Liberty – Page 4 – The Burning Platform

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA – 2011

Written in September 2011 when I still believed the country could be saved. My passion has dimmed considerably over the last five years. Libertarianism does not work during a Fourth Turning. Maybe after the death and destruction wrought by those in control, people will come to their senses. And maybe not.

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Though the Federal Reserve policy harms the average American, it benefits those in a position to take advantage of the cycles in monetary policy. The main beneficiaries are those who receive access to artificially inflated money and/or credit before the inflationary effects of the policy impact the entire economy. Federal Reserve policies also benefit big spending politicians who use the inflated currency created by the Fed to hide the true costs of the welfare-warfare state.” – Ron Paul

native advertising

Ernest Hemingway and Ron Paul never met. Ron Paul was completing medical school in 1961 when Hemingway committed suicide at his home in Idaho. I think they would have hit it off. I stumbled across the quote from Hemingway above. Those words could have come directly out of the mouth of Ron Paul. Both men spent their whole lives seeking the truth and presenting their ideas in a blunt straightforward manner. Hemingway is one of the most renowned writers in American history, with classics such as A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Sun Also Rises to his credit.

He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. He constructed a new literary style characterized by lean, hard, sparse dialogue. He influenced literature and young authors for decades. As a teenager I was immediately drawn to his gritty realistic novels. There was no nonsense to his novels. They always involved man’s struggle against death and hardship. Most of his best work was done in the 1920s and 1930s, but he produced one of his finest works in 1951 towards the end of his life. Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for his story about an epic battle between an old man and a great marlin.

Continue reading “THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA – 2011”

Mom Arrested for Letting Kids Walk to McDonald’s Around the Corner

Via Reason

Walking

A South Carolina mom who let her 9-year-old nephew walk her 3-year-old son to the McDonald’s less than a quarter mile away has been—I’m sure you can finish this sentence in your sleep by now—arrested and charged with child neglect.

The reason? According to WSPA News 7:

The officer says the boys had to cross a street and pass several businesses and homes to get to the eatery, putting their safety at risk.

The mom, Tiesha Mesha Hillstock, 24, told the police the unthinkable: She had trusted the older boy to “take care of his cousin.”

Which, apparently, he was doing. Nonetheless, when the kids were spotted without an adult, or drone, or armored tank to keep them safe, the cops swooped in and accompanied them back to their home. Then the Spartanburg police department then issued an arrest warrant for mom.

Because anytime a child is unsupervised, a parent must be arrested. It’s as simple as that. Note that in another independent child story that is getting a ton of attention today, a 9-year-old Pennsylvania girl has been reporting on a real-life murder for her self-published newspaper. And people are mad at her, too, for not playing with dolls or having a tea party. They have written her nasty letters.

Now imagine if your own childhood had been lived under constant, state-mandated adult supervision. How many adventures would you have had? How much joy? How many memories with your friends and cousins?

Seems like America would like nothing better than to raise children who are completely inert unless an adult is on-hand to make sure nothing happens.

And nothing will.

BLACK GUNS MATTER

Rob and myself finally did it. We went to a gun show. We had to park about a half mile away, because the crowds were so large. They even had shuttle buses running in the parking lot. I kept looking for Obama’s gun show loophole, but I couldn’t find it. What we found were a couple thousand American citizens who still believe in the 2nd Amendment and their right to exercise that freedom. We also found this shirt that reflects the thinking of hard working decent middle class white people.

photo image_zps96zvd58s.jpg

The people I saw haven’t benefited from some phantom white privilege. These were people who get up every day, go to work, pay their taxes, stay married, raise children, and reflect the true American spirit. They aren’t bitter about their lot in life. All they ask is to be left alone by an overreaching hostile government that considers them potential domestic terrorists because they know how to use guns, believe in liberty and follow the U.S. Constitution. This is what Barack Obama thinks of them:

“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” – Barack Obama – 2008

His hope and change sloganeering in 2008 didn’t fool these people. I don’t think I’d be far off in estimating there wasn’t a single Obama supporter in that massive expo center. He despises and scorns working class white Americans. His quote above captures his disdain for us. His entire presidency has been the most divisive in history. He has instigated the race baiting. He hails Islam as a religion of peace while attending mosques and pisses on Christianity at every opportunity.

