In this day and age, the word “irony” has lost it’s value as a lexical item.   It’s misused in popular culture and by all but the best educated scholars.  No, rain on your wedding day isn’t ironic.  That’s just crappy weather.  Snow on your global warming protest day (during which you’re probably planning to prance around Washington with a bunch of signs that are really bad for the environment), however, is ironic.  It’s also exactly what the liberal enviro-fascists who put America’s first true blue socialist president since Kennedy in office deserve for trying to force their agenda on the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the warm, fuzzy, sort of vague notion of “the environment” as much as the next guy.  I just happen to have paid enough attention to the Discovery Channel when I was like 12 years old to know that “global warming” is a bunch of bull.  For one thing, the climate of the Earth was far hotter millions of years ago than it is today, but I don’t see anybody screaming about humans causing global cooling since the day our species first diverged from some kind of monkey and learned to walk upright.  The long term trend towards global cooling can be easily explained by phenomena such as the Earth’s atmosphere thinning since the planet’s early days, the earth slowly but surely moving away from the Sun and the Sun slowly cooling.  During this long trend towards global cooling, the Earth has had some periods of relative warm temperatures and some periods of relative cold temperatures.  A few years of slight warming is nothing to worry about and a cold, snowy winter this year is proof that it’s all cyclical.  The information that’s always cited about the polar ice caps may or may not be true (Nick, can you help me out here?).  I do know that glaciers like the one in Glacier National Park are melting, but shouldn’t we expect that thousands of years after the end of the last major ice age?

Let’s face it–enviro-fascism isn’t good for much other than forcing decent people to comply with retarded regulations and red tape.  Oh, and demonstrating the real meaning of the word “irony” at the expense of a bunch of misguided hippies.

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There is a push on the part of some politicians to institute a national service program that would make all young people serve in whatever capacity the government approves. I’ve heard the pitch being made that the government should give young people the “opportunity” to serve their country, but this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. First off, volunteerism should focus on helping your fellow man, not the government of whatever nation state you happen to inhabit. Secondly government programs like the Peace Corps already exist, so there are plenty of opportunities for young people to work for government bureaucracies if that’s what they wish to do.

I have no problem with charitable giving of time and money to help improve the health, education, and general cleanliness of a neighborhood. In fact voluntary community service is in my opinion one of the most noble things that Americans do with their free time, and they already do it. Every day American volunteers participate in Big Brothers Big Sisters, their local volunteer fire department, food banks, toys for tots, and thousands of other efforts to help those in need around them.

All of this doesn’t change the fact that mandatory civilian service is no less repugnant than a military draft. What is so reprehensible about conscription is that it presupposes that the state essentially owns you and can force you to labor for them. They get to decide how many months or years of labor you must render to the state, and this is incompatible with the notion of individual liberty in a free society. It also takes all the joy out of the idea of community service. Someone who is forced to serve is not a volunteer motivated by the better parts of human nature, but rather a peon who goes through the required motions to avoid jail or the loss of government privileges.

The notion that the people owe a debt of service to the ruling class is a very ancient one that should have died along with the feudal notion of the divine right of kings. The people should be free to contribute to society in the way that they feel is best. A young person working hard to build a career is not only improving their own station, but rendering some kind of service to their employer and the customers of that employer. They should not be forced to pick up litter for 20 hours a week if they feel that their time is better spent becoming a more productive member of society through building a career.

The idea that people owe a debt of service to a government which already demands a large portion of their income, and which has incurred so much debt in the name of the people as to endanger their future prosperity is an absurd one. The American people have shown themselves to be very charitable and generous with their time despite the high taxes that they pay to support bloated bureaucracies that are supposed to be addressing the problems that are tackled by volunteers.

Encouraging people to volunteer to help solve social problems is a great idea, but national service seeks to make people servants of the state, rather than volunteers giving freely of their time and money.

Barack Obama has appointed former EPA administrator Carol Browner as his adviser on energy and climate change, the so called ‘climate czar’. Browner was listed as one of 14 leaders on the website of Socialist International, supposedly working for “a sustainable world society”. The people at SI are died in the wool Marxists who believe in an international dictatorship of the proletariat. What did you expect? The secret Muslim charge was just a neocon smear tactic, but Obama is more of an avowed socialist than a secret one, and the fact is that socialist leaning politicians have been behind the big push to get alarmist global warming views into the mainstream.

