Our rights do not originate with government, but they are to be "secured" by government.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Ivy League view of Freedom

By Tom Rhodes, 2/25/2014

If you read or hear about any ideas from Ivy League school, like Harvard, or any graduate from those schools you should consider such ideas as intellectually dishonest, and devoid of thought, but most certainly doubt them. The demonstration of how current Ivy League students and professors think is summed up in the writings of Sandra Korn, a Harvard senior, and columnist at the Harvard Crimson. She writes and boldly proclaims that dissenting opinions should be banned. That’s right she believes that freedom of speech and academic freedom are an impediment to justice.

She out right says that Harvard should not put up with research if the results don’t support her goals. Truth be damned. She concluded her ‘If you don’t agree with me Shut Up!’ diatribe with “I would encourage student and worker organizers to… use a framework of justice. After all, if we give up our obsessive reliance on the doctrine of academic freedom, we can consider more thoughtfully what is just.”

So we are supposed to give up Academic Freedom; an interesting but misguided position. First let’s consider what Academic Freedom is:

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008, Academic Freedom is the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate. For students, the basic elements include the freedom to study subjects that concern them and to form conclusions for themselves and express their opinions.

According to The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Academic Freedom is The right of teachers and students to express their ideas in the classroom or in writing, free from political, religious, or institutional restrictions, even if these ideas are unpopular.

Basically Academic Freedom is freedom of speech and thought for both teachers and students. The principle is that the government or other institutions don’t have the power nor authority to control what information teachers and students share nor what conclusions they make from what they learn. So Harvard Crimson approved and published an article that says we can consider what is just only if; we give up on freedom of speech, silence ideas that are not politically correct, censor research that doesn’t deliver the politically correct results, and not allow students to reach conclusions that are not politically correct can? WTF?

If that’s the kind of thinking that results from an education at Harvard and other Ivy League schools, then all I can say is forget an Ivy League education, it is worthless. That the Harvard Crimson would even consider publishing such totalitarian ideas promoting censorship shows the counsel of Harvard Professors on the same level as the publishers and editors of Mad Magazine (my apologies to Mad Magazine, at least it knows it’s satire, foolishness, and humor). Harvard’s vision taught to its student’s as expressed in the student paper the Harvard Crimson, is a vision that forbids research and discussion and ideas that whomever is in charge find objectionable is the same vision totalitarians have had and instituted throughout history.

The concept is that any ideas or philosophies that Sandra Korn doesn’t like are inherently immoral, unworthy, and don’t deserve to expressed, and those who hold philosophies or ideas she doesn’t approve don’t deserve the same freedom that allows her to publish such twaddle. She must have zero faith in what she believes because she will not tolerate having to compare her ideas to others. She must have a very shallow idea on what justice means, if she cannot “consider more thoughtfully what is just” when ideas she doesn’t approve of are rationally included in the discussion.

Besides ignoring the First Amendment to The Constitution all she is asking us to do is to disavow Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

All I can say is if you’re a parent considering sending your child to an Ivy League School, Don’t. It’s hard to believe that after 12 years of schooling in the USA, and 4 years at Harvard, a person could consider and promote the idea that censorship is a valid path to justice.

To Sandra Korn, all I say “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” But make no mistake, Ms. Korn, you better be willing to fight to the death to force us to give up “our obsessive reliance on the doctrine academic freedom.” Or do you propose to send others to fight to the death in your stead? We will not give up our “obsessive reliance” on freedom, you and your ilk will have to take it, and that you can’t do. In order to take our “obsessive reliance” on the doctrine of freedom, including academic freedom, you’re going to have to kill us. Is that what you call just?

Monday, February 24, 2014

LP Platform – Abortion Plank

By Tom Rhodes, 2/25/2014

The veritable “Third Rail” is Abortion. The LP’s position on abortion is illogical, contradictory, unlibertarian, and divides and hurts the LP. The fact is the fastest way to start a argument and keep libertarians from working together on productive issues is to bring up abortion. Not even the Republicans and Democrats fight over abortion more than libertarians. The abortion plank of our platform should not be changed, it should be eliminated. The fact is good libertarians disagree on the issue of abortion, regardless of a person’s position on abortion they should be welcome in the Libertarian Party.