Continue reading “BLACK GUNS MATTER”

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

Mahatma Gandhi

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

George Orwell

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

Henry David Thoreau

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

Thomas Jefferson

TYRANNY IS FAR WORSE TODAY

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

I’m two thirds of the way through David McCullough’s 1776. Absolutely the best single work I’ve ever read on the War of American Independence.

If there is any measurable difference between the tyranny of King George and the current administration of the US Government it is that today they are far more overbearing, intrusive, reckless, violent and oppressive towards the population than what the American colonists experienced prior to the break-up with England.

I’d say it was amazing that people have allowed this to continue but several changes in the way people live today make it possible:

1) Non-connected populations. In the 1770’s people were separated by distance but they were connected by the common bonds of heritage, language, culture, religion, and livelihood. Today we have few of those connections.

2) Complete absence of government dependency. Today too many people depend on the Government for their sustenance rather than themselves, their family or their community.

Continue reading “TYRANNY IS FAR WORSE TODAY”

THE ODDS ARE NEVER IN YOUR FAVOR

The irony of the phrase “may the odds be ever in your favor” is not lost on the readers of the Hunger Games trilogy of novels or the film adaption. Despite the grimness of the story, over 65 million copies of the books have been sold. The total box office take so far has exceeded $1.4 billion for the four movies. The dystopian series tackles real issues like severe poverty, starvation, torture, oppression, betrayal and the brutality of war. It doesn’t fit into the standard film making success recipe of feel good fluff, politically correct storylines and happy endings. Each film in the series gets progressively darker, with the final episode permeating doom and gloom. The books and the movies capture the deepening crisis mood engulfing the world today. And they realistically portray the world as a place where there are no good guys in positions of power. The ruling class, in all cases, is driven by a voracious appetite for supremacy, wealth, and control.

An Ambiguous, Confusing, Dangerous World

The world is a morally ambiguous place where those in power and those seeking power utilize the influence of media propaganda and PR campaigns built around “heroes” and “icons” to psychologically control the masses, while enriching themselves and their crony capitalist sponsors. Endless war against the latest “bad guys” further enriches the arms dealers and their political lackeys who joyfully use faux patriotism and nationalistic fervor to insist upon more boots on the ground, drones in the air, bombs dropped, and missiles launched.

Continue reading “THE ODDS ARE NEVER IN YOUR FAVOR”

If You Want Security, Pursue Liberty

Guest Post by Ron Paul

Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home. The centerpiece of the president’s speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the federal government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this proposal will not increase security. However, it will decrease liberty.

Federal officials can have an American citizen placed on the terrorist watch list based solely on their suspicions that the individual might be involved in terrorist activity. Individuals placed on the list are not informed that they have been labeled as suspected terrorists, much less given an opportunity to challenge that designation, until a Transportation Security Administration agent stops them from boarding a plane.

Continue reading “If You Want Security, Pursue Liberty”

FOURTH TURNING – OUR RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I assessed the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation. In Part 5 I examined the technological, ecological, political, military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in this final part, our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.

We are now in the seventh year of this Fourth Turning. A famous quote from the seventh year of the last Fourth Turning portended the desperate, bloody and ultimately heroic trials and tribulations which awaited generations of our ancestors. What will be our rendezvous with destiny?

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt – June 27, 1936 – Philadelphia, PA

Our Rendezvous With Destiny

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The people have been permitting a small cadre of elitists, billionaire financiers, corporate chiefs, propagandist media moguls, and crooked politicians to make the choices dictating the path of our country since the 2008 dawn of this Fourth Turning. The choices they have made and continue to make have imperiled the world and guaranteed a far more calamitous outcome as we attempt to navigate through the trials and tribulations ahead. Their strategy to “save the country” by saving bankers, while selling the plan to the public as beneficial to all and essential to saving our economic system, has proven to be nothing more than the greatest wealth transfer scheme in human history. The ruling class is deliberately blind to their own venality and capacity for evil.

