Quote of the Day - what to do about a tyrannical government

The instructions have been around since our nation was founded:

Portrait by Ezra Ames

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." ~ Alexander Hamilton

Quotes of the Day vs Ohio laws and regulations

As part of my writing for Ohio Watchdog, I cover a lot of the proposed laws and regulations coming out of Columbus, primarily from Republicans because they're in the majority.

I'm working on a story now about the proposed revisions to the precious metals dealer license. Apparently, criminals used to use pawn shops to liquidate their stolen goods and now they're using businesses that buy and sell gold and other precious metals to do the same.

Of course, that means TOTBAL ... there ought to be a law.

With this on my mind, I opened my daily email from Liberty Tree and find these two quotes which seemed so very appropriate.

"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

"It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today." ~ Friedrich August von Hayek

I can't help but wonder how we got to this point and whether or not we even realize how much freedom we've actually lost.

Of headlines, stupidity, Founding Fathers and JFK

I had several things I was going to post about today but, like I do every morning, I read the Drudge Report headlines.

I was struck by the stuck-on-stupid actions and comments of people - and I couldn't help but wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of some of these things.

For example:

Detroit Mayor: 'We are in an environment of entitlement'...

“We are in an environment, I think, of entitlement, we’ve got a lot of people who are city workers, who for years and years, 20, 30 years, think they are entitled to a job and all that comes with it,” Bing said.

He added: “Nobody wants to go backwards, but in order for us to move this city forward we’re going to have to take a step or two backwards — and then, I think, all of us have to participate in the pain that’ s upon us right now.”

He's right, but nobody wants to admit it and, if he wasn't Black, he would probably be called racist for saying so.

Fast food workers demand $15 per hour salaries...

Yeah - because I should earn what I think I'm worth rather than what my employer thinks I'm worth and because flipping burgers and putting the right food on a tray is as valuable as being able to run a multi-million international company.

So much for a 99-cent menu.

Any job I hold should pay me a wage that is capable of supporting a family of four, regardless of the job, the skills that are (or are not) required or the resulting impact on the cost of the products or services I'm providing via that job.

This concept is being promoted by unions and willingly adopted by gullible individuals - and it is completely and totally opposite of all the principles on which this country was based.

If you can hold any job and be paid what you want, where is your drive to succeed and excel? What is your motivation to do better and be a more active contributor to your community? What happened to the idea of building a better mousetrap?

And where does such a concept lead? What would our Founding Fathers think of this attitude? Forget turning over in their graves - they're spinning faster than a top

UPDATE: EGYPT ISLAMISTS HURRIEDLY APPROVE NEW CONSTITUTION...

Liberals, leftists, Christians, moderate Muslims withdrew before vote...

Retains Islamic law as main source of legislation...

No equal rights for women; owning slaves not banned...

Remember when President Barack Obama and other leftists were praising the so-called Arab Spring and saying how democracy in Egypt was such a good thing? Now we find that their new constitution doesn't contain equal rights for women and doesn't ban the owning of slaves.

How do you have an otherwise 'civilized' nation that takes such positions? And will we have outraged comments from our president, leftists, womens' rights organizations and the NAACP???

Syria shuts down Internet...

Curtails land lines, cell phones...

Things have been really bad in Syria for a long time, but not many have paid as much attention to what's going on there - at least, not compared to Egypt and other countries in the area. But I'm not surprised by the action to block the Internet - limited communication and reporting on events is usually one of the first things an oppressive government does in order to prevent news about what they are doing from getting out. Controlling the message is critical to tyrants.

And then I think about some of the other news reports I've read in the last several days, including:

Judge: Northside ISD CANNOT Expel Student for Rejecting RFID Tracking Chip

says district's tracking program 'violates fundamental Constitutional Rights'

Seriously? We're letting schools track our kids? Are we just getting them used to be tracked by the controlling authority?

TSA Refuses to Show at Committee Hearing

Claims House Transportation Committee has no jurisdiction over it

Are we going to continue to let agencies ignore the checks and balances inherent in the system by letting them thumb their collective noses at Congress?

And on a local level, we have politicians and the daily paper calling for a ban on a type of business they don't like. Yes, in this era of high unemployment and people and businesses leaving the city, they want to ban a job provider who pays property taxes, income taxes, wages and who purchases supplies and goods, contributing to the overall economy of the area.

What kind of bizzaro world are we in?

With all this, I got depressed at the state of the world today because it seems so daunting to fight against the constant attack on individual liberty and penchant for being dependents of governmental tyranny.

But then I remember these three quotes and I'm ready to face the day:

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." ~ John F. Kennedy

"[W]hat country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that [the] people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils." ~ General George Stark

Quote of the Day - liberty vs. security

From Jacob Hornberger talking about gun control:

"But the illusion -- the pipe dream -- is that bad acts can be prevented by the deprivation of liberty. They cannot be! Life is always insecure. The only choice is between liberty and insecurity, on the one hand, and insecurity and enslavement on the other. The true patriot scrutinizes the actions of his own government with unceasing vigilance. And when his government violates the morality and rightness associated with principles of individual freedom and private property, he immediately rises in opposition to his government."

