Foodforthethinkers's Blog

By Doug Newman

August 16, 2011

The Open Forum
The Denver Post
101 W. Colfax Avenue, Suite 600
Denver, CO 80202

Editor:

In his column of August 16, Mike Littwin calls Texas Governor Rick Perry “the anti-Obama.” He totally fails to mention a far better candidate for this designation, and for president, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

Paul, a former physician and Air Force veteran, has been elected to Congress 12 times. He finished second in Saturday’s Iowa presidential straw poll by the slimmest of margins.

Presidents swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Of all the candidates, Republican or Democrat, Ron Paul is the only one with a consistent history of adhering to the Constitution. Numerous times, when Congress has voted 434-1 for an unconstitutional expansion of federal power, Paul has been the lone dissenter.

Barack Obama supports oppressive taxation, reckless spending, massive debt, gross intrusion on our civil liberties and endless war. Ron Paul supports eliminating the IRS, extremely strict limits on federal spending, gold-backed currency, ironclad respect for the Bill of Rights and ending all our current wars.

Other candidates may talk a good game about liberty and the Constitution. Only Ron Paul has a decades-long legislative record of supporting them.

To learn more about Ron Paul, visit his House web site – www.house.gov/paul – and his campaign web site – www.ronpaul2012.com. Support liberty! Support the real anti-Obama! Support Ron Paul for president in 2012!

Douglas F. Newman
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If you would like to post this elsewhere, please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks! – dfn

By Doug Newman

In a little less than a week, I will be flying on an airplane for the first time this year. When I get to the airport, I will be faced with three abhorrent choices:

1. Have myself photographed in my birthday suit by one of those very possibly cancer-causing nudie-nukers.
2. Have my crotch groped by some tax-mainlining pervert in an act that anywhere else would constitute sexual assault. This is also full of health risks.
3. Not flying.

And if you are going to say, “Then just don’t fly”, then you just don’t get it.

As Vin Suprynowicz put it last Sunday, “It’s all a vicious game of ‘let’s pretend.’”

TSA does not keep you safe. It never has. It never will.

I have said before – Suprynowicz says something similar – that if a terrorist really wanted to kill a lot of people and disrupt aviation, he would not go to all the trouble of smuggling a bomb onto a plane. Rather, he would set off a bomb in a terminal.

Terrorists could even orchestrate a coordinated attack at multiple locations. Imagine bombs going off at eight on a Monday morning at, say, ATL, ORD, LAX and DFW. Imagine thousands dead and America’s four largest aviation hubs crippled indefinitely.

Why try to sneak a bomb onto a plane when you could kill so many more people right here?

TSA waits until well after you enter a terminal before commencing with gate rape. Not only have they never caught a terrorist in almost a decade, but they leave most parts of airports … ahem … “unprotected.”

(Just before I put this to bed, a congressthing announced that there had been 25,000 breaches of TSA since its inception in 2001.)

Besides, who says a terrorist attack has to involve planes and airports?

I mean, like, terrorists could attack train stations, bus stations, schools, shopping malls, stadiums and grocery stores. Are you willing to be sexually assaulted every time you enter such venues? Are you willing to have career perverts grope and ogle your six-year-old kids as they walk into school? How far down this road are you willing to go?

Elsewhere, looking at a nude photograph of a minor would be considered child pornography and would land you in the cooler. Not so with TSA.

And if TSA is oh so necessary to keep us “secure” from terrorists at airports, why don’t they also station their blueshirts at train stations and bus stations? Why don’t they interrupt traffic on highways? I mean, like, you never know when or where a terrorist could hypothetically, theoretically strike next. You can’t be too careful.

Oh, wait. They already have. They were even supposed to show up at a high school prom in Santa Fe recently.

One of the grievances spelled out in the Declaration of Independence – and the basis for the Third Amendment – was “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.” I am sure that King George III never dreamed of authorizing the redcoats to grope the crotches of the colonists, much less justified such institutionalized depravity in the name of a higher good. (And if he had, the “shot heard round the world” would have been fired much sooner than April 19, 1775. People had a lot more self-respect back then.)

Allan Macurdy is perhaps the most amazing person I have ever known. Diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy at age 7, he let nothing stand in his way. In spite of absolutely daunting physical challenges, he would become a professor of law at Boston University.

My friend, classmate and hero, Allan Macurdy. 1960-2008

I don’t know about Allan’s politics, nor will I ever care. And I have no idea whatsoever what he would think about TSA. However, I want to steal a phrase from him: “higher parade of horribles.” He used this phrase when discussing how much physical adversity a person would accept before they simply lost the will to live.

Likewise, there is a “higher parade of horribles” that applies to the whole TSA controversy. As horrible as terrorism is, there would be something immeasurably more horrible: life under a totalitarian government.

And this is exactly what millions of Americans seem willing to accept in the name of “security”. How else would you describe a government that will presume its citizens guilty until proven innocent and molest and assault them as a condition of movement? When we forsake the presumption of innocence, we lose America.

And if you will quietly accept TSA’s sexual – and scatalogical – humiliation, what will you not accept? Where will you draw the line? If you think TSA is no big deal, then don’t complain to me about the IRS or Obamacare.

I would rather live in a free society with the very remote chance of being a victim of terrorism than in a place such as Cuba or North Korea, with a ubiquitous “national security” apparatus and no liberty whatsoever.

