kronic's musings

Sorry I dont know who author is.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this.
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curved ball.
“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings)
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a Dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I do !”
“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks !”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor !”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.
They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill !
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, this is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Our world is changing at a pace that is so staggering these days that it can be really hard to fully grasp the significance of what we are witnessing. Hopefully the collection of random facts below will help you to “connect the dots” just a little bit. On one level, the facts below may not seem related. However, what they all do have in common is that they show just how much the United States has fundamentally changed. Do you ever just sit back and wonder what in the world has happened to America? The truth is that the America that so many of us once loved so much has been shattered into a thousand pieces. The “land of the free and the home of the brave” has been transformed into a socialized Big Brother nanny state that is oozing with corruption and has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. The greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen is falling apart before our very eyes, and even when our politicians actually try to do something right (which is quite rare) the end result is still a bunch of garbage. For those who still love this land (and there are a lot of us) it is heartbreaking to watch America slowly die.

The following are 50 random facts that show just how dramatically America has changed….

#50) A new report released by the United Nations is publicly calling for the establishment of a world currency and none of the major news networks are even covering it.

#49) The state of California is so broke that Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered California State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law — $7.25 an hour for most state workers.

#48) A police officer in Oklahoma recently tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe because they considered her to be a “threat”.

#47) In early 2009, U.S. net national savings as a percentage of GDP went negative for the first time since 1952, and it has continued its downward trend since then.

#46) Corexit 9500 is so incredibly toxic that the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned it, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. And yet BP has dumped over a million gallons of dispersants such as Corexit 9500 into the Gulf of Mexico.

#45) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

#44) It has come out that one employee used a Federal Emergency Management Agency credit card to buy $4,318 in “Happy Birthday” gift cards. Two other FEMA officials charged the cost of 360 golf umbrellas ($9,000) to the taxpayers.

#43) Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo received $389,000 from the U.S. government to pay 100 residents of Buffalo $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink and how much pot they smoke each day.

#42) The average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen to an all-time high.

#41) The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

#40) In the U.S., the average federal worker now earns about twice as much as the average worker in the private sector.

#39) Back in 1950 each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers. Today, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.

#38) According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.

#37) The federal government actually has the gall to ask for online donations that will supposedly go towards paying off the national debt.

#36) The Cactus Bug Project at the University Of Florida was allocated $325,394 in economic stimulus funds to study the mating decisions of cactus bugs.

#35) A dinner cruise company in Chicago got nearly $1 million in economic stimulus funds to combat terrorism.

#34) It is being reported that a 6-year-old girl from Ohio is on the “no fly” list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.

#33) During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

#32) According to a new report, Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality and far less efficiency.

#31) Some experts are warning that the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could reach as high as $1 trillion.

#30) The FDA has announced that the offspring of cloned animals could be in our food supply right now and that there is nothing that they can do about it.

#29) In May, sales of new homes in the United States dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.

#28) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has ranged between 300 to 500 to one.

#27) Federal border officials recently said that Mexican drug cartels have not only set up shop on American soil, they are actually maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona.

#26) The U.S. government has declared some parts of Arizona off limits to U.S. citizens because of the threat of violence from Mexican drug smugglers.

#25) According to the credit card repayment calculator, if you owe $6000 on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate and only pay the minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit card. During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest rate charges in addition to the $6000 in principal that you are required to pay back.

#24) According to prepared testimony by Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs shorted roughly $615 million of the collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage-backed securities the firm underwrote since late 2006.

#23) The six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.

#22) Four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) had a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

#21) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.

#20) BP has hired private security contractors to keep the American people away from oil cleanup sites and nobody seems to care.

#19) Barack Obama is calling for a “civilian expeditionary force” to be sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to help overburdened military troops build infrastructure.

#18) On June 18th, two Christians decided that they would peacefully pass out copies of the gospel of John on a public sidewalk outside a public Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan and within 3 minutes 8 policemen surrounded them and placed them under arrest.

#17) It is being reported that sales of foreclosed homes in Florida made up nearly 40 percent of all home purchases in the first part of this year.

#16) During a recent interview with Larry King, former first lady Laura Bush revealed to the world that she is actually in favor of legalized gay marriage and a woman’s “right” to abortion.

#15) Scientists at Columbia University are warning that the dose of radiation from the new full body security scanners going into airports all over the United States could be up to 20 times higher than originally estimated.