Libertarians as a whole are extremists, if they weren’t they’d be in the Republocrat or Demican party. Because we are extremists some fail to see what they think of as moderate position as being extreme. Consider the wording of the abortion plank in the LP Platform, which reads: “Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.” Many libertarians consider this to be a moderate non-confrontational position. Others see it as an extreme position that makes murder legal in some situations.

As libertarians we all believe that every human has the same rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The LP has adopted and accepted liberal anti-liberty vocabulary to justify its position. Because of this honest open debate on abortion does not happen. Adopting such language tat calls the termination of a fetus as “health care” targets those who don’t agree as being against “health care.”

Half the people, or more, rightly believe that pregnancy is not a disease but is the outcome of behavior initiated by people other than the unborn baby. Half the people, or more, believe life begins at conception. Half the people, or more, believe that the unborn are people. That means that half, or more, of the people believe the LP position is that there should be no laws restricting a woman from murdering her child prior to it reaching some arbitrary stage of its life.

The science is settled, at conception a unique person genetically distinct from its mother is created as a result of specific behavioral choices of the sire. It’s really simple, regardless of the stage of development, from one cell to birth, the cell(s) aren’t dead they are alive. All the arguing isn’t going to change the reality, and no-abortions are initiated on babies before their heart is beating. So talking about blastocysts and very early stages of development are meaningless, a diversion, and a lie meant to cover up the fact that abortion is the killing of a unique humans who are developmentally far too young to protect themselves. Just because politics resulted in changing definition of what is a life to justify abortions doesn’t make the unborn less than human. The definition of cellular life used to be pretty simple. If the cell(s) respirate, take in food, expel waste, divide, and respond to stimuli, it’s alive. If the DNA is human and the cells are alive it is a living human being – PERIOD!

What justifies the initiation of force against that human who has not and cannot initiate force against another? The abortion plank tells every Libertarian who for scientific or religious reasons believes life begins at conception to fuck off. We won’t suffer the consequences of our life choices, and libertarian principles be damned.

Saying that a woman’s body is her own is fine. She should be free to defend herself from others who have initiated aggression against her. If she is pregnant because of her voluntary actions, it is clear her baby did not initiate any aggression against her, but is there because of the woman’s choice. She does not have the right to kill the baby and cannot claim self-defense. If she is pregnant involuntarily because of aggression against her she has good cause to seek reparations and even punishment against the aggressor, not the innocent third party. The baby did not initiate any aggression against her. Murdering the baby because the mother was raped is killing an innocent bystander who initiated force against nobody, and is not justice.

Interesting how liberals, statists, and feminists, in just about everything from income to education, will use dissimilar outcomes based on race and other demographics to prove racism, sexism, etc. You are not allowed to use those same methods to look at abortions. Income inequality between white and black people is because of systemic racism, but overwhelming inequality between blacks and white babies being aborted is somehow not. Liberals and statists and feminists won’t say it out loud, but the history and actual application is clear. The reality is abortion is a eugenics program marketed to the dumb and minorities to convince them to voluntarily reduce their reproduction. Look at the raw numbers, compare them to education level, race and other demographics. Abortion is kept legal and marketed in a fashion designed to minimize populations of ”undesirables.” It's a sick fact, prove it to yourself. Look at where planned parenthood puts its clinics and compare that to the demographics.

Obviously I’m anti-abortion for a lot of reasons. In fact I’m not alone, a lot of Libertarians are anti-abortion. A lot of Republicans, who would be Libertarian if not for the abortion plank remain stuck in the statists Republican Party. The LP claims to believe “that people can hold good-faith views on all sides” of the abortion issue, yet boldly proclaims that view of one side should not be accepted. Obviously the LP doesn’t respect or tolerate the views of those who believe that the government was instituted to protect everybody’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if that person believes life begins at birth.

