What ever happened to ...

What ever happened to the freedoms guaranteed to U.S. citizens in the Constitution? Lets take a look.

Free Speech-- We are finding ourselves controlled more and more by Political Correctness and Homeland Security. Our media is telling us what the Powers That Be want us to know and nothing else. And if you do not subscribe to those beliefs, you are subject to investigation and possible arrest. If you do not believe me, look up the WikiLeaks scandal. An Australian citizen is being harassed by the U.S. government because he gathered information (in a legal way, even) that is embarrassing to the government and told everyone about it on the internet. Now the government is putting pressure on foreign agencies and governments to shut him up. Today he was arrested for some absurd sex charge (rape due to a broken condom?) because it was the only thing they could find to charge him with. His assets have been globally seized, and U.S. contractors have been told that if any of their employees access his web page, either at work or at home, they will be fired. Kinda makes you wonder just how far the government will go to protect their dirty little secrets?

Right to Bear Arms-- No, I am not talking about the forelimbs of a woodland creature here. In the U.S., every citizen has a Constitutional right to own firearms. Gun control has been a hot button topic for 30 years. It seems like every time there is an election, the media starts spouting non-sense about crime being on the rise because of the number of guns available. They want to scare people into believing that guns are the cause of crime. Trust me, there are a lot of easier ways to kill someone than to shoot them. The government wants people to be afraid of guns so we cannot protect ourselves, either from criminals or from an oppressive government. They actually remember that the American Revolution happened because a bunch of American colonists with squirrel rifles got fed up with an oppressive government and demanded to be free. Not just once, but twice, we defended ourselves against the British for the right to rule ourselves. The Powers That Be do not want that to happen again, so they are limiting our right to even possess weapons. They demonize anyone who will fight to protect themselves by calling them "radicals" or "gun-toting lunatics".

Unreasonable Search and Seizure-- This one is essentially gone from memory. The Department of Homeland Security has conveniently forgotten that this right exists. For those who are interested, it is #4 in the Bill of Rights. It says, and I quote, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." In the name of Security, the government has managed to violate this right in so many ways it might as well not exist. All it takes for DHS to decide you are a risk is one single tip. They can tap your cell phone, search your garbage, use infrared detectors on your home, X-ray your vehicle while you are driving, monitor your habits, prevent you from getting on an airplane, look at your credit report to see what you are buying, all without a search warrant. Although, these days, getting a probable cause warrant is absurdly easy because judges are willing to grant them in hopes of being promoted up the food chain into the Federal Court system. If they think you have a gun, and you are known to disagree with governmental policies, they can claim probable cause for weapons charges and arrest you. Just the threat of governmental harassment is enough to make most people cower and comply. Does this feel like Freedom to anyone?

Amendment 9-- "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This statement, in and of itself, states that the people have rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution. But the Government doesn't want us to think we have any rights unless they give them to us. We are much easier to control if we can only do what the government wants us to do. Let's all be good little slaves, mindlessly handing over our wages to the Tax Authority, for the good of all Americans. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless to what the government thinks.

Amendment 10-- "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." This is just an extension of #9. We the People have RIGHTS! If we do not exercise them, and exercise them regularly, they will be taken away from us. One, by one, until we are nothing less than a police state run by those who do not have our best interests at heart.

Will gardening be illegal?

There is a certain amount of idiocy you expect from city governments. And it seems, the larger the city, the more idiocy there is. Backing up heavily traveled streets for months to put in bicycle lanes, poorly timed traffic lights, ordinances on how often you must mow your yard, etc. Most of these do have some sort of reason behind them.

But when city governments start placing heavy fines on otherwise law-abiding citizens for having a food producing back yard garden, you are crossing over to the realm of the absurd. A gentleman in Atlanta has been fined almost $5000 for planting part of the 2 acres he owns in vegetables. These food crops are for his own personal use, he gives some to his friends, and any extra he will take to the farmer's market to sell. He isn't using his yard to grow cash crops, it isn't a business, and he isn't annoying his neighbors with heavy farm equipment. He has a garden as a hobby for his own enjoyment and just happens to have a bounty to share.

