Food Stamps – An American Evil – part 3

Posted on 2013-10-20 by MamaLiberty

[Continued from an earlier article] By Nathan Barton

Food stamps are a way to hide hunger:

Remember, the reason we DO NOT have soup lines today like in the First Great Depression is because they get their food from the same grocery stores as the rest of us, with the money magically transferred to their little plastic cards electronically.  We don’t worry about what we don’t see: we don’t know whether that piece of plastic is a debit card, a credit card, or an EBT (welfare) cared.

Food stamps discourage personal action, in two ways:

For the hungry: “I don’t have to work: I may have to eat Ramen six days a week, but Uncle Sugar will pay for it, so I won’t starve.”  Food Stamps are EASY, and without the personal embarrassment of standing in a line to beg a meal from a nice Salvation Army or Hope Mission lady, or even worse, having to listen to some prayer and sky-pilot shouting to get a meal.

For the not-hungry: Food Stamps discourage personal action by those who otherwise WOULD HELP fight hunger and feed the needy:  “The government is paying them to eat, I don’t have to spend my time and my money (well, more of my money) since I’m paying taxes and the government is providing it.  Out of sight, out of mind:  we’d be far more bothered by seeing people in a soup kitchen line three times a day than even if the people getting EBT had to stand in line at the local welfare office outsiden where we could see them.

Food Stamps breed dependency:

And NOT just in those who get them, but in those who can shirk their christian (or other faith) responsibility to care for the hungry, because the government is doing it.  And more dependency ON THE GOVERNMENT means more power TO the government.  We ALL give up personal responsibility.  And at the same time, liberty.

It even applies to the middlemen:  to those who take from the “rich” and give to the “poor” – more taxes to collect, more people to collect them. And more businesses to take the stamps and provide the goods and services, at the same rate they sell to everyone else. More mouths to feed: more hands to feed them.  More paperwork, more people and pens and computers.  More fraud: more people to investigate and do the rituals to claim to control it.  In the old days, if you were hungry, well, the Lord told the farmers to leave some of the harvest in the corners of the fields so that the poor and hungry could glean the fields.  You had to WORK to eat – even if the food was “free” – not the “work” of filling out some forms and trudging down to the local welfare office.  The hobo who begged for a meal from a housewife EXPECTED to do some work for it: painting a fence, chopping weeds, picking up trash.  When the charity came from your local church (or a local church), YOU had to ask, and YOU had to justify why you couldn’t work and pay your own way – or at least part of it.  And more likely than not, it wasn’t straightforward charity too: in those days people remembered Paul’s admonition: “if a man does not work, neither shall he eat.”  Today, “if a man does not work, find a way to classify him as disabled or whatever and give him all you can.”  So my last point:

Food Stamps make governments bigger and more powerful.

While there appear to be many factors in why there are such differences in states, I suspect that the KEY factor is the mental attitude of dependency versus personal responsibility.  If I am in trouble, am I going to do something about it, or am I going to run to some government agency and demand that they take care of me?  Too many Americans choose to do the second: their society, in places like DC and Oregon and Rhode Islan are BUILT around “government will take care of it.” Although food stamps are a measure and the result of this dependency, they are also a convenient, even attractive way, to increase dependency and be pulled from personal responsibility. Their governments were already bigger than most: increased food stamps mean bigger government.  The Russian military have a phrase for it: Reinforcing success.  Government WANTS and NEEDS more dependency, less personal responsibility, and to hide reality from those it controls. Food stamps fit perfectly.

COMMENT:  Literally just minutes after I finished this commentary, I received the following link from a correspondent: Foodstamp Program Shutdown Imminent

It contains what looks like a real letter, dated 11 OCT 2013, from USDA FNS (Food and Nutrition Service) (which runs SNAP) to all state SNAP agencies telling them NOT to submit reports that are necessary to have funds transferred for food stamps for October.  The people who saw this letter (who are in Utah) are fearful that this is an early warning that there will BE NO FOOD STAMPS in November, even if the “shutdown” is ended before then.  Given lead times and other factors, this COULD be a possibility IF and ONLY IF the White House and their minions WANT IT TO HAPPEN.  Apparently, FNS is one of the few (maybe the only) part of USDA deemed essential.  As my analysis suggests, ending food stamps is NOT something that the current regime would want to do in the normal course of events: it presents the government as weak and ineffectual and encourages – nay, forces – people to start taking some more responsibility, and weakens their dependence on government.  (The national park fiasco was NOT, for 99.5% of the population, a critical closure problem: not a “life and death” or even close to that kind of situation.)  Food stamps WILL be deemed such, and most states will be unable to fund SNAP without significant changes – including constitutional violations (state constitutions).  States doing so will further distance themselves from the Federal government and may take extraordinary measures, including seizure of federal funds to pay for it (unlike the situation with several states where they are PAYING the FedGov directly to reopen the parks).

So I do NOT think that they will allow the SNAP program to dry up.  I think that the Utah folks are panicking unnecessarily.  But panic has a way of reinforcing itself and taking on a life of its own.  There are two kinds here: those dependent on SNAP who are fearful that they will have nothing to eat (or even, to trade for drugs), and those fearful of what will happen when the first group panics: the bureaucrats, the private charities, and… the law enforcement.  This could lead to more calls (as from that idiot Sheila Jackson Lee) for martial law, or even some kinds of preventative measures like issuing script to supermarkets (AND convenience stores – remember those awful “Food Deserts”) and the like or even attempting to seize supplies to “protect” them against panicking rioters.  Such items are high on the list of things to turn a bad situation into a nightmare that could, indeed, engulf much of the nation in a “hard” economic shutdown.  A real one, not a bogus one dreamed up by the White House to bash their opposition in Congress and the streets.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40C: Lies and MORE Lies

Posted on 2013-10-19 by TPOL Nathan

Lies and more lies – Economics
Has Income Inequality Really Risen?
(Manhattan Institute) A variety of approaches show that inequality between the bottom and middle has not grown since the 1980s…

Nathan: That we are getting more and more unequal in our income and our life styles is one of the MANY, MANY lies that Tranzis and apologists for the state make: It is not only untrue as shown by the various methods that the Manhattan Institutes (and others) have used, but by simple observation.  Whether we look back just 30 years to 1983 or 50 years to 1963, we see that virtually ALL Americans are immensely better off.  Yes, there are always those who are the billionaires who have gotten richer.  Just as there are ALWAYS those who homeless without even a shopping cart to put their possessions into, and who make NOTHING a day.  But we will always have those with us.  We will ALWAYS have greed and corruption, stinginess and lack of even basic necessities, for a very tiny percentage.  Those of us who believe that government is evil and dangerous see that the slips and slides are due MORE TO government, than being balanced or offset or corrected by government, because of the very nature of government.  And all too often, those who are most down and out are there because of government: laws like minimum wages and proof of residency and licensing, and events like wars (foreign and drug and poverty and terrorism) which leave damaged people on the streets and in our houses and buildings, to name just two.  But that is precisely WHY Tranzis and Statists in general demand wars of aggression against those who DO succeed and wars on poverty that create MORE poverty even while they create more government jobs and more contractors dependent on government:  Their power and wealth grows even faster.  The Robber Barons of the 1880s and 1890s did not exist because there was too LITTLE government, but because there was already too MUCH government: government they could buy and control, government which created conditions which let the Robber Barons isolate and minimize competition and destroy the power of anyone to resist them.  If we believe the Tranzis we will never see poverty go away, and the wealthy will be ever more wealthy.