If the LP truly makes its platform plank “Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides” then it should have no position on abortion and welcome pro-life and pro-choice libertarians equally. Currently pro-life libertarians who believe that the government should protect the life of all people from aggression by others, even their mothers, are not welcome in the LP. The polls show that more than half the country is pro-life. Why do we have a plank that is so divisive, so easily demonstrated to violate the non-aggression principle, and clearly makes us unpalatable to more than half the country. Considering that the pro-choice crowd generally hates our fiscal planks, our platform pretty much excludes everybody.

Plank 1.4 of the LP Platform on abortion should be eliminated. If we must have an abortion plank why not a truly libertarian plank that reads: : “Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, the LP will not drive a wedge between Its members and encourages each member to freely vote their conscience and actively work to achieve the political goal they think best protects liberty without condemnation.”

Media ignores Massive Civil Disobedience

by Tom Rhodes, 02/24/2014

It what may be the biggest act of civil disobedience since the Revolutionary War, somewhere around 100-300 thousand Connecticut Citizens are giving the middle finger to the State. Told they must register scary looking guns and standard sized magazines by Jan. 1, 2014 massive numbers of gun owners just ignored the law. Bigger and better than some protest, massive numbers of people simply said, “no.” In general the main stream media has ignored this.

The reason, it shows the government as weak and powerless against the people. Connecticut has a choice, it can arrest and imprison hundreds of thousands of citizens, or lose in court for unequal enforcement of the law if it tries to make “examples” of a few people. The idiot statist politicians assumed that because they would, and the people they know (fellow statists) would follow the law, that the good citizens of Connecticut wouldn’t dare ignore they dictates.

They were wrong. Seeing guns getting confiscated on a whim in New York and California. Not trusting the State to not change the rules, which history shows will happen. Looking at the now commonplace abuse by State law enforcement. The citizens of Connecticut justly told the state that it has no business tracking their guns any more than the state has a right to track our hands; our hammers; or our baseball bats. The right to life and the right to defend it are natural inalienable, owning the tools to do that are not any of the State’s business.

Connecticut cannot do anything about it either. The State doesn’t have the resources to hire the lawyers it would need to prosecute hundreds of thousands of people, much less jail them, especially if they simply refuse to pay the fines. Debtors prison is illegal. The ruling elite has ignored and flouted the Rule of Law, this has undermined the States authority to the point where the people can and will simply ignore it. Mike Lawlor, the state’s top official in criminal justice said, “A lot of it is just a question to ask, and I think the firearms unit would be looking at it. They could send them a letter.”

They Statists in government are now scared, they realize that they have a problem and don’t know what to do. Connecticut State Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, , the ranking GOP member of the legislature’s public safety committee, said, “I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register. If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don’t follow them, then you have a real problem.”

The reality is, sending a letter to gun owners suspected of owning guns that the law required them to register or dispose of their weapons, will be as effective as the law to register them has been. We the People have quite simply nullified the law. The Hartford Courant Editorial Board suggests that Authorities should use the background check database as a way to find assault weapon purchasers who might not have registered those guns in compliance with the new law. That is exactly why gun groups have opposed background checks, the fears that the statists and anti-gun crowd said were baseless are true.

The main stream press covered Connecticut’s December gun registration drive. Now that the results show that massive civil disobedience, they are silent. The press is silent because it demonstrates to all lovers of liberty that the state can be defeated, without a shot, without the press, just by ignoring their laws. That is scary for the statists and the press. The reason you won’t see trials of citizens with un-registered weapons is that juries can and will refuse to convict. The people know that gun owners aren’t felons for refusing to make it easier for the state to confiscate their weapons. All that has to happen is 1 juror refuse to convict. Look at Philly now, they don’t even bother to take to trial most pot possession charges, they know the defendant even if proven guilty will not be convicted.