The City's stance on the issue is that his property is not zoned for agriculture. So this past Spring, after getting the citations in January and February, He applied to the city to have his property re-zoned. It was approved. The Code Enforcement officials are saying that he still owes the fines, and now the penalties for not having paid them, because there were food crops growing while the rezoning was still under consideration. And they are suing to get their money.

I am not sure exactly what their problem with this gentleman actually is. Did someone complain? Is the zoning commissioner some sort of Nazi who wants complete control over what the citizens do on their own property? Is this just a way for the city to collect money they otherwise are not entitled to? Or is it something bigger?

It is bad enough that the Big Three agri corporations (Monsanto, Cargill, and ADM) are trying to control the food supply through genetically modified food and the availability of heirloom seeds, but trying to prevent individual citizens from having a backyard garden is going too far. The vast majority of people who do have a backyard garden only do so to either have fresh produce during the summer months or maybe to can, or because they just enjoy gardening. They don't do it for money, because there just isn't enough money in it to justify the costs. They do it for the food and the love of getting dirty.

I worry about what this means for all of us in the long run. I guess I will have to get a fancy trellis for my tomatoes and call them landscaping.

Going to Hell, and we are letting it

This country, and the principles it was founded on, are going to Hell and the citizens of this fine nation are just blindly letting it happen. We have policed and law suited our way into a virtual police state.

We have regulated all of our small businesses out of existence in favor of mega chains and McFood. It used to be where anyone with a couple of hundred dollars could open a store or a cafe and make a living. Now all of the major corporations have forced regulations thru Congress that make code enforcements, inspections, fees, licenses, and other money grabbing BS mandatory in the name of protecting the pubic. What they really do is limit the amount of competition in the market place and thus protect their own profits.

Our kids can't even be kids anymore. They can't play the games that we played as kids. Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, even Tag is off limits. Heaven forbid if someone's weenie ass kid gets tapped on the thigh. It would be sexual abuse in the grossest sense of the word.

It is bad enough that a child who is upset about getting in trouble with his parents can call SCAN and claim abuse, but the harassment that parents are put thru over it is just insane. A friend of ours had to discipline one of his kids while in a store waiting in the check out line. A lady that they knew was in the same line and saw the screaming child get a single swat to the behind. She felt it was her civic duty to sic the government on them. It took 6 months and a home visit from a child advocate to get it sorted out. But now they are on "the LIST!"

We are letting the government rule our lives. This is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they started this (once) great nation. The government was not designed to regulate our lives, it was designed to ease trade between states and foreign nations, and to enforce the Constitution. It was not meant to regulate, tax, educate our kids, tax our businesses or our paychecks, tell us what we can eat or feed our kids, or where we could build our homes, or what doctor we could go to, or subsidize drug companies, farmers, schools, or people who's job it is to have babies so they can get a bigger welfare checks.

100 years ago, if you didn't work, you didn't eat. You may not have worked a 9 to 5, but you worked growing your own food and hoped you had enough to sell so you could buy the kids an orange at Christmas. You made do with what you had and nothing went to waste. And the government stayed out of your business...unless your crop was moonshine.

Now we are taxed on the amount of money you make every paycheck, you pay sales tax on anything you buy, you pay property tax on any thing you own, you pay tax again on the money you don't spend (savings accounts, CDs, retirement accounts, stock dividends, college funds, etc) and when you die, if there is anything left by that time, a death tax is imposed. If your kids inherit, then they have to pay an inheritance tax. So that money that you worked so hard to get is actually taxed up to six times.

And we have done it to our selves. We voted for the idiots in congress who think that the government should pay for everything. Nice concept but it has to be paid for somehow. That somehow is taxes. And we voted them into office. We gave ourselves over to the government and now they are paying us back for our trust.