Collectivists out of power shouting blood in the streets
Collectivists in power, bowing to the new power's feet

"TRUTH to POWER!!", Shouts the Mob
Until that shouting does its job

Then suddenly the radical
Is opposed to protest.
Predictable!

Hypocrites so insincere
Spineless lack of integrity,
crystal clear

The radical never really cared
About how well the people fared
At the hands of an oppressor

The Radicals main concern
Was the lust within that burns and yearns
To BE that oppressor

What is Liberty after all?  While it has a dictionary definition, in the hearts and minds of a diverse people, liberty means quite different things to different people.

For some liberty means freedom to engage in what others might consider bizzare social behaviors, while those others might think of liberty as a freedom to persue their dreams of achievement, by starting a business and investing the blood, sweat and tears required to see it grow and prosper.  Other people may perceive their liberty as simply being able to vote in a free election, without a gun to their head to cooerce a pre-conceived result.  Liberty... a diverse idea within diverse opinions.

For all the diversity of opinion on what liberty means, there is an ominous commonality amongst the diverse perceptions, that is not obvious to them; and that commonality is each "perception group's", penchant for extolling the liberty of its focus, while willingly and often emphatically denying liberty to the "perception groups" outside of "it's" perception.

What does the above mean?  It means that people often have narrow opinions on what is an acceptible liberty, choosing to extoll that which is popular with them, and condem, and deny the value of liberty extended to that which is UN-popular with them.

For the left leaning social libertarian, it means embracing the liberty to protest, engage in various sexual freedoms, perhaps indulge in intoxicants, etc.  For the self reliant achiever oriented libertarian on the political right, liberty means the freedom to start a business and see it grow with the entrepreneur's investment sweat equity.  It may mean to be free of excessive intrusion of government or union influence acting to thwart the efforts of the entrepreneur.  It may mean freedom to hold and act upon ones religious creedo, or to simply embrace ones private property rights.

At the same time these "perception groups" want to have their perceived liberties protected, they often are perfectly happy if not specifically active in denying liberty to the sexually odd, the outrageous protestor, the industrious entrepreneur, the religious devotion, the property owner.  Liberty has no value; no meaning, if it is reserved for the popular.  Liberty demands respect for the unpopular, as long as that unpopular activity does not deprive others of their rights to liberty.

Liberty denied to one, establishes the precedent to deny liberty to all.  Remember that every free person has the right to say, "Don't tread on me!"

As a champion of liberty
I find the greatest irony

Is that the mechanism of freedoms destruction
Is freedom itself.

Liberty is more important than Party Loyalty

Its time to reject political parties of any kind.  The problem with political parties is a problem with human nature; that is self interest.  A political party is no different than any other human organization; be it a union, a company, an industry group, a political activist group, or a government agency; all eventually come to have as their first priority, their own preservation and proliferation.

To this end, political parties lose sight of whatever noble goals they pretend to stand for, and become corrupted by the need to win against their opponents as their fundamental first priority.  This need leads to strategy, which leads to corruption of principles; the ends justify the means.  But the ends become blurred.  The ends becomes the very existence of the party itself.

A bifurcated malignancy of politics, that splits from and is fed by party loyalty, is "incumbency".  Once position is won, holding that position is all important to the party.  But now the same dark human nature that corrupts the party manifests itself in the corruption of the individual in office, as he or she sinks roots in that office and claims it as their right.

The incumbent like any organization of humans, is self interested; we all are in one way or another.  The incumbent politician's first impulse is preservation and proliferation of their personal power.  To THIS end, the incumbent begins a virus-like extension and expansion of his or her power through personal networking with other powerful people who can be useful to this end.

This viral network of what used to be called "good ol' boys" is a malignancy upon the body politik.  Where political party is the petrie dish in which corruption begins, incumbent office and networks is the nutrient that feeds corruption and allows it to flourish.

By preventing incumbency to flourish, we at least stem the growth of corruption.  We never can eliminate it, for we are all imperfect people.  Our government was created with this imperfection clear in the minds of the framers, for the Constitution itself is a bulwark of barriers to the expressway of corrupt faction to sweep into law, bad ideas.  To many today this is seen as a flaw in our Constitution, and brilliant minds are hard at work finding ways around these barriers, or blatantly plowing straight through them with brazen contempt for anyone who dares question their motives.

