Archive for the ‘Political’ Category

It is simple and clear:

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Why Does Obama Not Salute The Flag
It is simple and clear: we must step forward and demand the Federal Government protect its citizens or we are going to be under the control and at the mercy of the drug cartels. We are already suffering from the weight of costs across the country to support illegal aliens in our schools, social services, and through job and tax revenue losses but we must wake up to the serious threat they also pose to our citizenry through their vendettas against citizens and law enforcement when we stand up against the cartels. We must demand that Obama stop siding with our enemies and start honoring his oath of office to protect this nation, its heaven-directed Constitution, and its citizens: you and me.
Colleen Reep

This professor is thinking straight. Why isn’t the rest of America ?

Nice And Simple….

The person in this video is a professor (Ph.D.) at Yavapai
College in Prescott , Arizona . He puts a different spin on what Obama is
doing to help Arizona and he repeats the important parts and speaks slowly
enough to allow you to follow what he’s saying; Must be why he’s rated
highly by his students – 3.8 on a 4.0 scale.

This may be the best video produced on the illegal alien problems that
are being experienced.

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Enough is Enough Let us Live our Lives in Peace and Safety

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

It simply wasn’t enough to sue the State of Arizona and drag it before the United Nations for trying to secure its border and protect its citizens against violent illegal alien cartels…

… Now, Barack Obama has unleashed his fury on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Reports have surfaced that the Obama Department of Justice (the same Obama Department of Justice that dropped a slam-dunk voter-intimidation suit against the New Black Panthers) is suing Sheriff Arpaio and sending an unmistakable message to law enforcement officers across America… Enforce our immigration laws and face the full wrath of the United States Government.

Make no mistake. The Obama administration is using every resource at its disposal to destroy Arpaio and advance its Amnesty agenda. But don’t take our word for it. Sheriff Arpaio stated without equivocation: “These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this Sheriff, is Washington’s new whipping boy. Now it’s time to take the gloves off.”

We could not agree more, And yet, the silence from Congress is still inexcusably deafening.

And the time is here and now for our so-called elected leaders in Congress to take a stand. Either they support Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Sheriff Arpaio, the people of Arizona and the overwhelming majority of Americans who support Arizona’s efforts to secure its borders… or, they support Barack Obama’s smear tactics against the leaders in Arizona and his open borders agenda.

As Sheriff Arpaio said, “It’s time to take the gloves off.”

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Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to the Republican and Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. That’s over 530 faxes.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms, that Barack Obama has gone too far. He’s refused to enforce our immigration laws. He’s suing the State of Arizona for attempting to enforce immigration laws. He’s placed Arizona in the crosshairs of the United Nations. And now, he’s suing Sheriff Arpaio for attempting to enforce the law.

Tell our elected leaders that enough is enough. It is time to take the gloves off, stand up to Barack Obama and tell him to secure the border now.

If button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.
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What Others Are Saying About This Targeting Of Sheriff Arpaio.

Sheriff Arpaio is no stranger to controversy. He already bears the nickname, “America’s toughest sheriff” for his no-nonsense approach to law enforcement. And according to a number of reports, Mexican cartels have placed a million dollar bounty on Arpaio’s head.

Apparently, this notoriety has not only made him a target for the cartels, but also has placed him in Obama’s crosshairs.

As a matter of fact, Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce called Obama’s pursuit of Arpaio a “witch hunt.”

“It’s a witch hunt — that’s exactly what this is. This is the most un-American President in the history of the United States. … For the first time in history a sitting President has sided with a foreign government against a U.S. state. It is outrageous.”

Bob Driscoll, a former Justice Department Civil Rights Division official who is representing Arpaio said: “It’s a totally political lawsuit. … They want to find evidence of discrimination, but all they’re finding is evidence of law enforcement that includes immigration enforcement.”

Driscoll added: “Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is part of a deliberate media strategy to ‘get tough’ on Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and undermine immigration enforcement by a local sheriff who is trying desperately to make up for this administration’s own indifference to the topic.”

The AmericanThinker.com wrote: “The Obama administration has taken border non-enforcement to a whole new level. By refusing to offer reasonable assistance to law enforcement and by suing those who simply try to protect the border, the administration is, in effect, placing… cartels, human traffickers, and infiltrating Islamic terrorists above the safety of American citizens. Truly incredible.”

