Education In America - Straight from Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" -Item 10 "

This was copied from Poor Richards blog in its entirety.  Except for the end statements after the link.


http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2010/10/test.html

The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile

It's no secret that the US educational system doesn't do a very good job. Like clockwork, studies show that America's schoolkids lag behind their peers in pretty much every industrialized nation. We hear shocking statistics about the percentage of high-school seniors who can't find the US on an unmarked map of the world or who don't know who Abraham Lincoln was.
Fingers are pointed at various aspects of the schooling system—overcrowded classrooms, lack of funding, teachers who can't pass competency exams in their fields, etc. But these are just secondary problems. Even if they were cleared up, schools would still suck. Why? Because they were designed to.
How can I make such a bold statement? How do I know why America's public school system was designed the way it was (age-segregated, six to eight 50-minute classes in a row announced by Pavlovian bells, emphasis on rote memorization, lorded over by unquestionable authority figures, etc.)? Because the men who designed, funded, and implemented America's formal educational system in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote about what they were doing.

Almost all of these books, articles, and reports are out of print and hard to obtain. Luckily for us, John Taylor Gatto tracked them down. Gatto was voted the New York City Teacher of the Year three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. But he became disillusioned with schools—the way they enforce conformity, the way they kill the natural creativity, inquisitiveness, and love of learning that every little child has at the beginning. So he began to dig into terra incognita, the roots of America's educational system.

In 1888, the Senate Committee on Education was getting jittery about the localized, non-standardized, non-mandatory form of education that was actually teaching children to read at advanced levels, to comprehend history, and, egads, to think for themselves. The committee's report stated, "We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes."

By the turn of the century, America's new educrats were pushing a new form of schooling with a new mission (and it wasn't to teach). The famous philosopher and educator John Dewey wrote in 1897:

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.

In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."

The next year, the Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools—issued a statement which read in part:

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

At the same time, William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906, wrote:

Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.

In that same book, The Philosophy of Education, Harris also revealed:

The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.

Several years later, President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen:

We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.

Writes Gatto: "Another major architect of standardized testing, H.H. Goddard, said in his book Human Efficiency (1920) that government schooling was about 'the perfect organization of the hive.'"
While President of Harvard from 1933 to 1953, James Bryant Conant wrote that the change to a forced, rigid, potential-destroying educational system had been demanded by "certain industrialists and the innovative who were altering the nature of the industrial process."

In other words, the captains of industry and government explicitly wanted an educational system that would maintain social order by teaching us just enough to get by but not enough so that we could think for ourselves, question the sociopolitical order, or communicate articulately. We were to become good worker-drones, with a razor-thin slice of the population—mainly the children of the captains of industry and government—to rise to the level where they could continue running things.

This was the openly admitted blueprint for the public schooling system, a blueprint which remains unchanged to this day. Although the true reasons behind it aren't often publicly expressed, they're apparently still known within education circles. Clinical psychologist Bruce E. Levine wrote in 2001:

I once consulted with a teacher of an extremely bright eight-year-old boy labeled with oppositional defiant disorder. I suggested that perhaps the boy didn't have a disease, but was just bored. His teacher, a pleasant woman, agreed with me. However, she added, "They told us at the state conference that our job is to get them ready for the work world…that the children have to get used to not being stimulated all the time or they will lose their jobs in the real world."

John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001), is the source for all of the above historical quotes. It is a profoundly important, unnerving book, which I recommend most highly. You can order it from Gatto's Website, which now contains the entire book online for free.
The final quote above is from page 74 of Bruce E. Levine's excellent book Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Psychiatry, Confronting Society (New York: Continuum Publishing Group, 2001).

http://newsfromthewest.blogspot.com/2009/03/educational-syst...

 

From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels - The Communist Manifesto

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Observations by Victor Davis Hansen of the Hoover Institute

This is an article from Victor Davis Hansen, a Senior Fellow at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University ...

     The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the
more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if
superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and
income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools
(based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in
the nation, along with an over regulated private sector, a stagnant and
shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that
restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.

    During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on
a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County . I
also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns
like San Joaquin , Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been
driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and
impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and
Selma . My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no
ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles
away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal
testing norms in math and English.

    Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the
rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained
and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First,
remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of
illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming - to
such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile
backbone of the old rural California , for all practical purposes has ceased
to exist.

    On the western side of the Central Valley , the effects of arbitrary
cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of
prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants
in the towns in these areas - which used to make harvesters, hydraulic
lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment - have largely shut down; their
production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture
itself - from almonds to raisins - has increasingly become corporatized and
mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So
unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

    Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye
no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean
look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various
outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos
cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese,
goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all
sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning
laws, strict building codes, constant inspections - but apparently none of
that applies out here.

    It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not
regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the
upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring
the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond
the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the
regulators' defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer
park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

    Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on
former small farms - the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with
the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities
from  the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don't think I can
remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley
have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently
rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000
to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly - with
suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the
world's richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of
the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen?
Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away
potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the
national debt and uncertain future?

    California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water
available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta,
but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash,
furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California 's rural
hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as
the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the
road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw
garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me.
So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive
into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash
into the environment of my host.

    In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here - composed of everything
from half-empty paint cans and children's plastic toys to diapers and moldy
food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state
EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to
Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating
down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we
cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might
invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes
dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.

    We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven
residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from
my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open
a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least
what I might call a "counter business." I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen
trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic
chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There
are no "facilities" such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see
lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have
simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking
fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a
distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.

    At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost
anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last
week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets,
gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax
California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go
transactions.

    In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did
not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food
stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship
between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical
appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were
loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.

    By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or
Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in
the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the
trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don't editorialize here on
the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast
numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food
assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class.
California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of
income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from
Washington explain some of this?

    Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a
hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or
drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market
in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic - there
were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of
"diversity," but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there
are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid
societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all
diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers
or at least the chief sources of income - whether through emergency rooms,
rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer
from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the
ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of
11 to 15 million illegal aliens.

    Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over
the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal
immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California's entitlements and
taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate
effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and
agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of
these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.

    Fresno 's California State University campus is embroiled in controversy
over the student body president's announcing that he is an illegal alien,
with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won't comment
on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF
for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the
Chicano and Latin American Studies program's sizable curriculum was a fuzzy
American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of
the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town,
Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American
counterparts.

    I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now
terrified of being deported to Mexico . I can understand that, given the
chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States . But here
is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal
with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national
chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and
moral place than the United States.

    So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, "Please
do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me
stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate." I think the DREAM Act
protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had
they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave
at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What
it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or
demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to
the place of his birth?

    I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above
description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard
can only be termed "indifferent." California does not care whether one broke
the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing
of the illegal immigrant - no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with
American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or
skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and
more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of
California 's burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly
have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd
that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of
banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and
without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their
footsteps. How odd - to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta
- that California is at once both the nation's most unfree and most free
state, the most repressed and the wildest.

    Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their
feet, both into and out of California - and the result is a sort of social,
cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.


Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor
of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome,
and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

Congressional Prayer Caucus to Obama: Issue National Motto Correction

I have shamelessly copied this article from the Dakota Voice after having received an email from a brother-in-law who lives in Maine.  I should also add that after having "Googled" the topic, I found that Congressman J. Randy Forbes has written a similar article on his website click here.




Congressional Prayer Caucus to Obama: Issue National Motto Correction


By Guest Author on December 6th, 2010



The following press release was issued from the Congressional Prayer Caucus today:



Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04), along with 42 bipartisan Members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, today sent a letter to President Barack Obama calling on him to issue a correction to a speech he gave in Jakarta, Indonesia, in which he inaccurately referred to our national motto as being “E Pluribus unum.” The official national motto is “In God We Trust.”



“For the President of the United States to incorrectly state something as foundational as our national motto in another country is unacceptable. The President is the primary representative of our nation to the world, and whether mistake or intention, his actions cast aside an integral part of American society,” said Forbes. “President Reagan once warned that ‘If we ever forget that we’re one national under God, then we will be a nation gone under.’”



In his speech on November 10, 2010 at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, President Obama said “But I believe that the history of both America and Indonesia should give us hope. It is a story written into our national mottos. In the United States, our motto is E pluribus unum – out of many one…our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag.”



“In God We Trust” has been a foundational phrase used throughout our nation’s history, from Presidential proclamations, to engravings in both the House and Senate chambers, to the oath taken by all federal employees. In 1956, Congress passed and President Eisenhower signed into law establishing “In God We Trust” as the official national motto of the United States. The motto is referred to in the national anthem and is engraved on U.S. coins and currency.



In addition, on October 18, during a fundraiser, President Obama said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This was the third time in over a month that the President omitted the word “Creator” from the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence specifically recognizes God, the Creator, as the source of inalienable rights.



“Once may be a mistake. But twice is a pattern. These omissions and inaccuracies are a part of a larger pattern we are seeing with the President where he is inaccurately reflecting America and undercutting important parts of our nation’s history,” said Forbes. “Trust in God is embedded into the fabric of society and history in the United States. If we allow these threads to be pulled, we will begin to unravel the very freedoms that birthed America.”



In the letter, the members asked that the President issue a correction to the speech he gave in Jakarta and expressed their willingness to meet with him to discuss the issue further. A copy of the letter is available here





.


The Congressional Prayer Caucus is a bipartisan group of Members of Congress dedicated to preserving America’s religious heritage and protecting religious liberties. The Prayer Caucus successfully led efforts to ensure that “In God We Trust” was included in the newly constructed Capitol Visitor Center after it had been removed and the national motto incorrectly noted as “E Pluribus unum.” Congressman Forbes is founder and chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus.

A Wisconsin Citizen's Open Letter to the New Governor and Senator

This, my fellow Americans, is a homerun.


Open Letter to Wisconsin Governor-Elect Scott Walker & Senator-Elect Ron Johnson

By Dave Brown · Friday, December 3, 2010

Congratulations on your election victories on 2 November 2010! We are blessed to have two men of good character to lead and represent Wisconsin. There are three critical issues that require your immediate attention. If these issues are not addressed first, all others are meaningless. It will take courage on your part equal to the courage demonstrated by the Founding Fathers and more recently by New Jersey Governor Chris Christy. Government spending must be drastically reduced. The survival of our country depends on it. The short term goal should be a 50% reduction. There can be only one of two results in this defining battle ... saving America, or the destruction of America. Opposition to your efforts will be intense.

The national debt is at 13.5 trillion. Even if government spending is cut 50% it will take several generations to repay this debt. With minor spending reductions, like those being recommended by the debt and deficit commission, the debt will not be re-paid, ever. The federal government spent 1.4 trillion in 2009 and 1.35 trillion in 2010 more than it took in tax revenue. This un-checked spending is destroying the United States of America.

"Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect."


--Thomas Jefferson, December 21, 1817

I believe in the country of our Founding Fathers. The principles of honoring the Almighty, personal responsibility, character, integrity, and honesty make the foundation that supports the American ideal. Without a true respect for these principles no person will ever enjoy their unalienable rights granted by the Creator among those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Fortunately for Wisconsinites both of you have demonstrated a healthy respect for these principles. I believe you are both up to the challenge.

Here are the major issues:

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824

The number of federal, state, and local employees must be reduced by 50%. At the federal level this means postal workers, agency bureaucrats, FBI, CIA, and the list goes on and on. At the state level this means starting with divesting the University of Wisconsin system. Let the new private university compete in the free market. If their customers (students) don't mind paying six figure salaries to professors that work one day/week, and don't mind supplying University administrators with lavish compensation including luxury housing with servants, luxury cars, and unlimited expense accounts then great! On the other hand if struggling students don't see why they have to pay for these luxuries academia may have to adjust how they do business, or lose all of their customers. It also means cutting teachers, firefighters, non-frontline police, DNR, etc… Those public employees that remain must have compensation equivalent to similar jobs in the private sector.