Mama’s Note: Too many of the early industrialists and entrepreneurs are lumped in with these “Robber Barons.” To those who think all free markets are evil, there is no difference, but companies like the Great Northern Railway were built without government subsidies. My father worked for Great Northern in 1890, when they built the rails across the top of the country. He was a hunter, bringing in game to feed the crews, and always proud of his part in that epic endeavor.

Lies and more lies – Health care
A Look into Canadian Health Care
(The American) The average Canadian family of two parents with two children pays approximately $11,320 in taxes for hospital and physician care through the country’s tax system…

Nathan: We are told how wonderful Canada and Canadian health care is: ANOTHER Tranzi lie.   Just when we are sure that we are really bad off, someone points out something like this.  Of course, Canadians can claim that they don’t have to pay extravagant fees  and insurance premiums – NO, they just run their money (stolen as taxes) through yet ANOTHER middleman.  How stupid can you get?  Nearly a thousand a month whether you have a cold in a year or NOT.  Add this to VAT and all the other taxes, and Canada looks like Sweden once did.

Mama’s Note: As I tell people who complain about the cost of health care today… Just wait and see how much it costs once it is “free.”

Lies and more lies – Liberty
Free Market Falsehoods
(The Freeman) An “ideal” economic system is not one in which no one ever makes a mistake; it is one in which the mistakes that people inevitably make are corrected as effectively as possible…

Nathan: There are many ways of lying. Claiming that economic systems are supposed to be PERFECT, and that only a PERFECT economic system should be used are the kind of second-layer lies that underlie the more obvious lies that politicians, including Tranzis and Statists, love to use to build their power and wealth.  We KNOW from centuries of experience that ANY economic system which involves ANY important decisions made by government agencies at ANY level is as chockful of mistakes as my wife’s fudge is of pecans and other nuts…  believe me, that is a LOT of mistakes.  Whether it is “national socialism” or “international socialism” (Communism) or mercantilism or a (barf!) mixed economy, government is so unaccountable to reality that it makes more and more mistakes as time goes on AND IT DOES NOT LEARN from its mistakes: there are no consequences to the people who make the decisions.

Mama’s Note: And that would be true no matter how wonderful the intentions of the politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, much they do is no mistake at all, but deliberate destruction of other people’s lives and property.

Lies and more lies (Stupid people) – Politics 2013: shutdown
Shutdown: Bush’s Fault?
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan:Well yes, according to the folks (mostly black or mixed race) that were interviewed in DC, and who should know better?  Of course, these are the same folks that help Jay Leno and Glenn Beck be so entertaining, who think that World War Two was between us and the Brits, that the capital of Afghanistan is Blanketville, and that Obama was born in Hawaii. Is it any wonder the Founding Fathers distrusted “democracy” so much.

Stupid government – Politics 2013: shutdown
DOD Bars 50 Priests from Administering Sacraments, Locks Up Eucharist; Priest Sues
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: This is, of course, both a contract AND a moral issue.  It would seem that the DoD wants to try and get rid of ANY religious observance and was using the shutdown as an excuse.  Of course, that drives those pesky religious folks out of even joining up, much less staying in. And so the morals of the force takes another nosedive.

Lies and More Lies – Culture wars: Homosexual “marriage”
Gov. Christie: Same-Sex Marriage [sic] Should Not Be Imposed By New Jersey Court
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Courts should not impose ANY kind of marriage.  We are to blame: when we allow government to start defining (and redefining) words, we have (by definition – pun intended) given them too much power.  Christie is fine with letting government have a LOT of power, but now he has reached his (very high) limit and is squawking.  At least in public.  Who knows how he might go if he gets MORE power.

This is the problem with “democracy” unless that democracy is either L. Neil Smith’s “hyperdemocracy” (that is, unanimous agreement) OR very heavily constrained within a REPUBLICAN (NOT “GOP”) constitution which very specifically prevents (AND PUNISHES) government for about 99% of the things that they want to and do perform.  (And I may be low on my estimate at 99%.)

What about the lies?  Supposedly 10% of the population is “homosexual” BY NATURE:  Not nurture, not willful decision, but supposedly “Because God made them that way,” or (for you atheists and agnostics and “State IS God” people), “Because they EVOLVED that way.”  Right.  Neither mindset can come up with a way that evolution OR God would create this sort of “unchangeable” nature in humans (or any other species); genetic defects do not account for that.  More accurate (and honest) studies indicate that the REAL numbers (at least until recent years) are well under 1% – and due primarily to “nurture” not nature.  But the more that the culture changes the “nurture” portion of the equation, the more common the “defect” and the more the culture is changed.  But the changes are built on lies, just as in Communist or other societies.  Ultimately, it collapses.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40B: Minor matters

Posted on 2013-10-18 by TPOL Nathan

Nathan:  Compared to the cave by the Congress, all this other stuff (for now) is minor stuff not to be  worried much about.  Or is it?

Home Front – Tyranny on an Integrated Scale
Federal Healthcare Law Used to Take Camera from Man Recording Local Police
(The Blaze) To summarize: a man was charged with crimes for videotaping a police officer making an arrest; the police officer claimed that the arrest was a “mental health check” because the person being arrested was having a mental breakdown.  Therefore, the man filming the incident was violating the privacy of the man being arrested, which is (according to the cop and his bosses) a violation of HIPAA, the federal law on health insurance privacy protection.

Nathan: If I get this right, if you do something that causes you to be arrested, even if you are not later charged with anything, the action that led to your arrest is proof that you are having a deterioration in your mental health.  Therefore, all records regarding this “health evaluation” (arrest) are prevented from being released to protect your “HIPAA rights” – and no one (not even a “real” reporter) can record any part of the process or anything related to that “health and welfare check.”  Anyone attempting to do so will be arrested and charged with violating federal law. Apparently this is one federal law (unlike illegally crossing the border or stealing someone’s identity to get a job as an illegal) that local police CAN enforce.  Your arrest (if you are arrested for video recording) is also not just an arrest, but a mental health evaluation process: you are under observation have been “confined” for a mental health problem.  That means, that you now have a history of mental health problems which makes you ineligible to buy or own firearms, and for anyone in your house to have firearms.  (If they fail to remove firearms because you are present, they too are subject to arrest and a concurrent “mental health evaluation” for disobeying the law, and the cycle continues.)  You also of course are subject to all curtailment of rights and liberties because of your mental health condition, even if you are subsequently released and not charged with anything.  If any of this occurred within the vicinity of a child (the definition of “vicinity” being very elastic, of course), you could further be identified (even without benefit of trial or even a hearing) as a child abuser and a future threat to all children, even your own.  This of course is reason to remove the children from your home, and could require that you move to someplace suitably distant from any school, church building, playground, park, or athletic field, even a college campus.  If any of this arrest and further arrest and all had ANYTHING at all to do with sex: for example, if you lost your temper and used the f-word, or if you grabbed your groin after being kicked between the legs by a cop, you could further be identified as a “sex offender” and required to register as such.  You would, of course, lose more and more rights, until you are nothing but another cog in the great national prison and “justice” government-industrial system.