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Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to the Republican and Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. That’s over 530 faxes.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms, that Barack Obama has gone too far. He’s refused to enforce our immigration laws. He’s suing the State of Arizona for attempting to enforce immigration laws. He’s placed Arizona in the crosshairs of the United Nations. And now, he’s suing Sheriff Arpaio for attempting to enforce the law.

Tell our elected leaders that enough is enough. It is time to take the gloves off, stand up to Barack Obama and tell him to secure the border now.

If button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.
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Why Pursue Sheriff Arpaio?

That’s a good question and perhaps the behavior of the Obama Justice Department might provide answers.

Here are the details. Obama’s Department of Justice initiated an investigation against Sheriff Arpaio some months back for allegedly engaging in “civil rights” violations.

But hold your horses… after months of investigation, the Obama Justice Department ISN’T suing Arpaio’s office over civil rights violations… instead the Obama Justice Department is contending that Arpaio’s office is refusing to cooperate with its investigation.

According to The Washington Examiner, the Obama Department of Justice filed suit against Sheriff Arpaio’s office for “refusing to fully cooperate in a federal investigation into allegations that the sheriff and his deputies are guilty of racial discrimination.”

Arpaio says that accusation is bunk and told The Examiner: “These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails.”

Arpaio added: “They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit. The Obama administration intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it.”

Of course, such bait-and-switch tactics have a familiar ring. Didn’t the Obama administration, after all, initially contend that (SB 1070), the Arizona immigration enforcement law, would lead to racial profiling and then sued Arizona on other grounds altogether when it was apparent that the accusation of racial profiling had no merit?

The Examiner comes to the following conclusion: “As the DOJ lawyers claim Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lack of cooperation with the feds is ‘unprecedented,’ it should not be lost on anyone that what is actually unprecedented is that a sitting U.S. president is waging a war against Arizona.”

That just about says it all. As a matter of fact, many are wondering why the Obama Justice Department is investigating Arpaio at all.

According to Investor’s Business Daily: “Our misnamed Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against an Arizona sheriff at the top of the administration’s enemies list. Prosecute border sheriffs and sue states but protect the Black Panthers? Gotcha. … What makes the case interesting, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reports, is that in September 2008… Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted its own investigation of Arpaio’s office and procedures and found nothing inappropriate or illegal.”

You read that right. Obama’s Justice Department decided to investigate Arpaio’s office AFTER ICE concluded that Arpaio’s office was operating totally above board.

What exactly is going on here? Is this pursuit of Arpaio simply a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing?

Hardly.

Sheriff Arpaio, according to Robert M. Engstrom with Human Events, is accusing “the Obama Administration of taking sides against Arizona and trying to use him and Gov. Jan Brewer ‘as puppets.’” Engstrom, quoting Arpaio, added: “’They don’t like us enforcing immigration law,’ he said. ‘I am not going to surrender.’”

If Arpaio is not surrendering… if he’s ready for the fight, we should be ready for the fight too.

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Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to the Republican and Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. That’s over 530 faxes.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms, that Barack Obama has gone too far. He’s refused to enforce our immigration laws. He’s suing the State of Arizona for attempting to enforce immigration laws. He’s placed Arizona in the crosshairs of the United Nations. And now, he’s suing Sheriff Arpaio for attempting to enforce the law.

Tell our elected leaders that enough is enough. It is time to take the gloves off, stand up to Barack Obama and tell him to secure the border now.

If button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.
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Nero May Have Played His Fiddle While Rome Burned But Obama Is Throwing Gasoline On The Fire.

An overwhelming majority of Americans for years have pleaded with the federal government to secure the border and stop the flood of illegal aliens pouring into the United States.

But Barack Obama, believing that he knows best, has not only refused to take serious and substantive steps to enforce our immigration laws… he has sued Arizona for attempting to enact reasonable immigration laws… he has hauled Arizona before the United Nations… and now… he’s using every resource at his disposal to go after a local sheriff who is simply attempting to enforce the law.

Obama’s motives are clear. He wants to shove amnesty for illegal aliens down the throats of the American people at all costs… by any means necessary.

But unfortunately, as a result of his actions, right before our very eyes, cities in Arizona and across the United States are literally starting to resemble war zones.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer acknowledged this horrendous and unfortunate fact when she signed SB 1070 into law, “We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of… cartels. We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life. We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north.”