Reason must be applied when making cuts, example: In most cases reductions would not be appropriate in frontline law enforcement, national security, FBI, and border patrol. This means the men and women on the street. However desk jockeys and bureaucrats in these agencies can and must be eliminated. No cuts in military personnel would be appropriate in a time of war either. However, elimination of entire agencies like the postal service, departments of education, energy, housing and urban development, agriculture, NASA, to name a few would help meet the 50% target.

Can we survive a 50% cut in government employees? Here are the current government full time employee numbers:

Federal 14.6 million
State 3.8 million
Local 11.0 million
-------------------------------
Total 29.4 million

Certainly America will survive with half of 29.4 million. 14.7 million government employees still looks extraordinarily high and inappropriate for a free country. Note these numbers do not include 1.5 million state and 3.2 million local government part time employees.

Not only will America survive it will thrive after these reductions are made. It may take some adjustment for the newly unemployed public workers to find meaningful, productive work in the private sector. Adjusting to the required work standard in the private sector may be traumatic for some but when they do the economy will expand and improve.

For remaining government employees pensions must be abolished. No public employee including elected officials should receive a pension or any other benefit (health insurance) of any type under any circumstance upon termination of employment. The only exception would be for retired military honorably discharged after 20 years of service or for any military service person injured while serving. Retired military and/or injured military should receive a pension and healthcare for the remainder of their lives.

Forcing a productive citizen to pay for the public employee's life of ease and enjoyment in retirement (that usually begins around age 50 for this very privileged class) against his will is unconstitutional.

XIII Amendment Section I, ratified December 6, 1865

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The language is clear and needs no lawyer to translate the meaning to citizens. It means if a politician enters into a contract with a pubic employee union, or passes a law that obligates me to pay pension and benefits to the idle public employee for the remainder of their natural lives so they may live in ease, leisure, and comfort in retirement is clearly unconstitutional. It is not only unconstitutional; it is illegal, immoral, and obscene. It is the definition of involuntary servitude. Why should those working in the private sector, who receive no pension, be expected to save for our own retirement and be required to pay the public employee's pension? We are all familiar with standard justifications for this...but these are noble professions, who could possibly be against police, firemen, teachers, etc…, or compensation and benefits must be high or we will lose these very special people to the private market place, or they work in difficult conditions so they deserve lavish benefits... There is no limit to the straw man arguments from public union leaders and politicians to justify this mess.

Public employee unions must be abolished and outlawed.

Public employees organized into a union feeding at the same public trough elbow to elbow with lawmakers is an obvious disaster for the tax payer. Peer pressure on lawmakers from their unionized fellow trough eaters to keep the trough full at all costs is intense and is the reason politicians give up their soul, some quicker than others, once elected to office. The politician quickly realizes his highest priority is to keep squeezing the tax payer so the trough remains full. Life at the trough looks very attractive to many working and/or idling in the private sector. It is like a giant magnet attracting more and more people. It is obvious to those working in the private sector the public employee's compensation and benefits are much better than his.

The politician/lawmaker realizes his fellow trough eaters are always a solid vote so why wouldn't he want to add more and more trough eaters? What a wonderful system he thinks to himself, a real no-brainer! He realizes he has the power to extract more money from the tax payer because he makes the laws that direct the guys with the uniforms and guns, that run the IRS, and run the prisons. The stunning part for those in the private sector is that no politician is willing to acknowledge the obvious -- the public employee orgy of compensation and benefits has sunk America into a black hole of debt.

Public employees are keenly aware they have no chance whatsoever to match their lavish government compensation and benefits in the private sector. They will fight as King George III did to force the productive class to keep the trough full, at gun point if required.

ENTITLEMENTS

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

--Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766

Entitlements are destroying our country morally and financially. Welfare, unemployment, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and housing subsidies must be abolished. No where in the constitution is the government authorized to take the treasure and earnings from one and give to another. As Ben Franklin observed 244 years ago ...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer... This was true in 1766, true in 2010, and will still be true in 2254 (if we survive). As for the cost of medical care, consumers must pay for medical care. The current system of having others pay for one's medical care removes any incentive to shop for the best provider, the best price for meds, or for many to take care to eat a proper diet and exercise. The free market will do as it always does when not interfered with by government -- it will reward care providers that provide the best service at the best price and punish those that don't. The winner is the consumer. It is no more complicated than that.

Will this be a painful adjustment? Yes. Will people suffer? Yes. Remember Freedom is not free. Freedom means you reap what you sow. Freedom gives the individual a choice of planning, working, learning, and living responsibly. Which means more often than not you will enjoy the blessings and rewards of living this way. Freedom also means the individual can choose to not plan, not work, not learn, and live irresponsibly. These choices usually lead to a miserable life, probably behind bars or dead at an early age.

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."

--James Madison

The current system of forcing the responsible to pay for irresponsible is unconstitutional and immoral. One lucky break for the irresponsible and for good people that happen to fall on hard times, is that America is the most charitable, giving nation on the planet. There are hundreds of charitable organizations in America. There is no finer charity than The Salvation Army. The CEO makes $13,000 a year. $0.93 of every dollar donated goes directly to the needy. Compare this incredibly high ratio to that of the federal government. What percentage of a dollar given to the government goes to the needy after paying the 14.6 million federal government employees, 82,000 of which make more than $150,000/year? I do not imagine it is close to $0.93.

TAXATION

"[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

--Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

Income tax, state and federal, must be abolished. The practice of confiscating a large percentage of a productive worker's wages from his pay before he ever takes possession of his justly earned compensation dulls the pain of surrendering his earnings to the government. If productive citizens had to write a check out to the state and federal government every month for their share of taxes based on their income there would be revolution tomorrow. All capital gains taxes must be abolished. The death tax must be abolished.

