The following is a post of mine to a Web forum I’m a member of.
You know, it’s sad–between my day job, my on-the-side job, and with the emotion of the whole political atmosphere, I just haven’t been motivated or have the energy to post about anything else recently (can you tell?)
Maybe in a few weeks I can start blogging non-plolitical thoughts again. =)

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quote:
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Originally posted by Ambrose
Didnt it say that the bills concerning a draft were brought up by Democrats?

If they did it just to make a point, it seems a waste and crap politics. I hate to realize that politicians can just go around having their fun introducing things their voters arent aware of nor spoke for. Perhaps that falls under the voters responsibility of watching their reps.
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It falls under the concept that politics is crap, period. When I was in High School and would read The Congressional Records for speech & debate, I realized just how crappy politics was. They do things up there almost every day they’re in session that would make the average citizen go “wha’ the fuh’?!” Introducing the most rediculous bills and resolutions, adding the most insane amendments and riders. Politics sucks, and it’s being done by childish, selfish, arrogant, elitests, no matter what the Party.

One thing that kills me about the “He voted against this,” “He voted against that,” is that people don’t realize that just about every bill that goes through the House and Senate usually gets a rider on it, or something added to it that often has little to nothing to do with the bill in question.

So if Senator X. gets accused of voting against reappropriation of some weapon system, what people may not know is that some other Senator very likely may have added a rider to the bill to provide funding for some committe to study the effects of solar flares on Kansan field mice. So the Senator may be voting against that bill because of the rider, knowing that someone else will be submitting another bill for the same weapon system thing next session. And the funny thing, that Kansas mice rider may have been added seriously, by the Senator from Kansas, in an attempt to get some pork barrel money for a pet project, or he may have added it KNOWING it would kill the bill.

It’s politics, and politics suck! And the reason politicians do this crap is because we’ve failed to keep them in line before government became too big, unwieldy, and an entity of its own beyond the people. They are overreaching their Constitutionally given powers by proposing bills and resolutions that have nothing to do with their original mandate, and it’s gotten out of control.

Take just a minute and read the Constitution’s declaration of the powers and limits of Congress:
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec9.html
( from: http://www.usconstitution.net/index.html )

After reading that (it’s not long) tell me where the Government has the power to make even half the laws they do over us?
It seems to me that our federal government has WAY overstepped its bounds, and over the years of not caring we’ve allowed it. By allowing for career politicians, we’ve allowed it.

This is the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Sounds to me that the framers of the government meant for the Federal Government to have very limited, prescribed rights, and all else should be decided by the soverign states and the people themselves.

Read this part from the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

What they’re saying, and I completely agree, is that all men (and women of course) by default, have God-given rights and freedoms and liberties, and the purpose of government is to protect them. Not define them, not limit them, but to PROTECT them. Is our government doing that? Or is our government defining and limiting our rights and liberties?
In my oponion, our Government has become destructive of our pursuit of liberty and hapiness. And have wrested our consent from us. But perhaps we’ve allowed it….

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” — Wendell Phillips

We’ve stopped caring, stopped being vigilant. We let it happen. We have become complacent and let the government strip away our God given birthright of being free.

“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” — Somerset Maugham

We have come to value our comfort too much. We don’t wanted to be bothered with making our own decisions. Raise our kids? Let the schools and TV do it. Fainess and justice? Let the lawyers in our frivelous lawsuit decide that. How to live our life? Let the government decide that.

The reason we’re not currently safe? Our lives are threatened by terrorists? Because we stopped being vigilant and allowed our government to get us involved in places where we have no right to be. Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Middle East in general. And now we’re paying the price of what happens when we allow our government to run our lives for us. Our life is no longer secure, our liberty is no longer secure, and the only refuge we have is to find false happiness in the crap we’re spoon fed.

The Declaration of Independence doesn’t give us the right to revolt, we have the right to begin with! It makes it obvious to us that we are in control of ourselves, should be in control of ourselves, and the government should serve us, not the other way around.
And if this were pre-1900 you’d see me with a rifle in one hand and a printing press at my command striking up the cause to take our government back!
But revolt by the people is no longer possible. Modern technology has helped us cure small pox and has made the it impossible for the people to rise up against the federally controlled military. Short of a military coup in the name of the people, the best we can do is try to vote back some of our rights. Make our politicians more accountable. make the process of law making more transparent so that all can see the process happen and understand it.

By the people, for the people.
2008: http://www.lp.org/
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“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1759
For the curious and philisophically mature:

http://www.blackcrayon.com/
http://www.anti-state.com/
http://www.againstpolitics.com/market_anarchism/

I have to add, just like I’m compelled to say that I believe in God every time I denounce the Bible as literal fact, that while I’m a Libertarian and a somewhat anarchist, Robert A. Heinlein was an idiot, chevanist, sexist, asshole pig. =)
If you read enough Libertarian/anarchist Internet stuff, you’ll know why I have to make that statement. =)
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“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1759

http://www.nin.com/current/index.html
Just saw this today, Trent Reznor’s entry for November 4th.
To quote:
“one step closer to the end of the world. the one-two combo or corporate greed and organized religion appearantly proved to be too much for reason, sanity and compassion. it’s a sad and shameful day to be an american.”

