Freedom in America?

Americans spout all the platitudes of freedom, and claim to be a free country. But, are we? Our, so called, freedom is more propaganda than anything else. Modern Americans have gotten so complacent, and wish to always be so ultimately safe, that we’ve lain down and taken almost anything that our legislators have wanted to cram down our throats. We have given up all, but faint vestiges, of our rights. In the name of public safety, and for the good of the general public, our freedom has become little more than a good slogan.

Our country was founded on the concept of the individual’s right to personal freedom, the right to live without unnecessary government intrusion in their lives, the right to not have their property taken without due process. I’ve observed, after traveling to many different countries, that the American government is one of the most intrusive, and invasive governments in the world as far as the individual citizen is concerned.

The American government now demands that we get, and forces the citizen to pay for, permission for virtually everything they do.

They intrude in our bedrooms and tell us what we can do, and can’t, within the privacy of our own homes. They tell us who we can marry, and who we can not. They’ve taken away almost all limits to search and seizure of your home, or vehicle, in the name of national security, or in the name of the “War on drugs”. Government agencies can seize your home, business, vehicles, assets, and anything else they want, whether you are guilty of a crime or not. All they have to do is say, they “think” you might be involved in, or have knowledge of, any crime. Have what they think is too much cash on you, and they will take it, even if you can prove it’s legal, and/or came from legal sources. Try to get it back after they seize it? Good luck! Robbery is legal if you are the American government.

We think we can go out and buy a home, and that, we then own it. Nay, all we buy is the right to rent it from our government. Just don’t pay your government demanded rent (taxes), and see how long keep it. It’s gotten to the point, that in most places, you can’t even repair, or improve your home without permission from the government. Get a little slack in the upkeep of your land, and see how long it takes before the minions of government come around and force you bring it back up to the standards that they say it has to maintained to. Try to use your home for anything but a place to eat, sleep, and rest. I guarantee that it won’t be long before you’re ordered to cease and desist, and if you continue, then be ready for big fines, and/or prison. Many places now, you can’t even park your car in the driveway, and that’s another example of something you have to have permission to own, and operate (tags, title, license, and mandatory insurance). More and more, you are now forced to take, and pay for, services that you don’t use, need, or want.

New regulations give police and security agencies the right to spy on you, monitor your phone calls, and email, all in the name of national security. All a cop needs now days, is to say he has suspicions of illegal activities, no proof needed. He can burst into your home, throw you down on the floor and stick a gun to your head. If you resist, and he shoots and kills you, or one of your family, then, “Oh well”, it was just another day in the line of duty. He will probably be rewarded with a day off, with pay no less. The United States has a larger percentage of its population in prison, or jail, than any other country in the world. Shades of Nazi Germany, and the SS, even they didn’t manage to imprison that many people.

Try to buy, or own a firearm. You have to get permission from the government. If you manage to get that permission, don’t even think about trying to carry it, unless you are a cop, and of course, they are the enforcers for the government. Get caught with an unregistered firearm and see how long you keep it, or how long you stay out of jail. The right to own and bear firearms is there to preserve the ability of the citizens to take back an unfair and unjust government. It is not, to go hunting, or necessarily protect your home from intruders. That’s what the government is afraid of. They want to be able to force anything down your throat, and make you take it, without any possibility of resistance. They don’t want you to have the ability to “Just say NO!”, or even to protect your home, family, or person. While I’m there, shoot a burglar, and again, see how long you stay out of jail, or keep your firearm.

