Archive for Culture
Long Lost Land of the Free
Posted by: | CommentsLet’s all sing…”O’ say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” Wait a minute, back the truck up! Are we not in the “land of the free?” Certainly this is still the land of the free where any man can come and make his own way in life in the ultimate pursuit of happiness. Isn’t it? Not lately. Let’s look at a few recent asinine examples of how over-regulation is ‘fundamentally transforming America’. Oh, you recognize that phrase do you? Keep reading and think about how different the America of today is from the City on a Hill that our Founders envisioned.
The Blaze is running the story of an 11 year old girl who saved a baby bird from being her cat’s lunch. Yay! What a fine, upstanding young lady this is, right? Wrong. The baby bird happened to be a Woodpecker and 11 year old Skylar Capo’s selfless actions landed her mother a hefty $535 fine under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. From The Blaze’s coverage: ”The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal for anyone to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird except under the terms of a valid permit issued pursuant to Federal regulations.” The mother faced both the fine and up to a year in jail. Oh the horror of having a child who does the right thing in this day and age. Thank goodness the national media picked up on this story and as they typically do when confronted with sunlight, the lame-brained, over-reaching bureaucrats suddenly found their scruples and back-tracked. The citation never should have been issued. It was a clerical error. Umm hmm. They sent out an under cover agent and a State Trooper to this little girl’s home, further wasting your tax dollars and leaving wildlife and the highway unprotected because someone forgot to enter “common sense” into the computer? Not buying it. I thoroughly enjoyed and commiserate with this sampling of comments to this story from The Blaze: Read More→
“Nowhere in the list of things you cannot do does it say “save.” However, apparently if you save a migratory bird you are what… possessing it? Why didn’t they put the cat down for violating the act?” – Flagwaver
“While I‘m watching this I can’t help but wonder if the woman with the snake on her front windshield wasn’t making an illegal transfer of wildlife….. One never knows anymore….” – Tikesissy
“Just think of the life lesson this little girl has learned at such a young age. You’ll be punished for being kind, don’t tell anyone anything, be secretive and hide what you do, be afraid of law enforcement, don’t trust the government….sounds like the same lessons a lot of us adults are learning. Thank you Obama and all the rest of you gestapo agencies trying to terrorize us.” – Captain Crunch
In another case of your tax dollars going down the garbage disposal like this morning’s soggy Cheerios, rest assured that the poor, defenseless bikers in Coralville, IA will not be put at risk by a 4 year old girl’s greedy attempt at capitalism and free market principles. That’s right, she thought she was going to clean up while helping hydrate the bike riders, but the crazy-law-crusade struck again and promptly shut down the villainous tyke’s pop stand. I’m left to wonder if the Coralville, IA city code enforcers have failed to do their jobs completely. What do you think the odds are that her crayon-adorned “L E M o N – A D E” sign was in violation of the municipality’s signage codes? Maybe she just got away with that one. Nonetheless, the authorities pulled the plug on the preschool child’s lemonade stand. It seems that her parents got lucky and weren’t issued a citation or a fine. Is it me or are they just not very good parents? Shouldn’t they have encouraged their daughter’s entrepreneurial spirit and just bought her the permit and sprung for the full-fledged health inspection? Aye aye aye, I’m only kidding. This is just insanity. In my America adults have enough of a risk-taking streak that we can decide for ourselves if we want to drink lemonade that a little girl mixed, even if she *gasp* didn’t wash her hands first. For goodness sakes she is FOUR years old! We might even buy it and pretend to drink it because we think it’s cute. But by golly let us make our own decisions and get out of our lives.
The city of Oak Park is keeping its residents safe from the offensive view of criminal vegetation. Don’t worry, they’re just looking out for you. To hear some tell it, Julie Bass thought she was going to pull one over on the authorities when she planted a garden in wooden boxes in her front yard. Food, glorious food is what one typically plans to get from a garden of tasty vegetables. But instead, Bass was faced with a misdemeanor. The economy isn’t great these days, but apparently they’re rolling in the dough over in Oak Park because they have enough of the green stuff laying around that they hold no qualms about paying a prosecutor and footing the bill for a full-fledged trial to show Julie Bass and other radical law-breakers like her that they mean business. It is after all HER yard, who does she think she is deciding what she can plant in it? What a crazy free spirit she must be. Does she think she lives in America or something? Oh wait, right, it is, my bad.
