You seriously have to laugh at the idiocy of our government officials. They simultaneously do things that drive up costs at the same time they try to cap costs. It’s like trying to squeeze the air out of one end of a balloon at the same time trying to keep it from going to the other end.

Seeking to revive his stalled health-care legislation, President Barack Obama is proposing a new idea to address health costs, giving the federal government authority to block insurers from making premium rate increases.

Sorry, one second. I’ll be right back…………

Ok, I didn’t think so. I was looking to see where in the Constitution it says the Federal government has any power to block private enterprises from raising their prices. Competition will prevent private enterprise from raising their prices above market prices. Oh, that’s right our government prevents competition between states.

The move raises the ante after two weeks of presidential bashing of rate increases including WellPoint Inc.’s decision to raise premiums for some California customers by as much as 39%. WellPoint has defended its price increase as unavoidable in light of rising health costs.

While I would hate to sound like a conspiracy nut, this huge rate hike sure comes at an opportune time for ObamaCare. I mean, if I wanted to help out Obama, I would probably do just this. This would make people just mad enough to say “Screw it. Let the government take over the industry. How can they justify a 39% increase.”

Meanwhile, once the health care theft bill is passed, the insurance companies have a huge increase of new customers who have no choice but to buy their crappy products. After all, the customers has a gun pointed at them.

Private insurance companies are now regulated by the states, which review proposed rate increases. Under the Obama proposal, the federal Department of Health and Human Services would gain the power to review and block premium increases.

via Obama in New Health Push to Block Insurers From Raising Premiums – WSJ.com.

Wow, I didn’t realize there was no federal regulation of the insurance industry. The Wall Street Journal really did break news this morning. Can we confirm this and burn all the papers in the federal registry?

States, like the rest of our government idiots, do tell insurance companies they have to provide coverage for all kinds of medical conditions even when the customer doesn’t want or need it. This does not help consumer. They are not getting something for nothing just because state governments tell insurance companies they have to provide certain coverages. The customer still has to pay for services they never wanted and do not need.

Then in order to make sure the citizen can’t avoid the idiotic ideas of their local states, the federal government steps in and makes sure you are trapped. They make sure you cannot buy insurance from across state lines. This is no different than how they trap us into the expensive drug market we have here in the US. Because we aren’t allowed to buy drugs from across the border, drug companies can charge whatever they want.

After all this anti-free market, anti-consumer, anti-freedom idiocy is put into place, you get demagogues like Obama saying the free market has failed. He must step in. The government must have the power to take over the private sector in order to save us. Meanwhile, the only saving we need is from our fascist government.

Great video I found on the Daily Paul.

All Republicans need to watch this. I don’t think they realize, while they are claiming they are for liberty, they are handing the government the tools to steal that liberty because of their foreign policy positions.

Have you ever felt like politics in the US is just bumper bowling? The people bounce back and forth between the two parties, all the while moving down the lane towards tyranny. Everyone votes for Republicans when they preach the virtues of small government. Then when they realize Republicans want to use the fear of some foreign boogieman to take their civil liberties away and to maintain an empire, they bounce back to a liberal Democrat who claims to be against war and to be for civil liberties.

Soon the people realize the Democrats are just another bumper keeping the people on the path towards tyranny. Of course, now the neocons over at HotAir are coming out against the possible civil rights violations that the Obama administration is considering. These are the same neocons who loved ignoring constitutional rights when they were in power. The truth is both parties would prefer to take your liberties all at once, but the chance of a revolution forces them to do it slowly.

After the people (No not me.) voted for Obama in hopes that he would end the wars and bring the troops home, they quickly found out that Obama expanded the wars, increased bombings and is now looking to make indefinite imprisonment the law of the land. Don’t worry though, Lindsey Graham, who believes himself representative of the real Republican party, backs Obama.

From HotAir.com.

As Allahpundit noted last night, the push to create an indefinite-detention law to allow the government to hold al-Qaeda terrorists is not a new idea, but it is a bad idea. It springs from a return to the law-enforcement model and the desperation of an administration that has begun to feel the limitations of their approach. That’s why the White House has once again begun floating trial balloons to which it hopes Congress will react with legislation, and unfortunately some on Capitol Hill — including one prominent Republican — want to provide that cover:

The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.

Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a “preventive detention” statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general “law of war” principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.

However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C. Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Indefinite detention law a bad idea.

