Thanksgiving is a time to remember what we are thankful for, and there are many things for which I am thankful, even though those tend to get crowded out by the week’s and day’s worries and frustrations.  But here is a brief listing:

(1)  My physical family: wife and sons

(2)  My godly family: brothers and sisters in Christ across the world and nation

(3)  My political family: allies who are lovers of liberty – even those who sometimes do not seem to love it as much as I wish they would, or see their own blindness

(4)  Those who have fought and died for liberty – from Hebrews to Scots to AmerInd to Confederates to Americans (even if so often misguided) to rebels and all those who value liberty and willing to pledge it and life and property and honor

(5)  For modern technology, which lets me stay in contact with those I love and helps me make a living and fight against tyranny

(6)  For my family and teachers ad professors and officers and NCOs and employees and employers who taught me values and skills and a love for liberty and freedom and God

(7)  For safe journeys and what freedoms we do have left to be able to work and live and enjoy this wonderful land of the West

I suppose I could go on to a “Baker’s Dozen” but seven is a perfect number, so I leave this with you all: I am thankful to God and to all those who have given me so much over the years.  May we continue to remember and count our blessings and share them with others.

Jack-booted thugs
Piedmont officer is fired over public urination ticket
(Freedom’s Phoenix)
Piedmont city officials have fired a police officer who wrote a public urination citation to the mother of a 3-year-old who dropped his pants in the family’s front yard.

Well, that is ONE gone – and how many million more?  Of course, he’ll go on the gypsy circuit and find a job somewhere else soon enough.  Maybe in YOUR county.

Home front – Stupid government
Just When You Thought the New York City Food Nazis Couldn’t Get Any Worse
(Lew Rockwell blog c/o Freedom’s Phoenix)
A blogger reveals that not only is it now illegal for “Nazi York City” cigar stores that have smoking areas for their customers to serve coffee to their customers, but that using names of food for tobacco blends is ALSO illegal (Wild Cherry pipe tobacco now must be called “Jubilee.”)

This kind of petty tyranny escapes a lot of public scrutiny, in part because the Mainstream Media SUPPORTS such bans and because there are so many, it is impossible to keep track of them.  Everyone of these stupid little incidents is like a grain of sand blasting against your windshield: sooner or later it is pitted beyond use.  So to with what tatters are left of our freedoms.

Home front – TSA Thuggery
TSA reportedly exposed breasts of Rep. Ralph Hall’s teen grandniece, called it ‘accidental’
11-21-2012  •  http://twitchy.com, by Twitchy Staff
TSA reportedly exposed breasts of Rep. Ralph Hall’s teen grandniece, called it ‘accidental’; Update: TSA internal report released, blames girl’s ‘loose fitting’ dress…

Debby: It is “Puppet Masters” – no one can wear a dress on an aircraft without being molested by the TSA, we might as well go naked!

Nathan:  One of Oleg Volk’s more recent posters, showing an 1880s Sheriff or Marshall with a pistol and noose, makes the solution obvious.

Congress in action – Abominable Act
Bi-Partisan Bill Adds Religion Exemption to PPACA
(Vision to America) A bipartisan bill in the House would expand the religious exemption to the insurance mandate in Obamacare, allowing those with a religious objection to absolve themselves of the mandate’s health insurance requirement with an affidavit. Introduced by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), the bill has drawn co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle, including Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.) Ron Paul (R-Texas), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).The bill would allow anyone to be exempt from the individual mandate so long as they filed an affidavit along with their tax returns that “sincerely held religious beliefs” would cause them “to object to the medical health care that would be covered under such coverage.”

Lipstick on a pig.  Even with the list of co-sponsors (Lee?  Frank?), they might be sincere about thinking this will help.  They are WRONG.  This smells to high Heaven.  The government (Congress) would give us PERMISSION to claim our First Amendment Rights?  This looks like the medical version of Concealed Carry Permits and Gun Licenses.  What is next?  Safeguarding OTHER parts of our religious freedom by setting up a system where we can submit applications to worship together on Sundays?  This may be seen by some as a stop-gap measure to plug a hole in the dike: I see it as just another expansion of government tyranny.

Mama’s Note: And why, pray tell, only “religious” objections? If this thing is so wonderful for the people, why would anyone be “allowed” to exempt themselves? I don’t have any “religion,” and won’t pretend that I do, but I have no intention of participating in this fraud anyway.

And then, a pretty nasty idea came to me. We’ve said for a long time that the “licenses” for guns and carrying were de facto registration – and we all know where that leads. Why wouldn’t the parasites in government think it was a great idea to have a “registration” of religious people (and others) who object to their slave status?

Home front – Our lost rights
Privacy Lost
(personalliberty.com) Last week, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) proposed a bill that would have removed the 4^thAmendment’s life support and sent it off to the hereafter, like most of the rest of the Constitution. It would have allowed more than 22 government entities to access Americans’ email, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts and Twitter messages without a search warrant. It would also have given the FBI and Department of Homeland Security more authority to gain full access to Internet accounts without informing the owner or a judge. … After CNET News published an article Tuesday exposing the bill, the outcry became so great that Leahy announced that night on Twitter that he was dropping support of warrantless access.

Nathan: Well, that is great.  BUT it doesn’t mean that the Feebs and everyone else will not have that power given to them by Imperial Decree (excuse me, Executive Order).  Nor does it not mean that this scumbag Leahy won’t sneak it into this year’s National Defense Appropriations Act (like he and his fellow District of Criminals inmates did with so much last year) or won’t reintroduce it as an amendment to a bill designating the second week in January as “National Love Your Aunts and Uncles Week.”  Bill Livingston points out in the full article, that he considers the Fourth Amendment on life support since the passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT in 2001:  I rather think of it more like a zombie, arms and legs cut off, rotting somewhere while people pretend that it is still alive.  Along with the rest of the 4,400 words of the US Constitution.

Mama’s Note: I always shudder when people amend their objections to this insanity with something like, “except with a search warrant” or “the permission of a judge.” Why would anyone allow their privacy to be violated on those terms? The “search warrant” has no more validity than any of this legislation, and most “judges” are not fit to chair a PTA meeting, let alone have this kind of power over the lives of other people. The SAME people who propose and support such invasion of privacy are the very ones who appoint and elect these “judges.”

If you truly want privacy, stay away from things like facebook or twitter. Encrypt your email and don’t post anything on the web that you wouldn’t want the goons to read. Yes, that will seriously limit your ability to interact with others via the computer, but it is the only choice remaining if you value privacy.