Connecticut has around 3.5 million people, and the state estimates that there are around 350,000 assault weapons only about 12% registered. That means that the chances of any member of a jury being an owner of an assault weapon are good, and would probably refuse to convict. You can’t enslave a free man who loves liberty, all you can do is kill them. Lots of Americans hold in their hearts, the sentiment, “Give me Liberty or give me Death.” What the state didn’t consider was that people in mass would not obediently comply. Their Hubris will be their undoing. We the People will only suffer their oppression to a point. We’ve reached that point as the good citizens of Connecticut have demonstrated. A few people ignoring a law can be written off as criminal kooks but a hundred thousand plus giving the government the finger is a clear message to the State. A message they don’t like and don’t want to accept.

Connecticut now has a massive number of people with assault weapons who have clearly said, “We will not comply!” What’s it going to do about hundreds of thousands of armed citizens refusing to obey? The last time a government tried to send in troops to confiscate weapons from Yankees in that part of the country didn’t fare so well for the troops or government. It resulted in a long drawn out guerrilla war where the people refused to play by the rules, and ultimately ending in the people being self-governing and not under the thumb of the ruling elite. They then gave the ruling elite of the world the finger, daring to start their new constitution with the words “We the People.” Then going so far as to restrict the State from infringing on the mere people’s right to keep and bear arms. Statists have been working for over 200 years to try and put the people back in their rightful place. They forget one very important fact, massive amounts of people in the USA would rather Live Free, or Die

Live Free, or Die not as eloquent as Thomas Paine’s famous Give me Liberty or Give me Death, but a reality for more people than the state would believe. Obama now famously refused to negotiate on the budget and won. We the People, even in “liberal” Connecticut, are equally as intransient concerning our guns. Our answer to laws of registration and confiscation is simple, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ (Molôn Labé!)

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Olympics and Equality

By Tom Rhodes, 2/18/2014

The Olympics is a direct demonstration of the fact that women do not belong in military combat positions, period. The Winter Olympics are politically incorrect proof that equality between men and women’s abilities simply doesn’t exist. In all the traditional Winter Olympic events women compete on less arduous courses. In luge they start lower on the track to reduce their speed, and this year they can finally do ski jumping, but only on the smaller hill. The Olympics are sexist, and for good reason.

We love the beauty and grace of our women gymnasts and figure skaters, and tolerate the minor injuries women get in these sports. We expect our soldiers to get hurt; We expect men in football to be carried off in stretchers; Seeing women in horrendous accidents and carried off the venue in stretchers brings gasps from the audience and hurts our civilized sensibilities. Here are handful of results of women trying to compete on venue’s designed for the very best men.

  • Jacqueline Hernandez injured during the women's snowboard cross seeding at Rosa Khutor Extreme
  • Ski-cross racer Maria Komissarova of Russia broke her spine during a practice run at the Extreme Park and is being treated in Munich after undergoing surgery in Krasnaya Polyana, the nearest town to the venue.
  • Miki Ito of Japan suffered an injury in the warm up before the Ladies' Moguls
  • Canadian skier Yuki Tsubota suffered a mild concussion and a fractured cheekbone in a Feb. 11 crash during the women’s slopestyle.
  • Norway’s Helene Olafsen was carried off the course with a knee injury during the women’s snowboard cross.
  • Britain’s Rowan Cheshire, a skier in the women’s halfpipe event, withdrew from the games after being knocked unconscious during training.

    The number of world class women skiers who DNF the women’s Super-G was scary. Even in figure skating women aren’t doing quad’s that are almost routine for the men. Civilized people protect their women. We are becoming less civilized. Bowing to cries for equality we ignore the blatant differences between men and women. Look at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, the site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events like halfpipe, slopestyle and moguls. No quarter is given to women here, and as the name implies this is extreme and there have been lots of injuries, the majority to the women. Unlike the traditional alpine events there is equality and no course concessions made for women. The result has been obvious - many more women DNF, and many more getting injured.

    Canada’s slopestyle bronze medalist, Kim Lamarra, admits women are not up to the standard for men lamented, “Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men, I think they could do more to make it safer for women.” The slopestyle skiing completion was delayed several times by women’s, shall we say, spectacular wipeouts. This demonstrates the reality of equality between the sexes. At the Extreme Park, even to the observable detriment of the female participants, equality doesn’t exist. The fact is that even though they compete on the same course the men do, it is not an example of equality because the women don’t directly compete against the men. The reason they don’t obvious, in extreme sports female athletes would be both inferior and uncompetitive, they simply can’t compete against men. Worse yet when they try, they get hurt, and they behave like lemmings; they will literally kill themselves in their incoherent denial that they are not equal to men. The best go for the biggest jumps and obstacles trying to prove they are capable, the other girls follow and the result is demonstrably increased morbidity.

