Thomas Paine Comes To Manhattan!!

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

I have a great surprise for you, Thomas Paine is coming to Manhattan.  You heard me right, the founding father and author of Common Sense Thomas Paine, portrayed by Bob Basso from California, will be in Manhattan at the Kansas State Student Union at 7pm on Wednesday September 2nd. 

Again, Here is the info:  Thomas Paine

Kansas State Student Union Grand Ballroom

7pm  Wednesday, Sept 2nd

 Cost: Free

There is not much time so tell everyone you know to come see Thomas Paine.  Below is a preview of his work:

 

Open Letter to the DNC

Open Letter to DNC by Edward Cline:

Jen O’Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee
democraticparty@democrats.org

Dear Jen:

A friend shared with me your letter to him about how evil and anti-democratic Americans are for exercising their First Amendment right to protest the lies and deceptions of the President and the Democratic Party about the health care legislation.

The truth is that the protesters are truly “grassroots,” not being guided, advised, or manipulated by nefarious powers behind the scenes. I took part in several Tea Parties over the last few months. No one asked me to. No one paid me to. I’m not being “funded” by anyone or by any organization. I took part because I do not want socialized medicine to destroy my liberty. I know of no one who has taken part in these protests who was acting as a tool of the Republican Party or an insurance company or some other Darth Vaderish entity, as Democratic propaganda asserts.

The truth is that the protesters are not “organized mobs, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion.” They have every right to shout down any politician who believes he can feed his constituents the same old pap of assurances, promises, and lies about the health care legislation and get away with it. That is what Americans have been told for decades, and they are tired of it. They are smart enough to see a snake in the grass — dozens of snakes in the tall grass of political obfuscation and in the self-serving rhetoric of venal politicians.

The truth is that there is a need for real health insurance reform — to get the government out of the realms of medical, health care, and insurance. In fact, out of the economy entirely. Nothing in the Constitution permits the federal government to take care of anyone. The Constitution exists to protect individual rights, the lives of individuals, their happiness and their property. But several Democratic and Republican administrations have usurped those restrictions and limitations. Americans are beginning to connect those dots. Just as Americans connected the dots in 1773 when they “disrupted” the cargoes of tea and tossed it into Boston Harbor. Just as they connected the dots in 1765 against the Stamp Act, and “disrupted” collection of that tax.

Frankly, I wish the Republican Party would take its name seriously enough to be more forthright in its applause of the “disruptions.” This is, after all, supposed to be a republic of free individuals, not a democracy of mob rule orchestrated by petit tyrants and professional looters.

More power to Americans if they can intimidate presumptuous, power-seeking, sanctimonious lawmakers.

You stated in your letter that “as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no ‘government takeover’ in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.” Who asked you to intrude on people’s choices in the first place? Why intrude, if you do not intend to take over the whole realm of health care? Who are you to care whether or not I like my insurance or my doctor? The only job of an elected representative or senator is to uphold the Constitution and individual rights. Period.

You state in your letter: “Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way.” What is this our business? I don’t own you, and you don’t own me. There is no such thing as a collective that can legitimately employ that adjective. There is just a collection of individuals, free to associate with each other or not. My business is not your business, or anyone else’s, except in voluntary association or trade. But that’s something the health care legislation would end — by chaining all Americans together in a work gang.

Speaking of distortions, how many millions of dollars has the DNC committed to defeating American opposition to slavery or servitude with smears, lies and glitzy TV ads? And speaking of intimidation, just who unleashed the troglodytes of ACORN, the AFL-CIO, and SEIU (a notoriously communist organization, with international links, of course) on Tea Partiers and others who protest the health care bill? You should warn those thugs: If attacked, we will fight back. Just as we did at Lexington and Concord, and at Bunker Hill.

Your party stooped to a new low when the President authorized an invitation to Americans to inform on each other if they overheard or read a breath of criticism of the health care bill. Well, that tactic certainly backfired, did it not?

Yes, it’s going to be a long, hot August. We, the new Sons of Liberty, will also stand strong together to expose the truth about the indentured servitude you are proposing.