Senator Jim DeMint recently echoed those sentiments: “States along the border are facing kidnappings… human trafficking and gang violence and they have a duty to keep their residents safe.”

Even the former champion of amnesty, Senator John McCain, is acknowledging that “Arizona is under siege…” Phoenix, Arizona is now one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, second only to Mexico City. In fact, the situation is so bad that the government has recently placed travel advisories and in some cases closed large tracts of land as far as 80 miles north or our southern border.

That’s why Arizona passed SB 1070 and that’s why as many as 22 other states are presently considering similar legislation.

Gang violence… human trafficking… rampant lawlessness that will extend across the United States from sea-to-shining-sea. Those unfortunate side effects go hand-in-hand with Barack Obama’s Amnesty-for-all vision for America.

That’s why Obama has placed himself, yet again, in direct opposition to the people. It wasn’t enough to refuse to enforce the law… it wasn’t enough to sue Arizona for attempting to enforce the law… it wasn’t enough to invite the United Nations to his open-borders, pro-Amnesty party.

Now, Obama is sending an unmistakable message to every law enforcement officer in the country… Enforce the law and we will pursue you.

The time to fight back is now.

——————————————————————————–
Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to the Republican and Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. That’s over 530 faxes.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms, that Barack Obama has gone too far. He’s refused to enforce our immigration laws. He’s suing the State of Arizona for attempting to enforce immigration laws. He’s placed Arizona in the crosshairs of the United Nations. And now, he’s suing Sheriff Arpaio for attempting to enforce the law.

Tell our elected leaders that enough is enough. It is time to take the gloves off, stand up to Barack Obama and tell him to secure the border now.

If button above does not work, please use this hyperlink.
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Yours In Freedom,

Jeff Mazzella
President
Center for Individual Freedom

Center for Individual Freedom
917-B King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838

CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with
the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.

Contributions to CFIF are
not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.

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Oboma is not going to listen to anyone.

Thursday, September 9th, 2010


http://www.freedomworks.org/give-us-liberty

The following could very well be why we will need our food storage. A collapse of our finacial world would leave us without the abillity too purchase food. We could go into a deep depression and we would each have to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. We do not know when our if we will need our home food storage; but I for one would prefer to have it and never need it; than I would need it and have not prepared for an emergency and not be able to feed my loved ones. Think about it.

The following article was posted on Glenn Beck’s blog. It sounds like good advice to me. However, Oboma is not going to listen to anyone. This is exactly what could cause our country’s financial system to fail.

“TheBlaze
http//www.theblaze.com

Economics No Compromise: Obama Will Not Extend Tax Cuts for Wealthiest Americans

• Posted on September 8, 2010 at 6:08pm by Meredith Jessup

CLEVELAND (AP) – President Barack Obama strongly defended his opposition to extending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans on Wednesday and delivered a searing attack on Republicans and their House leader for advocating “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.” Obama said the struggling U.S. economy can’t afford to spend $700 billion to keep lower tax rates in place for the nation’s highest earners despite a call by House Minority Leader John Boehner and other GOP leaders to do just that. Speaking in the same city where Boehner, an Ohio Republican, recently ridiculed Obama’s economic stewardship, Obama said Boehner’s policies amount to no more than “cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.” Obama’s comments came as the administration rolled out new proposals designed to re-ignite a sputtering recovery, including new tax breaks for businesses and $50 billion for U.S. roads, rails and airports.

“Let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else. We should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer,” the president said. The administration “is ready this week to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less,” he said. Actually, Obama and other Democratic leaders want to extend the tax cuts except for individuals making over $200,000 a year – or families earning over $250,000. The sweeping series of Bush tax cuts expires at the end of this year unless Congress renews them.”

Obama went after Boehner – who would probably become House speaker if Republicans win control of the House in November’s midterm elections – directly by name.

In Boehner’s remarks on Aug. 24, Obama said, the Republican leader offered “no new ideas. There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade, the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”

Ahead of Obama’s speech, Boehner offered his own proposals on Wednesday, saying in a morning broadcast interview that Congress should freeze all tax rates for two years and should cut federal spending to the levels of 2008, before the deep recession took hold.