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – OUR RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY”

FOURTH TURNING – POLITICIANS DRIVING THE WORLD TOWARDS WAR

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I assessed the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation. In Part 5 I’ll examine the technological, ecological, political, and military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in Part 6 our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.

Technological & Ecological Distress

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” – Aldous Huxley – Ends and Means

The level of distress being produced by technology was probably underestimated by Strauss & Howe when they wrote their book in 1997. The internet, cell phones and e-commerce were still in their infancy, while cyber security was an unknown concept. Huxley would be shocked by how backwards we have “progressed” through the efficient distribution of iGadgets, creating millions of distracted, non-thinking, passive, easily pliable, willfully ignorant sheep who adore their technological servitude.

A vast swath of the populace never reads a book and can’t go more than a few minutes without checking their iGadget to view the latest funny cat video, the latest update on Kim Kardashian’s ass, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner’s courage, or Lamar Odom’s latest whorehouse escapade. Our country is drowning in a sea of irrelevance as our infinite craving for diversions and triviality overwhelms any thoughts of confronting our oppressors. The adoration of technology has degraded our ability to think and allowed the Deep State to control the masses by amusing them to death.

The totalitarian Orwellian utilization of technology was exposed by a millennial with courage, intelligence, and love of his country – Edward Snowden. His revelations were very distressful to the felonious government apparatchiks who blatantly flaunt their disregard for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The criminals at the NSA, fully supported by Obama and Congress, have made Big Brother look like an amateur, as they siphon up every phone call, text, email, and facebook entry made by each person in this country and for good measure the political leaders of our allies and enemies.

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – POLITICIANS DRIVING THE WORLD TOWARDS WAR”

The Loss of All Liberty Is Coming Faster Than You Imagined

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

UK Prime Minister David Cameron reflects the serious problem we have with politicians. Politicians have ZERO respect for our human rights for they only think about how they are going to raid our wealth to pay for their families and retirements at our expense. Cameron actually asked, “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication we cannot read? My answer to that question is: ‘No, we must not’.”

These people are highly dangerous. They only see government as the solution and do not grasp that we have rights. Government wants to eliminate all encryption because they are hunting money. You have a 1000 times greater chance of dying in a car crash than by a terrorist. They use terrorism as the great excuse to collect everything we do.

How did the world function before the internet? Did they intercept every letter in the mail or record every phone call? Why is it that with the internet these people feel they have a right to listen and read everything we communicate? This is EXACTLY the same paranoia displayed by Stalin. Human rights do not simply vanish because we have entered the internet age. We still have rights that governments need to respect, but refuse because they are always desperately in need of more taxes to pay their bankers. The OECD has stated, “Co-operation between tax administrations is critical in the fight against tax evasion and a key aspect of that co-operation is exchange of information.” It’s all about money any nothing else.

Continue reading “The Loss of All Liberty Is Coming Faster Than You Imagined”

Half Of Americans Think “Government Is An Immediate Threat To Liberty”

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Government poses a threat to liberty, that much is clear.

But what may be surprising is that almost half of Americans clearly identified government as a clear and “immediate” threat, and are obviously outraged about what is going on.

Oddly, the number of angry Americans has remained consistent in poll number ever since about 2006 during George W. Bush’s second term, maintaining around 46-49% throughout Barack Obama’s entire presidency.

And yet, things continue to get worse and worse with each political cycle, and each new president.

Gallup reported that:

Almost half of Americans, 49%, say the federal government poses “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,” similar to what was found in previous surveys conducted over the last five years.

The remarkable finding about these attitudes is how much they reflect apparent antipathy toward the party controlling the White House, rather than being a purely fundamental or fixed philosophical attitude about government.

[…] during the Republican administration of George W. Bush, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were consistently more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to say the federal government posed an immediate threat.