I am scared for this country when we have a president filling his cabinet with reds, and the youth seem to be behind it because the previous president was perceived as something of a power hungry control freak. Bush was a very bad president and a very bad man IMO, and there was some validity to labeling him a ‘fascist’, although to seems to me there is far more validity in labeling Obama a socialist or Marxist even in this early stage of the game.

For those of you who think that socialism is the answer to global warming, I hope you are paying attention to all the news out there, and not just what’s spoon fed to you. If you think the arctic will become ice free in the next couple of years, you may have missed this report about sea ice being at the same levels in December 2008 as the were in December 1979. You may also have missed the fact that Antarctic sea ice has been on the increase over the last couple of decades. Those who would like to turn America into a socialist state may need to find a new justification, and it is my sincere hope that they will continue to be exposed for the anti-constitutional subversives that they are and fail in their mission.

In the United States, it has not been politically popular to criticize the state of Israel for the tactics it uses against the Palestinians, no matter how deplorable those tactics are. After all, we are led to believe that all the blame for the unrest in the middle east lies with Islamic extremist groups like Hamas, and that to criticize Israel is to side with these radicals. The fact of the matter is that many thousands of innocent displaced people are trapped in Palestine under a state of military siege. Israel has taken a hard line over the years and has been reluctant to compromise on issues like Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. Israel does not hesitate to use overwhelming force to settle these disputes. The recent violence in the region has finally led some Americans to become vocal critics of the way that Israel treats the Palestinians.

The modern State of Israel was born in 1948 as a homeland for the Jewish people who had been persecuted and nearly exterminated completely in Europe just a couple years earlier. One of the reasons that people will use as a justification for the foundation of Isreal as a “Jewish state” is the fact that it was the historical homeland of the Jewish people before the diaspora, and that the land was promised to them by God. That sounds nice, but what about the fact that before Israel was chartered as a Jewish majority state, Arab Muslims were the majority of the population and had been for centuries? There is an extremist ideology on the Israeli side called Zionism and it is nothing short of militaristic nationalism tinged with tones of religiosity and in my opinion it is not much more enlightened than the Jihadist ideology.

I believe that the state of Israel does have a right to exist, and that both sides need to compromise and forgive and forget if there is ever going to be something like peace in this part of the world. A good first step would be for Israel to acknowledge the fact that there is some similarity between the horrible conditions in the Palestinian “refugee camps” and the ghettos and camps to which Jews were subjected in Europe. That isn’t to say that Israel is pursuing a campaign of extermination like the Nazi’s, but it is to say that a nation founded by holocaust survivors should be more sensitive to the plight of an oppressed population. The phrase “never again” should mean never again to any people, not just “never again” to the Jewish people. Certainly there are many Israelis who disagree with their country’s treatment of the Palestinians. There are many good people on both sides who just want to find a way to live in peace and dignity with those on the other side.

Some American readers may agree with me but are asking how this is any of our business. Why should we be involved in what is obviously a long running fight over the holy land. My opinion is that the US government should not be involved, but it is. The United States gives billions in aide to the state of Israel every year, and cooperates with the Israeli military in areas like training and logistics. The US government been a party to this conflict for decades and because of this, many people in the world see the US as endorsing Israel’s methods in the current conflict. Usually you’ll hear the Secretary of State make the obligatory call for restraint on the part of Israel, but regardless of what Israel does in this offensive it knows it can rely on continued financial aide from the United States. Personally, I oppose foreign aide in general, because it does mean that US tax dollars flow into foreign conflicts around the globe. I think that withdrawing our aide from not only Israel, but other middle eastern states like Egypt who receives almost as much as Israel, would be a good place to start. Israel has a right to self defense in my opinion, but it should not be subsidized by American tax payer money.

Some people will make the allegation that simply by criticizing Israel in this article, I am somehow anti-semitic. Indeed I did make mention of a “Jewish state” which is what the state of Israel declares itself to be, but that doesn’t mean that I harbor any dislike of the Jewish people. Israel is a nation state, and the opinions of it’s citizens are not homogeneous. In the same way that not all Americans supported the War in Iraq, not all Israeli’s support the occupation. It’s also important to remember that not all Israeli citizens are Jewish. There are a lot of Muslims and non-Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who hold Israeli citizenship, and not all Jews are Israelis. There are also many Jews in the US, Europe and around the world who are not Israeli citizens. I’m not trying to place blame on the Jews or for that matter the Muslims or Christians. There has been too much stereotyping and groupthink on this issue, and that is precisely what keeps the conflict going. Both sides need to recognize that there are individuals in the opposing camp. It’s more difficult to conduct a suicide bombing or an air strike when you see the targets as individual people and not Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, or Muslims.