“People are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’” Boehner said, calling the White House “out of touch” with the American public.

Obama gave one of his strongest pitches yet on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of this year for wealthy Americans but allowing them to remain in place for everybody else.

Republicans, and even some Democrats, have suggested that it was no time to raise taxes on anybody, given the fragile state of the economy.

The debate is an unwelcome one for dozens of vulnerable Democratic incumbents just weeks before Election Day. Already, a handful of Democrats in conservative or swing districts, such as Reps. Gerry Connolly in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Bobby Bright in southeastern Alabama, have come out publicly for extending all the cuts – at least temporarily.

Still other embattled Democrats, wary of alienating middle-class voters, are siding with Obama. In central Ohio, for example, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has said the tax cuts for higher earners should be repealed, but middle-income people should see no tax increases.

Obama acknowledged that the recovery that began in late 2009 had slowed considerably.

“And so people are frustrated and angry and anxious about the future. I understand that. I also understand that in a political campaign, the easiest thing for the other side to do is ride this fear and anger all the way to Election Day,” he said.

“The middle class is still treading water, while those aspiring to reach the middle class are doing everything they can to keep from drowning,” Obama said. Polls have shown a steady slippage in Obama’s approval ratings and an accompanying rise in Republican prospects for winning House and Senate seats in November. In his speech, Obama outlined plans to expand and permanently extend a research and development tax credit that lapsed in 2009, to allow businesses to write 100 percent of their investments in equipment and plants off their taxes through 2011 and to pump $50 billion into the economy for highway, rail, airport and other infrastructure projects.

He also renewed a pitch for a small business package that has been stalled in the Senate because of Republican delaying tactics.

Of the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts, Obama said, “I believe we ought to make the tax cuts for the middle class permanent. These families are the ones who saw their wages and incomes flatline over the last decade – and they deserve a break. And because they are more likely to spend on basic necessities, this will strengthen the economy as a whole.”

“But the Republican leader of the House doesn’t want to stop there. … He and his party believe we should also give a permanent tax curt to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.“ Obama said these taxpayers were ”folks who are less likely to spend the money” to help the economy grow, a notion disputed by Republicans and conservative economists.

Even Obama’s former budget director, Peter Orszag, has said that while he prefers Obama’s proposal to impose the higher taxes on the wealthy, getting such a formulation through Congress in this politically charged time might be extremely difficult. Orszag suggested a compromise – extend all the tax cuts, but just for two years, and then let them all expire.

Obama is strongly opposed to such a deal, White House officials said.”

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The Ready Campaign

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Partners in Preparedness,

Today President Obama proclaimed September as National Preparedness Month. To view the proclamation, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/27/presidential-proclamation-national-preparedness-month-2010

Have a great weekend!

The Ready Campaign The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release August 27, 2010

Presidential Proclamation–National Preparedness Month, 2010

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH, 2010 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

During National Preparedness Month, we stress the importance of strengthening the security and resiliency of our Nation through systematic preparation for the full range of hazards threatening the United States in the 21st century, including natural disasters, cyber attacks, pandemic disease, and acts of terrorism. This year marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most tragic and destructive disasters in American history. In remembrance of this national tragedy, we must reaffirm our commitment to readiness and the necessity of preparedness.

By empowering Americans with information about the risks we face, we can all take concrete actions to protect ourselves, our families, our communities, and our country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Ready Campaign provides simple and practical steps every American can take to be better prepared. At the community level, Citizen Corps enables volunteers to contribute to homeland security efforts by educating, training, and coordinating local activities that help make us safer, better prepared, and more responsive during emergencies. I encourage all Americans to visit Ready.gov and CitizenCorps.gov for more information and resources on emergency preparedness, including how to prepare a family emergency plan, create an emergency supply kit, and get involved in community preparedness efforts.

My Administration has made emergency and disaster preparedness a top priority, and is dedicated to a comprehensive approach that relies upon the responsiveness and cooperation of government at all levels, the private and nonprofit sectors, and individual citizens. I also encourage Americans to get involved with the thousands of organizations in the National Preparedness Month Coalition, which will share preparedness information and hold preparedness events and activities across the United States. By strengthening citizen preparedness now, we can be ready when disaster strikes.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 2010 as National Preparedness Month. I encourage all Americans to recognize the importance of preparedness and observe this month by working together to enhance our national security, resilience, and readiness.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

BARACK OBAMA

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Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment

Petition to Congress, December 1871

In the year following the ratification of the 15th amendment, a voting rights petition sent to the Senate and House of Representatives requested that suffrage rights be extended to women and that women be granted the privilege of being heard on the floor of Congress. It was signed by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other suffragists. Well known in the United States suffrage movement, Anthony and Stanton organized the National Woman

Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869.

