Live Free or Die Hard: The Great American Robbery

I am reminded of the old Bruce Willis movie, “Die Hard.” Not the sequels, just the original heart-stopping movie where the hero, John McClain, gets bloodied and shot up but still manages to, somehow, save the day. In the movie, the bad guy is accused of being a common thief, but claims to be an exceptional thief.

You see, he used misdirection, obfuscation, politics and even terrorism to accomplish his goal of robbing $600,000,000 in U.S. Bearer bonds. In order to do this, he had to fool the LAPD and even the FBI into believing he was trying to free his brother terrorists, and to believe he and his cohorts had died in the explosion he rigged in the “Nakatomi” Building.

The cover was perfect because he would actually live and walk away with $600 million dollars. Bruce Willis put a stop to his plan. He suffered bullet wounds, slashed feet, physical punishment and explosions, but he still survived, snatching victory from defeat with the last two bullets in his gun. A hero.

We are witnessing the same thing, without the popcorn, in our country today. The thieves are here, disguised as good-guys, pilfering and stealing our nation’s prosperity, covering it up with whatever means they can find, hiding it in “climate legislation” under the guise of “saving the planet” from global warming (sorry "Global Climate Disruption").

At risk are hundreds of billions of dollars, even into the trillions (a trillion is a thousand billion, folks) of dollars. These criminals even created an entire industry, the “Chicago Climate Exchange,” from scratch to fund their gigantic Ponzi scheme.

They make Bernie Madoff look like a saint.

His robbery was only in the range of $60 billion, theirs is at least ten times that much. America is being plundered for her money. The Progressives, including our president, lie to you every single day. They claim their plan is for the benefit of the poor, the down-trodden, the working stiff. It’ll move the wealth of this country from the “rich” to the “poor.”

Oh, it will definitely strip the wealth from any of the rich that are not in on their plans, but the money they steal will go straight into their pockets. It will not go to the poor.

Billions of dollars will flow into the ‘government’ and flow back out to corporate entities, unions and thugs. The poor are left out in the cold.

They are exceptional thieves.

Where is our hero, our Bruce, our John McClain? Where is the man (or woman) who will come to us in our hour of need? Our eleventh-hour savior. Is it you? Is it me? Is it someone we know?

We need a statesman that can lead our people instead of dictating to them. One that can cut through the muck and the crap and the mire, to find the last little nuggets of liberty that will let us live free.

... an open letter to the Congress of the United States of America ...

To the Congress of the United States and whomever else it may concern,

What in the world do you believe you are doing in Washington, D.C.? What is it that you think you were hired to do?

I can assure you, along with a majority of the citizens that pay your exorbitant and disproportionately high salaries, that it is not what you are actually doing.

The 'checks and balances' built into our system by our founders are being, not just ignored, but flagrantly violated without regard to results or consequences. You have allowed our President to run rough-shod over the Constitution of the United States, to step on the neck of private industry and the entrepreneurs that have lifted our nation to the top of the world, and to embarrass and denigrate our people to our allies and our enemies both here on this continent and abroad.

You must stop berating the conservative side of both houses as being the 'Party of No,' and become the 'Congress of No.' You must find, within yourselves, the fire of resistance and the intestinal fortitude to stand against the Progressive changes that are debilitating our nation.

You, as a single unit, must bring a halt to the Change that Mr. Obama and his revolutionaries are bringing. The Executive Orders must be stopped and further EOs must be ignored. The nation knows that these orders are not binding and are followed only because of tradition and respect. Mr. Obama is constantly ignoring any tradition that he cannot use to his advantage, and he has no respect for our laws unless they suit him. All "Czars" must be relieved of duty and sent back to their homes. No future Czars can be appointed, by any President, ever again. Appointing Czars runs counter to our system and reduces the power of Congress to ensure good order when crafting legislation. Mr. Obama believes himself to be inviolate and untouchable.

I assure you, he is not.

You can stop him. You must stop him.

You must stop him before our nation crumbles. Before his political police and sycophants reduce you to a facade, lock-stepped like stormtroopers walking on your former powers, and crushing our rights as citizens of the United States of America. Before our grandchildren awaken in a world where the future is a decision between government slavery and destitution with no hope of a better life.

Our future is bleak under the Progressive boots Mr. Obama and his cronies wear, but is bright under the Liberties outlined by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Some of you have made mistakes, and may have even broken laws or the public trust. I do not care. All I ask is that you stand up now, renounce the things you have done in the past, and strive to make America into the nation she can be. Prosperous, strong, and a place people come to escape the evil governments and regimes of their homelands.

Stand up, be strong and true to your roots, create a place, not where your children can excel, but where all children can succeed, regardless of their place or class and undivided by race, creed, color or any other artificial label.

