Government isn't Free

I’m in Bermuda this week: lush green everywhere and people really take care of the place.  The houses are all whitewashed or painted bright pastel colors.  Trash is nowhere to be seen.  I went with my friend Michael to a trash collection and recycling facility to throw out an old cabinet.  Trash is burned and produces electricity–a really great thing.

I asked whether there was regular trash collection in Bermuda or if people were obliged to bring it in.  Michael said that there was regular trash collection, free, provided by the government.  I started to chuckle and he realized what he’d said, acknowledging that no, it wasn’t really free, you paid the government to do it.

This was no “aha moment” for either of us.  Whenever the government provides services, people pay for it.  But it does seem to be a strange notion for too many Americans these days.

It’s a lesson we forget at our peril.  Perhaps one reason we forget is that it’s not like going to the grocery store.  There, as anywhere in the free market, we hand over our money and we get the goods.  This simple transaction is the result of choice on the part of both parties.  You look at your receipt and you know what you’ve paid for.

When the government gets involved, it’s more complex.  In the first place, someone has made the decision that (for example) collecting the trash is something that needs to be done and secondly, that government is the agent that should do it.   In a republic like ours that means that the people’s elected representatives have made that decision because the majority of the people want it that way.  Then, to carry  out this “mandate” of the people, government collects money from taxpayers and uses that money to collect and dispose of the trash.

This is where is has already gotten complicated.  Even though a majority of people may have wanted things this way, everybody gets their trash collected whether they want it or need it or not.  This is called tyranny of the majority because the majority force their will on the minority.  Generally we accept it because although it constrains our liberty we have agreed to majority rule:  That’s the Social Contract.  We accept the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number–an idea which is called utilitarianism.  You go along to get along.

The more subtle thing that has happened is that costs have been transferred.  A majority of citizens may have wanted the government to take action but the taxpayers paid for it.  The Founders were smart guys who knew their history and they knew that when there was a large pool of citizens and a small pool of taxpayers, the citizens could use the government to transfer the wealth of the taxpayers to themselves.  Think Roman Empire.  Think bread and circus.  This is why in the Constitution there was a provision that you had to have a certain amount of property in order to vote.  The bar was pretty low but the point was that in order for you to participate in voting for representatives who would determine taxes and spending you had to have some skin in the game.

All that has changed.  The majority of voters in the USA pay no taxes and some even get money from the government, the so-called Earned Income Credit.  Any voting requirement other than breathing has been declared unfair by the courts–and in some places even breathing is optional.  Obama and the Congress not only support this wealth transfer but actually think wealth transfer is a good thing.   They want to do it on a huge scale with health care.

When government acts on a small scale with wide agreement,  such as trash collection, we lose a little liberty but society as a whole gains and we think it’s a fair trade.  When government acts on a huge scale such as health care and most people don’t want in the first place, everyone loses.

Government isn’t free: the cost of government is liberty.

[Via http://reclaimtheblue.us]

How to Destroy the Republic – 1792

Please take note of NC Freedom who has 100% of my support

by NC Freedom

http://triangle.ncfreedom.us/2009/11/25/how-to-destroy-the-republic-1792/

 

Thomas Jefferson started the National Gazette newspaper to present his views on our fledgling republic that were in direct conflict with the views of Alexander Hamilton. Philip Freneau was the editor who wrote an editorial in 1792 titled: RULES FOR CHANGING A REPUBLIC INTO A MONARCHY. Of course today, monarchies are known as dictatorships. John Ainsworth directed me to item number 6 of the 15 points detailed  in the editorial:

6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and swell it to the utmost the items will bear. Allow as many extra claims as decency will permit. Assume all the debts of your neighbors — in a word, get as much debt as can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you can, “advertise” for more, and have the debt made as big as possible. This object being accomplished, the next will be to make it as perpetual as possible; and the next to that, to get it into as few hands as possible. The more effectually to bring this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide it, subdivide it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of two-thirds; let there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6 percents, and present 6 percents, and future 6 percents. To be brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a few only can understand it; and let all possible opportunities and informations fall in the way of these few, to clinch their advantages over the many.

I have provided the definition of the word “nostrum” below since I believe this word is not taught in our public school systems.

1. A medicine whose effectiveness is unproved and whose ingredients are usually secret; a quack remedy.

2. A favorite but usually ineffective remedy for problems or evils.

I think I will using this word often in the future when talking about Climate Change, Healthcare and Stimulus Plans.

I encourage you to read the entire editorial by clicking here.  The analogies to our current economic status are easily seen. I wonder if Cloward and Piven read this editorial and were just plagiarizing “old news”.

David DeGerolamo

[Via http://randysright.wordpress.com]

You Should Know About Harry Reid’s Government-Run Health Care Experiment

1. $493 Billion In Tax Increases On Health Insurance, Medical Innovation, Payroll And Small Businesses Would Pay For The Bill. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

2. Americans Won’t See Benefits Of This Health Care Experiment Until 2014, But They Start Paying For It In 2010. (Page 13, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

3. Reid’s Bill Allegedly Reduces The Deficit By $130 Billion In Ten Years, But The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Spending Agenda Produced Deficit Of $176 Billion Last Month Alone. (Table 3, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

4. $465 Billion In Medicare And Medicaid Cuts Would Pay For Two New Unsustainable Entitlements. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

5. Health Care Costs For The Federal Government – And Your Family – Would Increase, Not Decrease. (Page 16, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

6. A New Medicare Commission Of Unelected Bureaucrats Would Ration Care.(Sec. 3403, H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)

7. The “Doc Fix” Provision That Would Add $250 Billion To The Deficit Is Not Included In The Democrats’ List Price For Their Health Care Experiment. (Page 17, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

8. Taxpayer Dollars Would Fund Abortions. (Sec. 1303(a), H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)

9. A New Entitlement Program For Long-Term Care That One Democrat Senator Called “A Ponzi Scheme” Would Be Created. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09; Shailagh Murray & Lori Montgomery, “Centrists Unsure About Reid’s Public Option,” The Washington Post, 10/28/09)

10. States Burdened With $25 Billion In Unfunded Mandates From Medicaid That Would Force Them To Increase Taxes. (Page 7, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

[Via http://shawnwilson.wordpress.com]

Scrubbed CRU Data Hacked, Recovered And Released

Remember when England’s CRU scrubbed all its temp data in response to Steve McIntyre’s FOIA requests? I, like many, concluded they did so because the data supported Steve and not their Mann-Briffa, hockey stick Thermageddon scenarios requiring Waxman-Markey type “Solutions.” I likened the whole affair to the plot of a spy novel, with moles and secrets. It appears I failed to account for some of the characters. Apparently a hacker with a passion for scientific truth has entered the storyline.

