Not So Famous…

Link to the original article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31494385/ns/us_news-security/

Now, before you all start freaking out about how I want terrorists to buy guns, you need to re-read my post title.  That is not what I said, nor is it how I feel.  I’ll explain, but you’re going to have to stay with me longer than a single paragraph.

First off, what determines whether someone is or is not a suspected terrorist? According to that article, it would be this list kept by the FBI. So if this list is some sort of master list that contains the people who are suspected of being terrorists, the question must be asked, “How does one make it into this list?”  The answer to THAT question explains why I titled this post as I did.

Let me recount for you three incidents:

1. Ron Paul Supporters Are Labeled Potential Terrorists

Yup.

Now, I’m not talking about Glenn Beck calling Ron Paul supporters terrorists.  I’m not talking about the Phoenix report that was recirculated claiming that Ron Paul supporters are terrorists. It was Missouri’s Information Analysis Center in a report released in February of 2009 that analyzed into existence the suspicion that someone with a Ron Paul bumper sticker on their vehicle could be a member of the Modern Militia Movement, and thus could be a terrorist.  This report was circulated through law enforcement communities, and one can only wonder if anyone new made it onto the secret FBI list because of it.  I supported Ron Paul, which I guess makes me a terrorist.

2. Returning Veterans Targeted as potential recruitment targets for right-wing extremist groups by the Department of Homeland Security, April 7, 2009.

“…the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups…”

I am not quoting that snippet out of context.  Read the report here: http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

Yup…the DHS is basically saying this:

“Thank you for your service, you despicable terrorists.”

Regardless, now returning veterans are suspected of being potential terrorists.  How many of them made it onto the secret list?

3. Department of Defense potentially equates protest with low-level terrorist activities.

A multiple choice question on an exam administered by the Department of Defense asked the following:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?
* Attacking the Pentagon
* [Improvised Explosive Devices]
* Hate crimes against racial groups
* Protests

The correct answer was “Protests”.  So, if you’re exercising your right to peaceably assemble, which is guaranteed you by this really obscure document called The Constitution of the United States of America, you could be a low-level terrorist. Regardless of the fact that this test is not directly equating protests with terrorism, it’s definitely saying that any protest COULD be a terrorist act. This is a concerning move, and based on this, *I* could very well be on that secret list.

Now, all of these incidents were THIS YEAR ALONE. I qualify as a potential terrorist in two of those three incidents, and thus I don’t support any move by our government to bar legal citizens who have committed no crime from purchasing firearms based on some list maintained by our government, which has already been shown to have kept people on the list past when they should have been removed: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603968.html).

So I definitely DO NOT support any barring of individuals from buying firearms just because they made it onto some list that they can’t see, and can’t even find out if they’re on.

I’m listening to Rush Limbaugh while working, and something he said really caught my attention:

Caller, I agree with you that Tax Cuts are the way to go, but the Republican party doesn’t WANT tax cuts.

And THAT is one reason why I (and others like me) say that the Republican Party is dead.  They’re all trying to out-liberal one another despite the fact that President Reagan showed just how efficacious tax cuts can be to stimulate the economy.

It’s time for a third party to get the conservative vote.

I have sent a message to Boxer and Feinstein to oppose this stupid tax increase, and if you love beer, and the wonderful variety of it that we have in California, you should as well.  This is what I am sending to them:

As you well know, the Senate Finance Committee is considering a proposal to raise the Federal Excise Tax on Beer as a part of health care discussion.  This is a bad idea!

The concept of a tax on a vice is self-defeating. So we need money to pay for single-payer health care (assuming that is a good thing to have… a proposition that is by no means certain).  Taxing production of a good (thereby increasing the cost of said good) with the express stated purpose of lessening the consumption of said good can ONLY lead to a decrease in tax revenues from this source.  The single-payer health care plans, on the other hand, are ONLY going to rise, or at the VERY best stay level.  This tax, then MAY only provide a short term boost in funding, and is not a sustainable proposition for funding of this health care plan.

What’s more, who is the Senate Finance Committee to determine what I should or should not consume?  There are things in this world FAR more harmful to the human body than alcohol, and where in the Constitution does the Federal Government have the power to regulate our habits?  (And no, “to promote the general welfare” does not count.  That is part of the preamble, which explains why the Constitution was necessary, and not a granting of powers to the government.)

Finally, this proposition will only harm small businesses who cannot afford to absorb the cost of this increase, and MUST pass this on to the consumers.  When prices go up, the demand for a good at the new, higher price will fall, and this will torpedo the brewing industry, which is really only starting to gain its momentum against the lesser-quality, but lower priced mass-producing brewing giants. So how is this a GOOD thing in an economic climate where small businesses are failing right and left already?  How will this stimulate the economy, and raise consumer sentiment, when they see their favorite breweries being shut down because of a tax increase that is only doomed to raise less and less each month…BY DESIGN?