    In some sports like, wrestling, boxing, fencing, biathlon, the direct marshal skills and comparison to combat is blatant. In others less so, but sports are a substitute for combat to determine who’s faster, stronger, can last longer, more skilled, or better. Skiing, skating, running, racing, whatever, sports are competitive, hopefully non-fatal, substitutes to combat. That is part of why vastly more men than women both enjoy and participate in sports. Sports including the Olympics are competitive leisure games whose basis is to keep men prepared for combat and competing against each other.

    Women cannot compete in competitive leisure games at the same level of men without hurting themselves at a vastly disproportionate level, how do we expect them to hold their own in combat? Combat military positions are extreme beyond anything mere sports can dish out, in combat the enemy is actively trying to harm them, and there are no concessions for the fact that they are girls. The Olympics prove one thing very clearly. Men and women are not equal and women cannot perform at the level men do under “equal” conditions, this is a fact, an observable truth, a subject that that no amount of crying or utopian thinking of how things should be will change. Men and women are not interchangeable. As a group women are not suited physically or emotionally for combat and with a very rare exception should be excluded from combat positions in our military.

    A civilized society protects its women, they do the most important job no man can do, that’s why there is blatant sexism in the Olympics. Not allowing women to compete against men, making sure the courses and challenges are appropriate for the limited abilities of women, are restrictions to protect women because on an even playing field they cannot compete. Feminists fight and demand “equality,” the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, without separate venues for women, is the result feminism. The resulting increased morbidity of women from that venue is evidence that feminists are misogynistic, preferring the injury and death of women in the name of equality, rather than accept the patently obvious. Civilized people know there are real limits and that men and women are not equal, and strive to protect women, even from feminists.

    When women can compete with men, on an even playing field, with no concessions, then and only then should they be considered for combat. The science is clear, there will have to be significant evolutionary change to our species before this will happen. Because combat is real, and deadly, and uncompromising the standards for combat MOS’s should not be diminished just because so few women can meet them. That’s equality, the Olympics make it clear that “all things being equal” for some sports, some jobs, and some tasks and some positions, women are not equal to men. Yes there are some things women can do better than men, so what, that’s the point, men and women are not the same and are not always interchangeable, so we should not expect equal outcomes, and we shouldn’t allow them in combat positions in our military.
  • Monday, February 17, 2014

    What Difference Does it Make

    By Tom Rhodes, 2/17/2014

    By now Hillary’s infamous “What difference does it make!” line has been used and abused about a zillion times in the blogosphere and social networks. The problem is honesty and the rule of law make more of a difference than Hillary or Obama or progressives in general are willing to admit.

    Consider Obamacare and what is fully acknowledged as one of the biggest lies in political history “if you liked your health care, you could keep it.” The problem isn’t that its foundational premise lie, liberals didn’t even blink when they found out it was a lie, much less be offended by the lie. The problem is that liberals, progressives, and statists of all sorts are offended that the lie was pointed out, exposed, and talked about.

    They and all the American people now know that Obama purposefully lied in order that the government could gain control of 1/5th of the American economy. The reason why Pelosi fought so hard to have the Democrat controlled House pass the law to see what was in it, why Obama reneged on his multiple transparency promises (specifically health care legislation), is that power not health care, power not liberty, power not security, are the goal. Their hubris at the idea that “we the people” should even question their promises, much less actions, show utter contempt for the average American.