Today, some of the “missing” data (a 61 meg file of data, code and emails) began appearing in the comments at skeptic sites like Jeff Id’s Air Vent. Anthony posted some of it while traveling.

So, what were they hiding?

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

(Emphasis mine)

Keith is Keith Briffa, of the (single) Yamal tree core(s). Mike is Michael Mann, who first came up with the “hockey stick”–which Briffa’s (now thoroughly discredited) tree proxy rescued for a time.  It would appear, to me at least, the CRU was manufacturing data to support its position that a massive tax scheme was needed to save us from heat death by CO2.

"Liberty and Justice for all" is a Myth

Will Phillips, a ten-year-old Arkansas boy is refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance. Will is refusing to stand, because he says the words “liberty and justice for all” are not true in a nation that discriminates against gay people and tolerates racism and sexism. In the aftermath of Will’s decision to exercise his legally-protected right to refuse to stand for or say the pledge of allegiance he has been ridiculed by many of his peers and the substitute teacher who is running his class.

It will not come as a surprise to readers of this blog, but I support Will’s right to refuse to participate in the pledge. The reality that America provides “liberty and justice for all” is a mythical one. America never has nor will it ever be a place that equally dispenses justice and offers all the same amount of liberty. To believe otherwise is to be delusional. If anything supporters of the pledge should be telling people that the words “liberty and justice for all” are mere words of aspiration which encourage all Americans to do what we can to create a union that comes closer to adhering to those worthwhile goals than does the America of today.

Unfortunately, the debate around Will’s brave stand has become focused on his support of same-sex marriage rather than remaining a discussion of the correctness of his general sentiment. By getting so angry that they are willing to trash a ten-year-old boy those who disagree with Will are proving the truth behind his stance. If America truly was a place where “liberty and justice for all” was the norm everyone would support Will’s right to abstain from the pledge of allegiance. By criticizing him too many are showing us how far our nation has to go on the road to the idyllic society so many falsely believe we already have. If more Americans were willing to join Will and do more for their nation than stupidly reciting a pledge without ever contemplating the truth behind it and working to live up to the creed it espouses our society would be a more perfect union.

Ritual public humiliation: the staple programme of GramscoFabiaNazis...

David Davis

First, persuade Teh Masses (which you have de-educated on purpose, by ruining the schools and then saying that Television is all that matters) that it is harmless fun. You do this by paying fingered and bribed members of the Enemy-Class to partake in simulations using insects etc. Then set up proper Stalinist Show-Trials, for those whom you really fear and want dead.

Aztecs knew what to do with celebrities. We are not only the same and no better, but our “masters” use them to further degrade us as a people.

Bye, Bye Bartley

Luella Bartley, the winner of last year’s British Fashion Award as Designer of the Year, had ceased operations after a financial backer decided it could “no longer invest in the relationship.”

A fave of celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Lily Allen, Bartley’s bold prints, whimsical cut outs and poufy but posh skirts personified a look known as “English Ecccentric.” She was also the first designer for Target’s Go International series of capsule collections. Most recently, she “guest-edited” Liberty of London’s Christmas Windows.

Bartley is the third big-time designer – along with Yohji Yamamoto and Christian Lacroix – who closed up shop this year.

Via The Guardian.

When you see these signs - do you get the joke? (Hint: Seen vs. Unseen)

Part of me laughs, and part of me cringes whenever I see these signs….because they are absolute rubbish. This sign is based on the assumption that we the public are either too lazy, or just too ignorant to think beyond what we immediatly see.

Whenever we are presented with this concept: that the government can “put people to work,” the question must be asked, “How?” 

When a non-state entity creates a job, it does so either by taking out a loan on the investment bet that the job created will produce enough value to repay or exceed the loan taken, or by reinvesting its own existing capital with a similar goal.

The State “creates jobs” or “puts people back to work” either with existing tax revenues, or by taking on debt to be funded through future tax revenues. I used quotes above because anyone with a grasp of elementary mathematics would realize that this is neither “creating jobs” nor “putting people back to work.” It is nothing more than shifting work around.

Ask yourself, what would the tax revenues taken by the state to ‘put Oregon back to work’ have been used for otherwise? What of the things the tax-payers would have invested their money in, had it not been taxed away?

The answer is: jobs.

Perhaps the tax-payer was planning on buying some new shoes (a shoe salesman’s paycheck), going out for an extra nice dinner (a restaurant worker’s wages and tip), a kitchen remodel project (construction material producers, contractors, cabinet makers, plumbers, etc) planning to add to their payroll at work to hire a new employee, or even donating money to their favorite charity. But these things will never be seen because some politician had the nice, though deceptive and false idea that they had the ability to “put Oregonians back to work.”

It is important at this point to understand that money is nothing more than a representation of labor, or work. We choose to work and earn money because money allows us to trade the value of something we are good at (in my case, web developement), for something we value that we aren’t good at, or couldn’t possibly create on our own (e.g. a ticket to football game. I neither play football, nor do I have the knowlege or ability to coach a team, let alone build a football stadium. Heck, I even suck at Madden…).

The point is that the sign above is clearly hogwash. It is based on the flawed notion that governments create things. To accept this idea, is to throw out the economic concept of opportunity cost. Government is force. The government is the only entity that we allow the power to involuntarily take our money and re-appropriate it. In this case – it is the opportunity for the tax dollars to have been spent elsewhere – that the government is forgoing so they can be assigned to this road project. If the sign was actually honest it would read: Taking a portion of your work, and directing it to someone or something else. Or perhaps simply, Making Oregonians pay for this road project.  

But telling the truth doesn’t matter to politicians because when there is a problem (such as a down economy) they must be seen as doing something to fix the problem. The perception that they are doing something to ‘put Oregon back to work’ is far more important politically than the actual truth, that they just moved work to a project that the voters will see. What the voters won’t see is all of the jobs that were sacrificed to make that particular road project possible.

It is important for me to mention that here, I am not necessarily arguing against road or other government projects. I am however calling out the hack politicians who think that tax-payers are dumb enough to fall for the ludicrous idea that government can create jobs by simply spending them into existence. From here, you can draw your own conclusion on whether the ’stimulus’ bill will actually stimulate anything, other than some politician’s delusion of grandure.