Recently in my own neck of the woods, in Bowie County, TX, I faced grand jury charges. Today it was announced that the case against me has been withdrawn, but only after a full-blown waste of taxpayer dollars on a Sheriff’s office investigation when the Sheriff himself was present for the alleged “disruption of a meeting.” Yes, the alleged crime was “disrupting a meeting” even though as County Clerk, I was a part of the meeting. I heard distortions of truth and factual artistry being employed and I called it out. I quietly said, “you’re lying.” I didn’t stand up, didn’t yell or curse. I told the County Judge, “you’re lying” and he was. Then, I sent out a public apology for what I thought might have come across as rude. Three days later, I was told by a reporter that I was facing a $2,000 fine and up to 6 months in jail. Oh, and if I had been found guilty of the Class B misdemeanor and it was deemed “related to official duties” it would have resulted in immediate and automatic removal from my elected office. Nice. Joe Wilson told the President of the United States, “You lie!” and it was water cooler conversation. I, as a small town County Clerk, told someone he was lying when he was and ended up facing the Grand Jury.
In recent times these crazy scenarios have played out time and time again. I’ve heard of mothers watching one another’s children before or after school so they are able to be safe and attended to, only to be told that Big Brother would prefer the children to be on their own than in the care of an adult of the mother’s choosing. After all, those moms were considered “unlicensed child care providers.” No, Mr. Crazy Bureaucrat, they are called moms. It’s what we do. A friend recently came to me for advice on how to handle a complaint from the city about her carport supposedly encroaching on a right away. Man, she sounds like a law-breaker doesn’t she? Not really, she hired a contractor to build the very nice looking carport on HER property and he forgot to get the required permit. And it was built TWO years ago. What is the city asking, you wonder? Oh, nothing big, they just want her to have the 2 year old carport that looks like it’s part of her home to be torn down. That’ll learn her!
Have you forgotten about the terrorizing actions of those rascally Amish unpasturized milk smuggling outlaws? There have been numerous raids of Amish family farms. The thing America has going for her is that we have “the authorities” who are willing to sweep in and confiscate cheese-making equipment “for our own good.” Ahhh, I can see Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson smiling with satisfaction at the sight of this beautiful nation bound and gagged with red-tape galore. Some of these horrible offenses listed on this page can be found at the aptly named dumblaws.com. Take this gem for instance. In Arkansas, it is a crime to honk your horn at a sandwich shop after 9 p.m. In South Carolina, it is a crime to sell a musical instrument on a Sunday. In Boulder, CO it is illegal to have a couch on your porch. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think it is a crime against all things classy to have a couch on your porch, but whose porch is it anyway? You give ‘em an inch and they take a mile. First it’s your couch on your porch, tomorrow it’s the garden in your front yard, next year it’s the fact that you make cheese and milk to feed your family and earn a living (we do have starving children in this country, by the way), then they shut down your daughter’s lemonade stand on your lawn, and next they criminalize saving baby animals from sudden death and mutilation.
The more of these stories I come across, the more it is clear to me that this country is like two trains at a railroad crossing…of course in Texas both of those trains would have to come to a full stop and neither could proceed until the other has passed. With that, I’m left to wonder who on earth is writing these laws? Why have we turned a blind eye to the fact that our government is too politically correct, too heavy-handed, too into regulation, but not too far gone? It only changes when we say “Enough is enough. Stop the insanity!”
When are we, as freedom loving Americans, going to stand up and say to our overbearing, far-reaching, red-tape-wielding government, “GET OUT!!!”? Bear with me as I hum to myself and write these words to one of my favorite and extremely applicable songs for you.
If tomorrow all the things were gone I’d work for all my life,
And I had to start again with just my children and my wife,
I’d thank my my luck stars to be livin’ here today,
’cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away.And I’m PROUD to be an American where as least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the ones who died, who gave that right to me.
And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land God bless the USA.
To Glenn Beck: Thank you for doing Black America, and the rest of us, a favor
Posted by: | Comments
- Kevin Jackson of “The Black Sphere” – A True Conservative Voice
LETTER TO GLENN BECK:
Thank you for doing black America, and the rest of us, a favor by giving us the opportunity to hear from black conservatives. No one else seems brave enough to expose the falsehood surrounding the myth that all black people must be liberals. Black youths need to be able to look up to strong, intelligent, and proud black conservative leaders (in and out of elected office.)