Wonder if Allahpundit was saying it was a bad idea when Bush was ignoring the fourth, fifth, six and eighth amendments of the Bill of Rights? Oh, that’s right. It doesn’t apply to enemy combatants. The founders believed these to be natural rights, but to neocons it must mean natural born citizen’s rights. Wait. Wait.

Andy McCarthy tries to do a snow job on Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh al-Marri:

Jose Padilla (who, unlike Abdulmutallab, is an American citizen) was designated an enemy combatant and held without trial after being arrested inside the United States; so was Ali al-Marri. Ultimately, both were prosecuted in the civilian system — but only years later, after the intelligence community had ample opportunity to exhaust their capacity to provide useful information.

In fact, they were put back in the criminal justice system because the courts were about to wipe the floor with the Bush administration over Padilla, and as I’ve reported before, the Obama administration over al-Marri. They weren’t put back in because their capacity to provide useful information had been “exhausted.” What I love about this line of argument is that it directly contradicts the ones Republicans make in favor of detaining Umar Abdulmutallab in this manner. Republicans argue that military detention allows the government to get otherwise “perishable” intelligence quickly, but Padilla was held for three and a half years in military custody, al-Marri for nearly eight. That’s some pretty non-perishable intelligence.

via TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect.

I forgot. They aren’t even meant for all citizens. All that has to happen to take away these natural rights is for anyone in the government to claim you have terrorist connections.  I guess under Republicans it’s up to neocons to decide who gets rights and who doesn’t. Under Obama is it Holder, Van Jones, SEIU or some other socialist group?

Just the other day I was having a discussion with my dad, where I said I don’t trust either party. I  said both parties want to take our liberties and control us. They are both bought and paid for by some special interest group. To this, my dad said I was becoming too cynical. In typical Neo-con fashion, he told me how evil the Democrats are and how Republicans are so much better.

A couple days later, I come across Bob Murphy’s post highlighting how George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a Republican and a “anti-war” Democrat, can care less about our Constitution. Despite the Bill of Rights, they believe all they have to do is label someone a terrorist, and they have the right to imprison the person without cause or trial. Now to take it one step further, they have the right to kill that person (could be you one day) based on their judgement alone. All they have to do is label you a terrorist or say you are helping terrorists and put you on their “hit list”. Considering how horrible they are at the no fly list, I hate to see how this list pans out.

Here’s Bob’s post.

What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?

I was having lunch with someone today (name being withheld in case he doesn’t want this broadcast) and we were musing over the contradiction in the average American’s mind. On the one hand, if you asked Americans to rate professions in terms of their morality or decency, politicians would come in at or near dead last, and if they beat out lawyers, that wouldn’t be much help–most politicians are lawyers.

But at the same time, when it comes to the life-and-death decisions that U.S. politicians make, most Americans give them the benefit of the doubt–often ridiculously so. Sure, they might have made a mistake in, say, invading Iraq, but it really was always about protecting Americans and freeing Iraqis from a brutal thug. The CIA guys just goofed, that’s all.

So anyway, my buddy asked something like, “At what point are Americans going to wake up and realize they can’t trust their government?”

My answer, “When it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”

Note that I wasn’t just trying to say something dramatic, at which point the snare drums kick in and lightning cracks in the background. I meant it quite seriously: The people in charge have to keep up appearances so long as it’s necessary for the overwhelming majority to actually trust that the system basically works. In contrast, in more totalitarian regimes, a large portion of the population knows full well that the rulers are evil, and they are kept in place by fear and helplessness. (They also might think there are no better alternatives.)

So with that in mind, let’s quote from today’s post by Glenn Greenwald. We have already learned that Americans won’t revolt–heck, won’t even vote against an incumbent–just because of worldwide CIA secret prisons and systematic torture of POWs. OK fine. What about this?

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest today reports that “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people.”…

But buried in Priest’s article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret “hit list” of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed…

Read the full post at Free Advice: What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?.

So back to the question Bob posed in his title, “What Would It Take For Americans to Realize They Are Not Free?”  I am hoping that people are waking up to what our government has become, a corrupt, over grown, oppressive government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers.

It’s funny how people like my dad (his counterparts on the left do the same thing) will ascribe the most horrendous intentions to Democrats (some are justified), but he does not see the intentions of the Republicans. When I mentioned this article to him today and how easy it would be to label anyone a terrorist, he said, “Yeah, I can’t see that ever really happening.” Do you think it is just coincidence that our government found the perfect boogie man to get US citizens to give up their liberty, condone the suspension of habeas corpus and now kill off Americans at the President’s behest?