Quote of the Day - government vs. the rich

Who has more power over you:  the government or the rich guy who lives in the big house in the wealthy part of the city?  I believe you have more tyranny from the government than you'll ever have from an individual who acquired wealth either through hard work or birth, even when that individual is your employer.  The liberal, leftist, progressives, marxists, socialists (they're all pretty much the same) war against the rich is only to distract us from the ever-growing power, wealth, control and tyranny of the government.  Don't be distracted simply because you're envious of what others have. 

"[T]he power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest fonctionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work? And who will deny that a world in which the wealthy are powerful is still a better world than one in which only the already powerful can acquire wealth?"  ~  Friedrich August von Hayek

Link Roundup - taxes, tyranny, tortoises and free speech

Here are some interesting stories from around the Internet that I came across and wanted to share:

* Union argues that Indiana right-to-work law infringes on free, er, subsidized speech - it's hard to believe but a union in Indiana is arguing in court that the state's new right-to-work law, which makes union dues voluntary and not a requirement for employment, impedes their right to free speech because it cuts the amount of money they have to 'communicate' that speech.

They're claiming that free speech depends on funding. As the article says:

The right to free speech does not include the right to publication, or of revenue either resulting from or in service to that speech. The act of refusing to join does not keep the union from expressing itself. It just means that they may not have access to the best platforms from which to deliver that speech, which puts them in the same boat as everyone else. Perhaps they should spend more time convincing people to support them voluntarily than in getting courts to forcibly extract cash from workers in order to pursue their own political purposes.

* Mojave Solar Project Killing Threatened Desert Tortoises - Environmentalists and conservations have documented that the have documented that the have documented that the BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah solar power project in the Mojave Desert has directly caused many desert tortoise deaths, in addition to disturbing the natural environment of all the reptiles in the area.

It's bad enough that the project is costing more than $2 billion. Shamefully, the solar energy from Ivanpah will be three times more expensive than natural gas or coal. What's even worse is that the state's Public Utilities Commission has estimated that customers will see their bills increase up to 50% for renewable energy as a result.

But the kicker is the hypocrisy of all who support the project. Could you imagine the outrage, outcries and demonization that would come from politicians and the media if this was an oil or coal plant doing the same thing?


* Women vs. the State - the National Center for Policy Analysis has summarized a recent Reason Magazine article on how women fare under many laws. What I thought was particularly interesting was the tax ramifications which many people don't think about:

• Unless a wife makes more than her husband (and 72 percent do not), the government will tax the first dollar the wife earns at her husband's highest marginal rate.

• This tax policy and the steep jump in the marginal rates as a couple's income rises discourage women from working, as they receive disproportionately low after-tax compensation.

• The effect is a marriage penalty on women's desire to work.

• According to economists Nada O. Eissa and Austin Nichols, married women increased their employment substantially in response to reductions in marginal tax rates following the 1986 tax reform, and similar results were seen again in the 1990s.

• It also explains why, despite the fact that almost 80 percent of working mothers say they would prefer to work part time, almost two-thirds work full-time instead.

And speaking of taxes, since they're are due by April 15th, this article from Cato is especially timely...

* American Income Tax Tyranny - This article details several types of tyranny in the tax code, including the lie that our taxes are imposed by the 'consent of the governed':

The United States has the most progressive (i.e., unequal) tax system in the world. The bottom 50 percent of income earners, on average, receives more in tax benefits than they pay in taxes — while the highest earners pay a wildly disproportionate amount of their income in taxes — despite the myth that Warren Buffett has a lower tax rate than his secretary. A progressive income tax only meets the test of “consent of the governed” when a majority of each class of taxpayers consents to its tax rate. Otherwise, it is tax tyranny of a low-tax-rate majority against a vote-poor, high-tax-rate minority. The apologists for the progressive income tax claim it is only “fair,” ignoring the fact there is nothing at all “fair” about taxing at a higher tax rate those who work longer and harder and/or spend more time acquiring an education and work skills. It is destructive and tyrannical for a society to tax the most productive, innovative and job-creating people at a higher rate than others.

But this is only one such tyranny. I hope you'll read the entire article.

What the government doesn't want you to know: airlines now required to hide taxes

I'm on a list serve with a number of conservative bloggers and yesterday there was an email from Seton Motley, President of Less Government that contained a surprising notice from Spirit Airlines.

WARNING:
New government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares.

This is not consumer-friendly or in your best interest. It's wrong and you shouldn't stand for it.

Starting January 24, 2012, fares are distorted.

Why?
Thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation's latest fare rules, Spirit must now HIDE the government's taxes and fees in your fares.

If the government can hide taxes in your airfares, then they can carry out their hidden agenda and quietly increase their taxes. (Yes, such talks are already underway.)

And if they can do it to the airline industry, what's next?
As the transparency leader and most consumer-friendly airline, Spirit DOES NOT support this new USDOT mandate. We believe the better form of transparency is to break out costs so customers know exactly what they're buying.

What can you do to help stop this injustice?
Join us in keeping government taxes and fees low and transparent by contacting your elected officials.