Oh, and here’s the real irony of ironies: This sign is on a road leading up to the city Amtrak station. Amtrak is in business today, and its employees have jobs, only because they are subsidized with money taken from tax-payers. I suppose a sign for that could have read: Putting Amtrak back to work – which of course actually means, Forcing you to pay for Amtrak, rather than whatever else you valued more. 

 

“In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause – it is seen. The others unfold in succession – they are not seen: it is well for us, if they are foreseen. Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference – the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, – at the risk of a small present evil.”

-That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen -Frédéric Bastiat, 1850

 

Posted via email from Andrew Colclough

Why Switzerland Is Still Free and America Is Not

by Ron Holland

The American Time magazine article headline asks, “Will Switzerland Vote to Ban Minarets on Mosques?”

Swiss citizens are becoming concerned about the threat that Islam presents to their traditional culture, economy and religious institutions. As an American, I know how I would vote were I Swiss but the decision will be made by the Swiss electorate as they have this referendum right on all issues.

In Switzerland, the people still rule and have the ultimate right to decide decisions above the government or parliament. Through the right of referendum they can cancel legislation and with the initiative they can pass or create legislative action on issues parliament refuses to act upon.

The bias and closed statist views shown in the article is business as usual for the US media elites out to protect the American political establishment and are so evident in this headline and article. It isn’t the question they asked but rather the question they didn’t dare ask is the “700-lb gorilla in the room.”

Quoting from the article, “Critics say the SVP, the largest party in Switzerland’s coalition government, has taken advantage of the country’s unique brand of direct democracy to push its populist, anti-immigrant agenda on the Swiss electorate. Citizens have the right to propose new laws in Switzerland – the only thing they need to force a nationwide vote on an initiative is a petition of 100,000 signatures.”

The question not asked is why doesn’t the American electorate have oversight over legislation and unpopular government regulations in the United States like in Switzerland? Imagine if 4% of the American voters signed a petition requiring a nationwide vote “yea or nay” on the banking bailouts, going to war in Iraq, auditing the Federal Reserve, nationalized health care or on the trillions in new Washington debt added because of the financial meltdown. The United States would still be a decentralized republic with limited government had we had the political option to hold back Washington and the special interests.

How America would be different if we had Swiss-style political rights to restrain government where the people rule instead of the special interests. Imagine an America where the billions in graft and political influence that control Congress could still buy legislation but not ultimate control if we as a people could overrule their actions.

What if the will of the people still ultimately controlled the political system and direction with true limited government at the federal, state and local level? Imagine the American electorate overriding Congress and demanding a strong dollar backed by real gold reserves, an audit of the Federal Reserve, a rollback of the bailouts, a declaration of war for foreign military intervention, the abolishment of the Patriot Act and a return to banking privacy.

Yes, a Swiss political party (The Swiss Peoples Party) promotes a nationalist agenda to the Swiss voters and they will ultimately decide in referendum yes or no on the issue. This is currently impossible in the United States but Swiss direct democracy and limited confederation government have worked in Switzerland for hundreds of years.

This is far superior to the two-party monopoly in America where the elites controlling both parties can push their self-serving agendas without restraint. Currently, short of the Tenth Amendment movement, state nullification or outright state secession, there is no real effective way to push back against Washington.

Until the American people can find a way to restrain the Federal government, the bureaucracy and the judiciary, the best place for Americans to secure and safeguard their wealth is outside their own country. Switzerland is one of the best jurisdictions to consider because their political system has preserved the rights and freedoms we once had as Americans. Still the ultimate problem for Americans is the necessity to restore our liberties at home because history has shown that wealth without liberty is only a temporary condition at best.

I say, it is time to take a real look at direct democracy in the United States or else Americans who value their property and liberties will have little choice but to first transfer their wealth to safety outside the US as it will be lost in the coming crash of treasury debt and the dollar. Next we must stand and fight the Washington leviathan through the political tools of the 10th amendment and John C. Calhoun’s political ideal of nullification both of which the Feds will probably just ignore. Our final democratic political tool is to exercise the political right of state-by-state secession with all the political and historical baggage this entails.

Trust me, Swiss style direct democracy in the United States would be an easier way to control Washington and the special interests but we only have a few years before the Washington debt and dollar collapse is upon us. Therefore I’ll close with a question. Is anybody here for secession?

Ron Holland works in Zurich and is a co-editor of the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com.

The Gospel Of McGoo: Unto The AGW Mongers, Giveth The Finger

1.1  And so it came to pass that in that 11th month, the people did receive a sign from the Master, and it was hilarious:

I think nominating RC as religious blog is hilarious!!!!! We should all push for RC being religious full blast; I bet the weblog award folks just might see the humor in it and allow it to occur. For RC to win Best Religious Blog (entirely against their will and wishes, too!) would really piss in the AGW Alarmists punchbowl.
Gawd! What a mass blogosphere statement that would be! I would come out of retirement to support that! I’d post something new twice a day to fuck over RC!
We could have quotes from the RealClimate Bible – like from the Book of Precipitates, or Amphibeans, or The Book of Obfuscations, not to mention the Revelations Of AlGore. Hell, I’d even write a Hymn To A Hockey Stick.

Yea verily, my children. It has been given unto us, a sign and a mission. To go forth into the land of the Weblog Awards, and to smite the acolytes of Gore with mighty snark.  Let all you know in Blogdom, that we have been set this task by the master. Go, be fruitful.

McGoo’s reaction to my Amusing Musings post, my mentioning the fight I found in the Best Science Blog is spot on. I will be heading over shortly to begin work on this solemn task with Al’s quote about his Christian, Muslim and Hindu AGW training programs. Please do likewise. This could be the funniest thing to hit the hyperverse in the history of forever...I will be putting this in a nomination as well:

“And lo, in that time of Mann, Briffa did come to Yamal, and saw that it was good…enough.”
-The Parable Of The Trees-

Frederic Bastiat and Us. Please click here and scroll to the bottom of the site to add a comment.

It’s raining dollars!  What would Frederic Bastiat have to say about this if he could speak to us from 1848?