And if this higher horrible of a truly totalitarian state ever does come to pass on these shores, it will not be the fault of Dubya or Obomber or Al-Qaeda or Al-whatever. It will be because of millions of Americans allowed their government to do absolutely anything to keep them “secure.”

Oh how I wish I had said this first: Our liberty was not stolen from us. It died from lack of exercise.
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Fascinating info on TSA waste. (Thank you, Tony.) ___________________________________________________
If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks!

By Doug Newman – Rehash of something I originally posted on June 30, 2004.

Independence Day is upon us. This July 4 we will celebrate the 235th anniversary of our independence from Britain and our birth as a free nation. We will watch fireworks, go to barbecues, go camping (at tax-funded state and national parks), go to baseball games (in tax-funded stadiums) and hear endless talk about how goldurned wonderful it is that we live in a free country.

Or do we live in a free country?

Consider the following.

In a free country, taxation would be well-nigh non-existent. You could keep what you earned and you could spend, save, invest and donate as you saw fit. You would have far more money with which to solve your own problems.

In a free country, there would not be 20,000-plus laws on the books infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Crime would plummet as criminals – in both the private and public sectors – would never know who was armed.

In a free country, police brutality would be almost non-existent. The popo – this also means the IRS, TSA, DEA, CPS, yadda, yadda, yadda – would be subject to the same penalties as lowly mundanes when they violated the rights of others.

In a free country, you could educate your children as you saw fit, without asking anyone’s permission. You could home school you kids if you wanted. Catholics could send their kids to the Our Lady of Mercy School; Baptists could send their kids to the Obadiah Baptist School; Mormons could send their kids to the Joseph Smith school; Muslims could send their kids to the Allah Akbar School; believers in Mungabunga could send their kids to Mungabunga school. If you are not spiritual, you could send your kids to the Whitney Houston School — “Where the children are the future” – or to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young School – “Where we teach your children well”. Prayer, declining academic standards, evolution, creation, condoms, busing, standardized testing, bullying, discipline, dress codes and all the other debates surrounding education today would cease to be social issues.

Mungabunga

In a free country, businesses would not be crushed in a regulatory vise grip. Millions of jobs would stay here in America rather than going to Honduras and Bangladesh.

In a free country, the military would be used strictly for national defense. We would not have troops in 135 countries. We would heed the Founders’ advice and steer clear of foreign alliances, which have been nothing but trouble. We would withdraw from the United Nations and all its subsidiary organizations. Terrorism would cease to be a threat. Were we not throwing our weight around so recklessly “over there”, hatred and resentment toward the United States would be far, far less.

In a free country, we would not have the world’s highest incarceration rate.

In a free country, jurors could judge not only the facts pertaining to a given case, but also the law relevant to that case. If Juror Smith thought Defendant Jones was being tried under a bad law, Juror Smith could vote to acquit on that basis and that basis alone.

In a free country, the value of money would be tied to gold and/or silver. The Federal Reserve Bank would be shut down. We would not see our savings and our futures eroded by inflation. And we would not owe bazillions of dollars to folks who already have bazillions of dollars.

In a free country, it would take neither a village nor a police state to raise a child. Government would not act in loco parentis for an absentee Mommy and Daddy. Parents would be responsible for raising their own children. Most of the problems we have with kids today – sex, drugs, violence – would be greatly minimized.

In a free country there would be no war on drugs. Drug profits and street crime would become almost nonexistent. It would not be the government’s job to keep people off of drugs. It would be the job of parents, churches, Mungabunga temples, etc. Back when it was this way, there was almost no “drug problem” at all. (If the Mungabunga people smoke that hoochy hooch in their rituals, they would be free to do so without fear of SWAT raids.)

Not only did we not learn anything from our "noble experiment" of alcohol prohibition, but we are now doing it bigger and uglier.

In a free country, we would not constantly be relinquishing our freedom in exchange for security. People would know that the greatest threat to their security comes from their own government.

In a free country, if a state decided it had had enough of rule by Washington, D.C., it could secede from the union without fear of reprisal.

In a free country, there would be no law forbidding what you could ingest into your body. If a certain remedy worked, your doctor could recommend it and you could take it without fear of punishment.

In a free country, there would be no welfare state, no education state and no medical state. There would not be a permanent underclass, the quality of education would be vastly improved, and medicine would be far less expensive. Moreover, immigrants would know that coming to America would mean either sink or swim. Deadbeats would not come here looking for a handout. And immigrants would, out of social and economic necessity, learn English.

Medicine in a free country

In a free country, there would be no minimum wage. Millions of jobs would be created in the inner cities overnight. Congressmen and senators would be paid what they are worth.

In a free country, there would be no Selective Service System. Young men would not be so many slabs of meat for the military grinder.

In a free country, there would be no Patriot Act. There would be no “sneak and peek” warrants. The authorities would have to obtain a warrant to review your bank accounts and e-mails. Habeas Corpus would be secure.

In a free country, there would be no surrender of sovereignty to entities like the UN, where we can be outvoted 2-1 by such paragons of freedom as Sudan and North Korea. Our troops would not be involved in UN sponsored wars. Moreover, things like NATO and the International Criminal Court would no longer have any relevance.

In a free country, there would be no “promise” of Social Security at age 62 or 65 or 67 or … how far back will they have moved it when you reach your golden years? You could take that same money and put it in the most profitable private sector investments you could find. Furthermore, you would not be constantly tracked by means of your Social Security Number.

