Monthly Archives: March 2010

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Here is a blog post I copied word for word, from Jim Babka and Perry Willis of DownsizeDC.org.
In an era when the consciousness of humanity is rising, there are still some who choose to give up their power. Mostly this decision comes about from confusion. It is understandable that people would become confused with the overwhelming amount of data we all have to deal with, and with the country being run more and more by faceless corporations who seem to be motivated only by self-interest.

However, giving up your power to a government, or to a President, because he or she "knows what to do," must eventually lead to a breakdown of society. Only when citizens are educated and demand accountability from their representatives, can democracy flourish.

Here is what Babka and Willis say about the current situation:

If you asked us what surprises us most about the world we live in,
this would be high on the list . . .

* Statists control nearly everything

* Statist arguments dominate the national debate

* And yet, public opinion is still largely anti-Statist

Remember, Statism is the belief that . . .

* Your life needs to be engineered by a select group of people
(Congress, the President) from the top down

* People must be threatened with violence in order to make them
comply with these designs and dictates

* People who don't submit to these threats, should actually suffer
violence, in the form of imprisonment, the loss of property, and
possibly even death, depending on how much they resist

Social engineering, threats, and violence -- these are the sordid
reality behind all the euphemistic talk we hear from Statists about
things like compassion, order, safety, and security. Whenever someone
proposes the State must do something, we should ask . . .

* Will the proposal protect your freedom to live your life as you see
fit -- provided you don't impinge on the equal freedom of others to do
the same? Or . . .

* Will the proposal itself threaten you with violence, instead of
protecting you from it? Because . . .

If it protects your freedom, then it's in keeping with the idea of
Constitutional government and human liberty. If threatens you with
fines, imprisonment, etc., then you're talking about Statism.

Sadly, nearly everything discussed in the national debate is Statist.
Consider the current so-called healthcare bill. It's jam-packed with
threats of violence . . .

* You must have health insurance of a kind dictated by politicians

* If you don't buy health insurance then you'll be fined -- your hard
earned property will be stolen from you

* If you try to avoid the fine, then minions of the State will find
some way to take the money from you

* If you try to hide your money so that it can't be seized,
eventually men with guns will show up at your door to kidnap you, and
hold you in confinement

* If you try to resist this kidnapping then the men will draw their
guns, and if you continue to resist they will shoot you

This is the grim truth about the healthcare bill, and about nearly
everything our government now does. Statism equals violence. And yet.
. .

Many people are blind to this reality. They cannot see the gun that's
implicit in what they advocate. And because they can't see the gun,
they can't see the inherent contradiction in their beliefs.

Threatening and initiating violence against others contradicts
compassion, order, safety, and security.

The Statist is inherently hypocritical, wanting to be protected from
threats and violence when his own interests and beliefs are at stake,
but wanting to use threats and violence to impose his interests and
beliefs on others. This is not government, this is thuggery. Statist
thuggery.

And yet, everywhere we look we see this thuggery wrapped in the flag,
and marching to patriotic music. Statist thuggery is . . .

* Taught in our schools and universities

* Preached by our politicians

* Presented as the only option by the major established news media

* Defended in advertising by every special interest beneficiary of
Statist violence

* Invoked nearly every time someone says "there ought to be a law"

My comment: When President Obama was asked whether he and his family would sign up for the new heathcare plan that he himself is pushing, he avoided the question and would not answer it. Our Congressmen and women refuse to have anything to do with this healthcare legislation, and have their own separate, elitist plan (supported by your tax dollars, of course). The bill is opposed by a majority of American citizens.

So why, then, is is being so assiduously promoted? The Democratic Congress is using a procedural tactic to pass the Senate version of healthcare, without the House having to vote on it. This is unconstitutional.

As I said in a previous blog post, healthcare is essentially pharmaceutical drugs and invasive surgeries.
According to Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, writing in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) 250,000 deaths per year are caused by medical errors, making this the third-largest cause of death in the U.S., following heart disease and cancer.

Think about what you are getting when you allow the government to run your lives.
More statism, more collectivism -- which just means, more rule from above by a small elite -- and less freedom.

Here is a perfect example of the sort of shenanigans that go on in Congress. During the recent health care debate, Senator Henry Reid used illegal parliamentary maneuvering to insert an illegal provision in the Senate Health care bill. This analysis is take directly from Christopher Story's latest blog post:

"ILLEGAL ANTI-REPEAL PROVISION BURIED INSIDE THE BILL
"Buried within the massive amendment to the Senate version of the Health Care legislation inserted by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is an illegal clause which purports to bind Congress in the future from repealing Section 3403. In the United Kingdom, no House of Commons can bind its successor, and the same principle applies in the United States. The offending clause reads:

"‘It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection’.

"The subsection, starting on page 1,000 of this convoluted Talmudic legislation, concerns the regulatory power of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB) to ‘reduce the per capita rate of growth of Medicare spending’.

"THIS IS THE MEASURE THAT PROSPECTIVELY CURBS OUTLAYS AS EXPLAINED ABOVE
This is the measure that controls, curbs and prospectively reduces the aggregate value of payouts for health care services to Americans, thereby, as explained above, also CURBING payouts by the insurers to pay for the Medicare expenditures incurred – and thereby, in turn again, ensuring that as much of the insurance money remains invested on Wall Street (proxy for the financial markets and system generally) in order to maximise the potential for such funds to be diverted into illicit trading platforms and operations under the radar, contrary to the Law .

"ANTI-REPEAL CLAUSE = CHANGE IN SENATE ‘PROCEDURES’, NOT IN SENATE RULES
In order to procure the ‘legality’ of the provision that this subsection cannot ever be repealed or changed in the future, the (Reid-controlled) Senate Parliamentarian has ruled, in a classic example of nefarious ‘loopholeism’, that the anti-repeal provision does not constitute a change of Senate RULES, but rather of Senate ‘procedures’.

"The reason for this is that for 200 years, changes in the Senate's standing rules have required approval by two-thirds of those voting – that is to say, 67 votes, rather than the 60 votes that Senator Reid’s amendment received.

"Thus Senator Harry Reid flouted two centuries of standing US Senate rules to pass a measure in the dead of night (which these Dark Forces always try to do) that no Senator has read, and part of which can never be changed (although the anti-repeal provision is illegal).

"Senator Reid is reported to have tossed aside an earlier assurance that Senators and the public would have 72 hours to read the language of his contributions to the Senate measure – because if the existence of this clause had been highlighted in time, there might have been an uproar.

"After approving the House of Representatives’ bill by 219 to 212 votes on Sunday 21st March 2010, the House adopted a package of changes to it by a vote of 220 to 211.

"The package, which was agreed to in negotiations between House and Senate Democrats and the White House, goes to the Senate probably this week."

Again, statism is synonymous with using the power of government to advance a political (or economic) agenda. When the citizens of a country allow their government to get too large, it stifles political freedom and the economy, aggrandizing more and more resources unto itself. The common denominator of impoverished Third World countries (and nations that don't work) is a very large central government relative to the private sector. This is precisely what has happened in the United States over the past 40 years. We, the people, have neglected to hold our elected representatives to Constitutional principles that guarantee freedom and which leads to a productive society. Instead, we have opted for a statist, centralized solution that, unfortunately, in hierarchical and allows the affairs of the nation to be more easily controlled for the benefit of a few special interests, and to the detriment of the majority.