I would like to “demand” (as Cavuto suggests) that FOX devote an entire show to black conservative views. You’ve done all conservatives a great service by allowing us to hear from them, but this needs to be an ongoing thing. I would like to suggest that Kevin Jackson host the show. BET, and other “black networks”, should not be the only outlet for black voices and it shouldn’t be the only place that America is able to find out what black people are thinking. Both parties need to be made aware that there is a real body of black conservatives and that neither party “owns” their loyalties.
I’m running for local office, as a Conservative Republican. I’ve been told by numerous advisers and candidate training programs that I should concentrate on historically “red” areas, only going to predominantly black areas if time allows once I’ve canvassed all the other areas. It is no wonder that black America feels slighted by the Republican party when most of the Republicans can’t be bothered with “wasting time and resources” in black neighborhoods. I may be going against sound advice and reason, but this white Christian, mother of 4 will most definitely be campaigning in black neighborhoods just as in “white neighborhoods.” I want to know what people are thinking and I want to be elected to give a voice to ALL of my local area. How presumptuous would it be of me to just assume that I can speak for a group of people that I didn’t bother to speak TO in the first place? Read More→
- Jerome Hudson (left), another true conservative voice of the truth
Please give them a continuous voice. Give the youth in their communities good role models to look up to in the conservative arena. Too many of them have been lied to and told that their “blackness” depends on exactly how liberal they are. Jerome Hudson was told that he was trying to act white because he wanted to dress nice and get an education, countless others have been as well. Let’s get rid of this ignorant fictional wall between our fellow countrymen and make America see that we’re just that…Americans, unhyphenated and unapologetic.
Thank you for your time,
Natalie Nichols
Abortion coverage MANDATORY in Senate bill exchanges!
Posted by: | CommentsWhere it is written “subsection A”, note that this is referring to “abortions for which public funding is NOT allowed.” And where it says “subsection B”, it is referring to “abortions for which public funding IS allowed. This begins on page 140 of the 1502 page newly submitted Senate Finance Committee bill.
‘‘(3) ASSURED AVAILABILITY OF VARIED COVERAGE THROUGH EXCHANGES.—
14 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary [Kathleen Sebelius] shall sure that with respect to qualified health benefits plans offered in any exchange established pursuant to this title—
18 ‘‘(i) there is at least one such plan that provides coverage of services described in subparagraphs (A) [does not provide abortion coverage] and (B) [does provide abortion coverage] of paragraph (2); [line 20, pg 140]
The current bill mandates an abortion coverage option be available through any qualified health benefits plan in the exchange:
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall assure that with respect to qualified health benefits plans offered in any exchange established pursuant to this title—
(i) there is at least one such plan that provides coverage of services described in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (2); and
(ii) there is at least one such plan that does not provide coverage of services described in paragraph (2)(A); [line 14, pg 141]
The next bit discusses segregation of funds, and in layman’s terms, this says that even though these entities may be federally funded or get large sums of government money, they have to segregate the funds which pay for (provide) abortions. What does this mean in terms of a family budget? It means a husband and wife both work. He brings home 2,000 per week and she brings home 1,800 per week. If this family budget was going to provide abortions, it would mean that even though their combined salaries benefit their household as a whole, the actual money spent on the abortions will have to come out of the 2,000 that he brings home for that week. So essentially it is the same 3,800 pool of money, but we’re splitting it up to make it sound better. Another way to describe it is if that man goes out and buys a new Corvette without discussing it with his wife. When she freaks out, he says, “Don’t worry honey, I’m going to make the payments out of MY salary, it won’t come from yours at all. See what I’m getting at here? It’s just semantics.
‘‘(c) NO DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF PROVISION OF ABORTION.—A qualified health benefits plan may not discriminate against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its willingness or unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.’’ [line 6 pg 144]
This basically means that no plan, even one that was highly against abortion, could not discriminate (i.e. not cover services at facilities that provide abortions–like planned parenthood) against any doctor or health care provider because of their WILLINGNESS to provide or refer for abortions. This feels eerily like something we call a “loophole.” The plan itself may not cover abortions, but the plan cannot refuse to pay for services at…say…an abortion clinic.
Will be updated as time permits. It is however, a 1500 page bill!
2010: The year of the black Conservative
Posted by: | Comments
Lt. Col Allen West
Previously posted on our website, Political Integrity Now.
As has been reported on Political Integrity Now in the past, accusations of racism based upon political disagreements are not only wrong, but they do a disservice to those who are true victims of racism. PIN hopes that Allen West is on to something. It is a disgrace that so many citizens believe the hype that Democrats have always been a friend to black people.
