Right to Privacy or Presumption of Innocence?

(Courtesy Google Images)

Edward Snowden has achieved international fame as the “whistle-blower” who exposed NSA spying on domestic telephone calls.  He claims that he was motivated to expose this problem in order to protect American’s “right to privacy”.

According to Wikipedia:

 

“The right to privacy is our right to keep a domain around us, which includes all those things that are part of us, such as our body, home, property, thoughts, feelings, secrets and identity. The right to privacy gives us the ability to choose which parts in this domain can be accessed by others, and to control the extent, manner and timing of the use of those parts we choose to disclose.”

 

This Guy’s a Real American Hero

Edward Snowden has admitted to being the source of a recent, massive leak of government secrets to the public.

I’m much surprised to hear him speak.  He’s not only brilliant–which, all by itself is very rare–he’s also an extraordinarily-gifted communicator. And most extraordinarily, he has a real sense of ethics and values for which he’s prepared to lay down his life. He has real integrity. Character.  He belongs in Congress or perhaps even the White House rather than in hiding in Hong Kong. He appears to be as fine a man as America has ever produced. And, of course–as such–he is a natural target for arrest, or worse, by government.

video   00:12:35

 

Truck Driver Nearly Beaten to Death By Police For Not Signing Traffic Ticket

The Supreme Court has ruled that cops can lie to us, that they have no duty to protect us, and that they enjoy immunities that effectively place them above the law.

Cops know they can routinely abuse people and get away with it. Therefore, they just look you in the eye, lie, smirk and sometimes cave your head in with a club. Worst case for the cop? After beating up a taxpayer, a civil judgment of, say, $5 million, may be assessed against the state government to be paid by the rest of the taxpayers. When a cop pulls this crap, he should lose his house, car, savings and pension and 25% of his income for the next 10 years. Plus, he should be charged with criminal assault and jailed for 3 to 5. Minimum. The people charged with enforcing the law can’t be deemed to be above the law.

video   00:07:22

 

Police Caught on Video Beating a Woman

Mariah Carey performing live in Las Vegas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The video below is unremarkable.  Two cops beat up some woman.  It’s not like it’s never happened before.  If you’re inclined, you can probably find hundreds of videos on YouTube of police caught beating seemingly innocent people.  

But this video is different because I saw it posted on Yahoo.com when I opened my email account this morning.

YouTube publishes everything.  When it comes to police abuse videos, YouTube posts lots of them.  But in doing so, YouTube seems to be so much of an “alternative” media outlet, that we’re not surprised or impressed by police abuse videos.  YouTube has volume, but it doesn’t have “weight”.

But Yahoo, on the other hand, strikes me as more “mainstream” than YouTube.  Yahoo has more credibility, more “weight” with the average American.

So, when I see a police abuse video posted on Yahoo (right next to a video about whatever Mariah Carey wore at a recent concert), I’m impressed.  The Yahoo posting tells me that police abuse is no longer a fringe issue, but has instead become as “mainstream” as Mariah Carey’s costumes.  If so, we can expect to see police abuse as an increasingly important issue in the mainstream media as well as in the A.D. 2014 election.

The rising tide against police abuse reminds me of President Obama’s recent announcement that the war on terror must wind down and even his use of drones to assassinate “terrorists” would also be diminished.  It’s too early to say for sure, but it appears that the “imperial” federal government and the heretofore growing “police state” know that they’ve gone too far, become so overtly tyrannical that they’ve alienated too many Americans.  Perhaps Obama, the government and the cops realize they’re going to have to rehabilitate their images by “playing nice” for a while.

If so, that’s evidence that we’re winning.  Our dissidents’ numbers are growing too large to be ignored.

video  00:05:39  (No sound on the video.)

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/video-captures-jasper-texas-police-officers-beating-woman-204501776.html

 

A Good Question

(Courtesy Google Images)

 

 

 

Notes on Fiat Currency

What’ll you have? Gold or paper? Liberty or fascism?

As everyone may know, we’ve used currencies other than gold or silver throughout history. Sometimes we used jugs of corn liquor as “money”; sometimes buckskins; and sometimes pieces of paper. Most of these currencies worked well-enough–except for paper.

The reason is that you can “spin” paper currencies out of thin air, but you can’t “spin” tangible products (like jugs of liquor, buckskins or gold and silver) out of thin air. All of the tangible currencies–including barter systems–have to be produced by actual work. Given that the world’s bankers have no intention or capacity for doing real work, they view all tangible currencies as anathema. They want a paper (or digital) currency that they can “spin out of thin air” with nothing more than their signature.

