America’s Twilight: Big Government Erosion of Privacy, Individual Rights, and Free Market

“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

—Barry Goldwater

A pointed video from Free Market America.

 

Government encroachment on civil liberties, free-market enterprise, and individual rights, is nothing new. Both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed socialist agendas that were oppressive and ignored the limits placed on the federal government in the U.S. Constitution.

Erosion of personal liberties.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in this country since I was a teenager back in the 1970s, and many of them are horrendous.

The worst one is the rise of the authoritarian Nanny State. Case in point: At one time, 18-year-olds could legally drink. The age was raised to 21 when the federal government blackmailed the states into accepting the law or face cuts in highway funds.

‘Scuse the hell outta me, but if you’re going to tell an 18-year old that they’re an adult in other aspects—voting, owning property, running for public office, living on their own, being tried as an adult in criminal cases, and enlisting into the military to go into harm’s way to defend this country—then by Gawd, they’ve earned the right to drink.

In the 1990s Bill Clinton was a glaring example of a government-sponsored crackdown on personal habits. On August 9, 1997, Clinton issued Executive Order 13058, banning smoking in all interior spaces owned, rented, or leased by the Federal Government. In April 1998,  the Department of Transportation followed suit with a smoking ban on all commercial American-owned passenger flights in the United States. The government-initiated smoking taboo spread everywhere; not just in public areas such as restaurants, but in privately owned clubs and bars and open-air city parks, fields, and parking lots. Don’t be surprised when smoking in your own car, home, and yard is criminalized. It’s getting to that point. I’m a non-smoker and I’m totally against the over-reaching infringement on cigarette smokers.
Clinton also mounted a failed attempt to obliterate the Second Amendment, he abused his power to enact censorship on protesters and the media, and during his decades-long crime spree, he also illegally obtained FBI files on political enemies.

Since Clinton’s tenure, affronts to personal liberty have taken on a particularly vicious tone.

The government has mandated that beginning in 2015, cars manufactured in America will have “black box” data recorders installed. Those who don’t obey will have civil penalties imposed against them. The same bill also includes a provision that would empower the IRS to revoke passports of citizens merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes, stripping them of their right to travel outside the U.S.

Targets of Homeland Security. (Hint: It doesn’t include real threats.)

Big Brother is watching: Dozens of universities and law-enforcement agencies have been given approval by federal aviation regulators to use unmanned aircraft known as drones.  Those agencies include the Department of Homeland Security,  police departments in North Little Rock, Ark., and Ogden, Utah, as well the University of North Dakota and Nicholls State University in Louisiana. Other than that, no one will elaborate as to how the aircraft will be used.

Right now, there are  63 known launch sites.

So far, there’s not even a smidgen of outrage in the MSM. When George W. Bush enacted the Patriot Act to beef up national security and specifically target muslim terrorist threats in the United States, the DemLeft had grand mal seizures.

If the current law enforcement /Homeland Security agencies were as diligent with border security and scrutinizing the threat from U.S.-based muzzie radicals as they are using drones for “law enforcement”,  we’d be a hell of a lot safer.

The TSA, created in 2002, has never stopped any terrorist from actually boarding an American commercial aircraft.  But they utilize x-ray scanners, metal detectors, pat-downs, sexual molestations, strip searches, and federal air marshals, to target  Kinder Eggs, whistleblowers, thermoses, refusniks, white middle-class Americans, elderly people, mentally retarded people, children, and Soldiers.

Every time one of their incompetent brain dead screeners uses heavy-handed stupidity on anyone besides muslim males between 18-35 traveling to and from known terrorist Islamic nation-states, the TSA hierarchy invariably issues the canned response: ‘TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that our officers followed proper current screening procedures…”  TSA “viper teams” are showing up at train stations, ferry terminals, and subways, to perform the same incredibly shitty job they do in airports.

Just think, these fucking bozos are unionized, now.

In a rare glimmer of common sense, the Senate passed a bill allowing airports to evict TSA assclowns and replace them with private security.  Some airports have already done that.  Most air travelers would love to see the TSA marginalized out of existence.

Your home is not your castle.

Government abuse of power has also extended to the rights of home and business owners. Eminent domain has become a tool for neo-feudalism; confiscation of property when it suits the political and money-driven goals by local governments. Just a few samples of eminent domain abuse involve the condemnation of a family’s home so that the manager of a planned golf course could live in it; the eviction of four elderly siblings from their home of six decades for a private industrial park; and the removal of a woman in her 80s from her home of 55 years, allegedly to expand a sewer plant but in actuality to give her home to an automobile dealership.

Free speech depends on what the government says it is.

The First Amendment is being rapidly eviscerated by politicians who do not like taking criticism from the public. The Dems have been very demonstrative in their hate for the Tea Party and any constituent that confronts their hubris.

Speaking of freedom of speech, (while it’s still allowed) the worst violator of civil liberties to date is the SCOAMF-in-Chief,  B. Hussein Obama, and his Dem pals.

His supporters used their positions to expose the private life of an ordinary citizen who dared to confront The Anointed One on his socialist economic policies during a campaign stop.

The hag from San Fransisco, aka Nancy Pelosi, thinks your freedom of speech should be curtailed.  And she’s not the only one.

The IRS tried to violate the Tea Party’s freedom of speech when the organization applied for tax-exempt status but did not scrutinize Media Matters’ government-subsidized ties to Obama.