#14) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

#13) The FDIC’s deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.

#12) The judge that BP is pushing for to hear an estimated 200 lawsuits on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to industry conferences.

#11) In recent years the U.S. government has spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.

#10) U.S. officials say that more than three billion dollars in cash (much of it aid money paid for by U.S. taxpayers) has been stolen by corrupt officials in Afghanistan and flown out of Kabul International Airport in recent years.

#9) According to a report by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the baggage check fees collected by U.S. airlines shot up 33% in the first quarter of 2010 to $769 million.

#8) Three California high school students are fighting for their right to show their American patriotism – even on a Mexican holiday – after they were forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

#7) Right now, interest on the U.S. national debt and spending on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 percent of GDP. By 2080, they are projected to eat up approximately 50 percent of GDP.

#6) The total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now about 360 percent of GDP.

#5) A 6-year-old girl was recently handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#4) In Florida, students have been arrested by police for things as simple as bringing a plastic butter knife to school, throwing an eraser, and drawing a picture of a gun.

#3) School officials in one town in Massachusetts are refusing to allow students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

#2) According to one new study, approximately 21 percent of children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.

#1) Since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been murdered in abortion facilities across the United States.

Not sure who wrote this but its on the mark.

Thought few might like this.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/obama_at_bat.html

I am sorry but due to spam I have enabled “logged in to comment”. To any one wants to comment you’ll have register, spam was becoming a pain.

With little fanfare, the U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) has officially begun operation this week. The entity is a collection of personnel from the National Security Agency (NSA), Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and policy makers (read that politicians). The stated purpose is to protect the vital interests of the United States in relation to the Internet. The entity is not just defensive in nature but can also engage in preemptive “strikes” intended to disrupt threats. Because this was an internal reorganization within the Department of Defense, the creation of CYBERCOM did not require congressional approval.

Even though the primary purpose of CYBERCOM is to protect government and military networks, there is incredible pressure to extend that “protection” to civilian and business networks as well. In fact, the second highest official at the Pentagon, William Lynn III – Deputy Secretary of Defense, recently announced that the Department of Defense might start a protective program for civilian networks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated the same thing in June 2009.

Policies are being finalized that will allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to request help from CYBERCOM to protect government and civilians networks. Unfortunately there isn’t any clarity on what the criteria would be to initiate a request for help. An official at CYBERCOM stated: “From our perspective the threshold is really easy: it’s when we get a request from DHS,” the official noted. “What’s their threshold? I couldn’t tell you what their threshold is.”

On the surface this may sound benign, but it is actually quite insidious. The NSA is completing work on threat monitoring systems called EINSTEIN 2 and EINSTEIN 3. According to declassified documents, the stated purposes of these two systems are as follows:

DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is deploying, as part of its EINSTEIN 2 activities, signature-based sensors capable of inspecting Internet traffic entering Federal systems for unauthorized accesses and malicious content. The EINSTEIN 2 capability enables analysis of network flow information to identify potential malicious activity while conducting automatic full packet inspection of traffic entering or exiting U.S. Government networks for malicious activity using signature-based intrusion detection technology…. EINSTEIN 2 is capable of alerting US-CERT in real time to the presence of malicious or potentially harmful activity in federal network traffic and provides correlation and visualization of the derived data….

The EINSTEIN 3 system will also support enhanced information sharing by US-CERT with Federal Departments and Agencies by giving DHS the ability to automate alerting of detected network intrusion attempts and, when deemed necessary by DHS, to send alerts that do not contain the content of communications to the National Security Agency (NSA) so that DHS efforts may be supported by NSA exercising its lawfully authorized missions.

Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn stated that private companies who operate critical infrastructure (electrical grid, telecommunication networks, Internet service providers, the banking and financial industry, etc) should install EINSTEIN monitoring agents or else they will face the “wild, wild west of the Internet”. He went on to state that failing to protect these critical infrastrutures ”could lead to physical damage and economic disruption on a massive scale.”

In other words:

Private companies are not capable of protecting their own networks
The government is the only one who is capable of protecting the infrastructure
Disaster will strike unless government intercedes to protect us
Words matter and the usage of them need to be analyzed in order to determine what someone is saying (or not saying) to fully assess a situation:

Lynn stated: ““I think it’s gonna have to be voluntary,” he added. “People could opt into protection – or choose to stay out. Individual users may well choose to stay out. But in terms of protecting the nation’s security, it’s not the individual users [that matter most]. I mean, they have to worry about their individual [data], their credit rating, and all that. But it’s the vulnerability of certain critical infrastructure – power, transportation, finance. This starts to give you an angle at doing that.”

