US Constitution
How much do you value your privacy? How much privacy can we expect to have in the modern age of GPS enabled smartphones, WiFi, and search engine companies like Google releasing ISP records to the government on a regular basis?
These unsettling questions come to mind as I watch our military and intelligence community prove just how un-intelligent they can be regarding their own privacy and the government’s want for ever more information about our personal lives. The implications are staggering.
Here’s a great question found in a telling article @ Schneier on Security – E-Mail Security in the Wake of Petraeus – H/T Doug Ross
“If the director of central intelligence isn’t able to successfully keep his emails private, what chance do I have?” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-liberties advocacy group.
Be sure to read the whole thing.
Meanwhile, as if they don’t have enough power to spy on the public, Senator Reid and the Democrat controlled Senate have flipped a privacy bill into a spy-on-the-public bill.
A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
Leahy’s rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — to access Americans’ e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.
It’s an abrupt departure from Leahy’s earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications.
From Senate Bill Allows Feds to Read Your Email – Gateway Pundit
This is, of course, an example of the government going too far for security. And you know the old saying so often attributed to Ben Franklin, “Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.”
Also, I can’t stress more, here, that is the Democrats doing this. This is not a GOP effort.
FreedomWorks has an action item on this:
From Bait and Switch: Law Goes From Protecting Your Email to Allowing Gov’t Into Your Email – Warner Todd Huston @ Wizbang who also has a very good video of Judge Andrew Napolitano addressing this issue and others.
Again, please take the time to RTWT.
Buckle up, freedom loving patriots, we’re in for a bumpy ride.
Ben Swann Reality Check takes a look at history and present activities of the Federal Reserve Bank and whether the Fed needs to be audited.
Amazon link to The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Thanks to Bob for the email.
This holiday is a dichotomy for me. While I plan to celebrate the American ideal, I must also mourn it’s loss by erosion and atrophy. The fact is that too many Americans have abandoned their love of liberty. They either lack the courage to defend it, or know not what they’ve lost and feebly attempt to disguise their apathy or ignorance with claims of overwork and family obligations.
“I just don’t have time.” “We can’t change anything anyway.” or “I voted! What else can I do?”
While somewhat understandable due to the ‘Hate America First’ crowd populating our higher education system, this situation is absolutely unacceptable.
Pay attention, please!
What could possibly be more important than the world you leave to the family you claim to be working for?
This country was founded with the demand that we citizens hold the government accountable and as such it’s our solemn duty to be vigilant and educate ourselves; especially to question every carrot some politician offers for a block of votes.
Part of me wishes the deniers would just be truthful and admit to their selfish apathetic attitude but even then I’ve had enough of their disregard for the outright treason going on in the high halls of our government.
We should be lighting the streets of Washington DC with torches and pitchforks, pushing carts with caldrons of tar and bags of feathers for every Progressive we can lay our hands on!
Instead, most of the hapless, uneducated, indoctrinated sheeple will celebrate their faux freedoms with government approved USDA beef, cooked with EPA tested charcoal and FDA stamped BBQ sauce served on a table illuminated with gov’t mandated, mercury filled light bulbs that require a permit for disposal, powered with electricity delivered through “smart” meters that will soon be limiting the amount of power they are allowed to consume and the happy serfs will never give a moment’s thought to any of it.
“Thank you, Government for the food we are about to receive…” They may as well say.
Need a loaf of FDA approved bread and a twelve pack of pasteurized processed beer to help numb the senses to your lack of liberty? Go right ahead! You’re free to find the nearest convenience store run by immigrants who receive a tax break and subsidy but if you plan on driving that car, you’d better strap on a seat belt for your own safety. We wouldn’t want you killing yourself in an accident making you unable to pay back the insurance companies who apparently rule our lives because we’re too stoopid and incapable to do so ourselves. Not to mention, if a nice helpful revenue assessor officer of the law decides you’ve had one beer too many because the county and state need to fund a few ongoing, never-ending money pits downtown/highway/school beautification or government vote buying entitlement projects (Hey! This one’s got a job!). You’ll likely be forced to give some specimen in a twisted, technological violation of the Fifth or Fourth amendments to be used as evidence against you in a modern-day kangaroo court. (Ever hear of a No Refusal Law?)
Ah Freedom: Wonder what that felt like. You know, I think I once actually thought we were free, and slowly but surely I realized the illusion of liberty was the curtain of OZ and just like the tale, we aren’t supposed to peel that curtain back. Unfortunately, unlike Dorothy with her traveling band of truth seekers, the man behind the curtain isn’t a cute, cuddly, benevolent old man who resembles our kindly uncle. Behind the curtain, is the great and devouring leviathan, its hour come round at last, now slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. (Apologies to Yeats.)
Whatever hides beyond the veil you can be assured it has no designs for your safety or security except as a ruse to steal more of your freedoms.
Remember the phrase: “It’s for the children.”? Well guess what, we are “the children”. Get used to it. Your body is no longer your property, let alone your land, your vehicle or your actual children. The state now lays claim to them all in more ways I care to count. It takes a village alright. A village of idiots to swallow the lies we’re continually asked to believe.
Enjoy your Fourth of July, comrades.
The “transformation” is almost complete.