Sincerely, and yours in liberty,

Edward Cline

It Has Begun: Democrats are now sending goons to the homes of dissenters. Mr. Mike Sola gave Senator John Dingell (D-Mich) a piece of his mind about the socialized medicine scheme at a town hall meeting. For his effrontery of asking the old statist questions he couldn’t answer, thugs appeared at Mr. Sola’s home in the dead of night. In the video posted here, Mr. Sola reminded Obama’s union thugs about all of the gun purchases earlier this year. Like a dog returning to its vomit, the Democrats are reverting to their old practice of using night riders to intimidate voters.

Obama’s Email Arrogance

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

Yesterday I sent this impertinent message to President Barack Obama when his staff sent me the invitation to inform on other Americans who criticize his and Congress’s plans to impose socialized health care on the country.

“The White House
flag@whitehouse.gov

5 August 2009

Dear Mr. President:

What is your definition of “fishy”? That it is odiferous? Bad-smelling? Unwelcome? Stinky? Ready to bury?

How dare you refer to Americans criticizing your socialist health and economic plans, and the facts they are bringing to light about your whole power-lusting, corrupt regime as fishy? How dare you threaten to abrogate their First Amendment rights?

Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You don’t want to be president of a nation of free men. You want to lord it over a nation of dependent troglodytes, ever grateful for the crumbs you throw them after you’ve eaten the cakes they created through productive work.

If anything can be described as fishy in this country now, it is your administration, and Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barney Frank, and the whole crew of your looting parasites.

So, flag this!!

Regards,

A real American and a genuine patriot.”

The key paragraph in the White House’s invitation is this:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors travel just beneath the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

This was preceded by two other interesting paragraphs:

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, ‘facts are stubborn things.’

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to ‘uncover’ the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

This announcement was posted by Macon Phillips (White House Director of News Media, go here for the career of this non-entity), but bets can be taken that the idea of inviting Americans to inform on each other is not flying too well at the moment, for undoubtedly the “in box” of flag@whitehouse.gov was almost immediately filled to overflowing with emails from outraged Americans, organized or not. This was not a good idea. Phillips and his handlers in the White House should have realized, given the genuine opposition across the country to Obama’s and Congress’s health care bill, that the reaction to it would have been overwhelmingly instant and “negative.”

What were they thinking? Perhaps, given that opposition, which has chiefly taken the form of what White House denizens have characterized as “disrupters” not tolerating the bromides and platitudes of elected representatives’ raucous town hall meetings about the proposed legislation, they are feeling desperate enough to try anything.

In addition to having the gall to quote John Adams, Phillips (or whoever wrote the invitation, it was probably a committee effort) also paraphrased Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” as though that reference to Gore’s discredited “scary movie” on global warming still had some currency among Americans. He also refers to First Amendment communications between bloggers and individuals as “scary chain emails” and videos as “percolating” on the Internet, chock full of “disinformation.” Facts, however, are not what the White House and its allies in Congress are conveying to the American public about the health care bill. They have launched, for the length of August up until Congress reconvenes in September, a campaign of disinformation not only about the contents of the bill, but against anyone opposed to the legislation, whether he is a Republican, a voter, or a blogger.

One might wonder where Obama and Company get their arrogance. They get it from the fact that the have gotten away with lies and disinformation for so long.

What is worrisome — and that is the kindest term I can think of at the moment — is that all the emails, friendly or not to the idea of informing on fellow Americans, can be collected and used somehow to punish or reward, whether or not the health bill legislation passes. Remember the outrage of the news media over President George W. Bush’s “lost” emails? Even the ever-loyal news media is stammering its reservations about the informant program.

Senator John Cornyn raises this issue in his letter to Obama about the impropriety of asking Americans to inform on others.

“Furthermore,” Cornyn wrote, “the collection of e-mails could amount to the White
House amassing various forms of personally identifiable information.”

Among other things, Cornyn posed this important question to Obama:

At the very least, I request that you detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in “fishy” speech.