In a free country, you would only be punished if you inflicted actual harm on another person or their property. Randy Weaver’s wife and son would still be alive. The Branch Davidians would be living in peace on the outskirts of Waco. Non-violent drug offenders would not waste away in cages, while convicted rapists and murderers went free.

In a free country, churches would truly be exempt from taxation, which would be minimal to begin with. Pastors would not be chilled into political correctness by 501c3 regulations.

In a free country, we would not have adopted nine of the ten “planks” of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. How have we done this? 

Have the ten planks replaced the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments?

In a free country, your property rights would not be under attack. (Plank 1) There would be no zoning laws. You could not lose your home or business for failure to pay taxes. There would be no EPA harassment of landowners over “wetlands” and other issues. The FEDGOV would not be the nation’s largest landowner.

In a free country, there would be no progressive income tax. (Plank 2) Again, there would be no IRS. Period.

In a free country, there would be no inheritance tax. (Plank 3)

In a free country, there would be no confiscation of property of those who resisted the powers that be. (Plank 4) There would be no civil asset forfeiture laws.

In a free country, there would not be a central bank. (Plank 5) There would be no Federal Reserve and we would not have an umpteengazillion dollar national debt.

In a free country, there would be no government control of communications and transportation. (Plank 6) There would be no FCC, DOT, ICC, etc. Airports would not be mini-police states. Sexual assault would not be a condition of travel.

Please don't shout as they fiddle about

In a free country, there would be no government intrusion in manufacturing and agriculture. (Plank 7) There would be no Department of Labor or Department of Agriculture. Your business could not be shut down for OSHA violations. There would be no federal farm subsidies or price supports.

In a free country, there would be no federal control of labor. (Plank 8 ) There would be no National Labor Relations Board, no minimum wage laws, no affirmative action or racial quotas.

The merger of agriculture and industry (Plank 9) is tough to explain in one short paragraph. The centralizers can only be happy that farming is increasingly controlled by conglomerates that are far more likely to kiss up to the FEDGOV than a family that has worked the same piece of land for three generations.

In a free country, the government would not be in control of education. (Plank 10) While neither the Bible nor any of America’s Founding documents say anything about state education, you will find state education as a policy prescription of the Communist Manifesto.

So there you have it.

America is not a free country.

I know, I know, I know: I can vote and I can write this essay without fear of punishment. And no one is being hauled off to death camps in America. At least not yet.

The incineration of 80 innocent people by the FEDGOV at Waco in 1993 was a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. Grotesquely excessive force was used for no good reason, and millions of Americans derisively giggled at “that cult.” When they came for the Davidians, we did not say anything because we were not Davidians.

Today, millions of Americans still buy the lie that America is a free country. Hitler knew the power of the lie: if you lie to people often enough, they will believe anything. And while we are not at the Hitler phase yet, we will arrive there if we keep (a) believing everything our government – or at least our preferred faction of the ruling class – says and (b) believing we are a free nation. You cannot have it both ways.

Sadly, some people will not clue in until the death camp phase. I pray fervently that enough Americans wake up before then.

Will this be what it takes before people wake up?

Scripture tells us to preach the truth without ceasing, for there will come a time when people will not want to hear the truth. Rather, they will surround themselves with ear-ticklers who will tell them whatever they want to hear, regardless of how preposterous. (II Timothy 4:2-4)

People ask me if I get frustrated fighting the freedom fight in a society where so many will gladly relinquish freedom for a false sense of security. Yes I do! However, I must continue to fight this fight and leave the results to God.

Happy Fourth of July.
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If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why you would? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks! – dfn

By Doug Newman

“Take heed that no man deceive you.” – Matthew 24:4

The left-right paradigm is a grand deception that has done indescribable damage to intelligent thought for quite some time. Christians, who are told not to let anyone deceive them, have fallen into this trap as easily as any group in society.

Consider the fact that Hitler was supposedly on the extreme right while Stalin was on the extreme left. Was there any difference between them other than the size of the eight-digit body counts they left in their wakes?

In America, Bush and Obama are portrayed as polar opposites. Their deeds tell us otherwise. We elected “conservative” Bush who would go on to outspend “liberal” Clinton by $1 trillion per year. Then we elected “peace candidate” Obama who continued Bush’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and – let’s be honest – Pakistan, and started a war in Libya and is ramping things up in Yemen.

Recently, an old friend sent me an article by Andrew Sullivan on the contradictions inherent in the agenda of America’s Religious Right (RR). As I don’t pay much attention to the mainstream media nowadays, I don’t know a lot about Andrew Sullivan. However, he makes some very pungent points here.

Sullivan states:

“No, the Americanism now heard on the right is that America was uniquely founded on Christianity, that America is therefore a chosen instrument of divine Providence, and that this moral superiority is so profound that indicting America on any prudential, moral or political grounds is un-American or, if it comes from abroad, evil.”

While I believe that America’s Founding had profound Christian roots, the agenda of the contemporary RR is as far removed from the principles spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as it is from the teachings of Christ.

Jesus had no political agenda. He wasn’t a left-winger or a right-winger. Nor was He a liberal or a conservative. These are all earthly philosophies, which the Bible warns are doomed to failure – I Corinthians 1:19, 20; II Corinthians 10:5; Colossians 2:4, 8.