I am overtaxed, and I cannot afford more taxes.  Beer is one of life’s great pleasures, when it’s done well, and the very businesses that are producing beer that is done well are the businesses that will be harmed by this foolhardy idea.

Please oppose the increase of the Federal Excise Tax on Beer, and protect the jobs and well-being of many who depend on the brewing industry, and the well-rated California brewing scene to boot.

Support Your Local Brewery had this to say about the excise tax:
http://www.sylb.org/excisetax.html

Seriously, send a message to Washington letting them know that their decisions as to what you should or should not put in your body are totally out of line, and taxing us to do so is even more ridiculous.

There is a blog entitled Beer Girl, that I find very interesting. I don’t want to play into any stereotypes, (and she’d not appreciate it much), but in my experience most girls don’t like beer. Daniel’s wife, Julie, is one rare exception.

So it’s doubly interesting when you find a girl who’s dedicated her blog to beer.  :)  Check out her blog.  Especially if you’re from California, as she’ll be able to find beers that we cannot. (Her Twitter page says she lives in New York.)

Don’t just get all huffy and post a comment without thinking.  I’m not interested in comments about how angry my insinuation makes you.  I’m not interested in how long the government has provided education.  All I’m posting this for is to get people to consider a United States in which the government did not provide education.

For one, the Department of Education is a HUGE tax dollar drain. In 2008, the requested budget for the Department of Education was $62.6 BILLION. If the extremely inefficient government gave those dollars back to the people from whom they took them, how better could those dollars be spent? What’s more, what do we GET when the Department of Education gets this money? Well, $300 million of that money is actually going to help low-income families obtain more choices in sending their children to PRIVATE schools.  So now we’re taking money from the taxpayer in order to allow them more options in sending their children to a private school?  What say we cut out the middleman?

Oh yeah, let’s not forget about the increasing drive to force children to accept deviant lifestyles as normal and healthy, thereby prohibiting my family’s free exercise of religion. Sex education at an increasingly young age. I object to these sorts of things and they are the reason I will not be sending my children to public schools.  However, I will be forced to pay for the Department of Education, regardless of that fact.

The biggest argument for cutting the Department of Education, however, is that it’s not a power allowed for in the U.S. Constitution. That’s right, folks. You CAN read the U.S. Constitution and understand what it says.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait….

….

Well, anyway, show me in the U.S. Constitution where the Department of Education is permitted, and I’ll grant you the argument.  However, you need to remember something as you’re reading it: Whenever a power is not granted to the Federal Government, it is reserved for the States.  Yes, that means we may be pushing the problem down one level, but I support that, as it inevitably means that some States will get it right.  At the VERY least, they have the potential to get it right.

Any arguments about how beneficial the DoEd is are easily refuted by the Constiutution.  What’s more, when you carry this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you might think of some other Federal Departments that could also be removed under the same argument.  Before you start telling me, “well if we have to get rid of the Department of Education because it’s not allowed in the Constitution, then that means we should also get rid of the Department of Whatever”, you should be aware that I agree with you on that count.

And you’re only giving me ideas…not proving that the DoEd is indispensable.

Scotch Ale being my favorite beer style of all time, when Beer Magazine published a list of Scotch Ales, I knew I had to make a Bucket List.

So up at the top of my blog, you may now view my Scotch Ale Bucket List!

There have been many times when I’ve sat down, typed out a few sentences, and just said “Hang it all, why bother?”  Canceled the post, and just closed my browser.  I’ve got drafts saved that are good pieces, which I feel are worth reading, but I know I won’t finish them.  Won’t even re-read them.  Am I depressed?  I don’t know. I don’t see how I could be.  Am I angry?  Undoubtedly, but what’s the point?  Fatalistic?  Well, what will be will be, so you be the judge.

There have been a couple incidents recently that have caused me to wonder why in the heck I bother. I’m not even going to go into detail, though I desperately want to.  Suffice it to say at this point that I’m more inclined to just say “Screw it” and go about work, home, sleep, etc. Relatively quietly. There’s still the desire to just freaking let it all out here and now.  Say exactly how I feel and why. Point fingers, pound my fists on the podium.  The whole dictator speech thing is very appealing.  But I won’t. I’ll speak in generalities, instead.

I could talk about honesty, and how people claim to want it…but really, really don’t.  I could talk about fidelity and how people swear up and down that they’ll remain faithful…until they don’t want to be anymore. I could talk about friendship, and what I thought it meant to the people I have been closest to…and how deluded I apparently was. I could talk about parenthood, but I can’t deal with the smug smiles of those who think they know everything about what everyone else is going through.