It will be interesting if Cornyn gets an answer to any of his questions. Read the whole text of his letter here. There is some comfort in seeing that not all politicians are clueless or indifferent.

But, make no mistake about it: If Obama and Company are willing to stoop to so low a tactic as inviting Americans to inform on each other, even in “casual conversation,” what else would they be willing to do? Aside from all the lies and disinformation conveyed to the public over the last six months about not only the health care bill, but about TARP, the cash for clunkers program, and even Harry Reid’s pet project, a magnet-train link between California and Las Vegas (!!!), this tactic reveals the core, evil soul of Obama and his supporters in and out of government in their quest for total power. Germans were asked by Hitler to inform on their fellow Germans, and tens of thousands of Germans wound up in work camps or concentration camps.

Will Americans follow suit, or are there still enough of us alive to put a brake on our march to fascism?

America’s Mobocracy

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

There are three overlooked or un-emphasized facets of the Obama administration and Congress’s breathless rush to seize everything in the country that is not nailed down — health care, car production, the used or “clunker” car market, executive pay — the list may prove to be endless, and there may be nothing that is not nailed down exempt from their avarice. These facets should be the principal foci of critics to the point of obsession.

A minor facet of the Obama administration itself is the Chicago “gangster government” character of his White House staff and his cabinet and departmental appointees. Not all of his appointees are from Chicago. They just have that odor about them, of professional political parasites who have scurried in and out of sight and up and down the totem pole of Washington politics over the years as their chosen career choices, to a soul advancing or pimping for collectivism, most of them never having worked a productive day in their lives. Heading the list is chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, who has all the charm and savvy of Meyer Lansky. (One can legitimately wonder if the grandfather of “community organizing,” Saul Alinsky, and Lansky traded pointers on political activism. They were Chicago contemporaries.)

The President and his wife, Michelle, of course, live like royalty and behave like it. There are the appointed thirty-two “czars” lording it over the American economy, and then there are Michelle’s twenty-two staffers who aid her in her “social” life, all of whose salaries are paid by taxpayers — not all of them in Chicago.

The first major facet is that, if there is a crisis in any realm over which the government seeks to expand its power to control, the problem can be traced to government controls in the first place. The minuscule, hardly noticeable controls of yesteryear, when men wore handlebar moustaches and labored to write laws in un-air-conditioned chambers, have grown into a forest of lacerating rose bushes without the benefit of roses. This facet has been admirably dwelt on by better analysts than me, but it has not been emphasized by Tea Party organizers or critics to the level it deserves. It does no good to be preoccupied by cost analyses and projected debt and the like, if they are not accompanied by the moral argument. After all, if mere facts had the power to persuade the minds of our governing elite, why are they so immune to and proof against those facts?

If emails, faxes, hand-written letters, unruly townhall meetings, and demonstrations outside of legislators’ offices and the like are beginning to cause some Senators and Congressmen to think twice about the feasibility of their grandiose plans to transform the country from a republic of free individuals to a highly policed and costly hospital regime, forcing them to acknowledge the role of force and fiat law for the “public good” and how that presumptive power has exacerbated existing problems or has simply created them out of whole cloth, ought to underscore the unlikelihood that if they vote for the hospital regime in any form, they in turn will be voted out of office. Our elitist cadre will be obliged to contemplate being forced to make a living in the private sector which they once presumed to “manage,” but which their actions have helped to tie into several Gordian knots.

The second facet is that when the White House and Congress prescribe socialism (a.k.a. “progressivism”) and legislate to that end, they do it for free. It costs them nothing. They do it with taxpayer money. And, whatever destruction they cause, they are indemnified from the consequences. Ted Kennedy will die without ever having been punished for his crimes. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer and Henry Waxman will return to California and live the high life on a pension and enjoy health care packages few productive persons could ever afford. Barney Frank and Bernard Bernanke will fade into comfortable retirements and, like Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, embark on lucrative speaking careers. Barack and Michelle will traipse back to their Chicago mansion on a pension, as well, and begin to solicit donations for the Obama Presidential Library.