Mama’s Note: Thank goodness there are not enough cops to do this very often, though once is too much, of course. The best thing I can think of to prevent this is to stay out of the cities where these psycho cops run around loose… They can’t be everywhere. And if you do decide to video something, have a camera too small to detect, and don’t call any attention to yourself in the process. Have some way to upload the video instantly too, then the cops can’t destroy it and say it never happened.

Europe’s Collapse – Border Jumpers
EU Ratchets Up Border Security
(PressEurop) “The EU is building up a team of heavily-guarded men to help Libya stop unwanted migrants and to collect intelligence,” reveals news websiteEUobserver days after at least 34 migrants drowned after reportedly setting sail to Europe from Libya. Meanwhile, in a separate story, EUobserver also announces that EU border security agency Frontex is considering using aerial drones, which can be operated remotely or with a pilot, to monitor frontiers.

Nathan: Learning a lesson from Big Brother (the US), I guess.  Cooperating and sending “police” into Libya, using drones, setting up spy networks, and meanwhile, watching people die.  Of course, this being the EU, the “border security” will make even the Mexican Border in the US look like it is airtight (and being run by professionals).  No doubt the EU has decided that something has to be done, because it is clear that they can no longer rely on the US to be either the man on a white horse OR the big bad boogeyman to keep the riffraff away.  But we have MORE from Europe:

Europe’s Collapse – Slavery
880,000 slaves in the European Union TODAY
(PressEurop) According to the latest figures from the European parliament’s [Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering Committee(CRIM), approximately 880,000 people in the European Union are living in slavery.

They notably include “children that are forced to beg, men who are forced to work for pitifully low wages, and women who are forced to work as prostitutes,” explains De Morgen. The daily adds that CRIM has called on member states to apply the EU’s directive on human trafficking, and demanded that the European Commission implement its strategy for the eradication of trafficking in human beings.

Nathan: These are, of course, the 100 percent slaves, not the 40 or 50% slaves who are called “taxpayers” by governments, but whom are slaving for their “betters” by being forced to give significant parts of their income to the State.  When you add THOSE numbers, just as here in the US, MOST of the population is living in slavery.  What is worse, most of those who are do NOT CARE – they are “secure” and therefore willing to accept their chains.

Islamic wars
Malaysia: Court restricts use of “Allah” to Muslims
(The Hindu [India]) “A Malaysian appeals court ruled on Monday that only Muslims can use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to god, upholding a government ban on the word being used in a Catholic publication. The ruling reverses an earlier lower court decision. … On December 31, 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court lifted the prohibition, noting that the church had a constitutional right to use the word in its publication on the ground that religions other than Islam can be practiced in peace and harmony.” (10/14/13)

Nathan: This adds fuel to those that accuse the Muslims of worshiping a moon god or some such, but also shows that even so-called “secular” governments in predominantly Muslim countries are anything but.  And it warns us of what is to come as the US declines more rapidly.  The writer of The Last Centurion may still see his predictions come true.

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Food Stamps – An American Evil – part 2

Posted on 2013-10-18 by MamaLiberty

[Continued from an earlier article by Nathan Barton]

The four lowest states are relatively conservative (if not necessarily in national politics) and all in the west – other than that, they have little in common.  North Dakota is incredibly wealthy (relatively) with the Bakken etc. oil and gas boom, and very low unemployment.  It and Wyoming are very small (in population) and have traditions of self-sufficiency and community help.  Nebraska is relatively well-off, doing better than Wyoming economically but with two large urban areas.  Colorado, frankly, surprises me: the state is a mess, with a bad (and probably again worsening economy), bad liberal government, and major urban areas and smaller urban areas with a huge underclass.

Although Montana and South Dakota are in the second tier (10-15% food stamps), they are very similar to ND, MT, WY, and NE.  BUT they have a large AmerInd population, both on and off the Rez, and the economic straits of the tribes as well as their treaty rights mean that the great majority of them are on SNAP.  Since 10-12% of SD’s population is enrolled members, this alone counts for the participation.  (Colorado has tribes but such a small percentage that they are literally a drop in the bucket, even with urban AmerInd population.)

Also in that second tier are three states in which the participation has DOUBLED since 2008 – just five years.  Idaho, Utah, and Nevada have many problems: Nevada in particular has been very hard hit by the Crash of 2009 – this depression in all but name.  Its tourism/gaming industry was attacked by both its unions, its federal legislators, and the White House:  it is actually a surprise to see it isn’t higher.  Utah and Idaho have shifted population, with far more non-LDS (and thus not using the excellent Bishop’s system available to LDS in dire straits).  They have also been hit by changes in government programs and regulations: timber, mining, and other fundamental industries have been in bad shape.

Now to the other end:

Why on earth is there a 20-25% rate in Oregon of all places?  Oregon is socialist (as well as anti-military) but not much more than Michigan or Wisconsin.    It wasn’t the Crash that drove this up by a huge amount of participants.  Perhaps Oregonians are more susceptible to government advertising (propaganda) about food stamps and other programs.  Perhaps the attacks by government on the timber industry and many other industries has dragged it down.   Oregon is NOT business friendly, I’m told, so maybe small businesses have been hurt more.

It is easier to understand why New Mexico is so bad off:  large AmerInd population (remember treaty rights and such) – especially the Navajo and various Pueblo, lots of immigrants, especially illegal ones, in New Mexico, perhaps because the culture is more similar to Latin America than any other state.  It has been damaged by liberal administrations and legislatures and urban governments (Albuquerque and Santa Fe in particular), and hit by government control and by government reductions in military and research matters.  But still, like Oregon, there must be other reasons.

Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana may be so high because they are part of the Old South and the Black Belt; as well as having entrenched Democratic municipal governments and many endemic economic problems.  (Louisiana’s condition is obviously Bush’s fault since he caused Katrina and all but destroyed New Orleans.)  The last one in this fourth, bottom tier is Rhode Island, with strong liberal control at all levels, an economy that hasn’t recovered from not being bombed during WW1 and WW2, and massive immigration. It has doubled in five years, again perhaps because with almost no industry left, even the parasites have started moving away.

I am surprised to find DC in this tier (I don’t count it because it isn’t a state – except for a state of mental distress), but maybe if you take away all the government parasites with incomes of over $50,000 a year (that is, those who supposedly WORK for government, not those who are officially on welfare), it would be way over 25% on food stamps. Of course, a GS-1 (there are, apparently, a few of those left) gets more than $20/hour, but only about $22K a year: possible to be eligible for food stamps in a one-earner family.  But face it, DC has an entitlement mentality and has since the War between the States:  gimme gimme from the guy squatting at 1600 PA right now to the most derelict bum sleeping on a street grate.

Florida’s doubling in five years can probably be attributed to the massive retired population, massive immigration (internal and external), and cuts in government – as well as the real estate crash.  Even so, it is still better off than the worst five states and DC.  Notice that except for Rhode Island, NONE of the 20-25% states doubled:  which must mean that there are so many already on the public teat that is is hard to get that much of an increase.

There are 47 million of us on the OFFICIAL, federal dole.  That is basically one in six of us; 16%.  Of course, the numbers vary significantly from place to place, indeed in the measure of a few blocks.  And with the Crash, even from house to house.  The fact that there are such differences on a state-by-state level is an indication that it is NOT simply economic conditions or social status. There MUST be other factors.  But I don’t have the data to figure out what they are.