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness – Judge Robert Bork

Frederic Bastiat

We interrupt our regular programming for a NEWS FLASH!  The President bans windows in order to benefit candle makers; candle production, he says, will stimulate the economy as long as candles aren’t melted by sunlight.  The administration also announces it will nationalize candle manufacturing, allow greedy wax suppliers only 10% of the money they are owed by the candle makers, plus grant a 30% share of Acme Candles, Inc. (thank you Road Runner and Coyote) to the UCMDWU (United Candle Mold Delivery Workers’ Union).  NYT White House correspondent rushes out and wires in an editorial describing shivers up his leg after press secretary Robert Gibbs makes the announcement.

I wish I could take credit for this prescient concept.  I’ll admit to only my personal sarcasm in tying the philosophy of that remarkably witty proponent of freedom and liberty: Frederic Bastiat, (see link to Wikipedia entry from the right sidebar) to our current state of affairs.  Frederic Bastiat was a member of what was known as the French Liberal School in the 1840s (liberal as in the classical/original free market definition), warning of the folly of government intervention in the marketplace.  His parable of a fictitious petition by candle makers to the French government to eliminate windows in order to prevent candles from melting – thereby increasing economic prosperity by insuring the success of the industry (at the unintended expense of the window makers!?) – is a hilarious anecdote.  It also unfortunately illustrates the genesis of the president’s belief system.

Obviously above, I make reference to the bailout of GM, the perversion of the rule of law in throwing Chrysler bond holders to the wolves, and the artificial propping up of the UAW rather than normal bankruptcy pecking order.  Bastiat’s fable of altruistic but ultimately damaging marketplace intervention, is echoed consistently by the current administration’s adherence to this paradigm of unlimited spending by fiat justified by its immediate/short term effects on various and sundry interest groups.  In fact, Friedrich Hayek (see my previous two posts) said in a review of Bastiat that, according to 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes, the assumption of a multiplier effect (simply meaning a belief that the government can stimulate the economy by spending, producing a return greater than the cost of the stimulus; thereby increasing employment) on general economic prosperity would precisely mimic the argument of the candle makers!  (Take that Paul Krugman!  One for the Gipper.)

Cash for clunkers (and maybe the upcoming Stimulus II cash for “cluckers” chicken farm bailout?) would most certainly fit neatly into these fallacies: money will do more good in the hands of the government, and it is the duty of government (to be specific The Office of the Assistant to Czar for the 3rd Deputy of the Secretary for Chicken and Muffler Repair subsidies) to see that all get what they “deserve”.

Lastly, Frederic Bastiat’s landmark book: The Law has remarkable parallels to the economically naive entitlement philosophies of the current congressional majority.  For example Bastiat says in the section The Results of Legal Plunder, “No society can exist unless the laws are respectable to a certain degree.  The safest ways to make laws respected is to make them respectable.”  This quote illustrates the current congress’s path towards a society in which greater than 50% of workers pay no taxes, and receive payments in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.  Therefore, this non-tax paying majority – the receivers of public services and governmental largess – are able to award themselves through the ballot ever increasing free goods and services from the minority: the tax payers/suppliers of public services and governmental largess.  I see no end to this increase in receivers, to include the resulting unconstructive inertia towards manufactured dependence.

So to bring my polemic to a close (insert smiley face), I quote Bastiat one more time: “Legal plunder is identified as “… the law takes from some persons [what] belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong…The person who profits from this law… will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry…”

— Or nationality, ethnicity, income demographic, religion, color, blue collar, white collar, government employee, Woodstock museum, first time home buyer, union member, sexual preference, illegal immigrant, home in foreclosure, Wall St., Main St., small business, large business, “green” energy producer, municipality, farmer, auto parts supplier, environmentalist, “too big to fail” bank and insurance companies, student, teacher, cop, mechanic, the bicycle spoke hooker-upper’s guild, donut shop owners’ amalgamated, and last but not least… Acme Candles, Inc!

Comments on the blog pro or con most welcome!  Really.

Recommended links:

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fcollection=28&Itemid=27

http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//profiles/bastiat.htm

Sam Donaldson: 'Better Throw Bernanke and Fed Out Before They Do Further Damage'; 'Audit the Fed' Bill 'Gutted'

On ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous”, George Will of The Washington Post points to India’s recent run on the dollar as an indicator for a coming fall in the subjective greenback in favor of “other better stores of value”. Veteran White House correspondent for ABC, Sam Donaldson, says if that’s the case, “then, we’d better throw Ben Bernanke and the Fed out… Let’s get rid of them now before they do further damage.” (2:13):

Subcommittee Guts Ron Paul’s Bill to Audit the Fed

by Charles Scaliger

3 Nov 09 | The New American

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 1207), Congressman Ron Paul’s landmark bill to audit the Federal Reserve, has been gutted in a House subcommittee as it works its way toward a vote in the full House. The bill, which has garnered an astonishing 308 cosponsors from both parties, has attracted the scalpel of North Carolina Democrat Mel Watt (whose district happens to include Charlotte, the home of Bank of America, America’s largest commercial bank). According to Congressman Paul, whose Campaign for Liberty posted a video on the bill last weekend, Watt has cut out “just about everything” in prepping the bill for a full committee vote. (6:42):

The bill in its original form required audits of Fed transactions with foreign banks, of its deliberations on monetary policy, of the activities of the Open Market Committee, and disclosure of communications between the Federal Reserve Board and reserve banks. All of these provisions, according to Congressman Paul, have been removed. “There’s nothing left,” Paul told Bloomberg News in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

Congressman Paul intends to try to reinstate the bill’s original language and provisions in full committee deliberations, and is hopeful that many of the bill’s hundreds of co-sponsors will exert appropriate pressure on the committee to bring the bill in its pristinity to a full House vote sooner rather than later.

One of the bill’s most powerful sponsors, Congressman Barney Frank (chair of the House Financial Services Committee), intends that the bill in its final form require a lapse of time between Fed actions and their disclosure to auditors and Congressional overseers. Frank believes that a delay would “lessen market impact” while ensuring Fed accountability in the longer run. Congressman Paul, however, is opposed to any such dilution of the bill’s language, believing that any mandated delays in holding the Fed accountable would allow the central bank too much room to evade responsibility.

Congressman Paul is still optimistic that the bill will pass in some form, given the magnitude of support it has received. He noted that the Federal Reserve and the interests that defend its so-called “independence” (read: “secrecy”) are very entrenched and unlikely to yield without a fight.