Like I said in my post about us living in the real world Matrix, this Democrat vs Republican scam is setup to get people to ignore what is really happening. By cheering on your team, you become too invested in winning to notice your team has the same intentions. Both teams want to take your liberty, enslave you to Washington and Wall Street, and all the while make you think it’s your choice.

So are you really free just because you get to choose between one party or the other, but you get the same result from both? Imagine if I said the following to you.  “You are free, baby. I don’t want to take your rights away. You are free to choose. I don’t care what three days a week you work for me, it’s your choice. Oh, and don’t worry about this gun pointed at you. It’s here to protect you from those evil people trying to harm what we got going on here. You sure are a lucky sum bitch to have me here protecting you like this. Ok, decide which days and get to work. I know I had to shoot one of our workers, but he was helping those evil people. I just know it. It was completely justified. Trust me.”

Would you still think you are free?

George Washington warned us that “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.”, but we Americans forget that. Government is nothing but a gun. It maintains a monopoly on force, and it uses that monopoly on anyone who would challenge it.

We don’t realize that all our elections are is different special interest groups fighting it out in the polls to gain control of the gun. Each special interest group runs commercials, writes op-eds and trys to convince the general public that the gun is better off in their hands. They will use the gun to make things right, to make them better for everyone. Do not pay attention to who they are pointing the gun at, because they promise not to point it at you.

This warning should have been ingrained in us, coming from a man who could have been King. Our founders knew the government was a gun, so they wrote the constitution to limit the instances in which that gun could be employed. This is why they wrote the constitution in the first place. There were issues under the articles of confederation that made it extremely hard to be a nation. These were things like trade wars between states, states printing their own currency making it impossible to have a medium of exchange, etc. The founders reluctantly handed a gun to the federal government and said, “Here is the gun, and we want you to only address these specific items with this gun.” In order to protect citizens from the gun, they wrote specific rights that could not be trampled by the gun, which we know as the Bill of Rights.

Fast forward to the early 1900s, and you have a group of people, progressives, with ideas that they think they can create society based on their ideology. They realize they can achieve their vision, despite the fact that most people do not want to live out their vision. People prefer to live life as they themselves see fit, but the progressives know that if they can gain control of the gun, the people will have no choice.

This vision has come from both sides of the isle, and both sides love wielding the gun in the direction that they see fit. It has become unfathomable to them and increasingly to us as a people to think that people can possibly make intelligent, rational decisions for themselves. They have convinced us, through government schools, propaganda and their media accomplices, to believe that the gun is there to protect us. They are only pointing the gun as us to make sure we aren’t harmed. It is not government that needs to be limited as the founders believed, but it is freedom that needs to be limited to make sure no irresponsible decisions are made. People don’t even questions who’s defining responsible.

We let the government, an immoral institution if you believe violence is immoral, define our morals. If government says milk is now illegal, we automatically would assume all milk farmers are criminals if they continue milking cows. Then when government decides that they can coerce more taxes by allowing some government controlled milking, they tell us they will allow some milking with strict regulation and licensing. If this sounds far fetched, how is this different than alcohol and gambling. You can’t play a card game in your basement, but you can go to a government sanctioned casino to feed your money to their rich friends.

All this craziness in our society and every societal ill we have comes from this gun being wielded about and forcing upon society decisions and values that would otherwise not be what people would choose for themselves if they were free to choose for themselves. To rephrase Reagan, “The gun isn’t the solution, it is the problem.” It’s time freedom makes a come back, and it’s time we start taking bullets out of the gun. No person or institution is moral if it uses violence to coerce you.  No one weilding a gun can make better decisions for you and your family than you could. It’s time for us get back to what our founders believed, which is people should be free to live out their lives in pursuit of happiness free from coercion.

Here’s a great post I found by way of The Daily Paul.

For the past few days, I’ve received loads of emails urging me to get active regarding the healthcare vote – most of which had a subject line similar to: “Last Chance to Stop National Healthcare!”

Well, if you believe the only way to protect your rights is by begging federal politicians to do what you want, then these emails are certainly right. The vote went as expected, and so will the next.

So if you think marching on D.C. or calling your Representatives, or threating to “throw the bums out” in 2010 or 2012 or 20-whatever, is going to further the cause of the Constitution and your liberty – you might as well get your shackles on now. Your last chance has come and gone.