So, you say to me, “Nathan, all this description is no doubt fascinating, but it doesn’t mean that food stamps are evil.  So why do you call them that?”  Obviously, people need them or think they need them.  That chart shows that food stamps don’t even pay enough for an average man to eat: about fifty bucks short on a monthly basis.

Here is why:  See part 3 tomorrow.

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The Curtain Rises on the Final Act

Posted on 2013-10-17 by TPOL Nathan

Well, time to wrap it up.  Thanks to Margaret for this story – though of course I’d already heard.  And the handwriting was on the wall:

House Passes Deal to Reopen Government
(New York Times – Breaking News Wed 16OCT2013, 2229 EDT)
The House voted, 285-144, to approve a Senate plan to end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit. The deal would finance the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt limit through Feb. 7.  President Obama said he would sign the measure.
(Read another account of it here.)

Nathan: Of course he will.  He won. Once more, the GOP “leadership” has rolled over and played dead for the tyrant and his minions.

Margaret asked Debby and me to comment on it and give our thoughts as to what we would predict will happen now.  Here is my reply.

More and more, the people we talk to and write with have said it really will make no difference: the nation is lost and it will be a more or less steady downhill slog from here on out.  The GOP helped reinforce the White House message that the GOP was to blame:  at this point, the GOP stands to LOSE the 2014 elections and this 16 days may well be the major meme the Dems use to ensure the defeat is a crushing one.  I’d like to say that if the GOP loses the House, it will just ensure that the last two years of the current regime will be a romp to total victory FOR them and the Tranzis.  But frankly, given the surgery obviously done on the GOP to remove not just the spine but the frontal lobes and not just the testicles but every bit of intestines, it wouldn’t matter.  They are going to roll over on ObamaCare, on immigration, on attacking every little country that the tyrant wants to attack, and we will see the dollar become even more worthless than it is already.  No country will say anything too loud, but they will quietly walk away from us – even Israel and the UK and Korea, and make accommodation as best they can.

There are stories that the EU and China have come to an agreement to drop the dollar, so the worthless pieces of paper will get even more worthless.  And in real terms, personal household income will continue to drop more and more: we are already at maybe 92% of real (adjusted for the government inflation figures, which themselves are bogus) income compared to 2000 (as 100%).  And inflation will increase.

The military will continued to be emasculated, as he relieves more and more of the few flag officers that were worth anything, and puts more and more opportunistic toadies in command: the good people will all too often be treated like Uzziah.  Veterans will be treated as mental cases, more and more – especially after this last weekend.  States will be still MORE browbeatened and bribed into licking his boots and they will fear to do anything at all. This INCLUDES the western states: SD, WY, MT, ND, UT.  The other states already have Stockholm Syndrome: I expect these to get it as well.  Voting in 2014 will be useless: I expect to again see 85% or more of those who choose to run again to be reelected.  (Yes, the polls say 60% of us want ALL of them gone, but that is what they said back in the 70s and the 90s, and it didn’t happen.  And that was when there was still a bit of honesty left in the elections.)

More and more people, having decided that they have nothing to lose, will “go postal” or “go Galt.”  The cops will increasingly resemble the occupation force they really are, and we will see more and more Fallujah-type incidents: more and more men and women and children gunned down and beaten to death for doing ANYthing to outrage a cop or a political office-holder. More and more people will have their messages and calls (already spied upon) used as evidence or as a reason to ensure that they are dealt with.

The only hope is that SOME of the states in the West (I pray for just a half-dozen) will have the courage to do something other than just roll over.  I fear that massive civil disobedience is beyond the capability of the people as a whole.  Anything less than several million people refusing to follow the insane laws and pay the idiotic taxes will be crushed without mercy.  And they can’t be scattered over the whole country: they have to be concentrated fairly tightly.  And that is not going to happen.  It must be left in the Lord’s hands.  But we know that He expects and demands that WE do something to show our faith in Him, and I do not think that we are any different than Sodom:  Abraham and Lot couldn’t find enough people to save the city.  And I don’t think we can here in what was once America.

Let me add some more:  this last sixteen days has broken a lot of people.  The GS government employees (General Schedule) are going to get every bit of their salary paid.  Rumor is that WG (wage grade) employees will NOT get any pay: they are blue-collar, unlike the white collar GS types.  But no government contractor, even if on personal contract and working in the same offices or shops as the GS and WG, will get a single dime.  Nor will the hundreds of thousands of people, from waitstaff in restaurants and maids in lodges and hotels on (or accessed only by) federal lands, no one who paid to buy timber and weren’t allowed to cut a tree down for more than two weeks, or the people who are in the various businesses that we’ve read about for two weeks.  Some of us were only indirectly affected, often in surprising ways.  We will see how being broken affects all of us: will we accept our change (chains) or is this the event that will cause many of us to resort to real disobedience and even… violence?

Mama’s Note: Part 2 of the “Food Stamp” article will be posted later today.

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Food Stamps – An American Evil

Posted on 2013-10-16 by TPOL Nathan

The Food Stamp Program, originally created as part of the “New Deal” of the evil monster-in-chief F. D. Roosevelt and reinvented again and again by machine politics and a succession of monsters-in-chief like LBJ and William Jefferson Clinton, is in the news this week. Food stamps are now officially the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” (SNAP), mainly provided by Electronics Benefit Transfer (EBT) debit-like cards.  Which is why they are in the news.

In seventeen states, on Saturday, the entire system crashed, no one’s EBT cards worked.   This came very close to triggering several riots, no doubt because people feared that the government shut down had finally come to the point of cutting off the billions in food stamp money handed out to almost 50 million American residents.  It was variously reported that a test by Xerox, the vendor, may have caused the problem, others said that an upgrade triggered it: it was restored some six to eight hours later.  Apparently there were no actual riots.

In ONE state (Louisiana), the exact opposite happened: their “debit cards” (they debit YOUR account as a taxpayer to feed THEIR mouths) HAD NO LIMITS.  So a WalMart was essentially looted.

The amount of welfare provided through this program is astonishing, as the above maps and graphs show.  The variation in states is also truly amazing. Because of this great difference, the two events this weekend had significantly different impacts.  For example, as Louisiana has between 1/5 and 1/4 of the entire population of food stamp recipients, the looting could have been done at hundreds of stores – so it could have been much worse.  Those same large numbers in other states, with no “money” on their cards, COULD have resulted in riots and flash-mob-style looting.  But apparently, it did not.

Tomorrow, some thoughts about some of the states and why they have low and high participation.

