any of our mail properties have been compromised.”
United States Department of Homeland Security
Sounds good to me. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barney Frank…just 3 Democrats I can name off the top of my head that NEED TO GO!
To hear many Christian apologists, one might think that it was their religion that championed such enlightenment values as equality and freedom to the fore of Western civilization. That’s a lie. Christianity has had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from its righteous and pious grasp on political power and beaten into submission by law to take its place in the modern secular liberal democracy. But the fight is not yet over.
– self
Untitled sketch no.16
There many other ways of getting out of a “single issue”
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Exit strategy? Flowers are seen placed in front of the headquarters of Google’s offices in Beijing. Credit: AP Images