[…] during the Democratic Obama administration, the partisan gap flipped, with Republicans significantly more likely to agree.

[…]

Still, the persistent finding in recent years that half of the population views the government as an immediate threat underscores the degree to which the role and power of government remains a key issue of our time… numerous other measures show that the people give their government some of the lowest approval and trust ratings in the measures’ history.

Continue reading “Half Of Americans Think “Government Is An Immediate Threat To Liberty””

PAPAL LOCKDOWN

The total lock down of Philadelphia began yesterday. The socialist, left wing, rockstar pope arrives in the U.S. today, causing mass gridlock, lost economic productivity, and another opportunity for our Orwellian police surveillance state to flex its muscles and treat its citizens like cattle and sheep. It started with the lock down of Boston a couple years ago as the all-powerful State took a giant shit on the Fourth Amendment as they hunted down two teenage utensil bomb terrorists. The DHS thugs have continued to militarize Barney Fife police forces around the country. Every man, woman and child is treated like a terrorist when going to a god damn baseball or football game. As reported by Marketwatch, the pope will inconvenience millions in three large US cities over the next six days.

Pope Francis’ historical six-day visit to the U.S. will bring some of the tightest security in Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia this week. Pope Francis, 78, will arrive from Cuba at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Tuesday, Sept. 22. He’ll then meet with President Barack Obama, be honored in a parade on the National Mall in Washington that’s expected to draw more than 200,000 people, hold mass and address a joint session of Congress. The pope will then travel to New York by plane,where he’ll address the United Nations, parade through Central Park and hold mass at Madison Square Garden. He will then fly from JFK airport to Philadelphia. On Sunday morning, he’ll visit a prison and later that afternoon will lead a mass that is expected to draw as many as one million people. He’ll head back to Rome on Sunday. Sept. 27.

The Secret Service, who can’t keep idiots from jumping the White House fence and getting in to see Obama, are in charge of keeping the pope safe from the thousands of terrorists roaming the streets of the US who want to kill him. This is really an inconvenience for the top notch secret service agents because it cuts into their time banging whores and allowing planes to land on the White House lawn. Of course, we’ve already had the “terrorist plot foiled” bullshit story released to the media to prove they are keeping us safe. They are now scrapping the the bottom of the barrel with 15 year olds posting on facebook.

Continue reading “PAPAL LOCKDOWN”

FOURTH TURNING: CRISIS OF TRUST

“Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created during the Unraveling era and further widened by the catalyst. Trying to foresee where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in advance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following:

Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation)
Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and mercenaries hired by walled communities
Cultural distress, with the media plunging into a dizzying decay, and a decency backlash in favor of state censorship
Technological distress, with cryptoanarchy, high-tech oligarchy, and biogenetic chaos
Ecological distress, with atmospheric damage, energy or water shortages, and new diseases
Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts, one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism, authoritarianism, and altered national borders
Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes equipped with weapons of mass destruction”

The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997

September 2015 marks the seventh anniversary of this Fourth Turning Crisis. The economic, social, cultural, ecological, political, and military distress propagates by the minute as the globe is besieged by economic turmoil, increased human suffering, and endemic corruption of the political and ruling classes. The Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global economic implosion was the spark which catalyzed this fourth Crisis period in U.S. history in September 2008. Neil Howe in a 2012 essay assessed the beginning of this Fourth Turning and why 9/11 was not the catalyst:

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING: CRISIS OF TRUST”

‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been terrorized, traumatized, and acclimated to life in the American Surveillance State.

The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time, but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has transitioned us to life in a society where government agents routinely practice violence on the citizens while, in conjunction with the Corporate State, spying on the most intimate details of our personal lives.

Ironically, the 14^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks occurs just days before the 228^th anniversary of the ratification of our Constitution. Yet while there is much to mourn about the loss of our freedoms in the years since 9/11, there is virtually nothing to celebrate.

The Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—which has historically served as the bulwark from government abuse.

Continue reading “‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11”