The Document


August 12, 2010 The National Archives Celebrates the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment Washington, DC…The following is a document alert — part of a program sponsored by the National Archives to notify the media of documents in the holdings of the National Archives that are relevant to national holidays, anniversaries or current events. This program is based on original records from the National Archives, its 13 Presidential libraries and 14 regional facilities, and is designed to offer the media an historical perspective on events that occur periodically and to highlight historical antecedents to current political or diplomatic initiatives.

(The following is based on an article that appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Prologue magazine, the Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration. The text and high resolution images of the 19th Amendment can be found online). A petition to Congress for the right to vote, signed by Susan B. Anthony is also available online.

Pieces of History

The 19th Amendment Gives Women the Right to VoteOn a hot August day in 1920, Representative Harry Burn listened as the Tennessee House of Representatives debated an issue that had been simmering since well before the Civil War—woman suffrage.

For generations, long before 24-year-old Burn was born, the woman suffrage movement had as its goal an amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing women the right to vote.

The movement had begun in 1848 at a women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, but it took 30 years to get the amendment introduced in Congress. Action on Capitol Hill was very slow. Until 1914, the Senate voted only once, turning it down, and the House did not vote at all.

Meanwhile, the suffragists took their fights to the states. Through legislative action or state amendment, the movement had some success. In the 1916 election, women could vote for presidential electors in 11 states. By 1920, even without the referendum, women would have been able to vote for presidential electors in 30 states.

Finally, in the spring of 1919, Congress passed the amendment and sent it the states for ratification. The States acted quickly, and by August 1920, 35 had approved it. In all but one of the remaining states, the amendment had either been rejected or had no hope of being approved.

With one additional state needed, the push for ratification focused on Tennessee. Supporters and opponents of the amendment, the press, and thousands of spectators flocked to Nashville to witness the proceedings. Carrie Chapman Catt, the latest in the long line of woman suffrage leaders that had included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, was also there.
Tennessee’s Senate had already approved it, but after several votes in the House, the issue was deadlocked, 48 to 48. As the debate continued, Burn opened a letter from his mother.

“Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification,” mother Burn wrote. Harry had been counted among the opponents, but when the next vote was taken, Harry voted in favor of the amendment, and ratification was approved.

Thus, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was ratified on August 18, 1920, in time for women in all states to vote for President later that year.

The next day, Harry Burn explained his vote to angry opponents: “I believe in full suffrage as a right. I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify. I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

I hope we all remember what the few brave women gave us. We must always protect the right to vote and protect it for our daughters and great granddaughters.

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Is the USA really a free country? did the constitution actually deny true freedom?

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Is the USA really a free country? did the constitution actually deny true freedom?

True freedom must know boundaries. If you have total freedom and I am to be free also, then your freedom must end where mine begins and the reverse is also true.

FREEDOM is self-determinacy; it is the condition of minimal constraint. Naturally, in a society or community, there has to be some constraints — the burglar cannot have the freedom to steal, the thug cannot have the freedom to mug, and the businessman cannot have the freedom to excessively pollute and pay no taxes. But get the balance between personal freedom, social order and ecological integrity right, and the vast majority of citizens can live happily with moderate personal freedom and minimal constraints.

Our freedom and constraints are formalized by a very long written agreement between individuals (or legal entities such as companies) and between individuals and the society of which he, she or it is a part. This formal agreement, called the law or legal system, is a constantly evolving and changing as new situations and circumstances arise. (Parts of this legal system, usually those dealing with human rights, are deliberately less changeable and are sometimes called constitutions.) So our freedom (and lack of) is defined by the legal systems, and different legal systems give us different levels of freedom depending upon which one we stand under.
A common fallacy regarding freedom is to automatically assume that it is a byproduct of modern democracy. In fact, the “only” freedom that a democracy bestows practically on its members is that they have the right, every few years, to vote for one of a set group of representatives who will run the country on their behalf. Whilst modern democracy is an indispensable foundation for free societies, it does not guarantee freedom. That job falls to the legal system, which is not so readily influenced by our periodic voting. (Which is why freedom campaigns often involve legal challenges.)