It then had links to contact your congressional representatives.

Additionally, when you go to the Spirit Airlines website, there is a pop-up screen that gives you the same warning.

At first I thought this was one of the most outrageous things I'd heard of. But then I realized that it's just another in the long list of abuses the government is inflicting upon us. And this from the administration that promised to be the most transparent in history.

If the Transportation Department can force companies to hide the taxation, how will you hold your government accountable for their collections and expenditures? But that's the point. They don't want you to know. Instead, when the cost of airline travel rises, you'll get mad at the 'eeeee-villlll' airline company - and politicians can then step in to save you by tyrannically imposing price controls. Voila - we're no longer the land of the free.

Kudos to Spirit Airlines for having the courage to say what needs to be said and urging their customers to be active in opposing government tyranny.

Where are the other airlines? And what action are you going to take now that you know about this?

Government tyranny in wake of Toledo bar shoot out

I picked up my Mom and Dad at the airport last night after their trip visiting my brother in Portland, OR. They asked what was going on in Toledo and said they saw the news story about the bar fight/shoot out .... in Portland ... and in Seattle ... on the national news.

They were surprised that no one was killed and said the video was pretty amazing.

I'll admit that I didn't watch it and only saw the headlines of the story. While a shootout is a bit unusual, even in Toledo, shootings at bars are a relatively normal event - happening periodically and getting just a blurb in the media.

At least that was our discussion, which then turned to talk about the inevitable push to outlaw guns. Of course, the fact that these individuals were breaking a law just having guns in a liquor establishment in the first place doesn't seem to phase the people who want more government control on this issue. If said individuals didn't mind breaking the law by the possession of the guns, what makes anyone - in their right mind - think that outlawing the guns would have made any difference?

And just how many of those guns in that shootout do you think were legally obtained in the first place?

Of course Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, ignorant in his analysis and clamoring for publicity, immediately started talking about shutting down this establishment and blaming the owner for not checking the patrons for guns before they came in.

Mr. Finkbeiner said the owner showed a lack of appreciation for the dangerous mix of alcohol and weapons and said a message has to be sent.

"The owner should have had the common sense if he cared about his establishment to pay attention to whether patrons were coming onto the premises with weapons in their belts, weapons in their pockets, weapons in their coats and shirt pockets," the mayor said.

Did you get that??? The mayor thinks the owner should frisk his patrons to be sure they're not committing the crime of possession.

Don't for a minute think this is just 'Carty being Carty' and brush off his comments. I predict that, in the near future, you'll see all kinds of gun-ban groups pushing for laws that require bars to have metal detectors at the door.

Stranger things have been known to happen - especially in Toledo where the politicians think owners of properties are to blame for laws that others break and end up paying settlements in lawsuits over the issue.

And, in typical over-reaction and righteous indignation, the mayor is going to "use every tool open to him, including health and nuisance inspectors," to make sure the bar is closed.

"Even though an incident might have been an isolated incident, this was a very violent, potentially hurtful incident that cannot be tolerated," he said.(emphasis added)

Talk about government tyranny! The mayor is promising to bring the full force of a municipal government to bear against a business owner because some idiot patrons did something illegal.

And note that no one was hurt! He doesn't react this way when someone is killed in a shooting - why now? Because it made national news?

The mayor's chief of staff, Robert Reinbolt, who doubles as city safety director, wore a large gold badge on his jacket pocket and made a statement saying, "This is a safety issue and we're going to do everything we can to make sure the issues are addressed and we don't have these problems occurring again."

Maybe the solution isn't to go after the business owner, but to eliminate unnecessary spending (like Reinbolt's shiny new badge) elsewhere in the city so we can bring back our laid off police officers and do increased patrols. What a thought!

Now, I realize that no amount of police officers or laws is going to prevent someone from possessing a gun illegally and using it. But increased patrols are going to be far more effective than shutting down this one business.

If this bar closes, those patrons will just go elsewhere - and take their illegal activity with them.

Finkbeiner disagrees:

The mayor also rejected the suggestions of some that his layoffs of 75 police officers last May - 60 of whom have since returned to work - contributed to the outbreak of violence. He noted that there was a riot in North Toledo four years ago and that was not blamed on a lack of police.

That riot he references? That was when the Nazis came to Toledo and some of our citizens reacted badly to the situation, destroying their own neighborhood. It is certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Fortunately, it seems as if common sense prevails among the neighbors:

"This is mostly everybody's favorite spot, and they have good food, too," Ms. Otto said.
...
"He always tries to keep things down. He looks out for his customers," Mr. Haney said. "Anytime you are running a business you can't tell who's walking in off the street."
...
"Cut the guy some slack. He's struggling like the rest of us to keep his business going," Mr. Malczewski said.

Unfortunately, I have no faith that such common sense will prevail in the halls of government.

But I do have faith that Carty will keep his promise to use the full force of government to make an example in this 'isolated incident.'

Sadly, though, that example will expand government tyranny and end up doing more to enforce the 'not business friendly' attitude of Toledo government than it will to increase safety in the city.