If you do not do this, we will do it for you. America will be restored to its natural place on our world, leading from the front, spreading the prosperity and liberty that only Freedom can bring.

An Amendment ...

Proposed on the 23rd of April, 2010 c.e., an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Power to Tax, having been entrusted to the Men and Women of the Congress of the United States of America, shall be required of a 3/4th vote in each House in order to create, institute, impose, alter, raise, lower, or change in any fashion, or cause action that may create, institute, impose, alter, raise, lower, or change in any fashion, or through lack of action create, institute, impose, alter, raise, lower, or change in any fashion any tax upon the people and their businesses, corporations and other capital enterprises, either for-profit or not-for-profit or not-intended-for-profit or any other form of business. Nor may they compel, in any fashion at all, other government or private institutions, or personnel within those institutions, or any other entity at all, public or private, nor any people at all, to create, institute, impose, alter, raise, lower, or change in any fashion a tax.

All tax proposals that meet the requirements listed in the first paragraph shall contain only the proposed tax. No other attachments, amendments, or any other rider or earmark at all.

All tax proposals that meet the requirements listed in the first paragraph shall be in two forms, and these forms must consist of a legal form, which must comply with current legal standards, and a Layman's term version which explains exactly what the legal form means.

In essence, no tax proposal shall be too complex for the average American Citizen High School Graduate to grasp its meaning.

All tax proposals that meet the requirements listed in the first paragraph, shall be made available to every eligible voter in the United States of America, or anywhere on or off the planet Earth and within the Universe-at-Large, for at least 90 consecutive terrestrial days.

To be continued (and modified and deleted and rewritten and etcetera).

... Ramblings

I'm just an American madman, watching the current era with a heavy heart.

The Great Experiment has not yet failed, but it lies on the ground, stunned and frightened, wondering if it yet has the strength ... if its bruised and battered body can muster its will and rise again to defeat the Progressive onslaught that has hammered it so mercilessly. Does it ... do we ... have the physical or, more importantly, the moral courage to endure? Do we still have the inner Patriot that knows that what is happening and knows it is wrong and strains against the chains of Modern Radical Liberalism, for Liberty and Personal Freedom and love of life? Against the loss, not just for ourselves, but for the coming generations that will listen in wonder and disbelief when told that anyone with a will was free to succeed or fail based on the merit of their skills and talents? Where anyone, even the lowliest drudge, can become a billionaire, regardless of their nationality or religion. Anyone.

Will the stories of their parents and grandparents become the musings of old people, then fade to history, and finally out of existence forever? If you don't believe that this is what we are facing, here in the sunset an era, then you need to look at some history. You can still do that. At least for a while.

The Progressives are in charge. You can insert whatever term you want there. Liberal, Democrat, whatever you want. Its all the same today. They vote together, even if they disagree with their colleagues, they vote together. They are not free thinkers, but they are determined thinkers. They've been at this for almost one hundred years, give or take a few, and they have learned stealth and patience. A little nudge here, a quiet appointment there. Baby steps.

They have stepped up their pace, of late. The changes are no longer small, the appointments not so quiet. They've come out from hiding with the intent to bring us low, to steal our children's future, to ensure that they're way is the only way.

But ...

We've been down before. We have had the wind knocked out of our sails before, pushed to the dirt, humiliated. Empires have tried to destroy us, terrorists have tried to take us out, and we've always stood back up. Even after we went to war with ourselves, we came back better and stronger than before.

We've never faced a foe like this, with the power of our own leaders against us. Manchurian candidates. The welfare of the American people, that which the government is charged to protect, is in grave danger.

They have your "health care" now, and you'll only understand what that really means, you who are duped by the flowery words of the Progressives, when you look back and see it in the end, when it will be far too late. It means that, someday, sooner than you think, they will control the very intake of nutrients you are allowed to have. Your medical and civil records will be available to everyone from the McDonald's cashier to the bank. All they'll have to do is scan your National I.D. card.

They control the educational system now. Your money goes to your children's schools through the government, so they decide what your kids learn. The history is their version of history, with the distasteful parts removed to shield the kids from the terrible and dangerous ideas of our forefathers. Liberty and Freedom? Pfah! We apparently don't really need them, now that The Messiah President is here to take care of us. They decide, now that they control all of the money that a person can borrow for their "higher" education, what you get to learn. That means they control all education, from cradle to mortar board.

... But ...

We are Americans. We have done more for the people of this planet than any other nation in the history of the world. We have been beaten, but we have never given up, and we have never lost. Although we have never lived in the world of today, with its unique challenges and unrest, we have been here, politically, before, and we triumphed, in the end.

Whether we change our direction or not, is all up to us. Our decisions over the next few months will, in all likelihood, decide the far future of these United States. What we must do is ensure that our rights, given by a higher authority, are not lost to our children. We must do whatever is right, and necessary, to preserve our country and its culture for all the new generations.