As reported by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, on www.FoxNews.com.
When former President Jimmy Carter said racism was an underlying factor in attacks on President Obama, it’s safe to say he had no intention of boosting Allen West’s campaign for Congress in Florida’s Broward County.
But according to West, a retired Army colonel who is running for the second time against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in Florida’s 22nd congressional district, that is exactly what has happened.
“Since (Democrats) have thrown out the race card, it has made me more appealing,” says West, one of a small but determined group of black Republicans running for seats in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives in 2010.
Eager to overturn the “conventional wisdom” that the GOP is mainly a white bread party that offers few opportunities for minorities, these black Republicans believe they can attract increasingly agitated conservatives, as well as independents, to make 2010 their year.
They also conceded in interviews that the injection of race — a familiar theme since Obama’s election last year — has given them a certain edge and authority when they speak out against the president’s agenda. Because they’re black, they say, they can lead the charge against Democratic policies without being called “racist.” In fact, they say, their skin color may make them more attractive candidates.
“A lot of people who don’t want to be part of Obama’s policies are being called racist,” West said. “Then they say, ‘Hey, this guy, Colonel West — he’s black and I support him.’”
“It’s made me more appealing,” West told FOXNews.com, “because it shows the contrast of our principles — how different we are even though we both have permanent tans.”
Continuing from the Fox story:
The GOP still calls itself the “Party of Lincoln” because of its historical ties to the abolition of American slavery, and blacks remained loyal to the party after Reconstruction as Southern Democrats established segregationist Jim Crow laws. But the scene began to shift during the Depression, as blacks voted in large numbers for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal policies.
The Democrats cemented their lock on black voters in the 1960s when President Lyndon Johnson pushed his Great Society programs and, more importantly, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. Four years later, in 1968, Richard Nixon wooed disenchanted Southern Democrats to win the presidency, setting the GOP on its current course, demographically, with voters of color. Read more.
The interesting thing to note about this particular segment is that the turning point for black loyalty to the Democrats is bathed in the facade that Democrats were the ones pushing for Civil Rights legislation under Johnson. This is something that Republicans had been pushing for over a long period of time, but were repeatedly shut down by Democrat majorities. Lyndon Johnson went against his party and some Democrats and a majority of Republicans came to his aid. THIS is how the Democrats clinched the black vote. They (as a party) did not wish to secure civil rights for blacks, however they repeatedly said that they did and expected that the public would believe them. They banked on this deception and the gamble paid off. To read more in depth and look at the Democratic and Republican party platforms, through the years (along with factual records to back up or debunk claims made in those platforms) see this document. This is a detailed 124 year side-by-side comparison of the two major political parties and their civil rights efforts–or lack thereof.
In order to maintain any level of political integrity, we must all do our own research. You sell yourself short if you just accept as fact what you see or hear reported. Find out if the facts back up the claims and then make your own decisions. Black or white, purple or green, we all owe it to ourselves to own our choices.
Will new warnings lead to coerced abortions and sterilization?
Posted by: | Comments
Obama's Science Czar, John Holdren has espoused controversial views on population control in the past.
Previously posted on our website, Political Integrity Now
By now you’ve heard the outrageous ideas put forth by Obama’s science Czar John Holdren in Ecoscience . This is the book where Holdren, joined with Paul and Anne Ehrlich, suggested that sterilants placed into our water and essential food supply would be a good way to limit population growth. The trio also tossed around the idea of mandatory adoptions for children born to mothers out of wedlock or to teen mothers, that is if the teens hadn’t already been forced to abort-as the book also suggests.
You may be thinking that this is a far-fetched notion, that these were just wild ideas in the world of academia, and that people don’t really believe this stuff. Think again.
Youthquake is a report put out by the radical group Optimum Population Trust. It is an urgent call to action to save the planet, not only from pollution, but from people. It’s OPT’s contention that overpopulation is killing our planet, and to save it, we should push for population reduction.
Without action, longages of humans – the prime cause of all shortages of resources – may cause parts of the planet to become uninhabitable, with governments pushed towards coercive population control measures as a regrettable but lesser evil than conflict and suffering.