Taxation should be levied on purchased goods and services only. The percentage tax rate must be the same for all consumers and for all goods and services. The government cannot make punitive tax rates on businesses or products it does not favor for any reason. This includes oil, gas, tobacco, alcohol, etc... Everything is taxed at the same rate. Corporate taxes must be abolished. This is a devious way for government to tax citizens without accountability. Only people pay taxes, not corporations.

SUMMARY

These are the main issues and unless addressed first makes addressing all other issues equivalent to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Mr. Walker, when you gave back over $300,000 of your county salary it spoke volumes of the type of man you are. It reminds me of a quote I read on the church bulletin board years ago that stuck with me, that goes: What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.

You both are good men and I believe you are up for the challenge. God bless both of you. I will support you in any way needed.

Dave Brown

Franklin, WI

The Subtle Way Hollywood Turns the Christian Theme

Does caring, working together in harmony, joyous relationships equal boring? Do we have to have conflict within our own ranks to provide excitement? And why can't we take something that someone else wrote and that has a very wide following and not change it thereby changing the underlying goodness of the story?

Mere Entertainment?
By: Anne Morse|Published: December 9, 2010 10:53 AM
Topics: Arts & Media, Books, Religion & Society


Many Christians are eagerly anticipating the third film of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, due in theaters in December. We love the fact that these deeply Christian stories are making their way to a wider audience. But one theologian wonders if the films really are a faithful representation of Lewis’s deeply Christian worldview.

In a Touchstone magazine essay titled “Narnia Invaded,” Steven Boyer says we should “think carefully about a significant element in Lewis’s vision that does not play very well in our world”: His “particular fondness for hierarchy.”

Christianity teaches that there is a hierarchal distinction between God and the world He created, with humans rightly subordinating to the God who creates and sustains us. As well, the Christian tradition teaches the goodness of hierarchy through all sorts of human relationships. “When that order is respected, real joy and freedom are the result,” Boyer says.

Writers like Dante, Spenser, Milton, and Virgil, along with Lewis, “understand the idea that just rulership and obedience are inextricable one from the other—that they are, in fact, the same virtue in different modes,” Boyer adds. Of course, throughout history people have abused hierarchy—everyone from dictators to fathers who demand unquestioning obedience from their families. And this is why, for many moderns, the very word hierarchy reeks of domination and oppression.

Unfortunately, this is the view of hierarchy the Narnia scriptwriters embrace. For instance, in Lewis’s books, the lion Aslan makes the four Pevensie children kings of Narnia, who rule harmoniously over Narnia. Peter, the oldest brother, is made the High King over the others. When the children return to Narnia and encounter Prince Caspian, the relationship between Peter and Caspian is marked by mutual respect, reliance, and open-handedness.

But the scriptwriters destroy this view of honorable cooperation. Peter and Caspian—whose dealings are marked by rancor and antagonism—battle constantly over who is really in charge in their efforts to rescue Narnia from the evil King Miraz. During a great battle, their own ignoble desires lead to the unnecessary deaths of their own soldiers.

But if you page through Prince Caspian, you’ll find that Peter and Caspian treat one another with great respect and cooperation.

The film’s depiction of hierarchy reveals a great deal about the scriptwriters, who are, Boyer notes, essentially admitting that they “understand nothing about power other than that it is meant to make other people do what you want them to do.” In effect, the scriptwriters accept the view of hierarchy embraced by the evil King Miraz, who stole the throne from Caspian: For Miraz, there is no such thing as legitimate hierarchy, only power. Kingship is not about sacrificing for one’s subjects, but about enjoying unquestioned authority—and destroying anyone who stands in the way.

Sadly, Boyer says, this means that viewers of the Narnia films are getting “mere entertainment” instead of Lewis’s “richly Christian view of the world.”

And what of the latest film in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

I saw an advance screening of the film a couple of weeks ago. I’m pleased to say that there is more respect for appropriate hierarchy here than in the previous two films. For instance, after Edmund and Lucy Pevensie fall back into Narnia through a seascape, Edmund unthinkingly attempts to take charge in a tense situation. The ship’s captain, Drinian, respectfully tells Edmund that the only person he takes orders from is Prince Caspian. Edmund accepts this gentle rebuke. We also see, through Lucy and Edmund’s obnoxious cousin Eustace, the consequences of failing to respect appropriate hierarchy.

When the travelers arrive at an uninhabited island, they discover that anything dropped into a body of water will turn to gold. Caspian—realizing the immense wealth and power that could come to anyone who exploited this knowledge—claims the island as a Narnian possession. He sternly forbids his companions from telling anyone about the island’s secret on pain of death. Edmund immediately (and rather nastily) contests Caspian’s right to command him.

While this may seem like a revisiting of the “who’s the boss?” hostility so much in evidence in Prince Caspian between Peter and Caspian, in reality, the scene comes straight out of the book:

“The king who owned this island,” said Caspian slowly, and his face flushed as he spoke, ”would soon be the richest of all kings of the world. I claim this land for ever as a Narnian possession. . . . And I bind all of you to secrecy. No one must know of this. Not even Drinian—on pain of death, do you hear?”

“Who are you talking to?” said Edmund. “I’m no subject of yours. If anything it’s the other way round. I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and you are under allegiance to the High King my brother.”

“So it has come to that, King Edmund, has it?” said Caspian, laying his hand on his sword-hilt.”

In the book, Aslan appears to wake the children out of the trance the island has put them under. In the film, Lucy reminds them that the magician they encountered earlier had warned them that evil would try to sway them from their path.

Parents whose children have watched the previous two Chronicles of Narnia films, and who are eagerly awaiting the third one, might consider using Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a springboard for a discussion about both biblical and non-biblical hierarchy. With this film, as with all others, children should be taught to identify the worldview of those who created it. Where and why does the film deviate from Lewis’s original? Did screenwriters add scenes and change the story in order to add more excitement? Or did they alter the story in order to tone down the Christian message?