This will ever be a conflict between the “governed” and the government for as long as fiat powers are sanctioned or tolerated by the electorate. It is an unfair contest between the government and the electorate. Those who advocate and pass laws destructive of freedom, property, happiness and the ownership of one’s life, work on the money extorted from those who are the subjects or targets of the destructive law. It is time that the thinking electorate woke up to this rigged game and forced the culprits to acknowledge the fact, as well. Think of it: It cost legislators nothing to regulate or ruin your life. You, on the other hand, must, with countless others, invest time, effort, and money in opposing their plans, besides paying their salaries and getting the check for all their fringe benefits, including first-class health care. And you invest your time, effort and money with no guarantee that it will accomplish anything. Ayn Rand called it the “sanction of the victim.” General Patton might liken it to supplying Nazi artillery and Panzer tanks with ordnance with which to blast advancing American forces.

The culprits should be forced to stammer transparent irrelevancies and more obvious lies, and plot to rush undetected from home to office and back again, to avoid being cornered by the citizenry’s cattle prods and pitchforks. They should be compelled to feel, for once, powerless, redundant and extraneous. They should be forced to feel mean, small and despised beyond redemption and reclamation.

The third facet concerns the motivation behind all the coercive legislation passed, most recently under the reigns of Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, and now Bush III (a.k.a. Obama). Tea Partiers should make the key connection between “reform” of the health care system (or of “reform” of anything that attracts a Congressman’s attention, for he has nothing else to do in Washington or a state capital or a municipal headquarters but to think up “crises” needing “reform”), and the compulsory nature of such “reform.” Why would politicians bother with “reform” if force were not the key ingredient in the “reform”? There would be no point in their debating “reform” if they did not assume they would have the power to coerce everyone into participating in it. They are not working to extend liberty, but to put fetters on it or to extinguish it altogether. Be warned: Any “compromise” between the Blue Dog Democrats, the Republicans, and the Democrats must by necessity retain the element of coercion, no matter how watered down or conciliatory or “humane” they word the compromise.

Further, the element of coercion or legalized extortion in such legislation should be the main tip-off. Tea Partiers should ask: If the proposed legislation is so efficacious and practical, why, for all the puffery about it being voluntary, would it rely on force? Why would its advocates insist that participation be made mandatory? A secondary tip-off is the fact that those proposing or voting for such legislation notably ensure that they are exempt from all its provisions. Organizers should ask themselves: If this idea is so good, why do Congressmen keep their distance from it? Why do they not want to take part in what they wish to force everyone else to participate in? Is there something so seriously wrong with it that they no more would want to buy it than they would a used car from Richard Nixon?

Yes. There is something wrong with it. The element of force guarantees its impracticality and its character as a moral and economic fraud — just as robbing a bank or a 7-11 is immoral and an impractical way to “make a living.” Waxman, Pelosi, Dodd, Obama, Frank and the rest of the “progressive” crew, all know this. They are not idiots. The only village idiots party to the fraud are those members of the news media who shill for the plan with looks of urgency — an urgency that does not dwell on the insidiously evil aspects of the plan, chief among which are its compulsory provisions.

Democratic Thuggery Directed at Peaceful Tea Party Demonstrators

Last week Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) held what was laughingly called a “town meeting.” Two members of Obama’s cabinet, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Energy Secretary Tom Vilsack, were also at the meeting. Their purpose was to drum up support for the administration’s prosperity killing “energy” programs. The interesting thing is that this meeting was held on private property. The obvious purpose of this was to prevent citizens from asking critical questions. Here is a report of what happened from the Danville Tea Party:

BLAIRS, Va. – Danville TEA Party leaders Nigel Coleman and Bobby Conner Saturday attended a local town hall meeting featuring two presidential cabinet members and hosted by Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., where they were refused an opportunity to ask the congressman a question and were then told by a plainclothes policeman to leave the property after they attempted to hold up signs urging Perriello to vote against a government takeover of healthcare. The TEA Party activists peacefully complied, but say an unmarked police car then followed them to a local restaurant where an officer left his vehicle, walked over to their cars, and phoned in their license plate numbers.