The current struggle underway to subject the Federal Reserve to congressional scrutiny may turn out to be as historically significant as President Andrew Jackson’s titanic contest of wills with the arrogant, crafty head of the Second Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle. The latter, in trying to stave off the dissolution of his beloved seat of power, used the resources of the bank to create a recession and marshaled all his allies in Congress and business against Old Hickory, but ultimately lost the battle. Whether Congressman Paul and his allies can carry the day against Fed Chairman Bernanke and his host of establishment supporters remains to be seen.

*************

(h/t: SaveOurSovereignty3)

RELATED:

• When Only Abolition is Just, Reform is Naïve
• Gold Hits Record High as India Dumps Dollars
• Ron Paul on ‘The Riz Khan Show’ (Video)
• Dollar Hits All-Time Low Facing Rational ‘Demise’
• Congressman: Obama Bill Promoting Future ‘Secret Bailouts’ is ‘TARP on Steroids’
• Administration Aides Paid Millions By Wall Street

PROTESTS SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE BILL TO BE IMPOSED CONTRARY TO PEOPLE’S WISHES

(Nov. 6, 2009) —  Yesterday, House Representative Michele Bachman presided over one of the most unusual gathering of citizens in the country, called on just days’ notice, held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.  The protest aimed at getting attention of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi; and communicating to her the profound, grassroots opposition to the Federal Government’s control and mandate of health care coverage.

Cynthia Dizikes of the Minnesota Post reported Bachman’s words, in part:

“You came for an emergency House call,” Bachmann, R-Minn., yelled to the sign-waiving crowd. “And are they going to listen? Oh yeah, oh yeah. They’re going to listen. It was Thomas Jefferson who said a revolution every now and then is a good thing. What do you think?”

The crowd met Bachmann’s question with a thunderous roar. Homemade signs that offered suggestions like “No Obama Care,” “You Can’t Fix Stupid” and “Waterboard Congress” were hoisted higher into the air.

And indicated other notables who attended:

Bachmann was joined on steps of the Capitol by many other GOP lawmakers, including Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, Republican whip Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia.

Actors John Voight and John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff on the TV series “Cheers,” also accompanied the House members and rallied the gathered protesters.

Gateway Pundit, offered pictures and video of the rally, yesterday.

YouTube has 2 videos on speeches given during the rally, Mark Levin:

And John Voight:

If any reader knows of a video of Bachmann at the rally, please send the URL by posting a comment below.

Finally, it should be noted that Congress can pass the bill; but there is no legitimate President to sign it, without whose signature it cannot become law.  The Health Care Bill will be, thus, the litmus test of liberty; whether America succumbs quietly to usurpation and tyranny, or breaks free.

In response to the Rally, Pelosi announced merely a 72 hour delay on voting on the bill.

Andrea Shea King, just moments after returning to Florida from the Rally, submitted to The Post & Email this photo of the citizens gathering before it began:

THE MONEY ISSUE MAY BE THE ESTABLISHMENT'S ACHILLES' HEEL IN ITS WAR ON "ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM"

Part 4 of 7

by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.

(Editor’s Note: While I disagree with the author’s interpretations about the US Constitution, the rest of his scholarship should be read by all.)

PART THREE of this Commentary explained why a domestic crisis would probably not provide an occasion for reform of America’s monetary and banking systems. Continuing that analysis…

2. For constitutional change to occur, irresistible pressure for reintroduction of silver and gold coin (or their electronic surrogates) as media of exchange in American markets would have to build up before the Establishment could do much to reduce it. This could arise from a foreign crisis the Establishment could not control. Such an event might force the Establishment to return to the practical operations of constitutional money and banking in order to retain any hope of remaining in power at all. Or a foreign crisis might encourage and enable other centers of political and economic power in the federal system–such as the States–to introduce gold and silver as media of exchange in their own economies, in order to protect themselves and their citizens.

3. The eruption of a foreign monetary and banking crisis in the not-too-distant future is possible–even probable–in the Islamic world. Ironically enough, too, precisely because of what the Establishment is doing there.

a. Dar al-Islam (as Muslims denote the territory in which Islam predominates) already sees itself as targeted, besieged, invaded, and increasingly occupied by the West. For generations, the Islamic world has been the victim of a cold war: aggression that tip-toes in on the little cat’s feet of economic exploitation, pseudo-intellectual ridicule and bullying, political assaults, and cultural subversion aimed at control of Muslims’ primary resource (oil), and transmogrification of Islamic society along both:

* socio-economic and cultural lines–the insinuation of modernism in all its pernicious forms, including population control, radical feminism, the sexual revolution, hedonistic consumerism, and rampant materialism; and, ultimately,
* political lines–the imposition of what cheerleaders for Western intervention call “democracy,” so as to turn Dar al-Islam into a thoroughly demoralized, degenerate, manipulated, and subservient satellite of the West.

b. Most importantly, the economic, political, social, and cultural attacks all coalesce in a religious conflict: the Western Establishment’s assault on so-called “Islamic fundamentalism.” Here, one must speak plainly: To the Establishment, the pejorative buzz-word “fundamentalism” means any religion that teaches belief in a personal God, in transcendent justice (that is, eternal rewards and punishments for man’s conduct in this world), in absolute morality, in natural law, and ultimately and especially in objective truth. For–in the fields of money and banking, no less than in others–the Establishment cannot deal with objective truth, and therefore must deny that it exists.

Absent objective truth, the Establishment does not have to explain and defend what it is doing, because objective explanations and defenses are not possible, and therefore cannot be demanded. And if objective explanations and defenses are not necessary, the Establishment can never be held accountable for what it does. This is why the Establishment embraces the Supreme Court’s idiotic dictum that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”[1] That is, “I have a right to my truth, which is not necessarily your truth”–or, there exists no real “truth” at all, only supple excuses for some people’s vicious appetites, and slick rationalizations for their aggression against others.