In my opinion, this is an example of how government and political power create animosity and fuel conflict. I believe that this is a fundamentally political conflict that has used religion as tool to inspire bigotry on both sides. There was relative peace in this region before the question of political status entered into the debate. I’ve included this video to illustrate that there are even rabbis who are critical of the way the State of Israel has conducted itself. As a disclaimer this Rabbi is calling for the dismantlement of the state of Israel, which I do not support.

I ran across this article that came out several months ago and it caught me off guard. I spend a lot of time blogging and doing activism to promote freedom and liberty, but even I was under the impression that chattel slavery had essentially been wiped out. However as I write this there are people being held in true bondage. I’m not talking about women who voluntarily go into prostitution or even third world workers who make a dollar a day in poor working conditions of their own free will. These people may not be in good situations but they own their own bodies and have the freedom to choose what they will do when they wake up in the morning. I am talking about human beings who are considered property by their fellow man.

Although the year is 2008 there are still men and women who are forced to work for nothing but food, water, and something resembling shelter. Worse yet their are children who are born into a state of bondage and are forced into hard labor or sex work from a very early age. While many slaves live in Africa, Asia, or other far off places there are nations near the United States where slavery is common, like Haiti with an estimated 300,000 child slaves. There is also the fact that while relatively uncommon, there are slaves in the United States. Sometimes immigrants are brought to the US and forced to work off their “debt” to the traffickers who brought them. Many times the debts that are used to justify bondage are simply fictional, or in many parts of the world they were small debts incurred generations ago but are applied to the children and grandchildren of the debtor.

My point in writing this is to make people aware of the fact that slavery is not just an evil of the past. It is a blight on humanity today, and that the solution lies with caring people not governments. I certainly believe that slavery should be illegal, but the fact is that there are already many laws against slavery. New laws and declarations are unlikely to be much more effective than those of the past. I have no problem prosecuting traffickers, but I think that a more effective approach is for organizations to educate, empower, and when practical rescue slaves. It doesn’t require an effort on the part of everyone in the world. Just a handful of caring and dedicated people can help make a huge difference.

With the inauguration of a new president just weeks away and the expected draw down of US combat forces in Iraq over the next couple of years, many Americans seem to be mistakenly under the impression that the US is coming back to a peacetime footing. The United States has been on a war footing since the end of world war two, and that isn’t likely to change in the near term future.

While many voices on the antiwar left have become unusually quiet with the sweeping Democratic victory this November, there are still some people out there reminding Americans that we’ve been in Afghanistan for almost 8 years and the number of US troops there is set to rise by about 20,000. Pat Buchanan has a lot of views with which I disagree, but he has been a consistent voice against interventionism and imperialism on the part of the United States. He points out that the Taliban is resurgent with violence on the rise, and an increasing part of the country is now under the control of groups hostile to the United States and its NATO partners.

Unlike some of the more zealously antiwar members of the libertarian movement, I personally supported the invasion of Afghanistan. I wish that the Congress had gone through the correct constitutional procedure by issuing a formal declaration of war, but I felt that the ruling Taliban was actively harboring and aiding terrorists engaged in combat against the United States. My views on the initial military action haven’t changed. I think that had it not been for some bungling, Bin Laden could have been killed or captured and much more damage could have been done to Al-Qaeda and their supporters. But that opportunity was largely blown by the fact that the US didn’t commit very many troops or act quickly enough to prevent many terrorists from fleeing to Pakistan or other neighboring states.

Eight years of occupation and nation building have done little to bring stable democratic or classically liberal institutions to Afghanistan. It remains a largely tribal land that is a few centuries behind the modern era. As a westerner who values human life, liberty and dignity, I find the religiously justified oppression of Afghans repugnant, but that doesn’t mean that the US led occupation is helping to end tyranny there. Afghans have always defeated foreign occupations since the end of Alexander the Great’s conquest. Many Afghans who may sympathize with reforms are still more motivated by their sense of nationalism to oppose the US invasion. Civilian casualties radicalize people who would otherwise see the Taliban as a greater threat than western forces, and as these new fighters are targeted for bombing more women and children die, and so the cycle continues with yet more insurgents taking up arms.