Essentially, Lynn is stating that individual citizens can opt out of EINSTEIN but critical entities will not have a choice.

In summary, we have a new government entity created without congressional approval whose purpose is to monitor (read that spy on) all Internet traffic in the United States, and to take unspecified preemptive strikes when something happens that the agency deems is not acceptable…

Obviously privacy organizations are deeply troubled by CYBERCOM’s ability to monitor the content of all internet communication. No information has been presented to date on the privacy implications of EINSTEIN 3 and limited information has been provided on an early 2008 versions of EINSTEIN 2.

Fortunately, we have many recent examples worldwide that we can examine to see how governments use these protective powers to defend their citizens in cyberspace:

China does an amazing job in shutting down sites (or blocking access to them altogether) that are critical of their communist government
Pakistan recently blocked access to YouTube because of content deemed “offensive” to Islam
Bangladesh also blocked access to YouTube because of images deemed “obnoxious” of the country’s leaders
Thailand blocked sites back in 2008 when protesters were demonstrating against the government
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” – Benjamin Franklin

This Lady Says Obama is Amazing
June 6th, 2010
Written by an 82-year old very wise lady. She gives us a whole new slant on the amazing job Obama is doing:

That is right – I will say it, “THANK GOD FOR THE PRESIDENT.”

1. He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine – Driving a stake thru the heart of Hillary’s Presidential aspirations – something that no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!

2. He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty – No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!

3. He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!

Dennis Moore had never lost a race – quit

Evan Bayh had never lost a race – quit

Byron Dorgan had never lost a race – quit

Harry Reid – soon to be GONE

These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010, dozens more will be gone.

In December of 2008, the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles, they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party. In just one year, Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the House, if not the Senate, back to the Republicans.

4. He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every Generation seems to need to re-learn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well.

Liberals tax, borrow and spend – check

Liberals won’t bring themselves to protect America – check

Liberals want to take over the economy – check

Liberals think they know what is best for everyone – check

Liberals aren’t happy till they are running YOUR life – check

5. He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan. In one year, he has rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans. Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!

6. His amazing leadership has sparked the greatest period of sales of firearms and ammunition this country has seen. Law abiding citizens have rallied and have provided a “stimulus” to the sporting goods field while other industries have failed, faded or moved off-shore.

7. In all honesty, one year ago I was more afraid than I have been in my life. Not of the economy, but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends and strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence of the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat wrong.

8. When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!

Barack Obama woke up these Great Americans! Again, I want to say, “Thank You Barack Obama!”

This is exactly the kind of hope and change we desperately needed!
Way to NAIL it, Granny!!

Special army unit ready to be deployed on American soil just before Nov.. elections (Update)
Note: An update has been posted at the end of the article.
In October of this year, one month prior to the November midterm elections, a special army unit known as ‘Consequence Management Response Force’ will be ready for deployment on American soil if so ordered by the President.

