I beg your indulgence here. I think most of us would agree that something is deeply wrong with the economy and American governance in these times. For most, the problems are too big to tackle, let alone contemplate for very long. Generally speaking, today's activists, whether liberal or conservative, are likely to have had a personal experience that motivates their "getting involved," or they have been recruited - some for pay.
The percentage of those involved for personal reasons, compared to those actually being paid for some form of civic activism, is dismally small. And that is one of the core problems in these times. Our grandparents and great-grandparents would be shocked to see the utter lack of civic participation that defines our era. Such participation was part of their daily lives back in the day. Town squares, city halls, and county seats - all were bustling places of communication and influence by regular citizens, resulting in politicians who took the voters far more seriously.
So what is the price of civic laziness? Look around. For the first time in the history of our country, our generation is financially worse off than our parents, and our children will be worse off than us. Furthermore, our liberties are being increasingly eroded by legislation that the average American knows nothing about, which essentially means laws and policies are systematically being enacted without our consent.
Of deeper concern is the branding being carried out by the mainstream media to stereotype and marginalize activists as "extremists" for criticizing the government and its increasingly intrusive practices. What history refers to as patriots our American government is trying to re-brand as extremists. What I can't fathom is why there isn't more outrage over this tactic. It is as un-American as it gets.
Eventually, all hope of changing course will disappear if Americans don't find some way of personally engaging, whether at the local, state, or federal level. Control over our lives via control over the use and manner of property, including ownership, and continued escalation in taxation to support the system transforming to control our resources, including our labor and the fruits of our labor (income, property, assets, etc.) are the inevitable consequences of doing nothing.
Unless you have been adjudicated in court in defense of some violation (traffic violation, divorce, lawsuit, building-code violation - the list goes on), most of us are completely unaware of how the law is currently operating in favor of the government's unquenchable thirst for revenue from such infractions. Because of the silent creep of mostly unconstitutional administrative/statutory procedure, our courts are quickly shedding the mantle of justice.
At the federal level, executive orders have been escalating exponentially to overcome legislation that is voted down by Congress. Add to that the U.S. Supreme Court's increasing overreach with rulings that throw the U.S. Constitution under the bus for the sake of making policy it deems more fit. It is unconscionable, yet nary a word about these serious game-changing events is heard from the mainstream media.
For example, there was little attention paid to an October 8 Los Angeles Times report in which it was revealed the President Obama intends to deploy his agenda using executive orders, his regulatory authority, agencies' rule-making powers, the bully pulpit, and anything else available to get around the new Congress.
A 2010 Supreme Court decision dramatically impacts the "Confrontation Clause" found in the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, giving every accused the right to confront his/her accuser, which is a cornerstone of our rule of law. The Supreme Court's ruling in Michigan V. Bryant illustrates perfectly the overreach by our judiciary, so much so that even Justice Scalia could not contain his horror at the breach by his peers, as evidenced by his written dissenting opinion on the matter.
Add to this the USA PATRIOT Act, the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FCC's newly established cyber-security rules, the Dodd-Frank Act regarding finance reform, Obamacare, and the list goes on. Unless you bother to read the legislation for yourself, you will not understand why so many are alarmed at the overreach, not to mention the elements of the bills that have nothing to do with their titles.
It is important to understand that nothing keeps these bad decisions, orders, and legislation from taking root in our legal system if they are not challenged by the American people. This is the way of American governance, folks. Those in charge will continue to expand their authority until they encounter some resistance. At some point, Americans must take an active stand against this encroaching tyranny.
I have been operating under the assumption that the notion of a completely top-down form of governance was objectionable to most Americans. I further assume that American sovereignty matters to each of us, and that we are committed to preserving our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, in spite of an openly declared United Nations agenda to incorporate America into its global governance, which is, once again, a massive, well-documented, ongoing effort almost completely ignored by the mainstream media. It is also important to note that the UN agenda has no small amount of highly placed support within our industries and government for obvious reasons - even greater wealth and power.
I can only imagine the gaping shock, followed by glee, that Wall Streeters and Congress must still be experiencing at Americans' willingness not only to ignore the wholesale criminal conduct by both parties for the financial meltdown the globe is experiencing but to also continuously bankroll the bailout that restored an elite group's wealth, dangerously enlarged our national debt, and did virtually nothing to improve the fortunes of all other Americans.
The mainstream media almost never discuss the largely prevailing opinions of the world's leading economists, who remain adamant that the bailouts and stimuli were and are not necessary, and have proven destructive by every conceivable economic measure.
If your news sources are ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and NPR, you wouldn't know this truth. The news diet provided by each of the above is inherently similar, in that all coverage has been deliberately sanitized and oversimplified to be pragmatically irrelevant to the average American. The question begged here is: Why?
The answer is simple: If you knew what was really going on, you might shed your complacency and actually participate in civic matters, creating the requisite change necessary if America is to survive as founded.
The unholy alliances between big business and government, including large foundations and unions, are only getting stronger. Profits are at an all-time high for the largest companies in each industry, while average income for Americans is decreasing. There is no arguing the fact that any government spending means greater debt, so stimulus is surely not the answer, especially considering that the government's only source of revenue is taxation of some kind.
Allowing large industries to avail themselves to tax subsidies and lower tax obligations is also an economic breach of the highest order. For example, if congressmen on the House floor are to be believed, the largest banks, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, enjoy a reduced tax rate of approximately 11 percent, while Exxon and BP paid zero taxes, even after declaring billions in quarterly profits.
These kinds of economic policies corrupt capitalism, but those who would like to absorb America into a global governance would have us believe it is because of capitalism that these policies abound. Common sense and history tell us otherwise. These unholy alliances and the special favors they produce have existed since the beginning of civilization, and are even more prevalent in despotic forms of government, such as monarchies, communism, and socialist democracies - in other words, forms of government where only a few are in control of the country's resources.
Decriers of capitalism and free-market advocates falsely claim that "capitalism does not work." The claim is false because we are not operating under true capitalism, whose model depends entirely on competition. Any government intervention nearly always corrupts competition, and therefore capitalism. Our economy is jeopardized because government is so involved, creating losers and winners by fiat, and mostly at the whim of the highest-paid and most-effective lobbyists.