The event was held on a privately-owned farm in Blairs, Va. and featured Perriello, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Energy Secretary Tom Vilsack, all of whom talked about creating “green” jobs and the recent Cap and Trade bill.

Perriello, Chu and Vilsack illustrate the type of power worshipping scum now in control of this great nation. Another blogger in the Danville area is happy about how these patriots were treated by their alleged representatives. As Mr. Jim White commented:

Third, it is doubtful Conner or Coleman even understand the health care reform issues at stake, or they wouldn’t be calling it “socialized” medicine.

I respect your rights to protest [Unless your rights conflict with the Alinsky play book], but you need to understand the limits and the rules of the game. Until you do, you will be marginalized [By goons with automatic weapons] and therefore ineffective.

Clearly under the rule of the Obama/Pelosi gang, the First Amendment is no longer “the rule of the game.”

Closer to home, Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-Missouri) district office called the cops on peaceful demonstrators last week. As Gateway Pundit reports, McCaskill’s office rats locked the doors and refused to speak to any of the senator’s constituents. When the police showed up, the office rats lied by saying they had been threatened. That’s funny coming from those who threaten the American people’s life, liberty and property in their every waking hour.

The New Tea Parties: An Overture to Reclaiming Our Lost Freedom

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

This is an adaptation of an address I will make at the Richmond, Virginia Tea Party on July 25, 2009:

First, some background. On December 16, 1773, Bostonians and other locals roughly dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded three American merchant vessels in the harbor, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver recently arrived from Britain with 342 chests of tea, and tossed the chests into the harbor. The tea nominally belonged to colonial American consignees, by appointment by the British East India Company (two of them sons of the royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson). The Tea Act of 1773 replaced the repealed Townshend Act duties on other commodities, and gave the East India Company a legal monopoly to hire other merchantmen to take the tea to North America.

The three-pence per pound tax remained on the tea. This tea would have been cheaper than the Dutch tea being smuggled into the colonies, even with the tax, which the colonial American consignees were obliged to pay. Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty put pressure on the consignees to not pay the tax and order the tea back to Britain. Hutchinson, however, persuaded the consignees to stand firm. (His salary was derived from import duties and other taxes.) The customs officer refused to allow the vessels to leave the harbor without paying the duty.

The impasse had to be resolved, one way or another. The Crown or the patriots would need to give in. The Crown’s position was the status quo, and inaction. So the Americans took action, the only action open to them if they were to remain loyal to their convictions: they destroyed the tea as a demonstration that they would not pay the tax or submit to arbitrary Crown authority.

Lord North, prime minister, after receiving news of the Boston Tea Party and the actions of Americans in New York and Philadelphia, was faced with a dilemma linked to that authority: Use it, or lose it. He chose to use it, against the advice of some of his subministers, but in timid concordance with the outrage expressed in Parliament. He endorsed the Coercive Acts; that is, he agreed that reason must be answered with force. Of what use was power, if it were not exercised?

Why did the Americans decide to trespass on the three vessels and destroy their tea cargos when not only would they not have to pay the tax, but have cheaper tea, even when its retail price would have reflected a small percentage of the tax? Was it a matter, as some historians claim, of the legal, taxed tea underselling the illegal, smuggled tea? Did the patriots act on emotion, or on principle? Did they know, as apparently Lord North did not, that such an action would set in motion a course of events that would lead to war and independence?

Because the consignees were American, and because none of the colonies was represented in Parliament, it was a matter of taxation without representation. However, it was more than a matter of political principle. It was the application of a moral principle. If the colonists sanctioned the tea tax by paying it, it would be an acknowledgement that the Crown had a right to tax them on any commodity or service. The tea was merely a symbol. It could just as well have been any other commodity formerly covered by the repealed Townshend duties: glass, nails, or paint. The colonists did not grant that sanction over their lives. If they recognized the Crown’s authority to tax them, the wisest among the colonists pointed out, that authority could just as well in time be extended over every particular of their lives.