Taxation, that’s a real sore point with me. Every day we are taxed more, and more. The citizen is supposed to have a say in how much they are taxed. How long has it been since you had any say in how much you are taxed? Older, and/or, fixed income people are forced to sell their homes everyday, because property taxes have gone so high they can’t pay them. Business taxes have gotten so high, and oppressive regulations, have gotten so intrusive, that small business has become very difficult, to say the least. Between the licenses, user fees, taxes, and compliance with regulations, there is little, if anything, left to justify even being in business. I don’t personally own a business anymore because of it. The only way I could make a profit was to lie about my income, ignore regulations, and leave myself wide open to seizure of everything I have, or even a prison sentence. I don’t, nor have I ever, dealt drugs, or smuggled, or done anything else that’s illegal. I now work for someone else, and how long that lasts is anyone’s guess. The increases in licensing requirements, the increases in fees, and taxes, makes me hope that I die, of other than starvation, before I have to pay out more than I can make. The really sad part is, that I would be making a very good living, if it weren’t for all the money I have to give to the government, or have to spend on compliance with new regulations, just to keep my job. Another example of excessive taxation, without representation, is the tobacco and alcohol taxes. I’ve had occasion to buy both outside of the United States. The average price of a liter of rum, outside the USA is about three to four dollars. The same thing in the US will cost you twenty bucks, or more. The price of a carton of cigarettes is eight to ten dollars in many places outside the USA. In most of the south of the USA, you will pay seventeen, to twenty five dollars. In New York, I just paid seventy seven plus dollars for that same carton. I know the store owners are not setting those prices, or profiting very much from the sale. They only make a few cents on each sale. Five to seven hundred percent taxation is more financial rape, and robbery, than it is fair taxation. I don’t know of a smoker, or drinker, which thinks that’s fair taxation. One of the most well known reasons for declaring our independence from England was unfair taxation. We had a little thing called the Boston Tea Party to show our displeasure with it, and don’t say that that’s alright, only the minority smoke or drink now days, not everyone drank tea back then, either. When will the next thing be determined by the government to be unhealthy, or unsafe, or whatever, and either made altogether illegal, or taxed at an insane level to discourage people from doing it. The legislators seem to have no memory for history. Prohibition didn’t work. All it did, was increase crime. It didn’t stop people from drinking. It just drove up the price, and encouraged people to smuggle, and/or purchase things on the black market. Walking down the street after I bought that carton of cigarettes in New York, I was approached three different times by men offering to sell me cigarettes at half the price of the stores. How much do you want to bet that those offered cigarettes were smuggled from out of state?

I think it’s about time we emulate our ancestors, and have, not a Boston Tea Party, but a New York Tobacco Party. And if that doesn’t get our legislators attention, there’s always that old southern tradition of tarring, feathering, and being ridden out of town on a rail. I recently read a story about a civilization where the death penalty was reserved only for politicians that betrayed the public trust, or tried to take liberties with the rights of the individual. Sounded like a pretty smart civilization to me.

Our legal justice system has become a complete joke. “Guilty until proven rich”, is our motto. If you have the money to play the system, you can usually even get away, even with murder. Recent public trials have proven that fact. If you’re not rich, then you get a “cop out lawyer”, i.e. public defender, and go straight to jail. In my fifty plus years of life, I have yet to even hear of someone that used a public defender that was found innocent, except in cases where sometime later the family of the accused managed to hire an attorney and had the case retried. Every case I’ve ever known of, the person got a big fine, went to jail, or ended up on probation. Public defenders will not spend one minute more on a case than the judge forces them to. Virtually without fail, what happens is, the public defender visits you one time for a few minutes before the trial, and tells you to either plead guilty and take a reduced sentence, or try to prove your innocence and get a whole bunch of time in jail or prison. I’ve had to use one of them myself a couple of times, and I’ve yet to have one even ask me if I was innocent or guilty. They don’t care if someone innocent goes to jail, or has their life ruined. They just want to get it over with, with as little work as possible. As an example, in a recent case where I personally know the defendant, he, knowing he was going to be arrested when the blue lights came on behind him, slowed his vehicle to twenty miles and hour, turned on his flashers, waved to the cop to follow him, drove about four blocks to a friend’s house, and then peacefully surrendered to the cop. He drove the car to the friend’s house hoping to keep it from being impounded. He knew his wife couldn’t afford to get the car out of impound, especially, with him going to jail and not being able to work for awhile. The car was impounded anyway, and his wife lost the car to impound and storage fees. He was the typical blue collar worker that lives from check to check. Not being able to afford bond, or an attorney, he had to take a public defender. Instead of having to just deal with the original charge, now he had a fleeing to elude charge, also. He’s doing five years in jail now on the fleeing charge, because he tried to help his wife. This is justice? Could anyone of intelligence, and common sense, call that fleeing to elude, or justice? This is more an example of mugging the poor, than anything to do with justice. Then we come to the next part of our fine justice system. The probation system. This has become nothing more than a racket to ensure more government jobs, and for the government to make money. I’ve never known of anyone that probation has helped, except to provide jobs for government employees.

