Not really . . . Give me liberty or give me death. That’s profound.
A few months ago, FoxNews reports on the [low] level of the debate on the National Debt.
See Link Here (Debate over Army funding of NASCAR sponsorship)
When the fight is over which unconstitutional government expenditure should be kept in place, it’s a power struggle akin to a food fight; it is not a political discussion. Maybe the Army’s NASCAR sponsorship is constitutional – after all, raising an army is a power granted the federal government by the people.
That question is open to discussion. But NPR, PBS, Sesame Street – not even a close call. Other government spending programs that are not close calls would include Dept of Education, Dept of Energy, health care law, Medicaid, corn subsidies, grants to states to build bike paths . . .Debating spending on the merits, goodness or effectiveness of the program makes for an enormous government, because there is a constituency for everything – see mohair subsidy and Murtha Regional Airport.
On the other hand, debating spending and other government actions on constitutional grounds makes the argument finite, unemotional and, in the end, lititgable by the non-political branch, the judiciary. Could be a plan. I think that the US Constitution was meant to work that way. That would take a completely new group of legislators, because the current Congress is full of men and women who think their job is to bring home the bacon.
Or, we can elect politicians who will keep debating whether we should have the government feed the hungry – – – and watch the definitions of ‘feed’ and ‘hungry’ morph until debates over providing for the common defense, giving heating oil to the poor or buying viagra for grandpa are virtually indistiguishable, and more and more and more money will be taken from ‘rich’ person A and given to every erectile dysfunctional man, I mean ‘hungry‘ person B for his viagra, I mean, ‘food‘.
How’s that working out for us so far? The choice is simple and stark.
(A) 1789 – A limited, constitutional, democratically-elected government that protects individual rights – and nothing more, or
(B) circa 1917, Russia – A fair tyranny that wants income equality and leads to totalitarianism – we’ve all seen the movie.
WE CAN DO BETTER, AMERICA.
America's CURE - by Jeff Neal 
Not enough Americans ‘get it’ concerning the implications of our current trajectory to a place where America doesn’t wish to go. Sure, many Americans know that having huge amounts of debt are ‘bad for us’, as do we understand many of the other slippery slopes upon which we stand. Yet we do little or nothing to reform the egregious acts perpetrated upon us by those that make a mockery of the Supreme laws of the land. It is as if we are all on a speeding train headed for disaster, and there is mass confusion as to who, if anyone, is in charge and how they will avert the deleterious outcome. Thing is, we shouldn’t wait for someone else to speak up/act on our behalf. People just presume that someone smart is going to take care of things and surely will not allow disastrous endings. The fact that many/most Americans are so apathetic is a sign of the effects of decades of programming to believe that everything will always be a-OK. The rhetoric and propaganda that has been imposed upon us is shameful at the least. In reality, they are acting like a cancer consuming America from within. We need to collectively put forth the requisite initiative to slow the train and then to put it on the right track. The way to do so would be by sending clear messages to our elected officials (primarily The Congress) that we will no longer tolerate the insolence and plain disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America. We’ve had enough of big government running our lives minute by minute. What happened to freedom in this country? A perfect example of rhetoric/propaganda is how our government has told us that we need to give up our freedoms to be more free (think TSA at airports and roving across the country in search of terrorists). Is such thinking not an oxymoron?
“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.” – Adolf Hitler
Have we not allowed our government to exploit the fears of impending terrorism as a method of gaining control of the free will of people for a long enough period of time? G W Bush was a master at manipulating Americans into attacking others for his own causes and hatred as was he a master at convincing us that we need to be protected from all manner of terrorists that wait around every corner just waiting to attack us. It all smacks of the same craze known as the “Reefer Madness” movement of the 1930’s and 1940’s.
As I do believe that many Americans are too apathetic or unknowing regarding the abuse of our freedoms and liberty, I also believe that there is a spring of dissenters forming against the status quo. This comes as a direct result, not of the mainstream media, but of the blogosphere. One thing we can never allow the elites to do is to take away our ability to unite and share via one of the greatest tools of our time, the Internet.
Keep up the great work of sharing knowledge and truth. I do so as well with my own blog. Hopefully, our collective efforts will not only reach, but elicit action from those reluctant to act as a result of not understanding the gravity of our current economic and political states, those loathe to get off their couches, and those that think that others will ‘take care of things’ for them.