Afghanistan was a pit for the blood and treasure of the Soviet Union during their failed occupation of that country. No matter how much more noble one thinks the motives of the United States, it faces the same fate if it continues in Afghanistan and other nations abroad. As the US economy sours and tent cities pop up in major metro areas here at home, is it really wise to be fighting an open ended war in central Asia? Can we really afford to maintain military bases in Korea, Germany, Japan, Cuba and the other corners of the world where we park a large chunk of our military capabilities? My answer is no.

This is the first of what I hope to be many libertarian oriented blog carnivals hosted at Happily Oblivious. I’d like to thank everyone who submitted articles. Now, get reading!

Trevor at the Will to Exist takes a look at 10 “crimes” that aren’t really hurting anybody.

Libertarians believe that for something to be a crime, there must be a victim. Therefore, we believe that consensual acts between legal adults cannot be crimes. They might be morally repugnant. They might be unhealthy and disgusting. They might be tasteless and silly. But they aren’t crimes.

Winton Bates at Freedom and Flourishing writes about the pros and cons of banning drugs and other substances.

I told him that as a businessman he should be aware of the pressure for governments to ban and regulate a lot more things including mixed alcoholic drinks, tobacco, gambling, pornography, vitamin supplements, fatty food, and high calorie food and drinks. I said he should be particularly concerned about pressure for governments to do more to protect people who are vulnerable to advertising and the debtaholics who can’t resist spending up to their credit card limits.

Bill at Liberty’s Life Line tells us about a frightening experience, and the reason that his freedom of choice saved his family’s life.

They are alive because I have the liberty, so far, to buy any vehicle that I choose and can afford.  The choices are many and I have made many choices through my life.  That is primarily because the government has not yet taken away that liberty and demanded what types of vehicles can be built and by whom.

Market Urbanism warns about the dangers of zoning laws to your personal freedoms.

While well intentioned, like many progressive interventions of the eary 1900s, zoning has contributed to sprawl (which has begun to be demonized by progressives over the recent decades) and served to inhibit the vitality and diversity of urban neighborhoods.

Masters in Criminal Justice provides us with a list of the top 50 Constitutional Law blogs. This is a great resource for those who would like to learn more about our rights as Americans.

Steve at The Super Gas Saver explains why an auto industry bailout may lead to higher gas taxes. Yikes!

Many politicians and others would love to see higher fuel taxes. That would raise fuel prices, and that, in turn, would force American drivers to turn to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. Driving smaller vehicles that would consume something closer to “our fair share” of the world’s resources would make some tickled pink. That group would not include the majority of American drivers.

Allison from The Smoking Argus Daily wrote a wonderful 4 part series about how to save the republic.

If the Republic is to be saved, the Senate must be restored to its Constitutional position and foundation upon Federalism.  While it is my estimation that many “progressives” were of good and genuine intent to see government reformed and corruption eradicated, their movement was merely co-opted by those who sought a total centralization of power unto themselves for purely selfish desires, not to the benefit of “We the People”.

Wisdom from Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket gives us the truth about the economy and job creation.

I fear, with Democrat rule and the incessant need to make supposedly better decisions for us than we can for ourselves—for that, they need our money. This means that the tax benefits would likely end, along with beneficial trade policies that kept many of us working up until this point.

Greg Laden explains why race, as a concept, is harmful to society and people should be viewed in the context of their humanity instead.

They (racial boundaries) are temporary contrasts that emerge because of the movement of people — but that immediately, or shortly, begin to meld. Even as we assert the reality of the boundaries, measure the boundaries, use the boundaries for medical, social, economic, and political purposes, people on both sides of the boundaries are busy doing the horizontal tango and making babies that sillify the boundaries by the very existence of these babies.

Derek Clark from Geek Politics questions the sanity behind billion dollar bailouts and propping up big business while small businesses (the bread and butter of America, folks) can barely make ends meet.

If we stop doing things right, we will stop making money just like all of these big businesses. Unfortunately, at that point, we will all start to look for new jobs because Uncle Sam will not be writing us any checks. So my question is, why are AIG and GM more important than small businesses around America. Why are their stockholders protected at the expense of the taxpayer?

Greg at The Holy Cause examines whether or not the Bible makes a case for minarchism.