A New World, Every Day ...

... it is true. Every day we progress beyond the day before, learning, discovering, opening new worlds. The problem is, we don't realize this. We don't recognize that little discoveries today will make gigantic differences to our world, changing it almost daily. We go on as if every single day will be the same. It won't. It will be vastly different. We need to ensure that, for the next few generations, freedom actually does reign, here in America.

How can this be done?

How can we save our country from the feelings of certain doom that seem to loom from almost every corner of our government, much less from every corner of the world.

The "Progressives" (or whatever they are calling themselves this year) are hell-bent on setting up the "State" that controls all, and the Republicans strolling along while the world changes around them ... damn, that sounds familiar.

I have asked myself a hundred times or more, how can this be done?

Can it be done?

I can't think of a single thing that Americans, once motivated to action, haven't accomplished. We can swagger if we want.

We've earned that for ourselves, at least for a little while longer.

American Ingenuity can do anything if we are motivated enough.

So, I guess the real questions are: What will it take to motivate us, and how can we keep all this from happening for another hundred years?

I can tell you one thing, jumping up and making radical changes isn't necessarily the best strategy.

If we manage, somehow, to retake congress, we must not change everything willy-nilly. We must examine a few recent laws (to begin with) and send that law to the Supreme Court for an acid test against the Constitution.

Can we do that?

We are the States (mine's Texas :) ... of course we can do that. I'm pretty sure we can go back and eliminate a whole boatload of crap from just the last two years just by the repeal process. We can probably kiss a bunch of the money goodbye, but I'd bet we can recover a lot of it (tied up in red tape or bribes).

We need to examine our world and craft an amendment to the Constitution to keep a tighter reign on the Federal Government.

Then we can build an ethical, well thought out solution to our current crisis before things go nuts.

Perhaps we can even face the changing world of the future with free and open eyes.

Trillions are interesting ...

They are! Do you know, really and without any kind of visual references, what trillions means? We can, usually with ease, imagine what a thousand is. It's ten one-hundred-dollar bills. One hundred thousand. It is a big number, but almost everyone can imagine it. We've been so completely exposed to a million that we can see it, even use it without really knowing what it is. A billion is almost as common. A trillion? Apparently a trillion is as common in political speech as a hundred is in daily speech.

Let's look at it sideways ... A hundred thousand, easy

A thousand thousand? Oh ... that's a Million.

A hundred million ... a hundred thousand thousand.

Billion? A thousand million! Wow, Can you really wrap your mind around a thousand million? A hundred thousand million is one hundred billion.

Holy crap. One hundred thousand million is a hundred billion.

A thousand billion ...

A thousand billion dollars is one trillion dollars. A thousand thousand million dollars. Cripes! A thousand thousand million dollars! According to some sources, the actual national debt is closer to one hundred-six trillion dollars (give or take twenty trillion, depending on the data used).

Sideways?

One hundred-six thousand billion dollars? A hundred-six thousand thousand million dollars?

Really?

Really?!?!

If the state of California is in debt for something like twenty-six billion dollars, and it is the most ... broke? The most broke state in the country, and if every state in this country was just as broke, the debt would be on the order of one trillion three hundred billion dollars.

The bailouts and the stimulus package are on the order of one trillion five hundred billion dollars.

I know, the numbers don't necessarily show all of the other variables, but it puts the whole thing in a strange perspective, doesn't it?

Playing well with others ...

I recently read an article in our local (online) newspaper by Mr. Dave McNeely that considers our recent political climate and the bad behavior of people in town hall meetings and the like

Why has our political discourse become so uncivil?

While the article was interesting, although I think differently than Mr. McNeely, I felt a need to share my opinion. That opinion follows:

Mr. McNeely,
I respect your opinion, and I can understand why you feel that way, but my ideas on this subject differ significantly from yours.

Playing well with others

While this is important, what one must realize is there is a key word used in that statement - with. In order to play with others, you must believe that they are with you. In today's political climate, the people involved are usually against each other, not with each other.

Opposition means what it says. They are on the other team. Our job is to make the other team lose. Conflict is inevitable, and since this is America, that conflict is usually spirited, boisterous and animated. It has always been that way, here, in America.

Without the essence of conflict, nothing can get done. There is a time for sitting and talking calmly, but the political process in America, when decisions are being made for millions or hundreds of millions of people, cannot be that time.

Today, almost every political process in this country is driven by diametrically opposing forces. When these forces meet, there is always conflict.

Be a student of history as well as philosophy. Americans have, for 233 years, used these conflicts to resolve their differences, both in the halls of congress and on the battlefield. If it were otherwise, this would still be a colony.

If we ever run out of political conflict, with its endemic shouting matches, we will cease to be a Representative Republic, and will instead be an autocracy, dictatorship, or nothing at all.