Another way that government has intruded in our daily lives is the prohibition on corporal punishment for children. We had only a minor juvenile delinquency problem in this country before the government stepped in and started regulating the way we discipline our children. Oh, of course there were some abuses, and I can see that being stopped, but, it has never harmed a child to spank one. I’m not talking about beating. I ‘m talking about a ritualized discipline such as many teachers used in school, and many parents used at home. You have a standard punishment for most infractions. So many licks with a paddle. A fair metering outs of that discipline, and firmness, in its administration. My personal observations have shown that when government started intervening in child discipline, we lost control of our children. Give a child a well deserved spanking these days and risk having them taken away, and/or being thrown in jail. As a child, my parents used corporal punishment. The thought of raising my voice to my parents, or the thought of striking one of my parents, is so alien to me that I could not even consider it. I was taught respect for my elders, to behave when I was in public. I see parents today living in fear of their own children. I see parents who have absolutely no control over their children’s actions, in private, or in public. I knew that when my parents told me to do, or not, to do something, that they meant it. If I ignored them, I knew I would be punished. It didn’t take many times for me to understand that it was much easier on me, and for them, to do what I was told. That respect for my elders, and “fairly administered” authority, has stayed with me all my life.

Now for another good one. Government services, I must say that I’m glad we don’t get what we pay for in that department. Really though, we are charged more and more for government services that provide less, and less help, and get more, and more intrusive. Remember the old saying? When someone from the government shows up saying they are there to help. Run, run away as fast as you can, because it will only cost you money, and grief, if you take their so called help.

Isn’t it time we had a wake up call in America? Isn’t it time we started demanding, and if necessary, fighting again, for the rights that our ancestors fought so hard to gain? Are we, in our complacency, going to wait till this country has turned into another Nazi Germany, or Afghanistan, controlled by a bunch of power hungry thugs, only interested in power, and controlling other people? I say that we are much nearer to that condition than we realize. The road to that condition is downhill, we are gaining speed, and a totalitarian police state is staring us dead in the face.

Take our guns. Control our every action. Spy on us everywhere we go, take most of what we earn, just to start the list. This is a free country?

I write not as an intellectual. I’m just the average Joe trying to survive. I love our country very much. I wholeheartedly believe in the principals on which this country was founded. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are more sacred to me than any bible. I fear for our country. The Constitution has been made a sham, the Bill of Rights, a joke. I beg the citizens of this country to make it known that we want our country back, and if our elected officials don’t get it back for us, we will take it back by what ever means are necessary. Write your legislators, vote out the one’s that even think about tampering with our freedom, and our rights. If that doesn’t work, …………. I can only quote one of our forefathers, ”Give me liberty, or give me death”.

With the recent paranoia of our government, I’m sure this editorial will get me put on some government subversive, or terrorist list. I don’t buy into their paranoia, or like what they are doing to our country. I can’t be silent when every day the ideals and principals of our country are ground under foot. Our government has gotten completely out of control. This is no longer a government, for the people, of the people, and by the people. I has become a government, for the government, and by the government, controlled by a handful of rich, self righteous, power hungry individuals that care more about profit, and/or power, over others, than they do about freedom, or the rights of the individual.