    America is different for the first couple centuries, even if we lost an election we knew we lost fair and square, and that were at least heard. We knew and believed in the rule of law and that all sides have a fair chance at being heard and then voting for what we believe, and win or lose accepted the results. But things have changed. “What difference it makes” is that rather than respect the limits we place on government as leaders in the past did, today’s liberals are personified by Obama, who routinely reject Checks and Balances, and the limits placed by “We the People.” What is plain is that even though 70% of us want to stop deficit spending we are ignored. What’s plain is that even though our losses
    aren’t fair. And rather than listen to us we are told “What difference does it make”. Or when pointing out that the action is unconstitutional are told “Are You Kidding”.

    We aren’t being listened too, the rules are bent or broken or ignored, that crucial legitimacy is gone. And then there are no rules to respect. The blatant destruction of our Constitution’s boundaries, is leading to actions our leaders won’t acknowledge. America is arming itself, the ammo shortages in the news aren’t manufactured, they are real, not because of some government plot but because of simple supply and demand. No longer is having a box or two of ammo “enough,” people routinely hoard 20+ boxes for each weapon they own, “just in case.”

    Why such distrust of government? Let’s face were Americans and trusting Uncle Same has never been a strong point. But today we plainly see the rule of law is dead. The government cannot be trusted in any endeavor to do as it promises. Both parties work for nothing more than power. We see our police being issued tanks and battle vehicles, WTF. We see massive amounts of ammunition ordered and purchased by government agencies that we didn’t even know had guns. That ammo is hollow-point and although effective, its use violates the Geneva Convention so can’t be used by our military or against a foreign army so the government obviously fears domestic not foreign attack.

    The experiment in freedom that is the USA is ending. The ruling elite have for over two centuries trying to put the genie back in the bottle. The ruling elite show open contempt for the average person, who they don’t believe can be trusted with the freedom to decide what to eat, where to live, what car to drive, what to teach their children. They monitor the travel of every citizen they can, monitor their phones and emails, totally disregarding the constitution limits on unreasonable searches. Secret courts, oaths of silence, and the like are the work of today’s US government. We The People forming a government with limited powers instituted to protect the right of mere citizens life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness was and is a slap in the fact to the ruling elite. So they ignore the Constitution.

    To Hillary, Obama, Reid, Boehner, Crist, “the difference it makes” is that once We the People see you are ignoring the restrictions on the limited power we’ve given you, We will ignore you, your laws, and rules. Connecticut is not exactly a bastion of libertarianism, but . . . massive numbers of good law abiding citizens did ignore the law and refused to register their “assault weapons”; what is Connecticut going to do with 100,000+ new felons? Want some fun, google “Shoot Shovel and Shut-up.” Who anymore thinks cheating on your income taxes is morally wrong? Just try to get a conviction on pot possession in Philadelphia, We the People simply refuse to convict. Obamacare, We the People see that congress doesn’t have to abide by it, corporations don’t have to abide by it so We the People are ignoring it and not signing up.

    Modern Western Civilization depended on the “rule of law” and on “equality under the law.” In as much as our ruling elite now blatantly ignore both, so too are We the People ignoring or actively disobeying the “law” as without the both the “rule of law” and on “equality under the law” laws are just dictates of a tyrannically few, and We the People have proven repeatedly that we will not suffer tyranny. It would be nice if our republic could remain united, but tyranny from ruling elite who refuse to live within their means and within the restrictions of power granted to them byWe the People, will spell the death of our republic and maybe Western Civilization. That is the difference.

    Friday, February 14, 2014

    Obama Ushers in the End of Modern Civilization

    By Tom Rhodes, 2/14/2014

    Obama claimed he wanted to fundamentally change America while running for office. His methodology and actions will not only fundamentally change America but will end modern western civilization. No it’s not hyperbole. As I’ve noted in many previous articles, Obama and the ruling elite have effectively ended the rule of law and returning us to the norm for all of mankind. Rule by a few elite with little or no options for the masses.