[Update: see part 2 here]

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-40A: Shutdown, Protests, and Historic Moments

Posted on 2013-10-14 by TPOL Nathan

This weekend may have been a milestone in American history, or may be just another speed bump in the galloping run downhill to oblivion. The great “Government Shutdown” continues (into a holiday weekend and now Day 14) at an 83% totally bogus level (based on workers, higher when you consider total spending) and the government continues to collect billions in taxes each day (because people are apparently still afraid of NOT paying even when they are supposedly receiving nothing for their payments).  At least 3,000 trucks circled and tied up traffic in DC in a protest, while media ignored them or claimed only a few dozen trucks arrived (CNN).  At the same time, more veterans showed up on the National Mall to take down barricades and again mostly be ignored.  Even taking the barricades to place in front of the White House was dismissed as “unnews” by the mainstream media.  Meanwhile, the Electronic Benefits Transfer system (providing for SNAP (food stamps) for millions) shut down “accidentally” due to computer problems in a bunch of states, and riots almost developed in a bunch of places as shelves were stripped bare.  This disgusted a LOT of people – especially those whose taxes pay for the EBT in the first place.  And more and more civil disobedience was taking place across the nation: DC was not the only place barricades or cones were removed in defiance of federal edicts. Are people finally waking up?  Or just protesting feebly against the inevitable? Congress seems increasingly divorced from reality, and the White House seems stuck on blaming the GOP:

Politics 2013: Government “Shutdown” – The “messiah”
Obama not allowing govt to borrow more would amount to new tax
(CNSNews.com) President Barack Obama used his Saturday radio address to press for an end to “this Republican shutdown” and for an increase in the debt limit. “It wouldn’t be wise,” he said, “to just kick the debt-ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season. Because damage to America’s sterling credit rating wouldn’t just cause global markets to go haywire; it would become more expensive for everyone in America to borrow money. Students paying for college. Newlyweds buying a home. It would amount to a new tax — a Republican default tax — on every family and business in America.”

Nathan: The man racks up an incredible number of lies in a few short sentences.  The “shutdown” is not the fault of the GOP (or at least not SOME of the GOP), since we know that the House passed multiple bills and sent them to the Senate which refused to take any action.  Not raising the debt ceiling is NOT a “default” – only an inability to take on MORE debt, but while there are still billions of dollars in tax and other revenues to pay the “credit card bill.”  America’s credit is not “sterling” but is seen as more and more tarnished each day, thanks in large part to lies like this.  It would not become more expensive to borrow money for people who pay their bills – indeed, logically, in a free market, an end to massive government borrowing would free up more money for business and families to borrow.  To claim that for government to stop borrowing money would be a “new tax” is about as Orwellian as you can get.  War is Peace.  Slavery is Freedom. Debt is Money.  It goes on and on.

Mama’s Note: And, furthermore, it is just possible that some of those college students and brides could put off instant gratification and work to save up for their education and weddings, as we used to do. Households might just stop borrowing quite so much and live with last year’s car and TV. The idea that the economy will crash and burn if everyone stops using credit they often cannot repay is another big lie.

Politics 2013: Shutdown – Congress in action
Stalemate in Washington? Wasserman Schultz Suggests That Men Are the Problem
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: HUMANS are the problem.  Yes, once upon a time people thought that with more women in Congress and on the Cabinet and such, we’d have more rational and peaceful government.  People like Wasserman-Schultz, Clinton, Jackson Lee, Boxer, Pelosi, and others long ago disproved THAT little bit of myth:  they are vindictive, corrupt, greedy, and often just plain stupid. No different than the men.  They are parasites, takers, power-hungry, lovers of the state and tyranny (however sugar coated it may be) and are willing to steal, lie, cheat, abuse, and kill others for their own power and wealth.

Congress in action – Politics 2013
Rep. Peter King: ‘We Have to Start Going After Ted Cruz by Name’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Oh, and what have they been doing for the past several weeks?  There are MULTIPLE Senator Cruz?  He is, in the words of many Democrat spokesmen and women, evil incarnate.  But now they are going to really trash him?  The man is a typical politician with a few good things to day, but he is NOT the anarchist or libertarian or radical that they want to paint him.  Would that he WERE!!!

Congress in action – Theft by government
Portman: ‘Greatest Act of Bipartisanship’ Is Both Parties’ Overspending
(CNSNews.com) Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for the impasse in Washington that has led to a partial government shutdown, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.”I would say the greatest act of bipartisanship over the last few decades has been Republicans and Democrats alike overpromising and overspending.

Nathan: Truth – but only reported by one side, and only believed by one side.  However, despite continuing and louder efforts by the mainstream media to prove it is all the GOP’s fault, more and more people are blaming them all.  And demanding that they ALL go away.

Culture Wars: Killing babies – Congress in action
Pro-life Leaders Urge Boehner To Protect Americans’ ‘Conscience Rights’(CNSNews.com) Leaders of more than 40 pro-life groups delivered an urgent letter to House Speaker John Boehner Friday imploring  him to protect Americans from being forced to subsidize abortions in any deal he makes with the White House to fund the government or raise the debt ceiling.

Nathan: Just like the rest of them, the “pro-life” politicians what to take advantage of the debt and shutdown situation.  But they don’t have the votes OR the guts, because it is more about their power than about saving lives or doing the right thing.

Islamic wars: Arab street revolt – Stupid US tricks
US military aid cuts not expected to hit Egypt hard
(Boulder Daily Camera) “The U.S. decision to suspend delivery of tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to Egypt is more of a symbolic slap than a punishing wound to the military-backed government for its slog toward a return to democratic rule. Egypt is awash in the tanks and planes it would need to fight a conventional war, and spare parts from U.S. manufacturers will continue to be delivered.” (10/13/13)

Mama’s Note: Aren’t we just so glad that Egypt is “awash in tanks and planes” so it can go to war just any time it wants…. Fondest dream of every dictator in the world to be “awash” with the tools of murder – especially if they can get Americans to pay for it!

Nathan: The price of empire for America, I guess.  We arm all sides to the teeth to indebt them to us, and we find that we are all too often their target, later if not sooner.  And so we must buy and give MORE arms to various enemies or supposed friends.  Forty years ago, another high school student called for a Pax Americana and a world American Empire in his original oratory speech given in the waning days of the Vietnam-American Phase of the Great Eastern War, and I hope he is happy with having gotten his wish.

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Where the Governmental Shutdown is REAL – and People are Angry

Posted on 2013-10-13 by TPOL Nathan

The governmental “Shutdown” is for the most part bogus:  the consensus seems to be that only 17% of all government employees are on furlough:  not expected to get a paycheck on the 15th or 31st of October (remember, even Federal employees are paid AFTER they work, whether they opt for mid-month or monthly pay: they DID get paid on Septermber 30th for work they did last month).  But for one government sector, the shutdown is REAL and impacting millions of Americans as well as tourists from overseas.

Related to this, Mama Liberty referred me to this article in the Wall Street Journal:
NBC/WSJ poll: 60 percent say fire every member of Congress

Mama’s Note: They’ve got the right idea, but for the wrong reason… and the wrong solution, of course.

Nathan: Actually, I am hearing people talking about necktie parties and bombing.  People are really angry, and the national park fiasco has gotten people mad.

Why do I say that?

First, it has an immediate and direct impact on tens of thousands OTHER than NPS employees: the business owners, operators, and employees of thousands of motels and hotels, restaurants and fast food places, campgrounds, tour guides, bus lines, and more in and around the national parks, from places like Carlsbad, New Mexico to Hulett, Wyoming, to New Market, Virginia and more.  If the things that draw people to these communities are closed, the businesses that survive by furnishing goods and services to these people are going to starve:  and THEY won’t have sugar daddies in Congress to pay them their back pay and profits.  And they in turn have relatives, and suppliers (grocery stores and food service supply businesses and bottlers and linen supply services and gas stations and mechanics and more) who will ALSO be hit for tens of millions of dollars.  And they have friends and relatives and other businesses.