The special force, which is the new name being given to the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry, has been training at Fort Stewart, Georgia and is composed of 80,000 troops.
According to the Army Times,
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
The key phrase is: ‘may be called upon to help with civil unrest.’
(AP Photo/David Longstreath).
This afternoon a local radio talk show host reported that he had been in contact with a member of the military. This military source stated that the armed forces have been alerted to the strong possibility that civil unrest may occur in the United States this summer, prior to the midterm elections of 2010.
The source described this as ‘our long, hot summer of discontent’ that could be eerily reminiscent of the summer of 1968 when riots broke out in many of our largest cities.
However, the summer of 2010 could well be much worse due to the players involved. In 1968 the major players were war protesters. This time, the outrage simmering beneath the surface of American society involves a broad cross-section of the heartland, and most of them are heavily armed.
It is highly unlikely that these citizens would ever initiate armed conflict of any kind. In their view, gun rights are for self-defense–and for defense against tyrannical government, which our Founders regarded as the most dangerous force on earth.
However, it has become clear that other groups may well initiate violence in order to start an ‘incident’ that would give Obama and a rogue Congress a reason to implement martial law, confiscate the citizens’ guns, enforce curfews, and suspend all future elections until such time as it is deemed ’safe’ to proceed with human liberty as encapsulated in the right to vote.
Tea Party members, for example, have been warned in recent days that members of Andy Stern’s SEIU union and members of the organization formerly known as ACORN plan to infiltrate Tea Party gatherings in order to incite some sort of incident that could result in armed conflict.
In addition, all indications point to a humiliating defeat for the Democrats and Obama in November. Not only will the House in all likelihood transfer to Republican control, but it is increasingly possible for the Democrats to lose the Senate as well.
And there are Leftwing groups in this country that would use whatever means necessary to prevent that from happening.
ACORN has already gone underground, changing its name so as to fly beneath the radar screen. How many people will the group register to vote illegally?
And with Obama’s plan to naturalize between 10 and 20 million illegal aliens, a brand new voter base for the Democrats will be in place prior to November.
Add to this the growing unrest over continued high unemployment, the coming spike in interest rates and inflation, and the still-boiling outrage over the manner in which Obama and the Democrats shoved ObamaCare down the throats of the citizens, and all of the ingredients are present for a major F-5 tornado to sweep across the heartland.
To what extent would soldiers use deadly force during such ‘civil unrest’ should the Consequence Management Response Team be utilized? During the anti-war riots of the 1960s they killed student protesters. What about now?
The military source cited by the radio host today was asked this very question. He would merely say that the culture of the U.S. military is changing–half support Obama and the other half are dead-set against him.
His conclusion? There is no way to know for sure if they would obey an order to open fire on ordinary citizens.

Update: The Cato Institute published this warning when the program was launched in its first phase in 2008 (the program has been updated and expanded since 2008). The Founders insisted that standing armies were never to be used against American citizens on our own soil, no matter what violations of this principle have occurred in the years following. In the spirit of the Patriots and of real journalists government must be questioned constantly and held to intense scrutiny in order to preserve liberty.

Related Stories…

CNN: Army combat unit to deploy within U.S.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/army.unit/

San Francisco Examiner: Tea parties warned over “crashers”

http://www.examiner.com/x-16143-Richmond-Republican-Examiner~y2010m4d10-Tea-parties-warned-over-crashers

Cato Institute: Be Wary of Using Military as Police

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well folks here it is, the special force Obama wanted using our own military. For any of you my age, remember Hitler’s Nazi’s prior to WW2 !!
Sorry Obama lovers you’re getting this too. He said during his run for president he wanted this special force for control during internal matters in our country! Looks like he’s got it….

Not sure who wrote this last part but use the Army Times link to read the actual article. If they are not going to use the non-lethal package in the US that leaves only the lethal methods. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office will accept a symbolic bouquet of yellow roses on Sunday from Christian friends in the United States who were upset about the treatment he received three weeks ago in the White House from US President Barack Obama.

Representatives of the Christians who pledged the flowers said last week that Netanyahu’s office had declined to accept them, because his advisers were concerned about offending Obama at such a sensitive time, but the Prime Minister’s Office denied this.

Over the past week a compromise was reached whereby the Prime Minister’s Office would accept one bouquet out of 1,200 pledged, and the rest of the 14,000 flowers would be donated to social service organizations in Jerusalem over the weekend, and to IDF soldiers on Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers and on Independence Day.

The controversy began when Florida-based radio host and author Janet Porter was so incensed by what she thought was Obama’s inappropriate behavior when he hosted Netanyahu in the White House three weeks ago, that she called upon her listeners to give Netanyahu yellow roses to symbolize friendship, with each bouquet costing a symbolic price of $19.48.

The response was overwhelming as Christian supporters of Israel went to the Web site of Porter’s Faith2action organization and ordered the flowers, which will be accompanied by a card with the words “Be encouraged, Americans stand with you,” and a quote from Psalms: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem.”

“It’s Time To Part Company”:

“If one group of people prefers government control and management of people’s lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?”

The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact and one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them.

The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.

Let’s look at just some of the magnitude of the violations.

Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is authority for Congress to tax and spend for: prescription drugs, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget.

Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush.

The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do anything upon which they can muster a majority vote.James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.

“The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

Americans who wish to live free have several options. We can submit to those who have constitutional contempt and want to run our lives. We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed and death in an attempt to force America’s tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights. We can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating.

Some independence movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden; Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally.

The bottom-line question for all of us is: Should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another? My preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.