When the Lord created Adam and Eve, there was obviously no strong human form of government; there was what is best described as anarchism (note that this does not mean disorder).

The Frugal Libertarian gives us reasons that the Universal Service Fund (that pesky charge on your phone bill…go look, we’ll wait) amounts to socialism and theft.

Their website says “[t]he fund is maintained through contributions made by telecommunications providers across the country”.  They make these contributions sound as if they are voluntary.  I assure you that they are not.  These “contributions” are mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Orna Ross examines the idea of freethinking.

Freethinking originally arose in the nineteenth century as a reaction against organised religion.  Today it still defines itself in that reactive and limiting way and is often used as a synonym for atheism or agnosticism.

James at Rise Up Rochester explains why individualism is better than collectivism (and why there’s nothing wrong with that!).

An individualist philosophy does not necessarily imply a selfish philosophy. Rather, it implies a philosophy which unbiasedly values personal liberty, freedom of expression through choice, and non-violence.

Kavmerica clues us in to the problems created by a two party system.

Democrats and Republicans are the only two parties capable of raising enough money to compete on the national political stage.  Over the years the campaign finances laws have been crafted in such a way that they benefit established parties and not the smaller ‘independents’.  Perhaps they didn’t do so intentionally but it is a by product of their dominance over the years.

Archvillain at Imagination gives us a defense of something that’s largely missing in today’s society: personal responsibility.

Some circumstances can be beyond your control, but how you react to those circumstances is your responsibility. You made the decisions. Choosing not to make a decision is also a decision, so you can’t escape your responsibility that way.

I’ll preface this article by saying that I’m an Atheist just so you know where I’m coming from. I’m also a Libertarian, so I’m no fan of attempts by fundamentalists or any other group that try to legislate their moral values.

A big deal has been made over what salutation is appropriate this time of year. Christians feel marginalized in a country where they constitute a super majority of the population because some businesses and government organizations have intentionally changed “Merry Christmas” into “Happy Holidays”. In some places, elementary school Christmas plays have decided to omit religious Christmas songs in favor of more secular compositions. On this issue, I have to say that religious folks have a point.

I’m a strong proponent of property rights, so I really think that businesses should use whatever greetings they think will make their customer base most happy. I also think that customers are well within their rights to boycott a store that has policies they dislike. If one store goes to “Happy Holidays” and you’re a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukkah” person then go to a store that still says “Merry Christmas” or visa versa if you’re a fan of secular season’s greetings.

With schools and other government places, we run into “the separation of church and state”. There actually is no such phrase in the US Constitution; it simply says that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Some people who are very hostile to organized religion have tried to turn this into an outright ban on anything that hints at religion on any government property. In practice, the modern interpretation has become more of a restriction on free exercise than a protection from religious persecution.

Certainly, a Muslim child shouldn’t be forced to sing Christmas songs if it is offensive to them or their parents. A child of Atheist parents should also not be penalized if they’d rather no go to the school concert due to religious songs or themes. It’s also true that religious minorities like Jews and Muslims should be included as much as is practical into any holiday event, but that doesn’t change the fact that for most Americans, Christmas time is a time to mark the birth of Jesus Christ, their lord and savior.

People have a right to exercise their own religious beliefs free from government oppression, but that doesn’t mean that they have a guarantee of not being exposed to different beliefs. Quite to the contrary, in a free society people should speak their minds and worship or not worship openly. It is not state oppression when Christian students pray next to irreligious students. In fact, it is real diversity which is the spice of life. There are some who want to make things “politically correct” in the name of diversity, but what they have done is try to make everything gray rather than a rainbow. These people have so little faith in their fellow man, or are so touchy that when they hear or see people expressing a different worldview than their own that they believe they’re being oppressed.

This has become an issue due largely to the one size fits all policies that you get with government schools, but as long as the government is running most of the schools out there we should be able to allow a free an open exchange of ideas. As an Atheist who attended public schools, I can tell you that I never found myself subject to persecution, but I did see teachers shying away from discussing religion even in social studies. Teachers would also never say what their religion was even when asked directly, even though it was a relatively small town and you often knew anyway since some of the students went to the same places of worship as the teachers.

Christmas is about Christ, but there are a lot of holidays in other religions this time of year. This is a time to come together and share what we have in common. I think people of just about any faith and people with no faith at all want more peace, love, and understanding in the world, but to articulate that we need to talk to one another and acknowledge what makes us different and unique. We won’t make a much better world until people of different backgrounds trust and care about each other, and we can’t do that if we aren’t supposed to talk about our most fundamental beliefs.