It sickens how so many people claim that Jesus would be on their side politically. (I say this as one who was very caught up in the whole RR deal from 1986 to 1991.) Four times, Jesus was offered political power and four times He rejected it – Matthew 4:9-10 and 21:9, John 6:15 and Acts 1:6.

With that, I want to give just a brief summary of the points Sullivan makes.

• Sullivan cites Galatians 3:28 and states that “Christianity cannot be co-opted by nationalism.” The RR has convinced millions of American Christians that they should unconditionally support “their country” as it wages endless war abroad. Well, if this is the case, didn’t first century Christians have a duty to brainlessly support Roman military conquests? And didn’t German Christians in the late 1930s have the same duty to support “their country” as it ran roughshod across Europe?

Hitler, too, claimed that God was on his side.

• Sullivan quotes the Great Commission – Matthew 28:19 – where Jesus instructs His Disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He does not say, “Bomb the crap out of countries that have done nothing to you and kill countless thousands of innocent Ayyyy-raaaaabs.”

• Sullivan corrects a leftist reader about Christianity and economics. The Old Testament condemns theft and covetousness – Exodus 20:15, 17. Jesus likewise condemns these things in Mark 7:22. True Christian charity is always rendered voluntarily and joyfully – II Corinthians 9:7.

• Sullivan is right: “Torture is, of course, an intrinsic evil, regardless what one calls it.” It is a malignancy on the contemporary church that so many professing Christians condone torture. Good ends do not justify bad means – Romans 3:5-8. The entire point of torture is to inflict so much pain on someone that they will say absolutely anything to get you to stop. The biblical standard for determining guilt, however, is the testimony of at least two witnesses – Deuteronomy 19:15; I Timothy 5:19. Presuming guilt runs contrary to the Golden Rule – Matthew 7:12.

It has been said that torture has as much to do with truth as rape does with making love. Jesse Ventura once remarked that if you gave him ten minutes with Dick Cheney on a water board, he would have no trouble getting Deferment Dick to confess to the murder of Sharon Tate.

Sullivan wraps things up by saying: “By wresting it from its proper context, attaching it to a single nation-state, using it to defend public policies that are, at bottom, anathema to the priorities of the Gospels, Christianists are indeed not Christians.”

Blasphemy!

The Bible contains the word “king” almost 2000 times. Hence, Christians need to be ever mindful of doings in the political realm. However, the idea that America is an “exceptional nation” has no basis in Christianity. I do believe that America is referred to in Revelation 18, as an economic colossus that was brought to ruin “in one hour” because of its moral wickedness. However, America is never mentioned by name in the Bible, whereas Persia, Syria and Libya are. This ought to tell you just how unimportant America is in God’s Eyes.

Also, Christians are instructed to “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” – I John 4:1. Millions of Christians today are so lacking in discernment that they will believe all sorts of madness as long as somebody somewhere calls it “Christian.” Hence the contradiction that those who claim to be “pro-life” and to follow the “Prince of Peace” – Isaiah 9:6 – are the most incessant cheerleaders for – here I go again – unprovoked war, torture, spying, guilt without trial, sanctions and embargoes.

I swear I could probably write a book on this stuff if only I could justify it physically and financially.

If you would like to post this elsewhere, please email me and include this link. Thanks!

By Doug Newman
I originally wrote this on May 31, 2010. I have made a few tweaks here.

To the veterans of the United States Armed Forces:

For 236 years, you have answered the call to lay down your life in defense of freedom. You have embodied the words of Jesus in John 15:13.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Unlike so many of those who sold us our wars, you actually had the fortitude to leave home and hearth to do the actual fighting.

In just the last century, you have gone off to Flanders Fields, Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Khe Sanh, Hamburger Hill, Fallujah and the caves of Afghanistan to fight and bleed and die.

Why? You will say you did it so that your countrymen could live and breathe in freedom. (That is what I thought when I swore my enlistment oath.)

Me. Ricky Recruit. 1983.

And how did we thank you? How did we “support” you?

We have erected a government that has given us, among many other things:

* The world’s highest incarceration rate.

* A legal code replete with 2 million laws.

* An 11 million word tax code that requires us to divulge more private personal information to Uncle Sam than any self-respecting slave would ever dream of.

* Warrantless searches and spying.

* Rampant police brutality.

* Reckless disregard for property rights.

* Citizen disarmament.

* A national health plan.

* All 10 policy planks of the Communist Manifesto as the law of the land.

And don’t even get me going on the fact that America is perhaps the first nation in world history where sexual assault is a condition of travel.

Oh sure, we sing songs and wave flags as you march down Main Street. But our actions speak 1000 times more loudly than our words.

Memorial Park in my hometown of Fair Haven, NJ.

Yes, we still have a measure of liberty. And, no, we are not North Korea. At least not yet. As a high school teacher of mine liked to say, we have one foot on the banana peel and the other foot in the grave. Too many of us buy into left-wing and/or right-wing fear mongering and are willing to give up what remains of our liberty.

While you fought and bled and died for this liberty, we gave so much of it away. And we were doing this for a long time before our current president took office.

Propaganda is a powerful thing. You did what you thought was right at the time. You were lied to and you were used. Most of those who beat the war drums the loudest, especially nowadays, never spent a single day in the military. In the timeless words of General Patton, they know as much about real battle as they do about fornicating.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, won the Congressional Medal of Honor not once but twice. He would eventually proclaim that “War is a Racket.”