Second, Americans view these places as OURS – NOT the government’s but ours, in part because the government constantly tells us they are “for the people,” and protected for us and our future generations.  Third, this isn’t something that people see on their television screens: it is something that they drive past everyday.  And they see the uniformed goons guarding the gates and cones to prevent anyone from entering or (sometimes, even looking).  And the anger burns deep.

On Friday, I saw this article from Breitbart (but first in the Durango paper, of all places):  (NOTE: Comments, unlike normal practice, are interspersed in a more lengthy than usual quote from the news story.)

The Obama administration said Thursday it will allow states to use their own money to reopen some national parks that have been closed because of the government shutdown. Governors in at least four states have asked for authority to reopen national parks within their borders because of the economic impacts caused by the park closures. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the government will consider offers to pay for park operations, but will not surrender control of national parks or monuments to the states. (Two things to note with this statement:  “will consider” – betcha they take weeks or more to “consider” and decide – also bet at least some of the governors will not wait.  Second point: it is interesting that this “messiah-minion” has to be careful to emphasize that they are not going to “surrender control” to the states.  Apparently, someone behind the scenes (and maybe not just us mad, radical, extremist self-governors) has hinted at such a thing.  Good for them!) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said his state would accept the federal offer to reopen Utah’s five national parks. Utah would have to use its own money to staff the parks, and it will cost $50,000 a day to operate just one of them, Zion National Park, said Herbert’s deputy chief of staff, Ally Isom.
(Understandable, though:  I am told that Zion alone is costing the folks in Moab and nearby as much as $500,000 a day by being closed.) It was not clear if the federal government would reimburse Utah later. The Utah Legislature would have to convene in special session to appropriate the money, Isom said. Governors of South Dakota, Arizona and Colorado have made similar requests to reopen some or all of their parks. It was not clear Thursday if they would accept Jewell’s offer. (This is probably why:  even that piece of work Hickenlooper (as big a bootlicker of the “messiah” as you can find in the West in government circles) has threatened to use National Guard and State Patrol to take over Trail Ridge Road from Grand Lake to Estes Park – arresting Park Rangers/Police – to keep Estes Park supplied with food and such.  Don’t think he took a stand – yet – on the dozens of other sites, but traffic and visitors and sales are way down in the Cortez area because of Mesa Verde and Hovenweep.  (Wonder if Yucca House N.M. is closed?  Must go see.) In Wyoming, Gov. Matt Mead’s office said the state would not pay to reopen two heavily visited national parks or the Devil’s Tower national monument.  “Wyoming cannot bail out the federal government and we cannot use state money to do the work of the federal government,” Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said Thursday

(I see his logic, but then, it is an excuse.  Why not just introduce a bill in the Legislature to simply nationalize everything and take it over – including revenues?  Yellowstone and Grand Teton draw FAR more in visitor fees than they cost to run, even with the inflated government budget/manpower.  Devils Tower would probably MORE than pay for itself just through visitor donations.) Meanwhile, the park service said it is reopening to tourists a highway pull-out area that can be used to view and photograph Mount Rushmore from a distance following complaints that the agency was intentionally blocking viewing areas.  The national memorial in South Dakota has been closed because of the government shutdown. (Again, they don’t point out:  the parking garage at Mount Rushmore was built by private, donated funds, and is operated by a private foundation, which pays for its operation, maintenance, and future replacement by collecting the parking fees.  It receives NO money from the USG, unless it is also charging NPS personnel to park there. Hundreds(Try “thousands”) of tourists have complained that park rangers have placed cones along an area highway to stop drivers from pulling over to take photos of the iconic monument, which features the stone-carved faces of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.  (This is really not accurate: the cones have been disappearing, courtesy locals, travelers, and National Guard.  (IF two people I know very well had gone on Borglum Highway as they intended and forgot last Wednesday, the cones would have been gone that day:  they are member of the Continental Society for the Succor and Care of Homeless and Lost Traffic Control Devices, (CSSCHLTCD) and they certainly considered these cones to be lost.) The park service never intended to ruin anyone’s view of Mount Rushmore, said Patricia Trap, deputy director of the agency’s Midwest region. (Again, reports from nearby and the few rangers willing to speak out indicate that THIS is a bald-faced lie.) The agency has a limited number of rangers available during the shutdown, and some pull-out areas were blocked with cones out of security concerns because there weren’t enough rangers to monitor those areas, she said.(Which proves the boldness of the lie:  the exact scenic view pullout [lay-by is such a Brit but useful term] which was one of several closed off is one I have driven past, visited and stopped at hundreds of times, and maybe 1 time in 50 (and only in the summer, Memorial Day to Labor Day) have I EVER seen a ranger there.)

I do think that the “messiah” has finally overstepped so badly that the revolt might finally be triggered.)

How much is TOO much?  I hope we have reached that point.

Mama’s Note: I’ve got my tar, feathers, pitchfork and rope all ready…  But this is the really hard part… at what point are we – who follow the non-aggression principle – truly justified in firing the first shot. What is that “line in the sand?” What is it we are waiting for? I don’t want to be the aggressor, by any means. But there IS a breaking point, and I’m afraid we’re darn close to it.

And these controllers have shot themselves in the foot, to a great extent. They might have gotten away with some nasty form of “gun control” even a year ago. Now? The first move toward federal confiscation of firearms will set this whole country on fire. Guaranteed. And any state that tries it now won’t get any different results. I’m not too sure it would even work in Massachusetts anymore.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-39E: World events and home front news

Posted on 2013-10-12 by TPOL Nathan

SHALE GAS – Europe’s COLLAPSE
There will be no revolution in Europe
(Les Echos) This week, France confirmed its ban on shale gas exploitation and the European Parliament demanded environmental impact studies before all test drilling starts. More obstacles for a resource that may yet not be the solution to Europe’s energy problems.

Nathan: Why am I NOT surprised that France (and the EU in general) don’t want cheaper, dependable, long-lasting energy that they don’t have to buy and import from Russia, Norway, or the US or Arabia?  Sometimes I think that they must give a partial lobotomy to everyone at birth (or when they enter the country, except for Arabs who have seemingly been bred without frontal lobes).

Mama’s Note: The silver lining to that nasty cloud is the fact that the oil will still be there when the Luddites have all died of exposure and starvation, or whatever.

IMMIGRATION – Europe’s Collapse
The new Iron Curtain falls on Brenner
(L’Espresso) The pass between Austria and Italy is one of the fracture points of EU immigration policy: on one side, the Austrian police try by all means to block migrants who are headed north; on the other side, Italian agents happily shut one eye.

Nathan: How stupid can the media get?  And how did they forget the REAL Iron Curtain a mere 22 or so years ago?  What a stupid comparison, what a stupid attitude.  Although many libertarians disagree, I believe that good fences make good neighbors, and while people should cross “borders” freely, it should be an honest passage, and will truly work only when BOTH sides of the “border” are truly free nations, where liberty is the rule and not the exception.  That is not the case in either Italy or Austria, today, and the honesty of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people of the Balkans and Turkey and Greece is not a given: they are as much invading hordes as any movement of Muslims or wetbacks or Huns or Visigoths and Ostrogoths…

Islamic wars: Syrian/Arab Street revolt
Syrian Rebels Swap Crosses Atop Churches for Al Qaeda Flags

Nathan: Truth in advertising, or doing what Muslims have done for almost one and a half millennia: stealing the property of those that they reduce to dhimmitude (if they don’t outright kill them)?