Axiom 1: Power corrupts... and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Axiom 2: The government that governs least, governs best.

These axioms guide us to eliminate incumbent power and its inherent corruption.  The result is a perpetual freshman legislature, where the least governing (creation of newer and newer laws) will occur.

We have only ONE chance left to correct the path we are on.  If the balance of power is not radically repaired in the 2010 elections, the US Constitution, and the Republic for which it stands, will effectively cease to exist.

Do not let party loyalties that have brought us here, prevent the remedy.

Vox

I dreamed America was a cult of Obama,
I woke up to an awful trauma.

My nightmare dream was reality,
The future was uncertainty.

Brown shirt youth with glowing faces
Stationed in strategic places

Eyes upon us, vigilant
Watching for the dissident

Free speech chilled,
Opposition killed
I feared the end was near

In these rabbit hole days
In this confounding haze
We realized our worst fears

Liberty is always one generation from extinction.

Tax policy is integral to a nations embrace of liberty, as that policy either respects the liberty of the free citizens, or is used as a tool to erode their liberties, and gradually oppress them.  With that said it is valuable to gain a clearer understanding of how our tax system works, so that when arguments arise of tax cuts or increases we are better equipped to see through the obfuscating BS, to the heart of the matter.

Here is an excellent analogy to how a tax cut is propagandized in today's politics. From an old email worth remembering.
------------

Tax Cuts: A Simple Lesson in Economics
Posted Feb. 26, 2004

Insight received the following e-mail recently and wanted to share it with our readers. The e-mail attributes the "lesson" to David R. Kamerschen, a distinguished professor of economics at the University of Georgia.
-----------

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The 10th man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being PAID to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The 10th now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got $1 out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the 10th man and exclaimed, "But he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved $1, too. It's unfair that he got 10 times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the 10th and beat him up.

The next night the 10th man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

Something to think about when you hear a politician or political activist talking about how much they care for other people and are only interested in whats best for them (you).  Often mocked as "do-gooders", this benign nickname does not do justice to the malevolence of their true intent;  for more often than not these people who think they know whats best for you, will torment you without end, denying you your freedom to make your life choices, in lieu of their more "informed" view of what is best for you.

C.S. Lewis said it well...
 
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It would be better to live under robber barrons than under omnipotent moral busibodies. 

The robber barron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their conscience."

C.S. Lewis - "God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics"

USS New York




It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special
operations against terrorists.

It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite , LA  to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, 'those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,' recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. 'It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.'

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the 'hair on my neck stood up.' 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.'

The ship's motto?
'Never Forget'

Fear and loathing
Brown shirts roving
Liberty is fragile

Thuggish Brutes
In knee high boots
Oppressors very agile

Seeking out dissenting voices
Seeking to suppress our choices

This cult of personality
Should really start to frighten thee.

In the shadow lurks,
The product of evil works.

Evil men with evil minds,
Weak non-thinkers together bind.

Feeding them their daily thoughts,
Like pigs feeding at a mindless trough.

Armies of the mindless build,
Their mindless voices sound so shrill

Tearing down the great creation
Tearing down a noble nation

Smug elitists with rolling eyes
Dismiss dissent, noses high to the sky

Secure in their superiority
Their self importance, a profanity

Loathing little common people
Degrading them as mindless sheeple

Yet it is they who congregate in herds,
And spout same thoughts, in exact same words.

Mindless smug elite little people
Inbred cultists.... mindless..... feeble

Crisis and lies
Fear politics drive

Willing fools
Become useful tools
Of authoritarian ghouls

Crisis and haste
Crisis never waste
The world is becoming so strange

Politics of fear,
Destination unclear
Crisis is the lubricant of change

Change we can believe in???

Liberty is dying
Freedoms founders crying

In the coldness of their graves
Their offspring becoming slaves

Sacrifice freedoms purity
For a pretense of security

Tyrants baiting
Fools stand waiting
To walk into the slaughter house

Where liberty goes to die