    In the USA the rule of law is dead. The Obama Administration has just announced that it ‘s 18th unilateral and arbitrarily change to the Obamacare ignoring The Constitution and the Checks and Balances of having congress not the president create law. The American political system has been perverted by a White House that doesn’t feel bound by the rule of law. The Wall Street Journal agrees:

    …the law increasingly means whatever President Obama says it does on any given day. His latest lawless rewrite arrived on Monday as the White House decided to delay the law’s employer mandate for another year and in some cases maybe forever. …last summer the Treasury offered a year-long delay until 2015 despite having no statutory authorization. …Now the new delay arrives amid a furious debate about jobs after a damning Congressional Budget Office report last week, only this time with liberals celebrating ObamaCare’s supposed benefits to the job market. …Oh, and the Treasury also notes that, “As these limited transition rules take effect, we will consider whether it is necessary to further extend any of them beyond 2015.” So the law may be suspended indefinitely if the White House feels like it. …The text of the Affordable Care Act specifically says when the mandate must take effect—”after December 31, 2013?—and does not give the White House the authority to change the terms. Changing an unambiguous statutory mandate requires the approval of Congress, but then this President has often decided the law is whatever he says it is.

    If the President wants to change the law, he should propose legislation and send it to Congress – PERIOD! Anything else is illegal, unconstitutional, and carries no authority. Some enterprising individual should sue their company (of 50 to 100 employees) for not following the law, regardless of Obama’s claimed authority to delay the implementation beyond Congresses mandate. The reason Obama is avoiding having to deal with congress. The people elected congress and those representatives would force the White House to make concessions to get the changes it wants. It’s easier to ignore the Rule of Law and act like a two bit dictator.

    The reason Obama can act like a two bit dictator and get away with it is simple. Political Correctness has perverted civilization. Political Correctness is the most telling feature of today's elite culture. The PC are consistently those who think of themselves as the best of people. Unlike the mere common persons, they believe that they have risen above xenophobic patriotism, racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and every other ism. They’re inclusive! Political correctness quite succinctly compliments the self-importance of elites. Their politically correct views are a signal of their moral right to rule.

    Political correctness is a powerful tool used as a weapon with which to destroy competitors for power and status. If your view is traditional and not PC it is dismissed as economically naive, or as unable to recognize cultural differences, homophobic, etc. and are by definition unqualified to either rule or even have an opinion how those who are PC choose to rule. Anybody with a real education is in the know about these things! . . . not accepting PC means you’re an uneducated rube bitterly clinging to bourgeois ideas of the past.

    The reason the ruling elite, like Obama, constantly work to enact laws to take your money, infringe on your constitutional rights, deny you your property, silence your dissent, and imprison or kill you if you try to resist, isn’t just believing that they know better than you how you should spend your time and your money, what you should eat, what car you should drive, what science you should believe and which sexual perversions you accept; they also hate you for not agreeing with them. Just as kings of old believed in their divine right to rule, you merely not accepting the ruling elites superiority is all the justification they need for marginalizing you, discriminating against you, blacklisting you or otherwise eliminate you.

    This PC worldview allows the destruction of modern civilization. The very idea you a mere commoner, hold the ruling elite to the same laws you are subject is proof of your inferiority. Political Correctness allows the idea of democracy to overrun our republic. The difference is world view, a republic is ruled by law a democracy is ruled by opinion. Well we used to have a republic based on a Christian world view, today we have a tyranny based on worshiping the state. Statist leaders get angry that the people don’t just obey their tens of thousands of laws, they firmly believe that the ruling elite know better how everybody should live and reject the rule of law. Imagine if a congressman got caught doing drugs and was subjected to the same treatment as a 20 yr old black man. The Rule of Law is dead.

    Obama’s White House is undermining the basic underpinnings of our system of governance to the point where we now live in a neo-feudal society not a Republic. The ruling elite are now unaccountable for the laws that they severely punish the rest of us. The major news outlets ignore Obama’s abuses of power, because they understand this and want to either be part of the ruling elite, or at least have the favor of the ruling elite. Obama arrogantly declaring he will ignore the Constitution goes unchallenged or are treated as a “gaffe” or “joke.” The absolute smoking gun that the IRS is targeting Obama’s detractors is not front page news because as Dinesh D’Souza can attest, pointing out the facts is dangerous. News this week that freedom of the press in the USA has deteriorated significantly is evidence. We are devolving to a neo-feudal society where an oligarchy rules, even the press. This is a collapse of civilization and reversion of society to warlord rule.