In Face of Shutdown, Foreign Aid Continues
(Blue Hornet via Personal Liberty Digest) The State Department confirmed that foreign aid programs for the world’s poor will continue even as states are cutting local aid programs for America’s poor for want of funds. (See more here)

Nathan: Remember the old saying: “Charity begins at home?”  Not once the government has taken over the charity “racket” – usually in connection with the “official” mob  or political machines or just plain grafters and grifters and con-artists.  At a minimum, given the reaction that these people have gotten from this bogus government shutdown, and the failure of their attempts to take guns and ammo away from the ordinary, oppressed, and more and more brutalized peons in this nation, they want to make sure that they do a better job of having nice hidey-holes than the Nazis did.  Ain’t life wunnerful?

HOME FRONT: Breaking up ain’t that hard to do.
Red State Secession Looming?
(Pat Buchanan)

Nathan: This commentary points out some important information.  Buchanan can be a real pain in the tush, but he may not be far off this time.  All of the current secession movements in the news (Jefferson, North Colorado, West Maryland) are all on the state level: large populations are sick and tired of the Tranzis that dominate their state government and force more and more government down their throats.  But there are many movements for entire states to secede FROM the Union (or former Union, if you prefer), or large chunks of states:  Texas (always!) and Alaska are the two most prominent and with the most supporters.  But there are others, including New Hampshire and Vermont, Hawai’i, and Wyoming.  But I suspect that nominally and legally, the secession will be far more subtle and hard to deal with: a Claire Wolf “Hardyville” sort of thing.

Mama’s Note: You forgot to mention northern California! Even some of the “blue” states are breaking up. Good news, but as you indicate, it won’t really help much until each individual is ready to secede from the collective, rather than hope to form a new one that will suit him better.

Politics 2013: Shutdown
Cruz, Interrupted: ‘Seems That Obama’s Paid Political Operatives Are Out in Force Today’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Wonder if they got more than the $15/hour that the fake “government employees” got for protesting in DC last week, when not on their shift at the local McD’s?

Abominable Act (Obummercare) – Congress in action
Mike Lee on Obamacare: ‘We Must Stop It, We Must Defund It, We Cannot Accept It’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: There is more, of course:  it is NOT Congress that needs to take the most action: it is a LOT of individuals, in some form of the “Committees of Correspondence” to make it MORE difficult for the individuals to be dragged off to disappear into some form of rendition:  a refusal to pay their stupid game any longer.

Congress in action – Politics 2013: Shutdown
‘Non-Essential’: Harry Reid Shuts Down Own Office
CNSNews.com

Nathan: Gasp!  For once I agree with Harry Reid.  His office (and HIM) are totally non-essential even with 2+ million federal employees (not counting uniformed Constitutional military).  Why doesn’t he just go back to Nevada for good?

Europe’s Collapse – Culture wars: Killing babies
EU Measure Seeks to Declare Abortion a ‘Human Right’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: So, Europe continues to go downhill, morally and ethically – and in population (except for all the Muslims flooding the place).  Killing the innocent has long been considered a “right” given to kings, other royals, nobles, and the thugs who work for them, but now ANYone (or at least, any woman) has the right to kill an innocent person on a whim.  If this passes.

Mama’s Note: Nathan… any woman always could kill their unborn, and probably have for all of history, but most did not. Just as anyone can take a weapon, ANY weapon, including their bare hands, and kill anyone who can’t defend themselves – but most do not. Abortion is  no more terrible than any other murder, and just possibly not as demonic as some of the abuse and terror perpetrated on children down through that same history. And MUCH of that murder and torture have been condoned and even facilitated for some, all that time.

The fact that so many treat abortion, or murder by cop, so casually is only one factor in the fabric of human history, and can’t be resolved until individuals accept their own sovereignty and self responsibility. So, passing this “law,” or any number of “laws” against abortion will not really make much difference because it does nothing to change the hearts and souls of those for whom it is supposedly written.

Stupid people – Congress in action – Abominable Act (Obummercare)
Rep. Johnson on Reading the 10,535 Pages of Obamacare Regs: ‘Not My Responsibility’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Just whose IS it then?  No representation committed here, for sure.  More and more, these people come across as cunning enough, but inherently and impossibly stupid.  Tell me, does he really KNOW how to read?  And does he KNOW how to delegate?  A couple of congressmen together, with a few staffers, could break this down, analyze it, and put together a good summary.  And then (theoretically) this goofball could read it.  But no, not in the United States Congress!

Mama’s Note: Actually, that would just be a waste of time. I’ll give you a one sentence summary. It is funded through theft, and carried out via aggression. That’s all anyone needs to know to reject the Unaffordable Act… or any other act of Congress.

Theft by government
Feds Collect $56 Billion in Taxes in 9 Days of ‘Shutdown’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: And supposedly gave WHAT in return for this thieving?  We do not know, and they aren’t going to tell us.  But I can tell you this:  ANYthing we get doesn’t make this stealing acceptable, moral, or right.

Home front: TSA Thuggery
TSA Loudspeakers Threaten Travelers With Arrest For Joking About Security
(Police State USA via Infowars.com)  George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, TX (audio recording with related images and commentary)

“You are also reminded that any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest,” the loudspeaker message states. These new loudspeaker warnings remind us that the TSA continues to excel at indoctrinating Americans to be well-behaved prisoners via obedience training – reminding them that they can be disappeared if they dare speak out of turn, even in a humorous way.

Mama’s Note: Not that I consider “infowars” as a reliable source, but this illustrates just how desperate the goons have become.

Nathan: For your consideration: a major American airport in which this recording has been played hundreds or thousands of times a day for many, many months, through which 40 MILLION people pass each year – and yet is not reported except in the most doubtful of media venues, by a man and organization known for outrageous and outlandish claims.  And NO one objects or even comments or reports on it?  The recording sounds real, but then it could be faked for aggrandizement of Alex Jones and crew.  If this is a real recording, it does not just show desperation on the part of the thugs, but it shows how inured average Americans (and foreign travelers) have become to living and traveling as permanent suspects of the police state.  How much farther can these things go?

Mama’s Note: I didn’t even think about it not being reported in other media. A search turned up a few alternate and freedom type news sites reporting the UTube, most with comments. A good many bloggers covered the video and made their own comments. The MSM has pretty much ignored this sort of thing from the beginning, and that’s no surprise, but there isn’t a lot that gets past the bloggers. The links are all over a good many forums as well.

But I really think that each little item like this pushes a lot of people closer to the edge. The lady in the local Post Office – a staunch union member employee – was telling ME all about how stupid and destructive the “shutdown” was, even though it didn’t affect her job. She ranted for quite a while on the insanity of the coming stamp price hike and all the stupid “rules” they are saddled with. Shocked me to the teeth, I can tell you. When the government employees start to “get it,” the end is possibly in sight.

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Thoughts on the Passing Scene: Vanishing America

Posted on 2013-10-10 by TPOL Nathan

I (as always) have various discussions on a wide range of topics.  Here are several over the past few months to share with readers, and hopefully to generate some good discussion.  Many people are concerned about the way the America so many of us once knew is rapidly disappearing.

Moving towards socialism?

1.  A friend sent me several e-mails talking about how worried she is that we are moving towards socialism, and how recent decisions in DC and state capitols are leading that way.