Democracy can only be an agent of freedom if it gives people meaningful voting choices (not just a choice of 2 or 3 parties with only cosmetic differences), and if it ensures that the people have the unbiased and undistorted information necessary to make a choice that is in their interest (which can only happen with a mass media and educational system free from undue government and corporate influence). Of course, sometimes the majority may want to use their democratic rights to restrict freedom (for example in the areas of gun ownership, stem cell research, GM foods, pedophilia, the “war against terror” or fox hunting). This is because different freedoms often conflict with each other.

For example, the freedom to have clean air requires restriction of the freedom for factory owners to produce cheap goods by not having to clean up the pollution generated as a by-product. So the freedom for us all to have clean air conflicts with both the freedom of the factory owner to make larger profits (by having to clean up) and the freedom we all have to buy cheap goods. So freedoms do not necessarily conflict between different groups of people, but often with the same group of people. So the support for freedom is always a balancing act, usually between our collective long-term interests and the short-term interests of not only society, as a whole, but also of particular groups of people (which includes corporations and political groups).

Another example of this conflict might be in raising a green tax on large 4×4 vehicles to off-set their greater ecological impact. Many of us, especially 4×4 drivers, consider this an affront to our personal freedom to drive our own choice of car, and yet such a tax is likely to be in the interest of future generations, including the very children of those 4×4 drivers. Which freedom is more important? That should be obvious to anybody, but because so many decision makers are taking short-term and selfish perspectives, long-term public interests are not being respected and freedoms are not being chosen wisely.

We live today in democracies that are increasingly hostile to long-term interests and collective freedom. Our choice of political party at election time is quite restrictive (and becoming increasingly cosmetic), with politicians focused almost exclusively on their own political and financial interests rather than the long-term interests of the country as a whole. Better to promise tax-breaks today to get into power, then austerity to try to lessen the burden on our children. And when politicans are done in public office, they almost invariably move to the boards of the large corporations whose agendas they promoted when they had political power. (Politics and big business have a symbiotic relationship with each other, a symbiosis that is most certainly not in our collective interest.)

And because the mass media is entirely corporately-owned and largely dependent upon corporate advertising, it has become the propaganda machine for corporate interests, significantly under-reporting stories that might wake the people up into realizing that their freedom to have happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, not only for themselves but also for their children, seriously conflicts with the freedom of the corporate world to maximize profits by enslaving us financially (by careful control of the money supply) and selling us goods and services which we largely do not need.

As a consequence, we have become slaves to the corporate interest, where the freedom to make high profits has come to dominate all other freedoms. And this collective enslavement is dressed up by the mass media as freedom, so that anyone who criticizes, for example, the Federal Reserve for enslaving America soon finds themselves accused of being “Anti-American” or a “Communist”. After all, how can the people be slaves when they live in the “Land of the Free”. It is all media propaganda.

This corporate control of the mass media means that the mind of the people is being strongly manipulated to make voting choices that are not actually in their best interest, but in the short-term interest of corporations and politicians.

Something else that manipulates the mind of the people into undervaluing freedom is the fact that adults spend the bulk of their waking hours toiling in the corporate environment. Are corporations democratic organisations? Of course not! They are authoritarian organisations — dictatorships — with a strict hierarchy of control. This means that most adults in democratic societies spend most of their time in dictatorships, and this skews their psychology and their values so that social freedom is much easier to pry out of their hands. (Sheep mentality is reinforced at every level.) And it is Commercial Law that is increasingly dictating the terms of that slavery.
The two main legal systems in most Western democracies are: Common or Civil Law (also called Law of the Land); and Commercial Law (Maritime Admiralty, Banking Law, or the Law of the Sea).

Common or Civil Law is what normal people think of as law — an accumulating body of formalized rules made by judges in court mostly regarding our behavior towards others in the interest of keeping society civil. The judges use common sense and previous court decisions (legal precedence) to reach their decisions. This law tends to be country-specific, and all people in that country are automatically obliged, whether they consent or not, to follow those laws, or pay a penalty such as a jail term or fine if they choose not to.