But, those of you who visit this site regularly already know that the Senate’s health care vote is far from the end of things – and you also know that even when it goes into effect (which I assume some version will), it’s still not the end of the road for your freedom.

The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.

Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

It’s peaceful, effective, and has a long history in the American tradition. It’s been invoked in support of free speech, in opposition to war and fugitive slave laws, and more. Read more on this history here.

Regarding nullification and health care, there’s already a growing movement right now. Led by Arizona, voters in a number of states may get a chance to approve State Constitutional Amendments in 2010 that would effectively ban national health care in their states. Our sources here at the Tenth Amendment Center indicate to us that we should expect to see 20-25 states consider such legislation in 2010.

20 States resisting DC can do what calling, marching, yelling, faxing, and emailing has almost never done. Stop the feds dead in their tracks.

For example, 13 states are already defying federal marijuana prohibition, and the federal government is having such a hard time dealing with it that the Obama administration recently announced that they would no longer prioritize enforcement in states that have medical marijuana laws.

Better yet, in the last 2+ years more than 20 states have been able to effectively prevent the Real ID Act of 2005 from being implemented. How did they do that? They passed laws and resolutions refusing to comply with it. And today, it’s effectively null and void without ever being repealed by Congress or challenged in court.

While the Obama administration would like to revive it under a different name, the reality is still there – with massive state-level resistance, the federal government can be pushed back inside its constitutional box. Issue by issue, law by law, the best way to change the federal government is by resisting it on a state level.

That’s nullification at work.

Over the years, wise men and women warned us that the Constitution would never enforce itself. The time is long overdue for people to start recognizing this fact, and bring that enforcement closer to home.

The bottom line? If you want to make real change; if you want to really do something for liberty and for the Constitution…focus on local activism and your state governments.

Thomas Jefferson would be proud!

via Health Care Nullification: Things have just gotten underway | Tenth Amendment Center.

Great op-ed in my local paper.

It was in 1774 that John Adams reminded how the “most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiple oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties.”

And that’s not merely to “oppress the individual or a few,” the father of the Constitution added, “but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited.”

Mr. Adams, of course, would have been labeled a “right-wing extremist” or a “militia maniac” by today’s “progressives” in Congress who have been working so assiduously to soil the fabric of America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would dismiss Adams’ sentiment as “un-American” and tap dance around its implications of unconstitutional freelancing.

But on the cusp of a new year and the second decade of the 21st century, this is where America finds itself: Constitutional perverts and rule of law scofflaws are in charge, the once-creeping crud of socialism has broken into a trot and an increasing number of good and decent people really are mad as hell and not willing to take another centimeter of the shaft.

And perhaps, just perhaps, revolution is nigh.

“Revolution” is a dicey word in any era. Indeed, it can be accomplished by the ballot and not the bullet. But the Founders and the Framers had no qualms about the latter. How soon today’s “leaders” — supposed custodians of the Constitution but merely unionized garbagemen — seem to forget that America was born in armed revolt and that the luminaries of the era acknowledged its necessity in the defense of natural rights.

Certainly, and as Thomas Jefferson reminded in the Declaration of Independence, “governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” But the heaviness and permanence of the corrupt nature of our government surely will force the hand of the people to press the button or pull the trigger in the new year.

So shameless are corruption’s practitioners and their enablers that their behavior is rationalized through euphemisms. Bribery of the sort that would land those in the private sector in the pokey for 10 years is called “legislating” in Washington. It is rewarded with tenure by voters either too enamored with the supposed windfall to understand that the depth of the pickpocketing reaches to their ankles or with memories far too short to effect change in the next election.

Pennsylvania, the State of Independence, now is the State of Corruption. Grand jury allegations more than suggest the state Legislature operates as a corrupt, criminal enterprise. And the words of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights from 1776 never have tolled more clearly: “The community hath an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish government, in such a manner as shall be by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal.”

“Suckling at the public teat,” you’ll notice, is missing.

Americans and Pennsylvanians faces a crucial test in 2010. They can either continue traveling down the road to serfdom or return to liberty’s boulevard. The republic’s future hangs in the balance.

via Serfdom vs. liberty in 2010 – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is an op-ed by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey about giving the states the ability to propose constitutional amendments.