“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many…”

War is not what it seems to most people. Our current conflicts are cases in point. It cannot be repeated often enough that it has been centuries since a Muslim country conquered a non-Muslim country.

America is the mightiest military power in world history. Our $800 billion annual military budget is roughly equal to all the other nations on earth combined. We have 300 ships, thousands of planes, tanks and nuclear warheads, and 300 million firearms in private hands.

Just one American Ohio-class submarine can carry 192 nuclear warheads, thus making it the sixth largest nuclear power on earth. You read that right: just one American submarine.

Terrorists have no ships, planes or tanks. They don’t even have uniforms. Terrorism is a tactic, not a form of government. Our liberty was never threatened by “radical Islam“, but rather by the establishment that has ruled this country for close to a century.

The greatest threat of all comes from the millions of Americans who have allowed this establishment so much power with no regard to the consequences.

I was such a person until I started waking up in 1991.

It was never your duty to keep us free. Liberty is a gift from God. Your proper duty – a noble and dignified one – is to defend our borders and shorelines. It is the up to We the People to keep ourselves free, by being eternally vigilant against the predations of our own government. We have been horribly derelict in this duty.

Shame on us.

We don’t deserve you.
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The ultimate insult: Jose Guerena  served two tours with the Marines in Iraq. On May 5, he was shot 60 times by a Tucson SWAT team in a botched marijuana raid. Guerena’s killers found nothing illegal in his home. Moreover, they refused to allow paramedics to treat him for over an hour.

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By Doug Newman

(I originally wrote this on January 6, 2008.)

Over the last week or two, my e-mail has been deluged with Ron Paul supporters venting their outrage and indignation over Fox News’ exclusion of Ron Paul from the debates preceding the New Hampshire primary. While the anger is understandable, we need to keep a few things in perspective.

First of all, the mainstream establishment media is not going to be your friend. Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Hence, the people who run this supposedly “conservative” network are every bit as contemptuous of the Constitution, as well as you, your freedom and your capacity to think as those evil, wicked, mean and nasty liberals that they say they diametrically oppose. Fox is run by latter-day P.T. Barnums who make money hand over fist because they know there are numerous suckers born every minute.

So deal with it. If someone in the mainstream media gives Ron Paul a good interview, like Jay Leno did, that is great! However, if Fox or any other media outlet treats Ron Paul like dirt, don’t be surprised. These people have been doing this for years to anyone who goes against the grain of the modern superstate.

If something Fox or ABC or whoever says or does makes you angry for a few minutes, this is understandable. (I feel your pain!) If you want to fire off an angry e-mail to the CEO of the offending entity, do it! If you boycott Fox’ sponsors, I’m down with that. But don’t waste too much time being angry at these people. Always being angry is just no way to go through life. It steals your joy and saps your creative energy. It lets evil win.

We in the Ron Paul movement have a hugely positive message of liberty and peace to promote. From Maine to Hawaii, millions of people are Jonesing to hear what we have to say. Let us not waste our time arguing with idiots and let us invest our time wisely and profitably finding those who want to hear our message. We know already that they are out there in droves. Let’s find them!

In the words of Gil-Scott Heron, the revolution will not be televised. While Ron Paul gets considerable run in the media, this is not where the true revolution will take place. The true revolution will take place at the grassroots level. It will take place on the internet, where anyone of modest financial means can broadcast their message worldwide. It will take place in your neighborhood. It will take place at your job, at the grocery store, at your kids’ games, at the gym, at the neighborhood watering hole, at church and at the gas station. It will take place in the hearts and minds of “we the people.”

(I hate to nitpick, but it I am a bit uneasy about the term “Ron Paul Revolution.” It is not just his revolution, but yours and mine. We are the ones who will make it happen.)

True revolutions are never televised. By definition, they consist of an overthrow of the establishment. Establishments are never friendly to revolutionaries.

The Revolution of 1775-1783 only had the participation of a small minority of the people. When the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they meant it. Many of them paid just such a price so that you and I could live in freedom. Not only did they gain independence from the Brits, but they launched the greatest experiment in human liberty that the world has ever seen.

One of the glories of the Ron Paul movement is that it brings together people from an incredibly diverse array of beliefs. I know – or know of – Christians and Jews and Buddhists and Taoists and Muslims and atheists who support Ron Paul. For all I know some of you might believe in Mungabunga. It reminds me of the 1960s tune: “I think it’s so groovy now that people are finally getting together.”

I am a Christian and I write this on a Sunday morning, so let me indulge myself. I believe that the most profound Revolution in human history took place a little over 2000 years ago. Its Leader would send his first 12 Apostles into the world “like sheep among wolves” and warn them that “all men will hate you because of me”. (Matthew 10:16,22)

This Revolutionary, who had no political agenda, would die an excruciatingly bloody death because He claimed to be God, and hence, a counterforce to the contemporary political establishment. His movement would thrive and spread as an outlaw religion for centuries before finally gaining a measure of acceptance. The establishment that so viciously persecuted this movement would eventually fall.

Enemy of the state and of the established order. - Luke 23:2

We in the Ron Paul movement run no such risks. At least for now. Ours is a peaceful revolution. We can have either peaceful revolution now or violent revolution later. No matter what happens, we cannot expect that the existing establishment will be nice to us. They have too much to lose.

At the same time, we have too much to gain to let the bastards at Fox News — or whatever mainstream media outlet you can name – get us down. When we do this, they win.