If both the Establishment and its opponents have an equal right to define their own economic conceptions of “sound” money and “honest” banking, and their own legal conceptions of “constitutional” money and banking–and if they can define ALL “existence, * * * meaning, [and] * * * the universe,” they certainly can define these lesser-included matters–then the issue reduces to the stark question of naked power: Whose “truth” is to prevail? In other words, to Humpty Dumpty’s observation to Alice in Wonderland, that who is to be master is the pith of the problem. On this score, even were the Supreme Court correct that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”, nonetheless the Constitution foresees that individuals may be deprived of their liberty–and property and even lives, too–with “due process of law.”[2] So, inasmuch as the Establishment controls the apparatus that claims the prerogative to tell Americans what constitutes “due process of law” (in particular, the courts and the law schools), its “right to define * * * existence, * * * meaning, * * * the universe, and * * * the mystery of human life” becomes paramount. Not a very comforting thought for any individual whose “liberty” and “property,” let alone “human life,” may be subject to the Establishment’s self-interested “defin[itions].”[3] When secular humanism degenerates–as it inevitably must–into secular elitism, the hoi polloi had better fear for their lives.

c. Beyond this Kulturkampf, though, the Islamic world is also assaulted by hot war: the forces of occupation that march in wearing combat boots, their deployment rationalized by a bastard progeny of the Brezhnev Doctrine, that politicians and bureaucrats puporting to speak for “the United States” may invade Dar al-Islam any time, any place, to strike at “terrorists;” occupying the land, overturning governments, killing or maiming those who resist (and many others who do not, but simply wander into the line of fire), and setting up new “democratic” puppet regimes. Not surprisingly, the whole Muslim world is desperate to fight back. (After all, how would you feel if United Nations “blue helmets” marched into America on the same theory?) But how can Muslims possibly defend themselves against the greatest military power in world history?

4. One alternative for an Islamic counterattack stands out among the rest.

a. Plainly, it would be futile for Muslims (or apparently Americans themselves, for that matter) to expostulate on the illegality of the Establishment’s military adventurism. For example, that in none of these incursions to date has Congress actually “declare[d] War”, or has anyone actually proven that “the common defence” and “the general Welfare” of the United States (as opposed to neo-imperialistic expansion aimed at promoting the goals of various selfish special-interest groups) are at stake, as the Constitution requires. Or that, inasmuch as the sole constitutional authority of the United States in the premises is to “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,”[4] not a “democracy”, the General Government can claim no power to impose “democracy” on foreign nations. Or that, because the freedom Americans enjoy consists of “the Blessings of Liberty” their Constitution secures in the Preamble, the General Government cannot bring “freedom” to anyone by violating the Constitution. Or that, because Congress’s only relevant power is “[t]o define and punish * * * Offenses against the Law of Nations”,[5] it cannot authorize, enable, or even tolerate the President and the Armed Forces to violate “the Law of Nations” by preemptively marching into other countries to effect “regime change” on the basis of falsified evidence of an impending attack. Or that, because the Constitution is superior to any treaty, none of the foregoing can be undertaken under color of some directive or purported authorization from the United Nations or other multi-national or supra-national entity. Bootless, indeed, would be such remonstrances. For an Establishment that refuses to obey its own Constitution will not shrink from defying “the Law of Nations” or even “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” to which the Declaration of Independence appealed and on which all governmental authority in America rests and to which it must conform.

b. Then, too, Muslims cannot resist these incursions in the short run by massing conventional armies, navies, and air forces. Their scientific, technological, and industrial bases are too limited for that. And they cannot win in the long run by employing the low-intensity, irregular warfare the Establishment self-righteously condemns as “terrorism”, either. For the Establishment will cite such “terrorism” as an excuse for perpetuating and intensifying its offensives against Dar al-Islam, at least as long as sufficient American blood and treasure remain to be expended in campaigns of “pacification.”

c. But the Islamic world could strike a sudden, debilitating, and potentially fatal blow at the Establishment’s Achilles’ Heel–its Ponzified monetary and banking systems–through adoption by some significant portion of the world’s over 1.1 billion Muslims of gold and silver coin as their common media of exchange: specifically, the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham. This is not idle speculation, but an imminent fact. Already the Internet is burgeoning with information that anyone who searches for web sites dealing with “the gold dinar” can discover for himself. So, what appears here is by no means news to Muslim monetary and economic theorists and activists–only to most Americans. No Muslim firebrand needs these Commentaries to understand the potential for exploiting the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham as levers to overturn the Western Establishment’s monetary and banking systems. They already know it, and are encouraging their fellow Muslims to act upon that knowledge. But every American needs to become aware of this situation, in order to take appropriate countermeasures against what almost surely is coming.

d. Perhaps most interesting is that Muslim proponents of reintroducing specie as media of exchange focus, not simply on gold (which is the almost exclusive preoccupation of the few Western advocates of sound money), but also on silver. In this, they display great insight. In the West, even the most ardent advocates of gold often deny that silver is any longer a monetary metal. These friends of sound money forget, however, that silver’s monetary character, no less than gold’s, is contingent on the economic and legal context in which they are used as media of exchange.

Recall that silver lost its place as a monetary metal co-equal with gold not as the result of silver’s economic inferiority, but as the consequence of an international political conspiracy to “demonetize” it.[6] Which conspiracy then turned the same tactics on gold, in favor of fiat central-bank paper currency.[7] And succeeded in both instances.

Today, the partisans of legal-tender fiat currency contend that gold, as well as silver, is no longer a monetary metal. This argument is not without empirical evidence, inasmuch as neither silver nor gold circulates as a medium of exchange to any significant degree in any country’s markets, let alone throughout the world, as both gold and silver once did. On the other side, though, one can ask whether contemporary fiat paper currency, being merely an evidence and instrumentality of perpetual debt, is properly “money” at all, even though it does circulate to the practical exclusion of gold and silver. These disputes prove that what markets use as media of exchange can be controlled by law, by economics driven by law, by public ignorance and apathy, by the criminal politics of conspiracies among officeholders and special-interest groups, and especially by all of these operating in tandem. So, the answer to the assertion that silver is not a monetary metal is that it has been made so, just as gold has, and that, when once again offered to knowledgeable people as a medium of exchange in a usable form and under favorable legal and economic circumstances, silver will be accepted as such, just as gold will be.

Footnotes:

1, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992), reaffirmed in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 574 (2003).
2, See Amendments V and XIV, Section 1.
3, See, e.g., Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Victor Sperandeo & Alvaro Almedia, Crashmaker: A Federal Affaire (2000), ch. 117.
4, Article IV, Section 4.
5, Article I, Section 8, Clause 10.
6, See, e.g., M.W. Walbert, The Coming Battle: A Complete History of the National Banking Money Power in the United States (1899).
7, See J. Livingston, Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913 (1986).

I spit it

I spit it
trip it
wrap it in words
to be heard.
my lyrical
revolution
singular
evolution
of voices
inside my head
begging for life,
instead dead
at accusation
peaceful confrontation
boards
blogs
and twitter
140 character
assassinations.