To all of you, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Good Winter Solstice, Happy Festivus, and any others that I can’t remember. I hope that despite all the turmoil in the world the readers of Happily Oblivious have a happy holiday season and get to spend it with the people who make them happy.

Fox news reports that the Governor of New York is proposing a 15% tax on non-diet soda as well as sugary drinks that contain less than 70% fruit juice. Fox decided to point out that studies indicate that diet soda drinkers are actually more likely to be obese than regular soda drinkers, and while that may be true I look at the article differently. While there are health Nazis who support these kinds of measures because their tiny brain can’t grasp that soda is a very cheap source of calories that obese people will consume with or without a 15% price increase; the real motivation for politicians to tax New Yorkers’ soda is the extra $404 million in annual revenue this would generate.

Drinking too much soda is bad for you, but so is consuming too much of almost any food. Eating too many oranges can give you diabetes, too much meat can clog your arteries, too much calcium can lead to kidney stones, and too much water can cause irregular heartbeat and death. Why not tax these things? Political crooks will, just as soon as they can come up with a good spin to put on taxing any of these things. This isn’t about solving obesity. I’m skinny and I shun diet soda in favor of something that contains real digestible sweet stuff. It’s about money and control. How much further will Americans allow their government to go in herding them like dumb animals? If they let it go much further, then maybe the politicians are right in seeing most people as sheep to be steered and sheared by their leaders.

New York City plans to train 1,000 rookie cops to carry M4 carbines during the upcoming New Year’s celebrations. Supposedly, this is to deter a terrorist attack like the one that recently took place in Mumbai, India. Why is this necessary? Even in a city that has made it nearly impossible to legally own a firearm with a sentence of up to 15 years for illegal gun possession, I’ve heard estimates as high as two million unlicensed guns in the hands of New Yorkers.

In a city that was ground zero for the 9/11 terrorist attacks I find it hard to believe that armed citizens would fail to resist a terrorist attack. As long as New York City has masses of police and military arms on hand it might make sense for them to be prepared to respond to a terrorist attack, but this seems to be more of a theatrical show of force than a legitimate security step. America’s police forces have become so militarized that it is difficult to draw a clear line between civilian law enforcement and combat units.

There is a dangerous trend toward using the actual military for policing, which made headlines earlier this year with the news that a US Army combat brigade would be assigned to a domestic role with Northern Command. The Army Times reported that the unit would assist civil authorities in times of emergency, and that it would be trained to deal with civil unrest. The claim was that this fighting unit would be trained with less than lethal technology for crowd control, but that they would have military arms on hand for self defense and unit defense. I find it hard to believe that a combat brigade would be using tear gas and clubs when the NYPD is handing out M4 automatic rifles to rookie cops.

Americans are being conditioned to think that authorities carrying automatic weapons on city streets is normal. If you want to reverse this trend towards a military police state, the time to speak up is now. People get used to what they see every day and if shock troops become commonplace on US streets, then people will get used to it before too long.

On a related note the Border Patrol is going to begin using an unmanned Predator drone along the US-Canadian border. This is only the latest step that the border patrol has taken to clamp down on people in border states. As someone who lives in a state that shares a border with Canada, I can tell you that I have been stopped at a check point almost a hundred miles inside the United States, when I had no intention of crossing the border.

The United States is on a path towards becoming something anathema to its founding principles. A police state in which the people are treated as enemies of the state. The days when the government acted as a servant of the people have long since passed. The paradigm today is one in which the people are expected to serve the state, and the state is expected to implement controls to keep the people in a position of servitude. As we enter into a period of economic turmoil where the government will in all probability take control of ever more industries and loot the savings of the middle classes, the police state will grow at an increasing rate. It is time for good people to speak plainly about what is happening in this country and to stop looking to the political establishment for change.

The political establishment in Washington has created the situation that we face today and their inclination is to increase their power, not hand it back to the American people. Elected officials and bureaucrats are very good at spinning the facts and delivering persuasive speeches to soothe the fears that people might have, but in the end they do these things to protect their own positions of power and privilege. The people must hold officials to account for their actions regardless of party labels or rhetoric. A police state wrapped up in a bundle of charming words is still a police state.