Ultimately, all of this stuff I could talk about but won’t has brought me to a different understanding of reality, and it’s an ugly one.  It’s one I really don’t want any part of.  I’m sick of the wax nose of social encounters. When it’s melted by honesty, people get offended.  I’m sick of protestations of friendship until they just don’t care anymore. Because I still care, for what it’s worth. I’m supposed to raise Iain to value friendship and honesty, but am I supposed to share with him the truth that almost no one cares about these things?  That, in fact, honesty is offensive to most people, and friendship is only important to most insofar as it’s convenient?  Should I let him figure that out himself, tempering his heart in the forge of reality? Should I just let him experience that pain?

I’m not asking for advice. I tell myself I won’t speak up; won’t be honest. I tell myself I won’t seek friendship. I am privy to the knowledge of reality, and I still inflict myself with wounds that almost heal before they’re ripped open afresh. I can tell Iain about life, and I will.  But if he’s anything like me with regards to his social nature, he’ll stick his hand in the fire again and again.  Maybe because he hopes that he’ll find someone for whom friendship is more than a convenience, to be discarded when it is too much trouble, or when his friends just don’t care anymore.  Maybe he’ll hope to find someone who is refreshed by honesty and not someone who seeks to have their ears tickled so as to avoid the truth. And maybe I will hurt along with my son as he learns about the nature of reality…set him  up a blog so he can write when he doesn’t know what else to do; when he feels he has no human to sit and talk to.

What else can I do, but be honest to him, since I value that?  What else can I do but tell him that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”? However, I fear that his true discoveries of these things will be as painful as mine.

Nothing is as bad as it could be.  It’s not as though I don’t have friends.  It’s not as though I don’t have people I can speak honestly to. My wife is my best friend, and someone with whom I can always be honest, and who is honest with me. I have friends, and you’re probably reading this and wondering what the heck I’m talking about.  Just being a little melancholy is all.  Most of you know something of which I speak. Really, I just needed to write something.  I’ve not NEEDED to write something in a long time, and I don’t know whether I feel better or not…whether I’ll delete this one in the morning as well…

Maybe, though, I’ll keep it up.

Today, I was able to call in to an Internet radio show that I actually helped to start, GenerationWHY.  Skoubah Steve and Blackdog do a regular show called the Canadian Connection, and today, they had a spontaneous show.  Skoubah invited me to call in, and it was a great bit of fun with those guys this evening!  You can go to that website and download the shows.  Skoubah has assured me that he’s going to put up this evening’s show on the web.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun discussing movies and beer.  :)

I went to the Tax Day Tea Party in my area, and I heard a great deal of complaining. Granted, what was being complained about was pretty justified.  You’re overtaxed, and you see the government spending your money on things you don’t want, don’t need, and couldn’t afford if you did. You see on the horizon that your taxes are going to be increased, along with the size of the government, and when you look at what your government is doing, you realize that the Constitution may as well have been printed on toilet paper for all the careful examination your government is giving it. These are very valid concerns of course, People, and I share them.  But…

This is your fault.

Our form of government is dependent entirely upon you to decide the laws and hold your politicans to account for their voting record.  Do you know what your 111th United States Congress has been voting on since it convened on January 6th, 2009? Do you know the voting records of your representatives? Do you know what your representatives stance on the role of the federal government in your life is?

How can you blame your representatives for voting as they have when you continue to elect them to office?

This is your fault.

Do you know what the U.S. Constitution says?  Have you read it?  When you were up in arms about the AIG bonuses, did you stop to consider that the ex post facto bill of attainder that the House of Representatives voted on to tax the bonuses just might be unconstitutional? If you knew it was unconstitutional, would you be incensed?  If you didn’t know that there’s a distinct possibility it was unconstitutional, are you ashamed? Do you know what the Constitution says?

This is your fault.

Who polices the government? Who determines when the government has overstepped its bounds?  The government?  Isn’t that something of a conflict of interest?  What would be the goal of policing the government? Wouldn’t the goal of policing the government be to prevent them from appropriating powers for itself that the U.S. Constitution never intended for them to have?  If that’s the case, then how can the government police itself?  Isn’t it the People’s job to police the government?  How can we do that if we’ve not read the document that set forth the powers and limitations on said government?

This is your fault.

We have ceded our power as the People of the United States, from whom the government derives its power, to that very government creating a self-perpetuating, power-grabbing government over which we have no control.  Instead, the government is looking how best to control you.  They do so in schools, which you pay for.  They do so by taking away your ability to defend yourselves, enforced by a police which you pay for. They control you.

And it’s your fault.