Dear friend:  We already HAVE socialism; indeed the Sicangu and Oglala (two of the Lakota or Sioux Tribes in South Dakota, near where she lives) and the rest have had “socialism” since about 1851, certainly 1868 or 1877.  Eight generations now, and what has it wrought.  It is just that for most of us, the socialism is hidden, and given various names and disguises.

America – One big reservation?

2.  Yet another friend replied that we are going to be as bad off in a few years as all those folks on the reservations, who have had to put up with government for more than a century.

Dear friend:  The rest of us are also “on the rez,” where we can do nothing without massive government involvement and control.  Nero and Domitian never dreamed of the power that the guy at 1600 PA has.  We are just sliding into perdition: this is the end game: more and more things require more and more government actions, and the government actions get more difficult to comply with.  Just buying a piece of land, building a house, starting a business, even going to school or being hired for a low-paying job requires dozens of actions with and under the direction of the government.  Of multiple governments.  Today, the United States is one big reservation, and very few of us are able to slip through the fences and out of the chains.  Sometimes the imaginary ones are the hardest to get rid of, as the last fifty years have shown on the Indian reservations.

Whose responsibility is emergency preparation and response?

3.  I have been discussing issues of emergency response and preparation for disasters with another friend, and he related how he thought that was (and should be) the responsibility of governments, and that people could not do so on their own.  He cited biblical examples to try and prove his point.  In particular he cited Joseph and the preparation he convinced the Pharaoh of Egypt to do to prepare for the seven lean years.  He tried to contrast between socialism in which the government provides food and such to a bunch of welfare clients constantly, and government providing things in really bad, emergency situations.  Here is part of my response.

Dear Bob: I do not consider Joseph as a good example, certainly not of government.  The point you make is an excellent one as far as preparation, but Genesis tells us that Pharaoh (advised by Joseph) used the system to enslave the people of Egypt:  “never let a good crisis go to waste.”  I often point out, when teaching classes about Biblical History and Geography, that the Egypt in which Joseph grew up and then governed is the first detailed example we have of a powerful authoritarian (if not totalitarian) state – which four hundred years later at the time of Exodus had grown to be even more a monster.  It does show that people who do NOT heed God’s warning to care for one another will be preyed upon by those who would  control them, and replace the worship of God with the worship of the state.

But your point about preparation is good; one that people will (or should) pay attention to.  People can and DO prepare for disasters and crises by themselves and voluntarily with family and friends withOUT being required to do so by government, and without government involvement.  Indeed, government has largely destroyed the incentive for private individuals and groups to do that for themselves.  That is one reason that so many churches are losing their unity and willingness to help one another (as commanded and shown by example in the Bible):  they don’t have to do anything because the government is there to help!  But government (as with the Pharaoh) has ulterior motives in providing help: it gains power.  So we must look for OTHER ways to work together and prepare: voluntarily and as local as possible.  (See how the American Red Cross has become, in so many ways, just like government; Top driven and money hungry with the “servants” in charge.)

What has happened to churches in American life?

4.  This in turn generated another discussion, with several people.  Churches, which were once an essential and ubiquitous part of American society, seem to be dwindling in numbers, size, activity, and ability to carry out the traditional functions of religious congregations.  Why is this so?  Why are congregations no longer able to take care of their obligations to themselves, to their own members?  Here are my thoughts, condensed from long discussions.

Churches are obviously much weaker than in the past: part of this is caused by the huge distractions offered by modern society and culture and the economy.  Where it was once traditional for churches to assemble for worship and “prayer meeting” and classes two or even three times a week, today, there is NO evening that doesn’t seem to be taken up by some school or community or club activity, or by everything from going to the movies to having to work a second job to pay for all these activities.  In the past, you knew and saw and worked with the people that you worshiped with on Sundays and Wednesdays daily, your life was not so compartmentalized, and the church was a true community.  Today, the rest of the church is mostly someone you only see once a week, while your attention is concentrated on the worship (entertainment) being presented.  Even the scale of society has changed.

But the way we let things distract us, is in turn the result of thinking that spiritual things are not important:  the increasing emphasis on evolution and cultural diversity and truth as relative have led to this.  Materialism, more than ever, is dominant.  Churches are no longer important, because the spiritual is no longer important.  And because the needs that the churches once met are (in the eyes of most people) being met by other institutions: not just government (and government schools) but by the medical and health care industry, the entertainment industry (including sports especially), and all kinds of other businesses and organizations, many of which require NO commitment except your money.

Churches once saw themselves as having a few major functions, and society understood and accepted (and took advantage of) those functions:  to preach the Gospel to convert others and save their souls, and to teach and encourage and take care of each other (those already in the church) both spiritually and physically.  A community in New England or the South or the West might be made up of several different religious communities.  Those might disagree with each other and feud, but at the same time, they respected the limits and differences and did not let their conflicts become physical or so hateful that they could not function together in the larger community.  People with spiritual or emotional or physical (financial or health) problems went to the other members in their congregation, led by a preacher usually or by a group of “elders,” to get help.  And that help was provided voluntarily and freely for the most part – with perhaps fear of eternal punishment, but without a threat of “if you don’t do this government will force you to do it.”  But that has all pretty much gone away.  Today, those perceived needs are met by all kinds of other providers, most required to do so (and participation required) by law.

One more reason is that most churches separated themselves more and more from the community.  The pastor system meant that it was easy for a con man to become a “sky pilot” and become a parasite, not give.  In the past, under the common idea of tithing, a congregation of only 10-20 families could support a “parson” and his family who lived on the same general scale as the members, and provided not just preaching and teaching and counseling and assistance in time of trouble, but participated in the everyday activity of the church-cum-community:  helping farmers with their crops and animals, helping shopkeepers with business, and helping teach the children.  For smaller congregations, the evangelist might provide much of his own support by having a small business or farm of his own.  Contrast that to modern times, in which the “church” is a big business and the “pastor” is the CEO, with a salary and perks and prestige to match.  Today, it requires fifty or a hundred families to support the “pastor” and the “church building” and everything else, in part because the individuals give less and in part because the expectations of the “pastor” and “staff” are much higher.  As this has taken place, the church has gone from being a vital and essential part of the overall community to a weekly entertainment, a “first responder”  a few times a year for deaths and births and illnesses and assembly a few times a year for traditions like Christmas and Easter that seem to satisfy the “spiritual wants” of so many (who then wonder why their lives seem so empty and meaningless).  Claims by freethinkers and opponents, that the preachers and churches were just parasites, have become self-fulfilling prophesies.

There are, of course, many other reasons that churches are weak and inconsequential, but these are a few to think about.  And which can be changed:  the need to replace the services provided by evil government (and facilitating its evil) can be met by going back to the churches: to private and voluntary groups tied together by MORE than just physical needs.  Spiritual ties have always resulted in meeting not just spiritual but physical needs.  That is where churches have the advantage of insurance companies or civic organizations, and why successful civic and social organizations (from Boy Scouts to Shriners and Masons to labor unions) have almost always had some form of spiritual unity and elements:  man is a spiritual creature!  So the solution is simple: churches that return to their basics and stop trying to be businesses or governments.  And therefore displace the government and businesses and the materialism (“crass commercialism” and “politics”) that those organizations bring into dominance.

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