OPT released a briefing in 2007 which says the following:
Population limitation should therefore be seen as the most cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals and nations – a strategy that applies with even more force to developed nations such as the UK because of their higher consumption levels. A non-existent person has no environmental footprint: the emissions “saving” is instant and total. Given an 80-year lifespan and annual per capita emissions (2006) of 9.3 tonnes of CO2 (Defra, 2007, provisional), each Briton “foregone” – each addition to the population that does not take place – saves 744 tonnes of CO2, equivalent in emissions to 620 return flights from London to New York (1.2 tonnes of CO2 each).
Well there you have it! “A non-existent person has no environmental footprint.” A non-existent person also has no dissenting political views, no burden on society, no addition to health care costs, and no demand on social services. Whether people want to admit it or not, Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, believed strongly in eugenics. This is the theory that we can and should weed out the undesirables–you know, those who might be emitting too much CO2–or in her day, who were too poor, or too dumb, or too weak, or too black. Sanger’s idea was that we could use “family planning” to keep those “unfits” from reproducing.
At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the “black” and “yellow” peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.
Sanger’s other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as “scientific” and “humanitarian.” And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America’s human “breeding stock” and purging America’s “bad strains.” These “strains” included the “shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South.”
Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as “unfit,” a plan she said would be the “salvation of American civilization.: And she also spike of those who were “irresponsible and reckless,” among whom she included those ” whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers.” She further contended that “there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.” That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered “unfit” cannot be easily refuted.
The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States
Still shaking your head thinking that forced sterilization can’t happen here? Unfortunately it already did. From 1930s to the 1970s, mass sterilization was taking place in Puerto Rico. Women were encouraged to get hysterectomies. Children in schools were taught that the key to economic success was having a small family. The average age for those who were sterilized was 26, with a full 1/3 of the island’s female population being sterilized by 1965! Many of those women were not told that the procedure was irreversible, and some were not even told that it was a surgery at all. Planned Parenthood had a hand here as well, after all, this primarily targeted poor and impoverished women–or as Margaret Sanger would say, “unfit.”
Which brings us back to recent studies on population control and dire warnings from environmentalists. Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost is literally a cost/benefit analysis of population control and pollution. Simply put, the study found that “family planning” is the “cheapest way to combat climate change.” Oregon State University statisticians have recently released a study that claims that having fewer children is the best way to reduce your carbon footprint.
While the OSU researchers make it clear they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, we cannot ignore the fact that there are groups who are advocating coercive measures and that someone who has written about such things in the past, has the president’s ear. In a political environment where every day is the potential for a new crisis, as the next big thing, we have to wonder how many ways this new research can be used by an uber-progressive administration. Holdren has written about compulsory abortions and coerced sterilization, all in the name of the environmental movement. Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, recently resigned amid revelations of his radically controversial views. Obama has said that he wants to put science before ideology–but whose science and whose ideology?
Still think Socialist is the new N-word? Watch this video and you won’t.
Posted by: | CommentsPreviously posted on our website Political Integrity Now
Stories, like the ones below, continue to surface in the midst of any dissenting view of Barack Obama. Yes, America, Barack Obama is our first black president. But No, that does not mean that from here on out, anyone who disagrees with his policies is cloaked in the dark cloud of racism.
Carlos Watson wonders whether socialist is the new N-word.
Victor Goode ponders the use of the word socialist in “Obama’s Post-Racist Presidency” and actually says that when a dissenter refers to Obama or his administration’s policies as socialistic, it “satisfies the same gut sense that” racists satisfied when they ignorantly called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “That n–.”
Protest posters comparing Bush to Hitler did not encourage the same media outrage over racism as socialist comparisons with the Obama presidency have created. Why?
Please do not dishonor those in our country who actually have been victims of true racism with these accusations. It is no more racist to refer to this president as a socialist than it was to refer to a white president as socialist. I have to think that it is terribly insulting to those African-American citizens who have come before us and were subjected to the cruel realities of racism when these comparisons are drawn. We will never be a post-racist society when “playing the race card” continues to be the strategy of the day.
Articles of interest:
Deep-thinking celebrity see’s racism “everywhere”
Newest sign of American racism: HOV lanes
Obama Criticsm Flow Chart: Defines who is a Racist
*editor’s note* Video is not our original content, as indicated by the watermark. Video was produced by Paul Williams World, which can be found by clicking on the YouTube icon in the embedded video. Many thanks to www.newsbusters.org for the h/t, but since there seemed to be some confusion in the comments on on News Busters, PIN wanted to clear this up for all readers who may have misunderstood. Story is original content, video is not.