 

Florida Shortened Yellow Lights to Gain Revenue

Red light camera system (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Florida reduces the time on yellow lights by only a fraction of a second and gains $50 million in traffic light revenue.

Traffic light revenues are important because they’re ultimately based on the presumption that we can be charged for an offense that no one actually witnessed.  Yes, some cop may later “witness” the video tape, but that strikes me a kind of hearsay since the cop didn’t witness the actual event.  If the government is allowed to impose fines based on the “testimony” of machines and without eye-witnesses, it won’t be long before you’re issued a ticket for using too much toilet paper based on a computer that monitors your bathroom.

On the one hand, the use of machines (like computers and video recorders) to penalize offenses may be a good thing since such mechanical monitors may help reduce the incidence of offenses and crimes.  On the other hand, the use of machines like computers and video recorders to penalize offenses may be a bad thing since they allow government to grow more efficient and ever-larger without the cost of adding additional personnel.  Mechanical and electronic enforcement devices are conducive to a police state.

 

Zoning Creates Debts, Debtors & Government Dependents

Diagram of zoning change in Nell Fisher reserve and adjacent plots of land. Each “Zone” is based on a purported PURPOSE.  But what is the real PURPOSE?  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Forty years ago, my father bought a little retirement farm in Wisconsin.  The farm included a wonderful old barn and a house that was started back about A.D. 1900.

The house was a standard, two-story farm house.  But it was particularly interesting because it was built one room at a time.  You could tell because not one of the six ground-floor rooms had a floor that matched the level of any adjacent room’s floor. Each room’s floor was a half or three-quarter’s inch higher or lower than the adjacent room’s floor.

It was apparent that the original farmer had saved his money, bought the land, and then saved more money to build his first room (now, the kitchen).  I’m sure that he, his wife and kids all lived in that first 250 ft² room.  Later, as the farmer worked and saved more of his profits, he bought more lumber to build a second room (probably a bedroom).  Then he even dug a basement under the third addition (no small feat in that rocky soil).  After what may have been five or ten years, the farmer had built a pretty nice, two-story home.

I can imagine how hard that farmer had to work.  I can imagine the strain of saving enough of his earnings each year to buy more lumber to add another room.  I can also imagine the pride that the farmer, and his wife, and even their kids felt each time the farmer was able to add another room onto their house.  There had to be a real sense of accomplishment.

But, most importantly, they had to be delighted that there was no debt.

 

DHS “Whistleblower” Labeled “Domestic Terrorist”

Julia Davis was employed by the Department of Homeland Security and tasked with protecting our borders from incursion by terrorists.  One day, she  identified 23 people who may have been terrorists crossing the border into the U.S..  She tried to alert her superiors to the intrusions by the possible terrorists.  Unfortunately, the DHS Intelligence office that should’ve received her information was closed so the Intel officers could have a picnic.  Therefore, Ms. Davis reported her concerns to the FBI.  The DHS regarded being exposed for being off the job while having a picnic as evidence that Ms. Davis was a “whistleblower”.  DHS  later responded by declaring her to be a “domestic terrorist” and even caused her to be arrested twice and then imprisoned.

Here’s her extraordinary story:

video   00:19:13   The interview runs a little slow at times, but this video is absolutely worth watching.

 

“Government is Inherently Good”?!!

Harry Reid (D-NV), Majority Leader of the United States Senate–THE FACE OF BIG GOVERNMENT  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Washington Times recently reported (“Harry Reid:  ‘Government is Inherently Good’”) that,

 

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he can’t understand why the tea party remains popular, given its similarity to the anarchist movement and its steadfast opposition to the ‘inherently good’ government.”

“Inherently good government”?

“Inherently good government”?! 

Are you kidding me?!!

Has Senator Reid lost his mind?  Is he becoming overwhelmed by his sense of guilt?  Or is he merely so ignorant that he doesn’t understand that this country started with the presumption that government was a “necessary evil” wherein the “necessary” was often debatable, but the “evil” was virtually certain?

George Washington implied the inherently wicked nature of government when he said, “Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”  Washington surely didn’t see government as “inherently good”.  He saw it as, at best, a dangerous servant.  At best.  Necessary, perhaps.  But always dangerous.