Don’t expect our revolution to be televised. If this makes you angry or indignant, get a grip and get past it. Don’t let these emotions run your life. Keep the LOVE in the Ron Paul R3VOLution!

If you would like to post this, please e-mail me and include this URL.

By Doug Newman

I originally wrote this about a year ago. I am reposting now because Ron Paul is running for president. – dn

Time and again, we hear that “America was founded on Christian values.” But we almost never hear any detailed explanation of what that means.

The following is brief introduction to the biblical basis of the following clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:

“To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;”

How are money, weights, measures, the Bible and the Constitution all related? Let’s have a short look.

Money units are means of measurement, such as inches, ounces and gallons. Indeed, if you look at certain currencies around the world, such as the British Pound, the Mexican Peso and the Italian Lira, their very names refer to the concept of weight.

Let us now turn to the Bible. There are nine Old Testament Scriptures that demand honest weights and measures.

Leviticus 19:35-36 “Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin.”

Deuteronomy 25:13-15 “Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”

Proverbs 11:1 “The LORD abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.”

Proverbs 16:11 “Honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.”

Proverbs 20:10 “Differing weights and differing measures – the LORD detests them both.”

Proverbs 20:23 “The LORD detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him.”

Ezekiel 45:10-12 “You are to use accurate scales, an accurate ephah and an accurate bath. The ephah and the bath are to be the same size, the bath containing a tenth of a homer and the ephah a tenth of a homer; the homer is to be the standard measure for both. The shekel is to consist of twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels equal one mina.”

Amos 8:4-7 “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’—skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget anything they have done.’”

Micah 6:10-11 “Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short ephah, which is accursed? Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights?”

Hence, the Lord takes the issue of honest weights and measures very seriously.

But I hear you asking “How does this relate to the value of money?”

Genesis 23:15-16 “’Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and you? Bury your dead.’ Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.”

Exodus 30:13 “Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the LORD.” Leviticus 27:25, Numbers 3:47 and 18:16 and Ezekiel 45:12 also define a shekel as equal to 20 gerahs.

Jeremiah 32:9-10 “So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales.”

Hence, biblical money is not fiat money that can be created at will. Biblical money is always tied to a specifically defined weight of a precious metal.

Let us turn now to the United States Constitution. While it is not an explicitly “Christian” document, it has profound biblical underpinnings. It says several things about money, including the following from Article 1:

1. Section 8, Clause 5, again: “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

2. Section 10, Clause 1: “No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

Regulating the value of money as well as establishing fixed weights and measures are linked for a reason: the value of money was to be tied to a specific amount of a precious metal. The value of one ounce of gold was set at $20. Money could not be created on a whim, but had to have the backing of gold and silver.

Consider some quotes from our early presidents:

“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice. If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.” — George Washington

“If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.” — Andrew Jackson

From the 1789 to 1913, the value of the dollar was constant. Twenty dollars bought one ounce of gold. This was fixed by law.

To be sure, fluctuations in supply and demand led to price rises and drops. However, the value of the money was steady, thus making saving and investing predictable.

In 1913, bowing to pressure from a clique of extremely wealthy bankers, congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which was signed into law by President Wilson. America started its move away from biblical money to fiat money. The value of money was no longer tied to a fixed weight of a precious metal, as God demands. Money could now be created at will.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a private bank owned by a phenomenally wealthy clique of bankers, many of whom are foreign. Central banking has allowed them to increase their wealth not through the time-honored means of work, ingenuity, thrift and wise investment, but through lending money to the United States Government at interest.

It is no accident that our national debt is over $14 trillion. Not only can we not pay this off, the moneyed few do not want this debt paid off. The interest on $14 trillion is enormous and allows them to further amass wealth.

The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express

Without paper money, we could not have the world’s most profligate welfare state nor could we afford to be perpetually at war.

Henry Ford had this to say: “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our Banking and Monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a Revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Indeed, almost all countries have a central bank. The following Scripture summarizes the current world situation very well: “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” – Proverbs 22:7

It is also no accident that the value of the dollar has declined by 96 percent since 1913. Even the French philosopher Voltaire, who was no Christian, observed that “Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value: zero.”

The prophet Hosea lamented as follows: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” — Hosea 4:6. This is just profoundly true in America today. People are so ignorant of what God’s Word has to say on so many issues. They don’t even know that it serves as a handbook on how to live all of life!

Oh sure, they may know about the Golden Rule and forgiveness and adultery and a few other things. But they do not know that it covers health, education, politics, government, criminal justice, law, economics, and so on.

John Adams said the following: “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”

These words are just as true today as they were 200 years ago. America suffers profoundly from a lack of economic knowledge. This is not the economic knowledge one might find in the Wall Street Journal. Rather, it is the True Economic Knowledge that is spelled out in God’s Word and that serves as the basis for our constitutional definition of money.

Our freedom in America is under assault in many ways and for many reasons. One of the main reasons is our basic ignorance of the Truth as spelled out in the Bible. Let us look past “arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” – II Corinthians 10:5 – and spend more time reading our Bible and applying it to the modern world. As our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says:

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” – John 8:32

Monmouth County - my home county - Bruce's too - somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

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RELATED LINKS

1. When Jesus kicked the moneychangers out of the Temple, He did so because they were manipulating the money. Look at the 14:30 mark of this video: http://ow.ly/1GAxe
2. What is Constitutional Money Anyway?, by Michael Rozeff http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/53375.html
3. Render Unto Caesar: A Most Misunderstood Testament Passage, by Jeffrey Barr http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/barr-j1.1.1.html
4. Dishonest Scales, by Larry Beane http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/beane2.html
America: Freedom to Fascism, 2-hour documentary by Aaron Russo http://ow.ly/1Krj4
5. The U.S. Debt Clock http://www.usdebtclock.org/

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By Doug Newman

Last Sunday evening, after The Big News, someone wrote the following in their Facebook status.