‘bot
Note: If this seems unreasonable to you, then I emplore you to get off your ass and DO SOMETHING about it. Donate your time and money to conservative candidates, then STAY involved. We will not turn it around in one election any more than it took one election to get us here. It’s past time to be what the founders intended us to be: Educated, Informed and Involved.
A friend caught me the other day making a simple but profound mistake. While bemoaning the recent SCOTUS decision on ObamacareTax, I brought up the wrongness of striking down the Stolen Valor Act, which made it illegal to claim to be a war hero.
“Why do we need a law against that?” He asked. “We’ve already got laws on the books against fraud. We don’t need to pass another law every time someone gets their panties in a wad about some hot-button issue, especially when there’s usually a law already on the books to address a particular infraction.”
Much as I hate to be wrong, I was. I let my respect for our veterans cloud my judgement. I was reminded yet again to be wary of issuing laws at the whim of what seems expedient which, like my friend pointed out, usually serve to be just another tightening of the clamp around our freedoms.
Don’t let your emotional response to an issue cloud your reasoning. Of course it’s despicable to imitate a war hero or veteran, but it’s not a crime until that person uses the deception for monetary or personal gain. So in this case, the SCOTUS ruled correctly.
We must maintain vigilance over our own righteous outrages in order to be true to the real cause of liberty, even and especially if it’s speech we don’t agree with, because that is one thing distinguishing us from those that would silence our opinions just because we express dissent.
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. ~ Voltaire
The right to free speech is one of the many things our heroes fight for. We would do them a grave disservice by diminishing that right in the slightest, especially with some attempt to defend their honor which can never, ever be stolen by anyone.
…if you don’t want to be labeled racist or xenophobic.
I don’t know him, nor have ever read his work until yesterday. I’m sure he’s a nice enough fellow but I have a wee quibble with Roger at EagleForum.org.
The headline in question:
The headline(s) that could have been:
America is becoming non-American
Or more to the point
American Atrophy: The Insidious Effects of Globalism, Socialism and Illegal Immigration
While we’re at it, a few more:
A Country with No Borders Is Not a Country At All
———————
Taxed, Borderless and Stupid Is No Way to Go through Life, Son.
———————
Where’s Waldo? Washington? – The Loss of the American Ideology
Enough? OK.
Hey, I understand the need for a snappy title but by any accounting, the premise of the original headline isn’t even accurate, nor has it ever been. Without consulting any census, I think we can agree that America has never been 100% white. Even the original immigrants weren’t all white so to say “becoming non-white” implies America was once all white.
I think it closer to the truth to say that, given the current influx of immigrants and the current birthrates, American whites are on a course to minority status. To presume America is becoming non-white just invites political backlash. Such is the danger in the attempt to grab attention. In this case, the critique shouldn’t be unexpected or necessarily unwarranted, even if the critics are being a bit extreme.
So what’s the Point?
I worry less about the birthrate of any particular demographic and more about what is being taught about the American way of life. What does it matter if comparatively fewer whites are being born in America when what the people in the country are being taught isn’t truly American to begin with? One cannot deny that the Progressives have nearly succeeded in their conquest of academia and thus are educating the educators and future leaders alike. The basic tenets of our Constitution such as Natural Law, Property Rights and Personal Liberty are now being undermined. They are being subtly and overtly proclaimed as regressive when in fact the Progressive Agenda aims for a return to a more repressed society. It’s a simple as this:
Larger Government = Less Freedom,
Less Government = More Freedom
For those not keeping score, we are currently immersed in a “Larger Government” scenario with the trend set to expand ever more if left un-checked.
When I hear the Speaker of the House reply to a question about the constitutionality of a law with a smug and disdainful “Are you serious?” I find more than a little cause for alarm. Progressives in the media and academia are at the forefront of the attack on traditional American values, virtue and freedom. Any criticism of liberal policy is met with school-girlish shrieks of emotional caterwauling and the facts of fiscal insolvency and overreaching statism are tossed out like yesterdays aborted babies. Just another necessary casualty in the quest for faux-freedom: the freedom from conscience.
No, we are not becoming non-white. We are losing our American Identity through dis-use and atrophy. Over time the exercise of our freedom has been increasingly limited by tiny, incremental adjustments and a majority of people haven’t noticed. It’s a Generational Creep that you will be ridiculed for speaking up about because the alternative is too scary. Some would have the law be our “Linus’ Blanket,” to make us feel better about ourselves and offering an illusion of safety when true safety is a myth. It cannot be attained through the application of any law or regulation. Never mind that most any law passed to perform such safety measures will invariably be used as a revenue generator at best and at worse a power tool over individual freedom.
The effect of not teaching American Constitutional Principles and Generation Creep is never more evident than in the illegal immigration issue. How else can you explain the relatively miniscule federal reaction to and public tolerance of 30 million uninvited guests crossing our borders in an invasion of sheer numbers?
The greater issue as I see it is the influx of un-American Ideals as evidenced by too many sleepwalking voters in 2008 willing to take a handout from the government. It’s time to have a little pride in yourselves and realize the majority of our problems are caused by too much government and the only way to fix it is by decreasing the government’s involvement in our affairs.
Instead of worrying so much about how many non-white babies are being born, we should be fighting to teach those newborn Americans about the freedoms envisioned by our founders.
Blog note: Originally posted on 5-21-12.
A great champion of conservatism.