I spit it
kick it
paper thru rhyme
laid out in lines
horizons
of thought
spewed out
not taught
to teach not preach
my intentions
my rage against
this political
and theological
cage
they place me in.

I spit it
kiss it
make love
and try not to miss it.
feelings rising
boisterous and chaotic
like Poe on acid
and Walton choking
on plastic,
mixing my disease
with your political relief
or so you would have it.
Segregate
deviate
separate and distort

my retort?

I spit it
piss it
try to enlist it.
the blood in me
White, Irish, Italian
and Cherokee.
I bleed to see my oppressor
a fine imitated successor
squirm.
first black
then gender base
denying life, liberty
pursuit of…
but wait
it’s all still hate!

I spit it
hit it
slam my words
against walls
like a grenade
exploding
in succession,
I take out the pen
and orchestrate
against oppression.
radically
poetically
in common words
Like Thomas Paine,
Just try to be heard.

and it’s
not that I don’t understand
your position
your egotistical
maniacal transitions
from what you know
to who you blow.
I get your opposition
to me
whilst you drink
wine forcefully
with hostility
and define my reality

But this is not chosen freely.
I have to be
me

so,
I spit it
seize it
with opportunity
knocking
I breathe it,
trying not to
hyperventilate
on the tsunami
of anger
in an effort
to not regurgitate
the same message
of equality,
but it is
the only thing
I see,
different between
you and me,
In this land
of the
supposedly free.

So I spit it
trip it
wrap it up in words
to be heard
my lyrical
revolution
singular evolution of
voices inside my head
begging for life
and avoiding death.

Coming Soon: Ubiquitous cities and surveillance

Just a little teaser for a coming in-depth UNETS report on the worldwide panopticon being erected around us.  Stay tuned.  The trends are leading to Ubiquitous Surveillance in Ubiquitous cities and towns around the world…

From 2005:

“…New Songdo will most likely be a chance to study the large-scale use of RFID, smart cards and sensor-based devices even as Western societies lag in this next wave of computing

“There are really no comparable comprehensive frameworks for ubiquitous computing,” said Anthony Townsend, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., and a former Fulbright scholar in Seoul…

…This is a profit-generating model, unlike other U-city projects,” Mr. Kim said. “Songdo U-Life will charge building owners for facilities management and act as a gateway to services. Our partners will test market services that require, say, wireless data access everywhere or a common ID system, without having to build anything themselves.”

More philosophically, “New Songdo sounds like it will be one big Petri dish for understanding how people want to use technology,” said B. J. Fogg, the director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.

If so, it is an experiment much easier to do in Asia than in the West.

“Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea,” said Mr. Townsend, who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. “There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards.”

Related:

Official Songdo (a U-City) Website

Built right in: New Songdo City will use the "best" Big Brother Technology from around the world

The world’s first Ubiquitous Surveillance City- London, where Big Brother watches school-kids in the bathroom:

H1N1 Power.gov - Flu in the Age of Obama

http://www.flu.gov/professional/federal/h1n1emergency10242009.html 

On October 24, 2009, President Obama signed a proclamation declaring the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic a National Emergency to facilitate our ability to respond to the pandemic by enabling – if warranted – the waiver of certain statutory Federal requirements for medical treatment facilities. In particular, this proclamation is aimed at providing HHS the ability to waive legal requirements that could otherwise limit the ability of our nation’s health care system to respond to the surge of patients with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. Here is the official declaration . 

Does this mean anything? I can not answer that question. It does illicit curiosity, however. Due to the government’s power grab over the past several years, and exacerbated by the fact the “H1N1″ flu does not seem important enough at this point to illicit such a powerful response, I became interested in learning more.  

I have noted a brief summary of the National Emergency Powers Act, a report to Congress on Martial Law and National Emergency, and listed the Executive Orders that brought us to a place where, by the stroke of the President’s pen, our rights, our property, our freedom could be gone without due process or consideration of the Constitution.  

At one point in life I had trust in my government. Those days are long gone. Our government no longer deserves our trust. We must stay vigilant and look to the future from a base of knowledge. It is to that end I present the following information.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act 

The National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651) is a United States federal law passed in 1976 to stop open-ended states of national emergency and formalize the power of Congress to provide certain checks and balances on the emergency powers of the President. The act sets a limit of two years on states of national emergency. It also imposes certain “procedural formalities” on the President when invoking such powers. 

The perceived need for the law arose from the scope and number of laws granting special powers to the executive in times of national emergency (or public danger). 

At least two constitutional rights are subject to revocation during a state of emergency: 

• The right of habeas corpus, under Article 1, Section 9;  
• The right to a grand jury for members of the National Guard when in actual service, under Fifth Amendment.  

In addition, many provisions of statutory law are contingent on a state of national emergency, as many as 500 by one count. 

It was due in part to concern that a declaration of “emergency” for one purpose should not invoke every possible executive emergency power that Congress in 1976 passed the National Emergencies Act. Among other provisions, this act requires the President to declare formally a national emergency and to specify the statutory authorities to be used under such a declaration. 

There were 32 declared national emergencies between 1976 and 2001.  Most of these were for the purpose of restricting trade with certain foreign entities under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) (50 U.S.C. 1701-1707). 

CRS Report for Congress: Martial Law and National Emergency 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RS21024.pdf

Crises in public order, both real and potential, often evoke comments concerning a resort to martial law. While some ambiguity exists regarding the conditions of a martial law setting, such a prospect, nonetheless, is disturbing to many Americans who cherish their liberties, expect civilian law enforcement to prevail, and support civilian control of military authority. An overview of the concept of, exercise of, and authority underlying martial law is provided in this report, which will be updated as events warrant.  

Here are the executive orders I could identify by scouring the web. There may be more and if you know of any, please leave a comment with the information.

Kennedy:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows government to seize control of communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows government to take control of all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows government to take control over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows government to mobilize civilians for work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows government to take control over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows government to take control over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows government to take control over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

Johnson:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

Nixon:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11490 assigns emergency preparedness functions to federal departments and agencies, combining EOs 11001-11005 and 11051 into a single executive order.

Ford:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. 