“WAS IT WORTH IT? Assuming the government’s report is indeed true and OBL is dead, were the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, not to mention the worldwide animosity created against us worth it to capture one individual that could’ve been caught with Letters of Marque and Reprisal?”

I cut and pasted the above as my status, which led to a spirited albeit civil conversation thread. An old and good friend wrote the following:

“What evidence is there that a Letter of Marque and Reprisal would have led to Bin Laden’s capture or death any sooner than yesterday or even at all? Yesterday only showed this way worked, not that it was the best way. You might as well ask if the Civil War was worth it.”

I started to reply on Facebook, but thought I would drone on at some length about these questions. Herewith:

The proper question about how the FEDGOV should respond, if at all, to a given situation is the constitutional one. Our Constitution gives us a tool to deal with things like piracy and terrorism: a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Such letters, issued by Congress, are a type of warrant.

The 9/11 attacks, while horrific crimes, were not acts of war. There was no invading army, no naval armada or submarine force, no aerial bombing raids by a terrorist Luftwaffe and no jihad jarheads riding their LCACs ashore in Battery Park. The 19 hijackers are dead, and hence not capable of taking us over, making us all speak Arabic and pray to Mecca five times a day, forcing Sports Illustrated to do a burqa issue, yadda, yadda, yadda.

(As Fred Reed has pointed out numerous times, it has been several centuries since a Muslim country conquered a non-Muslim country.)

Had 19 American scumsuckeroos gone overseas and committed some horrific suicide attack, would that justify a war on America? If the answer is no, why do so many Americans support all these wars in response to 9/11?

Or would you rather that any Americans who could be proven to have had a hand in planning and financing the attacks be tried and punished accordingly, and that us innocents be left alone?

With this in mind, had I been president on 9/11, I would have asked Congress to issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. I would have demanded that those who could be proven to have been accomplices to the attacks be apprehended, tried according to the Due Process protections spelled out in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and punished accordingly. (1) The Bill of Rights applies to terror suspects, too. And if it doesn’t apply to terror suspects, it doesn’t apply to you either.

A Letter of Marque and Reprisal would not even necessarily involve the use of the military. Moreover, it would focus our entire energy on apprehending the specific perpetrators of the crimes, and would thus very probably finish the task in much less than a decade. It would not authorize the spilling of innocent blood. It would not authorize ruinously expensive – in both blood and treasure – wars. And it would not set a precedent for further breaches of the Constitution by future presidents.

This course of action would have been worth it.

When Benjamin Franklin was exiting the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a women is said to have asked him just what had the convention had wrought. Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

In 1866, in the case of Ex Parte Milligan, supreme Court Justice David Davis wrote some of the greatest words ever to emanate from the federal bench: “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.”

The strict limits our Constitution sets on the federal government – both domestically and abroad – become even more important during times of crisis. It is during these times that governments are most likely to take away liberties. Moreover, it is during these times that people are willing to relinquish liberty for a false sense of security.

In response to 9/11, GWB launched two wars without formal declarations from Congress. These wars resulted in the deaths of over 5000 American sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines as well as countless thousands of innocents abroad. 9/11 has been used as an excuse to spy on the American people without warrants, torture people, and declare people guilty without trial. This was most definitely not worth it.

When you allow a president whom you like to overstep constitutional limits on his power for reasons that you approve of, just know that there are other people with other agendas who want presidents that they like to overstep these limits. (Please read my article on how the Right literally begged for Obamacare.)

“But this was Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind.” I don’t give a flying rip who he was! When the POTUS can arbitrarily and unilaterally proclaim Bin Laden guilty, he can also declare you guilty. (2) When the POTUS can order the killing of Bin Laden without due process, he can also order you to be killed without due process. It doesn’t matter how severe the accusation or how overwhelming the weight of public opinion against the accused. Either the Bill of Rights applies equally to everybody or it doesn’t apply at all to anybody.

(The Constitution only grants the POTUS one direct power over an individual: the power to pardon.)

Bin Laden was never formally charged in connection with 9/11. The FBI wanted him in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and “other terrorist attacks.” However, no specific mention was ever made on his “Most Wanted” poster of 9/11. And calling 9/11 “(an)other terrorist attack” is like calling the Grand Canyon another hole in the ground.

See anything here about 9/11? Hmm. Me neither.

Osama bin Laden was most probably quite a horrible person. Nevertheless, he was a person, however hard that statement might be to stomach. And as this war was never properly declared by Congress, he is entitled to the same protections as thee or me.

(And if they really wanted Bin Laden, why did they never trace any of those recordings they claimed he made back to their origin and just nab him?)

But the feds would ne-e-e-e-e-ever kill innocent civilians. Oh yes they would. What happened at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and at Waco in 1993? I have heard the Waco massacre described as a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. The Powers That Be wanted to see just how much the American people would let them get away with. As it turns out, this is a whole lot.

Spreading lurid accusations about people and then killing them without due process is something that the feddle gummint would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do to American citizens.