The original Tea Party was a revolt against the power of government to regulate one’s life and dictate how it would be conducted and at what price. It was an affirmation by the colonists that they owned their own lives, and retained the right to delegate necessary political power to their elected representatives. It was an affirmation of the moral principle that no government had a right to dispose of or expropriate one’s property, and, by implication, one’s life. All political principles — good or bad, pro-freedom, or socialist, or fascist — are grounded on specific moral principles.

One ostensive difference between the original Tea Party and the Tea Parties of 2009 is that while the Americans who took part in the original Tea Party disguised themselves as Indians to prevent identification by the authorities, we, the new Sons of Liberty, do not disguise ourselves to protect our identities. We dare any authority to take action against us for exercising our First Amendment right to free speech, which includes criticizing our government and accusing it of behaving like George III and Parliament.

The Crown’s response to the Boston Tea Party was to legislate the Coercive or Intolerable Acts as punishment. Today, the current administration, in partnership with Congress, has passed, and continues to pass, a Medusa’s head of acts vastly more extortionate and repressive than the original Coercive Acts, and the Tea Parties have been a response to them.

It is time for Americans to understand that it is not merely a political fight they have on their hands, but a moral one. They must reject the moral code that asks them to live for the sake of other men — what else could TARP, or the takeover of General Motors, or of the tobacco industry, or of the energy industry, of the insurance industry, or of the health care business mean, but for you to sacrifice your right to your life and your money and property for the sake of others — and proudly, loudly proclaim the selfish virtue of individual rights, which has been the source of all the wealth and prosperity that we enjoy but which Obama and Congress seek to destroy through socialist redistribution.

Americans must understand that what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence applies no less today than it did in July of 1776. To paraphrase his eternal words: When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object — which is complete control of the economy and our lives — evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is our right to throw off such government — or to vote its agents out of office, or to raise such a protest that they dare not act lest they set in motion a similar train of events.

To further paraphrase Jefferson’s words: A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the president of a free people. Our princely president has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit for the office.

Let us not treat this day, or any future Tea Party or any other kind of protest, as just another tea party. Let us solemnly regard it as a chance and a first step to finish the American Revolution, to protest the omnivorous and indiscriminate appetite of federal power to consume everything in its path, to assert the right to our lives and property and futures, to work on a course of action that will ultimately correct the errors present in the Constitution and repeal its freedom-destroying amendments. Americans must act to finish the American Revolution — before Obama and Congress finish this country.

Why Yes, They’re Evil

Disgraced ex-judge Alcee Hastings can hardly wait to throw his political opponents into concentration camps. As the Washington Examiner reports:

Rep. Alcee Hastings – the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled – introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states’ rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: “This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as ‘extremists.'”

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up “not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations” capable of housing “a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster.” But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps “to meet other appropriate needs” – none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

I wonder if Hastings plans on transporting his victims in boxcars, with a shower at the end of the trip. This could be why the Democrats can hardly wait to empty Gitmo. Progressives are master of projection. They spent eight years attacking Republicans for the Patriot Act. They spent eight years attacking George W. Bush for allegedly planning to gut the Bill of Rights. And when the Democrats get into power they set out to do everything they accused the Republicans of. H.R. 645 is the fruit of Hate Crime legislation that has wide support on the left. Everyone they hate will now be declared a “domestic terrorist.”

Update: Yes, very evil. The anonymous reporter Zombie provides this expose on what passes for science in the Obama Era:

“Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.”

Here is just one quote from Holdren’s Mein Kampf:

“If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.”

Just another reminder that the eugenics movement of the twentieth century was a respectable Progressive cause; just as today, it’s a respectable environmentalist cause. The above quote should be read with the so-called Cap and Trade bill in mind. The book in question is titled: Ecoscience. Its call number is: HB871 .E35 1977. The K-State university library has a copy, but it is checked out. I’ll be checking it out next.