Commercial Law, on the other hand, deals with commercial agreements between two consenting parties; it is the law of business transactions. If you do not consent to standing under this legal system in any situation, then it has no legal hold over you and you cannot be legally penalized for non-conformity. That said, our birth certificates automatically bind us into a commercial agreement with the State and the banks that control the State; so our parents basically signed us away at birth into bondage to Commercial Law.

Whereas Civil Law is largely concerned with the issue of fairness in society, Commercial Law is used to bind (enslave) people into legal contracts with organizations that have their own interests at heart (invariably profit and control). It is under Commercial Law that the banks have ended up controlling almost every aspect of society, and it is under Commercial Law that we slave away in order to pay the rent or mortgage.

Commercial Law also drives the international political agendas that are rapidly eroding individual freedoms, and what is most concerning is that these agendas are immune to the people’s choice of political party.
Organizations (actually corporations) taking control of the world using Commercial Law include the United Nations, Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the European Parliament… all of which “the people” have little influence over.

The only way to counter these agendas is either through the courts (by appealing to Common or Civil Law), by knowing enough about Commercial Law so that we do not consent to it in the first place, through mass consumer choice, and through public protest and disobedience (although any form of violence is strongly discouraged as it is counterproductive).

What is concerning, however, is that with their massive lobbying power and money, corporations are now able to disproportionately influence legislative procedure, which results in a society increasingly bound by Commercial Law and the freedoms of corporations to persue their business (world-domination) agendas with minimal government and legal interference. This destroys the very fabric of human society. And people are so hoodwinked by the propaganda flowing from the mainstream media, that they honestly believe that supporting corporate freedom has something to do with their own freedom, democracy and interests! That is the consequence of very successful propaganda!

In light of these threats, it is important that we unite to defend encroaches on collective freedom by the “pseudo-freedoms” of special interest groups such as corporations. We need to have public debate about which freedoms are in the collective long-term interest and which are not, and which individual freedoms we are not prepared to surrender. After 9-11, for example, is it really in the collective interest to introduce the Patriot act? Short-term, that is debatable; but long-term, definitely not. After 9/11 we saw shameful intolerance within the US to anybody who opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq, even though Iraq had ostensibly played no part in 9/11, posed no threat to any of the invaders, and had no weapons of mass destruction. In the “land of the free”, you would think that people would respect each other’s right, indeed duty, to voice disapproval of misguided government policy, but that is not what happened… patriotism reared its ugly head and sheep-mentality prevailed.

Public freedom and civil rights are seriously compromised by fervent patriotism. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, “The subjection of men to government will always continue as long as patriotism exists, for every ruling power rests on patriotism — on the readiness of men to submit to power.” Judging by the staggering number of “freedom” organisations and sites that are plastered with national flags and emblems, there is widespread confusion between patriotism and freedom. Patriotism serves only to pervert government accountability, allowing reprehensible behaviour to go unchallenged, even where that behaviour is directed at the people themselves. This is why governments waste no opportunity to stir up patriotism… it gets them off the hook and back in control.

Finally, it is important to remember that the freedom that so many of us now take for granted didn’t just come about because everybody agreed that it was a “good idea”. Previous generations literally risked their lives for freedom — that is how much they valued it. Those in authority generally don’t give up that authority willingly; freedom needs to be taken from them (preferably, as Gandhi did, by peaceful means).

We are now the generation that has become the custodians of freedom. Will we allow it to languish because we have more important things to do like watching TV and shopping, or will we take up the responsibility, as our forebears did, and fight for freedom and civil liberties so that the world is a better place for ourselves and our children?

But to do that effectively we have to make choices between conflicting freedoms. We will need to favor certain freedoms over others, so the fight for freedom includes the restriction of freedom as well. This is the paradox and there is no simple formula or easy solution to this balancing act. But be warned: if you do not consciously make that choice yourself, it is unconsciously being made for you as you sit each evening in front of your propaganda screen (TV). Remember that there are many different organizations out there spending large amounts of money influencing that decision because the freedom balance has huge financial consequences.

We are either awake, making choices that are in the collective long-term interest and that of our children, or we are asleep, drifting with the rest of the sheep towards enslavement — in the name of freedom of course.

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