    Consider the attack on what is generally regarded as civilized and good. Statists, specifically progressives routinely attack the underpinnings of modern western civilization. Civilized people generally recognize that for most people, having a married mother and father is a good thing; that being married to a member of the opposite sex, and raising a family, is a good thing; that celebrating the natural and innate differences between male and female, and allowing society to reap the respective strengths of each, is a good thing; parents are responsible for and not only have the duty but the right to raise their children with the values they believe; in essence the traditional family is a fundamental element to a civilized society. From a practical and moral and philosophic standpoint the traditional family is good. From a statist and liberal standpoint the traditional family must be destroyed, it undermines the idea that some others not related to you better understand what’s best for you and should have the right to dictate how you should live.

    The elimination of the rule of law and destruction of the value of the traditional family are observably leading to the destruction of modern western civilization and a return to rule by the elite, the historic norm for mankind throughout history. Thus Obama is ushering in the end of modern western civilization, he, statists, progressives, etc. all think this is a good thing and is the “fundamental change” Obama promised and seeks.



    Related Intemperate thoughts:

  • Collapse of the rule of law leads to clearly illogical excuses for not enforcing laws. Answer this question: If we must give illegal immigrants amnesty because children should not suffer for the “mistakes” of their parents, does that mean that murders who have kids should not be prosecuted? Or because the evidence is clear that children suffer most when their parents’ divorce, does it mean that parents shouldn’t be allowed to divorce if they have children? There just isn’t logic behind using the suffering of a person’s child as the basis to absolve that person from their crimes or even mistakes. Arguing the consequence is a classic fallacy in logic.

  • In Connecticut somewhere between 50 and 300 thousand people ignored the law to register their weapons by Jan 1. Although the news isn’t covering it as such, this is civil disobedience on a massive scale. Is massive civil disobedience soon to be the norm? How will the ruling elite react when the people say “no”? Can Connecticut handle a couple hundred thousand new “felons” in their judicial system who refuse to obey the ruling elites dictates? When the people realize the ruling elite are under no obligation to obey the restrictions placed on them by the people, the people, rightly or not, reject the obligation to obey the ruling elite. Thus ends the rule of law.

  • The most productive part of society that produces the surplus that pays for government, entitlements, and our modern western lifestyles is working aged men. No longer respected nor even allowed to be the lord of his home and head of his family, in massive numbers this group is deciding to hold up in mom’s basement and play video games rather than participate in a society that is overtly hostile to them. This is “freeing” as young men are unleashed or untethered from employment and traditional male roles to allow them to pursue their dreams, like being a pirate in “Assassin's Creed.” Who’s going to take up the slack, sacrifice, and do the dirty dangerous jobs or stay at the office 80hrs a week to create that surplus that made entitlements, social security, and all of modern western civilization possible?

  • There isn’t a 50 yr old women with 30 years of experience out in this week’s snow storms climbing power poles and insuring the rest of us have electricity. Women not taking hard dangerous work isn’t the problem. We’re lucky right now there is an experienced man willing to climb a pole and work on energized 69,000 volt lines in a snow storm to keep the heat on, the problem is there isn’t a 20 yr old apprentice freezing his ass off trying to learn from that lineman, and there isn’t a 20 yr old girl both willing and able to take up a dangerous physically demanding job that when the weather gets nasty requires 80 hour work week in the snow, slush, and rain while taking her away from her children and mate, and do that job week-in and week-out non-stop for 30+ years. Rather than rewarding the man who is willing to make the physical and temporal sacrifices doing the jobs and producing the surplus that make civilization possible, society is telling him he’s the oppressor and un-fair and takes the fruit of his labor and sacrifice and gives it to others who did nothing to earn it. Society has such contempt for the man who works hard and sacrifices it tells him he doesn’t know best how the fruit of his labor should be used, so it take his labor an redistribute it as the ruling elite dictate. It’s no wonder young men aren’t in college, or working, or marrying, they see society as wanting them to take all the risks but give up all the rewards.