OK, no, I’m not going to stop ranting about it. I can think of nothing else since, but the hypocrisy of America.

The more than half of the people who voted Tuesday who stated “values” as the reason they voted for Bush, can you not see the hypocrisy? Are you so blinded by one issue that you can’t see everything else that’s going on around you?

Exactly what “values” do you support in Bush?

Is it his greed and cronieism by instilling Cheney’s former Texan oil company as the only oil company to work in Iraq, with no competition?

Is it his arrogance and blind stubbornness by continuing to do the same thing in Iraq despite the billions of dollars it’s costing and thousands of lives?

Is it his tunnel-vision that made him not care a whit about al-Qeida before 9/11, hiring the former Reagan envoy to Iraq as his Secretary of Defense, before “terrorism” was an issue, and then giving up on al-Qeida after doing all he had to in Afghanistan to make an appearance before continuing on with the invasion of Iraq which he had planned before 9/11?

Is it his lack of compassion and care for his own Americans by giving lip-service to education and then cutting funding for education, cutting funding for his own “No Child Left Behind”, even before the Iraq war?

Is it his desire to help the rich by giving the biggest tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%, while supporting sending middle and lower class jobs to other countries?

Is it his lack of care for his citizens by being the 1st president in 100 years to have a net job loss during his term? Higher unemployment? Cutting the pay to military even in the middle of a war?

His dishonesty by lying and encouraging the intelligence community to lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to get us into war? His blind arrogance in starting a war without help from the world so that we can pay 90% of the cost and 90% of the “coalition” death toll? And help us become one of the most despised countries in the world even among the industrial nations?

Which of those values are so important to you? Are you so blinded by his “born again Christian” words that you ignore the actions? Are you so supportive of his trying to alter the Constitution to legislate his morality that you simply don’t care that education is the worst of any industrial nation? Don’t care that thousands are being killed needlessly and because of lies and deception? That our economy sucks and that millions of Americans don’t have health care while drug companies in Bush’s back pocket are getting richer?

The words mean more than actions??
Your hypocrisy makes me sick!

Someone actually said to me they were voting for Bush because “Someone needs to look out for us Christians.” What the heck kind of arguement is that for voting for President??
YOU look our for your faith. GOD for crimeny’s sake looks out for the faithful. Your preacher, pastor, rabbi, pope looks out for the faithful. Not the President. The President is supposed to look out for his country’s economy and safety. That’s it. And this president has screwed up or economy and has made us the enemy of the fundamental Islamic world. And hated by non-Muslems as well. Has painted a giant bull’s-eye on our country. You thought we were at risk before invading Iraq? You actually think you’re safer now that we’re even more hated by more Islamic groups and fanatical organizations than ever before??!

This “Christian” president doesn’t look out for you. He couldn’t care less about you. He cares about his Texan buddies. His rich fellows. His personal and special interests. The people lining his family’s pockets. His family “legacy.” He couldn’t care less about Christian values so long as he and his friends get richer, and America becomes a powerful world-wide empire.

“President Bush’s decisive margin of victory makes this the first presidential election since 1988 in which the winner received a majority of the popular vote,” said Card, referring to the White House victory by Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush. “And in this election, President Bush received more votes than any presidential candidate in our country’s history.”
–Bush Chief of Staff, Card

That, in my opinion, says something very sad about the US. That we’ve bought into the idea that a needless, illegal, immoral war upon a country that had nothing to do with our security is somehow more “right” than the fact we were taken to that war where thousands of innocents have and still will die because of lies and deception and arrogance and greed.

That the empty words of “Christian morality” from Bush somehow carries more weight than the evidence of his lies, arrogance, greed, and deception.
That we find it appropriate in this country to have a leader that wants to legislate his morality, make into law his personal moral bias, and we don’t mind having our lives controlled by another’s morality.

That we don’t care that our rights are being stripped away by using fear as the means to placate us.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1759

I am proud of my American heritage, I am proud and VERY extremely thankful to have been born in America, and above all else I am proud of the history of America (despite the Indian massacres and slavery,) but right now I am ashamed to be an American and to be connected to this country.

I could move to Canada which is a very likely possibility. Or stay and fight for change.
Interesting quote…

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of the government.”

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, from Paris, Jan. 30, 1787

I believe it was Franklin that said he preferred the word “Revolution” over “Rebellion,” and revolution implies a returning to an original state.

What has happened to our country? We celebrate our invading and occupying foreign nations, either to instill a tendril of our power into that area or to rape the land of their resources; we give up our liberties and rights without a fight; we listen to lies and lip service to morality while completely ignoring the actions that belie the message of the words.

I am ashamed, sick, and sad to be an american.