Do you feel guilty yet?  And I don’t mean the “I’m sorry” kind of guilt that doesn’t modify your actions in any way shape or form.  I’m talking about the kind of guilt that asks the question, “what can we do now?”

Because the first step to overcoming this problem is realizing that it’s your fault!

You can become informed and involved.  You can learn about the policies of people running for office, and you can vote them in or out based on their actions.  Granted, when it comes to rookie politicians, you have more words than actions on which to base your decision, but you can hold him to his words, by following through.  It’s no longer enough to be ignorant of what your government is doing to control you.  You need to take action based on your knowledge.  And you need to WORK to make yourself aware!

Because the state we’re in is OUR fault.  And only action can counter the inaction which the government has used to take away your liberty.  We can no longer conceive of a society where the federal government is limited in scope and power.  We’ve been innoculated against distrust by being told again and again that he government cannot be made smaller.  It CAN!  And when you read the Constitution, you can see how the Founding Fathers did not intend for the federal government to have the kind of power that it has.  Because it was not always this way!!!

What’s more, America survived and thrived when government was small in scope and intrusion.  And we can survive again.

It’s your fault, but that culpability also means that only YOU the People can make it right.

I am overtaxed, aren’t you?  But is there anything we can do about it?  We see President Obama promising huge amounts of money for bailouts of banks, companies, the International Monetary Fund, social programs, and all of this is coming out of whose pocket?  His?  Heck no!!  It’s coming out of yours, people!!  YOUR POCKETS!  How are you doing right now, financially?  Anyone get their hours cut or lose their job because of this freaking economy?  I know my hours have been cut by 20% with more cuts promised if things don’t get better.  I can’t freaking take this anymore.

I WILL NOT BE TAXED INTO OBVLIVION, AND I WILL NOT BE FORCED INTO ACCEPTING GOVERNMENTAL HANDOUTS!!!!  I can take care of myself if I am allowed to keep my money!

But can we DO anything?  YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!!!!!

Our government is supposed to be run by us, people!  If we don’t like the politicians we have, who else have we to blame but OURSELVES?  Our government has increased the national debt a horrendous amount.  And they only promise more.  They say that you don’t know how to spend your money correctly to stimulate this economy.  You apparently don’t know what goods to buy, or how to get your family living comfortably, so let them steal your money and spend it for you!!!  Do you like this?  Well if not, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!

Our government didn’t like the AIG Bonuses….so they spit on the Constitution, and passed an UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAW taxing these bonuses.  Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution says that Congress cannot pass a Bill of Attainder or an Ex Post Facto law.  A bill of attainder is a law that affects an individual or group of individuals, rather than the population as a whole.  An ex post facto law is a law that does something after the fact.  Like taxing income at a different rate after it’s already been handed out WITH CONGRESS’ APPROVAL!  What’s more, Representative Paul Ryan gave a press release stating that he supported it because HE DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and wouldn’t have supported it if he’d known.  Well thank you for your hindsight, Representative, but you’ve effectively let us all know that YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE CONSTITUTION SAYS!!!!!

THIS is who you have elected, America.

So are you sick of being overtaxed?  Are you sick of Obama’s grossly irresponsible spending at your expense?  Are you sick of our government incurring debt that our freaking GRANDCHILDREN will be saddled to pay off?  Let’s put the fear of the people back into the Government, and let’s let them know that we’re not going to take this crap anymore.  Come to the Tea Party on April 15th, and let the government know that you’re mad as hell about their reckless spending!

The Boston Tea Party happened because the colonists felt that they were being taxed without being represented.  Sound familiar?  This is the first step to taking back our government, and it can’t happen without YOU!

The tea party website can be found at: http://taxdayteaparty.com/ and there you can find a tea party near you. There are over 600 of these local tea parties happening nationwide, and you can be a part of it.  Find one near you, and see if there’s anything you can do to help.  Passing out Pocket Constitutions, making signs, offering to speak a little….who knows what you can accomplish.

According to many bloggers, the spenders are scared of us.  They’re saying things like, “Obama was elected by a popular majority, and these tea parties are threatening democracy!!!”  Listen, if that’s the case, then Obama has nothing to fear.  We’ll just be a couple little groups of people, and we’ll be the most microscopic thorn in Obama’s side that he’ll never even notice.

What they’re afraid of, however, is the fact that people who voted for Obama out of ignorance are now rejecting his socialist, irresponsible spending out of knowledge.

So go to one of the PEACEFUL protests.  Speak your mind.  Wake up the masses.  Get others fired up!  Bring a video camera, and post videos on YouTube.  Let’s let the government know who their bosses are.  US!

Modesto Tax Day Tea Party – 1010 10th St. Modesto, CA. – 12pm-6pm