For nearly a hundred years, federal power has expanded at the expense of the states—to a point where the even the wages and hours of state employees are subject to federal control. Basic health and safety regulations that were long exercised by states under their “police power” are now dominated by Washington.

The courts have similarly distorted the Constitution by inventing new constitutional rights and failing to limit governmental power as provided for in the document. The aggrandizement of judicial power has been a particularly vexing challenge, since it is inherently incapable of correction through the normal political channels.

There is a way to deter further constitutional mischief from Congress and the federal courts, and restore some semblance of the proper federal-state balance. That is to give to states—and through them the people—a greater role in the constitutional amendment process.

The idea is simple, and is already being mooted in conservative legal circles. Today, only Congress can propose constitutional amendments—and Congress of course has little interest in proposing limits on its own power. Since the mid-19th century, no amendment has actually limited federal authority.

But what if a number of states, acting together, also could propose amendments? That has the potential to reinvigorate the states as a check on federal power. It could also return states to a more central policy-making role.

via David Rivkin and Lee Casey: The States Can Check Washington’s Power – WSJ.com.

While the authors have a good idea and a great point, they completely leave out what happened “nearly a hundred years” ago that allowed federal power to expand. Several things happened, but one thing in particular happened that if it had not happened would given the authors what they are asking for and would have prevented the massive expansion of the federal government. In 1913, the 17th amendment was ratified. That amendment changed Senators from being elected by state legislatures to being elected by the people via the popular vote.

The original point of the Senate was to represent state interests and to keep the Federal government from infringing on states rights. Once that barrier was removed, there was no longer a check on the federal powers. You get what we have now.

Prior to the 17th amendment, states could do exactly what the article is proposing. States could propose amendments via their state’s senators, who were accountable to the state legislators. Now, senators aren’t accountable to state legislators, so all they care about is the popular vote of the people, which is easily manipulated.

Come to think about it, do you think Senators could be as corrupt as they are if they were accountable to state legislators? Could corporations buy off US Senators at the expense of their citizens if they new that the state legislators could kick them out of office? While I’m sure there would still be corruption, I don’t think you would have it on the scale that we do now. I also don’t think you would necessarily have these career politicians and the rotating door between government and lobbying.

As time goes on, the great intellect of our founders avails itself more an more. They put controls in place knowing what would happen without those controls. Unfortunately, we allowed Woodrow Wilson, who was a “progressive” to undermine so much of what the founders put in place. Under Wilson, we got the 17th amendment, ending state rights. We got the federal reserve act, which allows the federal government to spend by printing money, robs the middle class and poor through inflation, and creates boom bust cycles. We got the progressive income tax, which punishes productivity and instigates class warfare. The list of Wilson’s destructive acts could go on with drug laws, antiwar suppression, etc.

If we ever want to take the country back towards more liberty, states without a doubt need to start reasserting themselves. It does seem to be happening underneath the surface. There is a growing 10th amendment movement. There are even discussions on some websites and TVs shows about secession. While I don’t see secession ever happening with everyone being programmed that the south was evil for seceded, I can see states voiding federal laws if the people get loud enough. Ultimately, it comes down to people rising up against these federal laws. The first chance at this will be this enslaving health care bill. The people need to get extremely loud about it and tell their state legislators to ignore the federal law. If states ignored the law, as some have ignored the drug laws, they can in effect void the laws.

Maybe it will happen. More likely it won’t. One can only hope that states reassert themselves. If they do, we have a fighting chance at re-establishing our country. If not, Rome will continue to burn until it is no longer.

Another great find thanks to The Daily Paul

While chatting on twitter, one of my tweeps posted this blog. Because his name has Federalist in it, @Federalist84, I decided I should check it out. To my surprise, the blog is from @SoccerSeal, a 17yr old girl, and she has one of the most straight forward criticisms of President Obama that I’ve heard. Here’s the argument.

The role of a President is not to “Transform” the nation. The role of the president is clearly stated in the Presidential Oath, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.” Nowhere in that oath do I see change or transform. Your job is to protect, preserve and defend. Not change, dismantle, and control. And right now I get the feeling that you are doing the latter.

via Red, White & Conservative.

The Constitution was setup for a reason. It was setup to ensure human freedom. It was not setup for continual transformation. Nowhere does it say the government should give you any rewards. It is only there to protect your earned rewards and your liberties from force. Until we all realize what this 17yr old has already realized, we will continue our steady decline, and we will always have the least of us governing.