While we should be mindful of the film’s messages, we should not focus on them so hard that we cut into our enjoyment of it. It’s a rollicking adventure story, filled with dragons and sea serpents, magicians and Dufflepuds, a delightfully bratty schoolboy who gets his comeuppance—and a Lion who takes the young adventurers to the end of the world.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You Think Our Religious Practice(Christianity) is Safe?

When it was happening overseas we ignored it with the reasoning, "It can never happen in the United States".
It's happening in Canada, it will soon be hear.


CULTURE NEWS

Sunday, December 12, 2010
Biblical Preaching Banned from Canadian TV
A Canadian evangelical preacher has been stricken from Christian TV broadcasting after homosexualists complained that he modeled himself after his counterparts in the United States by criticizing the state-sanctioned Gay Agenda.

-- From "Broadcaster suspends reverend's TV show" by CTV.ca News Staff 12/11/10

Christian broadcaster CTS has taken the television show of evangelical minister Charles McVety off the air, after an industry watchdog ruled that statements he had made about homosexuals violated its broadcasting codes.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) said that it had received complaints about how McVety's program, Word TV, had portrayed issues "such as homosexuality, Islam, Haiti and euthanasia," it said in a decision issued Wednesday.

The complaints charged that the program "had included discriminatory comments on the basis of sexual orientation, religion and mental disability," the organization said.

In response, CTS decided to suspend the show, saying that such concerns "are treated seriously."

An influential Canadian evangelical, McVety models himself on the televangical stars south of the border, and has been known to express controversial views.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

From "Evangelical TV show pulled from the air" by Charles Lewis, National Post 12/10/10

. . . commenting on Toronto's massive gay pride parade, ". . . [it] is a criminal activity, to parade down the streets in the nude," Rev. McVety said on Word TV. "There is the Criminal Code of Canada that says you can't do that. It's an abuse of public space, it's abuse of our children."

The broadcasting council said Rev. McVety derided the city for advertising Toronto as a "sex tourism destination ... with full opportunity for sex with hot boys."

. . . strong comments about a proposed 2010 change to Ontario's sex curriculum that presented homosexuality in a more accepting light . . . "[W]e send little Johnny and little Jane to school, not to learn to be homosexuals and lesbians," Rev. McVety said on air. "We send them there to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and history and all these wonderful things, but unfortunately there is an activist group that is afoot that wants to change our curriculum. Why? Because unfortunately they have an insatiable appetite for sex, especially with young people. And there are not enough of them, so they want to proselytize your children and mine, our grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals."

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

From "Religious Program Distorted Facts and Contained Abusive Comments about Homosexuals" posted at Broadcaster, Canada's Communications Magazine 12/9/10

The CBSC's Ontario Regional Panel examined the complaints under the Human Rights clauses of the CAB Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code, which prohibit the broadcast of abusive or unduly discriminatory comment about identifiable groups. It also examined them under the Religious Programming Clause of the CAB Code of Ethics, which prohibits attacks on identifiable groups in such programming, as well as the Negative Portrayal Clause of the CAB Equitable Portrayal Code.

With respect to the comments about homosexuality, the Panel explained that the program was entitled to air objections to that practice generally, to government funding of gay pride parades and to changes made to an Ontario school curriculum that would include discussion of homosexuality. When, however, the program suggested that homosexuals prey on children, it violated the Human Rights, Religious Programming and Negative Portrayal Clauses.

. . . [McVety] also stated that "speaking out" against homosexuality is now a "crime" in Canada, which is also an inaccurate statement regarding the hate speech provisions of the Criminal Code.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Posted by Gabriel Mephibosheth at 1:02 PM
Labels: anti-Christian, ban, Bible, Canada, censorship, evangelicals, gay agenda, hate crimes, hate speech, homosexuality, indoctrination, parade, pastor, pedophilia, public schools, TV
Links to this post

Margarine - One of the Most Insidious Hoaxes

BUTTER! Glad I never got onto the margarine bandwagon.

By The Weston A. Price Foundation

The Weston A. Price Foundation provides accurate information about nutrition and is dedicated to putting nutrient-dense foods back on American tables.

Members receive a lively and informative quarterly journal and email updates on current issues and events.Visit their website at www.westonaprice.org .

Are you still shunning butter from your diet? You can stop today because butter can be a very healthy part of your diet.
Why Butter is Better

* Vitamins ...

Butter is a rich source of easily absorbed vitamin A, needed for a wide range of functions, from maintaining good vision to keeping the endocrine system in top shape.

Butter also contains all the other fat-soluble vitamins (D, E and K2), which are often lacking in the modern industrial diet.
* Minerals ...

Butter is rich in important trace minerals, including manganese, chromium, zinc, copper and selenium (a powerful antioxidant). Butter provides more selenium per gram than wheat germ or herring. Butter is also an excellent source of iodine.
* Fatty Acids ...

Butter provides appreciable amounts of short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which support immune function, boost metabolism and have anti-microbial properties; that is, they fight against pathogenic microorganisms in the intestinal tract.

Butter also provides the perfect balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats. Arachidonic acid in butter is important for brain function, skin health and prostaglandin balance.
* Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) ...

When butter comes from cows eating green grass, it contains high levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a compound that gives excellent protection against cancer and also helps your body build muscle rather than store fat.
* Glycospingolipids ...

These are a special category of fatty acids that protect against gastrointestinal infections, especially in the very young and the elderly. Children given reduced-fat milks have higher rates of diarrhea than those who drink whole milk.
* Cholesterol ...

Despite all of the misinformation you may have heard, cholesterol is needed to maintain intestinal health and for brain and nervous system development in the young.
* Wulzen Factor ...

A hormone-like substance that prevents arthritis and joint stiffness, ensuring that calcium in your body is put into your bones rather than your joints and other tissues. The Wulzen factor is present only in raw butter and cream; it is destroyed by pasteurization.