Eighteen years and a few weeks later, the majority of Americans are all good with having themselves photographed naked and sexually assaulted as a condition of travel in the name of “national security.” If they are so devoid of self-respect that they will tolerate this, what will they NOT tolerate?

Blood? Money? Liberty? No, it was not worth the price at all.

Now let’s rewind things 140 years to the Civil War. (I will not drone on at nearly as much length about this.)

First, the war was not about slavery, but about the disproportionate burden that tariffs placed on the economy of the South.

Second, slavery was well on its way to extinction and would have ended without a war. (No other country “needed a war” to end slavery.) It was dying because of technological advances as well as the growing conviction in the hearts and minds of Americans that it was just plain wrong. There were, however, powerful lobbies in both the North and South in favor of preserving slavery. Lincoln’s prime objective was to save the Union, regardless of whether or not he ended slavery.

Third, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in certain states and, in the case of Louisiana, parts of those states. It did not apply in several states where slavery still existed.

Fourth, Lincoln was a tyrant who arrested dissenting legislators and newspaper editors, censored the mails, suspended habeas corpus, and imposed the first income tax and military draft.

Fifth, secession was never forbidden by the Constitution. The Civil War put an end to the  “free and independent states” envisioned by Jefferson became mere administrative subdivisions of the federal leviathan.

620,000 people, whose only offense – not crime, offense – was to exercise the same rights that the colonists exercised so bravely in 1776, died as a result.

The War of Northern Aggression – or for Southern Independence – was not only not necessary to free the slaves, but it also constituted a great leap forward, if you will, in the direction of an omnipotent central government.

When I look at all the spirited resistance to federal authority I see today over Obombercare, gun rights and medical hippy lettuce I can only think how badly we have all been lied to. A war that was supposedly about freedom actually set the table for an all-powerful federal government that today is hellbent on making us all slaves again.

Good ends do not justify bad means. What goes around comes around. We reap what we sow. And before we chop down those hedges of protection enshrined in our Bill of Rights for whatever reason – even an apparently very good reason – we have to ask one question: when those hedges are down, and the hurricane-force winds of tyranny blow, will you – yes, you – be able to stand upright?

I leave you with this.

And, more eloquently, with this.

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(1) Also, had I been POTUS on 9/11, I would have pursued a policy 0f – in Jefferson’s words – “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all and entangling alliances with none.” This would include Israel. When you throw your weight around militarily to the extent that America does, you will inevitably have a lot of people hating on you. Also, I would have stopped this idiocy of disarming air travelers.

(2) As Dubya said of Bin Laden: “We know he’s guilty. Turn him over. There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt.”
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By Doug Newman

Last September, a Gainesville, Florida preacher made a pluperfect gluteus maximus of himself when he threatened to burn copies of Koran on September 11. Even though he would change his mind as the scheduled burning drew closer, millions of Christians were extremely vocal on both sides of the issue.

This is not about the First Amendment, which rightfully protects all sorts of gratuitous publicity stunts. The proposed burning was a horribly bad witness for Christianity.

Many of the same Christians who were so animated about the Florida episode have been quiet about a much bigger outrage: the U.S. military burning Bibles in Afghanistan in the spring of 2009.

Jesus Great Commission – Matthew 28:18-20 – states:

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

A few observations:

1)    It does NOT say “bomb the crap out of countries that haven’t done anything to you and kill countless thousands of innocents.” The proper, moral, constitutional response to things like piracy and terrorism is a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. This is a sort of warrant to go after the specific perpetrators of crimes like this. There is no reason whatsoever for a massive decade-long American troop presence in Afghanistan.

2)    According to the above video, an American church had sent bibles printed in Dari and Pashtun, the two major languages of Afghanistan, to soldiers in Afghanistan. American officials had become concerned that these bibles would be used to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity. U.S. Central Command’s General Order 1 forbids “proselytizing of any faith, religion or practice.” An American official expressed concern that such evangelizing could “promote a violent backlash” among Afghan Muslims. (As if the presence of American troops in the Muslim world has never gotten anyone’s dander up.)

3)    Ultimately these Bibles were burned in the name of “force protection.” (As if putting troops in harm’s way doesn’t endanger them enough already.)

4)    The Message of Jesus Christ, by its very definition, is supposed to shake things up – Luke 23:2, Acts 17:6-8. The New Testament talks endlessly about evangelizing, while saying nothing about joining any imperial legion.

5)    This is not an isolated incident. Be they soldiers in Afghanistan, school teachers in Indiana or whatever, Christians are being called more and more to make very tough decisions about who to serve. (1) It is all part of the ramp-up to the Great Tribulation.

Perhaps taking this chip will be your decision point.

Christians cannot serve two masters – Matthew 6:24. When Christians disregard their faith to serve Cesar, they become like the chief priests who were asked by Pilate “Shall I crucify your King?” They answered, “We have no king but Cesar.” – John 19:15.
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(1) I am not telling anyone to quit their job or break their enlistment contract tomorrow morning. That is not my call. Rather, there will be a decision point for all of us. If you are truly led by the Holy Spirit, you will know what to do and when to do it. Scripture is very clear as to what we should do and where we shall place our faith – Matthew 6:33.
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Update: The State Department reported on October 10, 2011 that , as of March, 2010, there were no more Christian churches in Afghanistan.  Somehow, I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind when He said in Matthew 28:19: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”  ______________________________________________

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