Obama has signed into law the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.  Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote a scathing article (at the link) which mentions that:

“This law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of the government are prohibited.  And it permits the Secret Service to make these determinations based on the content of speech. The new law also provides that anyone who gathers in a “restricted” area may be prosecuted. And because the statute does not require the government to prove intent, a person accidentally in a restricted area can be charged and prosecuted, as well.”

In other words: Shut up, or else.

The roll call of votes for this atrocity includes 224 Republicans voting for, 2 against, and 15 abstaining.  There was no Senate vote. Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy thinks that “the potential problems strike me as considerably less dramatic than Mr. Napolitano’s column suggests”.  Given the governments’ propensity to take a mile when given an inch, the law strikes me as more dramatic than Mr. Volokh realizes.

Obama’s centralized socialist government.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed in 2010, gives federal regulators the authority to seize private firms they feel are in danger of default.
It’s the exclamation point to the socialist “stimulus/bailout” government takeover of 2/3rds of the auto industry, banks, and insurance companies.

Obama actually considers himself to be his own government; able to bypass Congress and the Constitution to make his own rules.

The former Dem majority trampled right over the Constitution to ram ObamaCare through the legislature. They created the oppressive socialist mandate behind closed doors, away from the public, and spewed epithets at those who objected, especially the Tea Party. They have vowed to do the same to the States and the Supreme Court to violate our illegal immigration laws.  They still have a Senate majority.

Obama’s media presence.

He’s hatched a plan to harvest personal data from social networking sites including comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”  “Maintains a presence”; like internet stalking. That “presence” consists of internet sites like “Attack Watch” and a snitch line on the White House site.  He has a new propaganda department, (besides the MSM)  called the “Rapid Response Media Operation, to counter unfavorable stories.

Between the GSA Las Vegas parties, Fast and Furious, Biden’s foot-in-mouth gaffes, his destruction of the economy and national security, ObamaCare, eco-scams, ACORN, widespread voter fraud, embracing the “Occupy” thugs, union violence, screwing up the economy so badly that Standard and Poors dropped our AAA rating, getting caught in a lie over what he knew about Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell his vacated Senate seat, the Pigford scandal, and other numerous acts of corruption and crime, that “Rapid Response” team should be spin crazy by now.

“We the People” according to the SCOTUS.

If all of the above doesn’t raise your blood pressure, just take a look at what was said by a supposed conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court, touting the former Soviet Union:

“The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours. I mean it. Literally, it was much better. We guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. Big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!

Of course, it’s just words on paper, what our Framers would have called a “parchment guarantee.” And the reason is that the real constitution of the Soviet Union — you think of the word “constitution” — it doesn’t mean “bill” it means “structure”: [when] you say a person has a good constitution you mean a sound structure. The real constitution of the Soviet Union *** that constitution did not prevent the centralization of power in one person or in one party.”

—Antonin Scalia

Is Scalia fucking serious???  The Gulag Archipelago and Lubyanka prison were full of people who took that so-called “real constitution” too literally.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg doesn’t think much of the U.S. Constitution, but given her leftwingnut leanings, I expect that from her.  By the way, in 2011, the SCOTUS overwhelmingly voted 8-1 to effectively scuttle the 4th Amendment.  Believe it or not, only Bader Ginsberg dissented.

I can hardly wait to see how they rule on the Arizona immigration law and the ObamaCare disaster.  Maybe the conservatives on the bench will find their Constitutional compass by then.

The energy police.

The government is trying to control the amount of electricity you use in your home as part of its “Smart Grid”.  The  ‘Smart Meter’ device enables the utility company to remotely read your meter. “Smart thermostats”, “smart meters”, and the “smart grid” will provide the utility infrastructure with information about energy consumption around the country.  These devices will also enable them to regulate your use of electricity and turn it on and off at their discretion.  Our tax dollars are paying for this shit.

Government usurpation of parental rights and responsibilities. 

The State wants to indoctrinate and raise your children because you’re just too stupid to know what’s best for them.
In the modern American classroom, your children are being taught pro-union propaganda, Islamic Sharia doctrine, pro-illegal alien rhetoric, and that capitalism and America are evil.  California school administrators pushed an amendment to the educational code that would allow the promotion of Communism in schools. Some teachers have incorporated the training of children to be good little Obamabots. Obama’s former Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, taught explicit adult sex acts to school children.  And if you think government malfeasance is limited to the classroom, you can be prosecuted for spanking your child for misbehavior.

All of this is just a small sample of the out-of-control government and its total disregard for the principles outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

I served as a U.S. Soldier for a total of 30 years. (20 Active, 10 Reserve)  The oath of enlistment puts the Constitution in a prominent place; right up front:

“I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;”

I still take that oath as seriously as I did on the day I raised my right hand on February 11, 1976.

There are elected officials in local, state, and federal governments, who think that concept doesn’t apply to them.

There’s simmering anger out there; Americans are fed up with the abuse of power by arrogant politicians who forget that they work for us, not the other way around.  We are sick of them stomping all over the Constitution and dismantling individual rights. They believe they are above the law. They are arrogant, smug, self-absorbed, conceited autocrats who invent their own laws for their own selfish reasons. The Tea Party was created as a result.

Politicians shouldn’t delude themselves into believing that the American people aren’t serious about taking this country back.