Butter and Your Health

Is butter really healthy? Let us count the ways …

1. Heart Disease

Butter contains many nutrients that protect against heart disease including vitamins A, D, K2, and E, lecithin, iodine and selenium. A Medical Research Council survey showed that men eating butter ran half the risk of developing heart disease as those using margarine (Nutrition Week 3/22/91, 21:12).
2. Cancer

The short- and medium-chain fatty acids in butter have strong anti-tumor effects. Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in butter from grass-fed cows also gives excellent protection against cancer.
3. Arthritis

The Wulzen or "anti-stiffness" factor in raw butter and also Vitamin K2 in grasss-fed butter, protect against calcification of the joints as well as hardening of the arteries, cataracts and calcification of the pineal gland. Calves fed pasteurized milk or skim milk develop joint stiffness and do not thrive.
4. Osteoporosis

Vitamins A, D and K2 in butter are essential for the proper absorption of calcium and phosphorus and hence necessary for strong bones and teeth.
5. Thyroid Health

Butter is a good source of iodine, in a highly absorbable form. Butter consumption prevents goiter in mountainous areas where seafood is not available. In addition, vitamin A in butter is essential for proper functioning of the thyroid gland.
6. Digestion

Glycospingolipids in butterfat protect against gastrointestinal infection, especially in the very young and the elderly.
7. Growth & Development

Many factors in the butter ensure optimal growth of children, especially iodine and vitamins A, D and K2. Low-fat diets have been linked to failure to thrive in children -- yet low-fat diets are often recommended for youngsters!
8. Asthma

Saturated fats in butter are critical to lung function and protect against asthma.
9. Overweight

CLA and short- and medium-chain fatty acids in butter help control weight gain.
10. Fertility

Many nutrients contained in butter are needed for fertility and normal reproduction.

Why You Should Avoid Margarine, Shortening and Spreads

There are a myriad of unhealthy components to margarine and other butter imposters, including:

* Trans fats: These unnatural fats in margarine, shortenings and spreads are formed during the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oils into a solid fat

Trans fats contribute to heart disease, cancer, bone problems, hormonal imbalance and skin disease; infertility, difficulties in pregnancy and problems with lactation; and low birth weight, growth problems and learning disabilities in children.

A U.S. government panel of scientists determined that man-made trans fats are unsafe at any level. (Small amounts of natural trans fats occur in butter and other animal fats, but these are not harmful.)
* Free radicals: Free radicals and other toxic breakdown products are the result of high temperature industrial processing of vegetable oils. They contribute to numerous health problems, including cancer and heart disease.
* Synthetic vitamins: Synthetic vitamin A and other vitamins are added to margarine and spreads. These often have an opposite (and detrimental) effect compared to the natural vitamins in butter.
* Emulsifiers and preservatives: Numerous additives of questionable safety are added to margarines and spreads. Most vegetable shortening is stabilized with preservatives like BHT.
* Hexane and other solvents: Used in the extraction process, these industrial chemicals can have toxic effects.
* Bleach: The natural color of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is grey so manufacturers bleach it to make it white. Yellow coloring is then added to margarine and spreads.
* Artificial flavors: These help mask the terrible taste and odor of partially hydrogenated oils, and provide a fake butter taste.
* Mono- and di-glycerides: These contain trans fats that manufacturers do not have to list on the label. They are used in high amounts in so-called "low-trans" spreads.
* Soy protein isolate: This highly processed powder is added to "low-trans" spreads to give them body. It can contribute to thyroid dysfunction, digestive disorders and many other health problems.
* Sterols: Often added to spreads to give them cholesterol-lowering qualities, these estrogen compounds can cause endocrine problems; in animals these sterols contribute to sexual inversion.

How to Purchase Butter

The BEST butter is raw butter from grass-fed cows, preferably organic. Next is pasteurized butter from grass-fed cows, followed by regular pasteurized butter from supermarkets. Even the latter two are still a much healthier choice than margarine or spreads.


And where is the FDA? When are we going to realize that we should not shirk our own responsibilities by transferring them to a bureaucracy?

How to Straighten This Country Out

By ED Kennedy - Wednesday, December 1, 2010



The recent election offers an incredible opportunity to take actions strong enough to actually get our country out of its current rut and on the road to prosperity.

The economic proposal offered by former Sen. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles does nothing but make matters worse. Raising taxes has never solved any economic problem. The solution to our huge and ever-rising deficits is to increase the tax base by making the economy bigger and government smaller.

How do we do it? Here's how:

First, do away with the IRS.

Replace it with the Fair Tax. Every Fair Tax proposal I've seen calls for lower-income citizens to receive advanced rebates to prevent further hardship on those folks until we can create higher-paying jobs for them. The Fair Tax would cause hundreds of companies to either open headquarters locations or move entirely to the U.S.

The result would be millions of new jobs, good jobs that would result in much higher revenues being collected from the Fair Tax. Employers would be competing for good workers, and the economy would explode with success.

Now, the broken economy is solved. The only thing that could slow it down is continued irresponsible spending by a government gone wrong. So let's fix government.

Let's start by completely doing away with the Department of Education.

This department is a $100 billion quagmire that turns every dollar into 17 cents. Since the formation of this boondoggle more than 30 years ago, education has gone backward. The only result we see from the $100 billion this national disgrace spends annually is increased and unnecessary paperwork for already overworked teachers.

The government would support state schools to the tune of $25 billion of current DOE funding. The states would decide how best to spend the dollars to improve education, and the feds would stay out of their business - thereby saving taxpayers $75 billion a year and greatly improving the education product offered to our children.

Now that we are finally moving in the right direction, let's dissolve the Department of Energy.

This is another bureaucratic nightmare that costs billions and serves no purpose. Since its inception during the Carter administration, energy prices have skyrocketed and we are more dependent than ever on foreign oil. Let individual states determine if they want to drill for oil within their states' boundaries or off their coasts.

This would allow us to take advantage of a couple of the world's richest reserves in Alaska and the Dakotas. The resulting fall in OPEC oil prices would help economies all over the world to grow. The only nations to be hurt would be those that use oil revenues to support terrorism.