Thanks To Everyone

I would like to thank everyone who attended the Manhattan Tea Party today at City Park. There will be announcements here on future events.

Thanks also to everyone for sitting through my talk! [Transcript here]  I began by giving a brief account of the Revolutionary War adventures of Sgt. Joseph Plumb Martin who served in the Connecticut Line for almost the entire duration of the war. Many years later he wrote his memoirs on his seven years of service in Washington’s army.

For those interested on more information about Martin, please read my review of his memoirs that was posted at the Michigan War Studies website and, by all means, read his book.

 Grant Jones

Party Like it’s 1776

Cartoon strip “Diversity Lane” by Zack Rawsthorne:

Zack Rawsthorne was interviewed a few days ago by Kansas State University grad student Paul Ibbetson on his radio show The Conscience of Kansas.

In Manhattan we’ll be getting together at City Park on 14th and Poyntz. The festivities start at noon; speakers will begin at 1:00.

For those not in the Manhattan area, check at this website for the locations of Tea Parties around the country. It’s time to take action to stop the systematic destruction of what’s left of freedom in America. Party as if your life, liberty and property depends upon it. It does.

Patrick Henry Lit the Fuse

On 29 May 1765 Patrick Henry presented to the Virginia House of Burgesses seven Resolutions in protest of the recently passed Stamp Act. These Resolutions are known as the Virginia Resolves. There were seven Resolutions, of which five were passed by the Burgesses. However, the very next day the Burgesses repealed the five one. After achieving his purpose, Henry had left Williamsburg for home, leaving the field open to his political opponents. The fifth Resolution stated:

Resolved therefore, That the general assembly of the colony, together with his majesty or his substitute have in their representative capacity the only exclusive right and power to levy taxes and impositions on the inhabitants of this colony and that every attempt to vest such a power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the general assembly aforesaid is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British, as well as American freedom.

The previous four Resolutions boldly asserted that the colonists retained all the rights enjoyed by Englishman still living in England. Henry further argued that the Royal Charters upon which the colonies were founded guaranteed such rights. Therefore, Henry argued, only colonial legislatures had the power to impose taxes upon the colonists. The sixth and seventh Resolutions that were not passed were even more radical. They proclaimed that the colonists were not legally obligated “to yield Obedience to any Law or Ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them.” And that anyone who attempted to impose such taxes “shall be deemed an Enemy to his Majesty’s Colony.”

Note that these Resolutions are not written in a manner of supplicants begging for privileges, but of men demanding respect for their rights. In his speech in the Burgesses, Henry is reported to have stated, “Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus. Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third….” At this juncture there were cries of “treason…treason” in the Burgesses. Henry simply continued, “may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!

The Resolves were reprinted in numerous colonial newspapers. They had an electrifying effect upon the other colonies, particularly Massachusetts. While recovering from an illness a leading Patriot of that colony, Oxenbridge Thacher wrote, “They are men! They are noble spirits. It kills me to think of the lethargy and stupidity that prevails here. I long to be out. I will go out!” He had company.

On the morning of 14 August 1765 the people of Boston awoke to witness a dramatic occurrence. An elm tree, at the corner of what is now Washington and Essex streets, had received the attention of the local Sons of Liberty. Hanging on what became known as the Liberty Tree was an effigy of Andrew Oliver, stamp master of Massachusetts and notorious tory. After a little persuasion, Oliver decided he no longer wished to continue as an enemy of liberty and resigned his position. The British repealed the Stamp Act in March of 1766. But this was only the first round; hell is not easily conquered.

The American Revolution and the Politics of Liberty by Robert H. Webking provides an excellent account on the ideas of James Otis, Patrick Henry, John Dickinson, Samuel Adams, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He also provides an incisive overview of colonial views on liberty.

Sparrowhawk is a series of six novels on the American Revolution by Edward Cline. These novels depict the events leading up the Revolution by dramatizing the revolution that had to first occur in men’s minds in order for the political Revolution to be possible. These books are more historically accurate than much of what passes for history in classrooms of contemporary America.

Grant Jones