In order to keep the remaining departments of government from devouring our newfound prosperity with further incompetence, we'll cut every department's budget by 50 percent. These excess government workers would easily be able to find "productive" jobs in our now-booming economy. The result would be more efficient government that supported rather than crushed good economic initiatives.

EPA and FDA would be defanged and no longer the enemy of every business with an environmental solution or health care breakthrough.

The only department that would be exempted from drastic cuts would be the Department of Defense. The DOD would be charged with protecting our borders and protecting us from terrorists. The DOD would be subjected to extensive audits to expose any wasteful or unnecessary spending. Those guilty of buying "hundred-dollar toilet seats" would be fired and severely punished.

What about health care, you ask? Simple! Scrap the worst piece of legislation in history, Obamacare, and replace it with tort reform and allow health care insurers to compete across state lines. Rates would drop and our now much more gainfully employed workers would more easily be able to afford it.

Finally, put prayer back in schools.

In the 30 years since liberals have kicked God out of our schools, our society and the values that made it great have gone into decay. Respect for authority is disappearing, and our schools are more dangerous and less productive because of these problems.

Let every state put "prayer in schools" on the ballot during the next statewide election. My guess is that such initiatives would pass overwhelmingly in most states. Atheists, radicals and others who object would have the same options that Christians now have: Put their children in private school, home school or find a state with laws they like. This fringe element could also consider moving to countries like Iran, North Korea or France.

These simple improvements might not solve everything, but they would get the ball rolling in the proper direction.

God bless America!

Businessman Ed Kennedy lives in Pinehurst. Contact him at ekennedy10@nc.rr.com.

PatriotPost.US Alert:: TSA Invasive Body Scanners

Friday, November 12, 2010

Breaking: An investigation by The Patriot Post has determine that the three primary manufacturers of full body scanners being purchased by TSA with Obama (taxpayer) "stimulus" funding, are located in (you guessed it) Democrat congressional districts favored for such boondoggle funding in California and Massachusetts.

L-3 Communications ($165 million contract) is in Massachusetts congressional district 7 (Demo Rep. Ed Markey). American Science and Engineering is in Massachusetts congressional district 5 (Demo Rep. Niki Tsongas). And, Rapiscan ($173 million contract) is in California's 36th congressional district (Demo Rep. Jane Harman).

If you think the TSA scanners now being deployed at airports around the nation -- thanks to $73 million in Obama (taxpayer) stimulus funding -- are not invasive, you might reconsider after viewing this virtual strip search, which is a low resolution of the much higher resolution TSA scans now being used.

Is there a privacy issue here? Want your wives and daughters scanned or searched using the "enhanced pat down procedure" if a woman refuses to subject herself to the scan? Did you know that TnA, er, uh, TSA employees have cached these images? Reuters reports and thousands of them have been posted on the Web. Further, there are also health related concerns about scanner radiation.

When it comes to airport security matters, we put some stock into what the Israelis have to say. In April of this year, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority, Rafi Sela, who has been an expert in security and defence technology for 30 years, said of the body scanners: "I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. That's why we haven't put them in [Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport]." (Obviously Sela's security decisions are not directed by politicians with stimulus money to burn.)

Sela believes a "trusted traveller" network would be better because pre-approved low-risk passengers would be subject only to expedited screening and higher risk individuals could then be subject to much more proven technology like automatic sniffers now used to detect explosive residue on airline baggage.

As for the "random search" procedures in effect at U.S. airports, Sela says, "Random searches are like Russian roulette." He is an advocate of behavioral profiling, but that would offend the sensibilities of travelers who actually fit the profile of a terrorist.

View a list of airports with scanners.
Links to more info on the new TSA protocols:
Assume the position:

Assume the position 2:

Assume the position 3:

Pilot Association says NO:


Columnist Steve Chapman concludes, "The war on terrorism is going to get personal. Very personal. Americans have long resented the hassles that go with air travel ever since 9/11 — long security lines, limits on liquids, forced removal of footwear and so on. But if the Transportation Security Administration has its way, we will look back to 2009 as the good old days. The agency is rolling out new full-body scanners, which eventually will replace metal detectors at all checkpoints. These machines replicate the experience of taking off your clothes, but without the fun. They enable agents to get a view of your body that leaves nothing to the imagination. For the camera-shy, TSA will offer an alternative: "enhanced" pat-downs. This is not the gentle frisking you may have experienced at the airport in the past. It requires agents to probe aggressively in intimate zones — breasts, buttocks, crotches. If you enjoyed your last mammography or prostate exam, you'll love the enhanced pat-down. And you'll get a chance to have an interesting conversation with your children about being touched by strangers. Besides the indignity of having one's body exposed to an airport screener, there is a danger the images will find a wider audience. The U.S. Marshals Service recently admitted saving some 35,000 images from a machine at a federal courthouse in Florida. TSA says that will never happen. Human experience says, oh, yes, it will."

And you think we are FREE?

What follows is an email newsletter from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and if it doesn't 1) scare the heck out of you and 2) overwhelm you with outrage, I don't think anything will.


OUR GOVERNMENT IS SO OUT OF CONTROL THAT OUR VERY LIVES ARE IN DANGER.  THE THREAT ISN'T IN SOME DISTANT FUTURE BUT HAS ARRIVE.


1.  SEARCHES TO GET ON AN AIRPLANE THAT ARE TANTAMOUNT TO FULL BODY, STRIP SEARCHES.  AND THE PROCEDURES DO NOT PROTECT US AS THE BUREAUCRATS WOULD HAVE YOU THINK.....THEY DON'T CARE BECAUSE THEY CAN EXEMPT THEMSELVES FROM THE SEARCHES.


See my blog "Have We Gone Insane?"  "HOMELAND SECURITY?" (Another nasty joke on "We the People" or is it Homeland Prison?  


2. POLICEMEN AND BORDER PATROL AGENTS GOING TO JAIL FOR DOING THEIR JOBS.  THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (JOKE OF THE CENTURY) IS COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL AS YOU WILL UNDERSTAND FROM THIS ARTICLE.


3.  DOJ JUDGES LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH AND USURPING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE WHEN IT DOESN'T SUIT THEIR AGENDAS.


Check out what one judge has done to the will of the people of Oklahoma that do not wish to use International law or sharia law......In Defense of the Sharia Ban





Dear Defender of Freedom,

Help make sure this is the last Thanksgiving a mother is away from her son!  Take Action Now!

Thanksgiving is time every year when we all travel many miles to be around the ones we love. I wish I could tell you that Stephanie Mohr was going home this Thanksgiving to be with her son Adam. Stephanie is sitting hundreds of miles away from Adam in a jail cell where she was sentenced to spend 10 years of her life for a “crime” she didn’t commit!

This holiday season and all year long, LELDF has one goal and that is to defend those officers that have been wrongly accused for actions taken in line of duty. Please click here to learn more about LELDF and our mission!
Please -- let me explain.

Stephanie received more than 25 letters of commendation and two awards during her years on the police force. But all that matters to the bureaucrats at the federal Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice is that she was a white police officer whose police dog bit an illegal immigrant on the leg back in 1995.

You may have heard about her case. On the night of September 21, 1995, she was on patrol with her police dog, Valk. The area she patrolled, Takoma Park, had been suffering a rash of burglaries.

So when her partner, Sergeant Anthony Delozier, and Stephanie got a call for back-up from an officer who had spotted two men on the roof of a nearby store, they knew they might have found the criminals.

When they arrived, the situation was tense. The two suspects, Ricardo Mendez and Herrera Cruz, had been ordered down from the roof and told to face a wall. They were shouting back and forth to each other in a stream of Spanish. And then it happened.

Mendez made a move -- as if to flee the scene. Stephanie instantly released her dog, Valk, who was trained to perform the police department’s standard “bite and hold.” That’s exactly what Valk did -- he bit Mendez on the leg and held him until the other officers and she was able to handcuff him. Thankfully, a police helicopter was overhead and had monitored the arrest.

Both of the suspects were charged with 4th degree burglary. Herrera Cruz pled guilty, was sentenced to time served, and deported to Mexico. Mendez was convicted of illegally entering the U.S. and selling crack cocaine and was deported to San Salvador.

As for Stephanie Mohr, she was relieved to get two dangerous drug dealers off our streets.

So imagine her shock -- five years later -- when the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was going to indict me for “violating” Mendez’s civil rights by allowing her police dog to bite his leg!

At first, Stephanie simply could not believe it.

Ricardo Mendez was a convicted felon. An illegal immigrant. And it was her duty to release Valk and stop Mendez from fleeing the scene that night back in 1995! But the facts didn’t matter to the bureaucrats in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

They had been looking for cases of “police brutality” to investigate.

And Stephanie was exactly what they wanted:

A white police officer whose police dog had bitten a San Salvadoran immigrant. Her fellow officers testified in court that she had done her job by the book. The P.G. County police training clearly states that if a felony suspect makes a move, they are authorized to release our police dogs.

The jury agreed and voted to acquit her 11-1. And that’s when things really got ugly. Civil rights groups were furious. Everyone from Amnesty International to the NAACP declared the arrest “racist” and demanded an investigation of Stephanie and of the police department. The Justice Department insisted on a second trial because of the one lone juror who had sided with the prosecution.

The second trial was a circus.

The government flew Mendez in from San Salvador and Cruz from Mexico at taxpayer expense to testify against Stephanie. That’s right -- they wanted the jury to take the word of two convicted felons over the word of decorated police officers! To make matters worse, they stacked the jury with minorities who would be sympathetic to illegal immigrants. They drummed up minority witnesses who accused Stephanie of using racial epithets against them – without a shred of proof! And this time, their strategy worked.

Stephanie was convicted and sentenced to prison for ten years. Ten years -- for putting her life on the line every day and arresting a dangerous drug dealer! Stephanie left the courtroom in shock, without a chance to even kiss Adam or his daddy good-bye. Stephanie has been here in the Alderson, West Virginia prison now for seven years.

Stephanie thinks about Adam every constantly. Stephanie says it is an unimaginable pain. Maybe something only a mother can feel.

Stephanie missed seven of his birthdays and this Thanksgiving will be another holiday that Stephanie is separated from her son.But with your help, by donating $25, $50 , $100 or as much as you can afford to The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund we can try to make sure this is the last holiday Stephanie has to spend in a cold jail cell.

If you’ve heard of LELDF then you know we are the best friend a police officer could ever have. LELDF helps defend good officers who have been unfairly persecuted for their split-second, use-of-force decisions in the line of duty.

After I heard about her case, I told everyone on my board, including former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, about it. Since then, LELDF has been defending Stephanie Mohr. We have filed two appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals, and paid for legal briefs, expert witnesses, and research. We have recently filed a Petition for Commutation of Sentence with the President and a Habeas Corpus Petition with the Bureau of Prisons to force them to grant Stephanie an early release to her home or a half way house so she can be employed.

I would like to tell you that Stephanie’s story is unique but the fact is, that police men and women are wrongly accused every year for actions taken in line of duty.

Will you help LELDF defend Stephanie and other officers in a similar situation by sending a tax-deductible contribution to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund?
The U.S. Department of Justice has had unlimited federal tax dollars to spend on the cases against officers like Stephanie. But she must rely on the generous hearts of people like you to help clear her innocent name and send her home to her son Adam.

So all I can do now is hope that good Americans like you will come to their defense.

Any gift you can send -- be it $25, $50, $100, or $500 -- is tax-deductible. These officers have no other choice. They must rely on good Americans like you to right the wrong that has been done.

Sincerely,
Dave Martin
Chairman, LELDF

P.S. If she can be sent to prison for doing her job, then every police officer in this nation faces the risk of being put behind bars for protecting your family and mine. Won’t you please help me clear her name and get Stephanie home to her son before she misses another Thanksgiving? Thank you for any donation that you can spare.