Carter:

Executive Orders 12127 & 12148 creating FEMA :

(from wikipedia)

FEMA was established under the 1978 Reorganization Plan No. 3, and activated April 1, 1979 by Jimmy Carter in his Executive Order 12127. In July, Carter signed Executive Order 12148 shifting disaster relief efforts to the new federal level agency. FEMA absorbed the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration activities from HUD. FEMA was also given the responsibility for overseeing the nation’s Civil Defense, a function which had previously been performed by the Department of Defense’s Defense Civil Preparedness Agency.

Reagan:

Executive Order 12656 gives National Security Council authority to determine use of requisite emergency powers

Bush:

Executive Order 13010 gives FEMA control over all government agencies in cases of national emergency.

 

Recently I came across an article which tied all this together:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15099

Remember President Obama’s Executive Order basing 80,000 active troops at home for the first time in the history of the peacetime military establishment 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….”
 
Now connect that information to the recent announcement that the military has established regional deployment locations all across the United States to “assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.”
 
Civil unrest and crowd control?  Significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall?  What do they know that we don’t?
 
Swine flu has been made into a crisis in the minds of the public, even though swine flu, or H1N1, is the most non-lethal “killer” virus ever uncovered.   As a cataclysmic event demanding military assistance, it ranks near zero.  It is doubtful whether swine flu could even be classified as an “epidemic,” much less a “pandemic.”
 
Regular influenza, the common flu, kills 36,000 people every year. The 1918 flu pandemic killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide over a period of two years, approximately one-third the population of Europe at that time.  Global swine flu deaths topped just 1,000 this year.
 
But President Obama is predicting death tolls of 90,000 and possible infection of up to half the US population.
 
While every life matters, in statistical terms swine flu is a comparatively minor problem, which makes the hype by those in government and the military all the more suspicious.Washington certainly seems to be looking for some rationale for enhanced domestic military involvement, whether credible or not.US military at home—in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  With impeccable timing, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has gone before Congress asking for the unprecedented authority to base 400,000 soldiers in communities all across the United States.
 
A recent US Army War College Report even outlined the conditions under which martial law could be introduced, listing:

 

…unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock. [Emphasis added.]

 

The CDC is finalizing quarantine regulations formulated during the Bush years that provide for quarantining “a large group of persons” suspected of having swine flu or other illnesses listed in an executive order. This means that President Obama can quarantine anyone as long as they have an illness he determines to be dangerous.  These new regulations even permit “provisional” quarantine of persons not actually carrying any virus.   In one section, the regulations empower the president to quarantine anyone that does not agree to be vaccinated, an ominous condition since recent investigations have revealed that swine flu vaccines can cause serious medical complications. Thousands of doctors have voiced strong opposition to the proposed swine flu vaccine, due to its association with neurological disorders. No matter, a bill before the Massachusetts State Senate would permit authorities to enter homes and detain without warrant citizens who do not agree to be forcibly vaccinated.  Iowa just released a new Orwellian quarantine policy directive that states in the event of a swine flu outbreak, “your home and other less restrictive alternatives are not acceptable.”  These moves appear to be the result of federal incentives advancing mandatory vaccination.

 

The Army hasn’t missed a step, putting out ads for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists.”  And, though most of the wild claims about “FEMA camps” have been appropriately and properly discredited, the fact remains that the Homeland Security Department has signed a $385 million contract with Halliburton subsidiary KBR Construction to build such facilities on an “as-needed” basis.
 
If you’re not already feeling nervous, revisit President Obama’s spine-chilling campaign pledge:

 

 

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

With the Serve America Act, this alarming proposition has become reality.  The broad authority given to this force is staggering.  Section 1505 gives the newly created National Civilian Community Corps the power to address national “needs” related to “natural and other disasters,” “infrastructure improvement,” “environmental stewardship and conservation,” “energy conservation,” and “urban and rural development.”  The legislation reiterates that the corps will “combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service.”

 

Nowhere have these two spheres ever been combined that tyranny has not resulted. 

 

We need to all pay attention and know what Martial Law entails. We will keep an eye on events and declarations from the government and from what I call “State TV”.  We should not panic at this point over the flu or over the declaration of National Emergency. Keep your eyes and ears open and know going forward suspicion may be warranted.

Lastly, here is what I found through Dept of Health and Human Services:

http://www.hhs.gov/pandemicflu/plan/pdf/HHSPandemicInfluenzaPlan.pdf

 

HHS will be guided by the following principles in initiating and directing its response activities:

 

1) In advance of an influenza pandemic, HHS will work with federal, state, and local government partners and the private sector to coordinate pandemic influenza preparedness activities and to achieve interoperable response capabilities.

 

2) In advance of an influenza pandemic, HHS will encourage all Americans to be active partners in preparing their states, local communities, workplaces, and homes for pandemic influenza and will emphasize that a pandemic will require Americans to make difficult choices. An informed and responsive public is essential to minimizing the health effects of a pandemic and the resulting consequences to society.

 

3) In advance of an influenza pandemic, HHS, in concert with federal partners, will work with the

pharmaceutical industry to develop domestic vaccine production capacity sufficient to provide vaccine for the entire U.S. population as soon as possible after the onset of a pandemic and, during the pre-pandemic period, to produce up to 20 million courses of vaccine against each circulating influenza virus with pandemic potential and to expand seasonal influenza domestic vaccine production to cover all Americans for whom vaccine is recommended through normal commercial transactions.

 

4) In advance of an influenza pandemic, HHS, in concert with federal partners and in collaboration with the States, will procure sufficient quantities of antiviral drugs to treat 25% of the U.S. population and, in so doing, stimulate development of expanded domestic production capacity sufficient to accommodate subsequent needs through normal commercial transactions. HHS will stockpile antiviral medications in the Strategic National Stockpile, and states will create and maintain local stockpiles.

 

5) Sustained human-to-human transmission anywhere in the world will be the triggering event to initiate a pandemic response by the United States. Because we live in a global community, a human outbreak anywhere means risk everywhere.

 

6) The US will attempt to prevent an influenza pandemic or delay its emergence by striving to arrest isolated outbreaks of a novel influenza wherever circumstances suggest that such an attempt might be successful, acting in concert with WHO and other nations as appropriate. At the core of this strategy will be basic public health measures to reduce person-to-person transmission.

 

7) At the onset of an influenza pandemic, HHS, in concert with federal partners, will work with the

pharmaceutical industry to procure vaccine directed against the pandemic strain and to distribute vaccine to state and local public health departments for pre-determined priority groups based on pre-approved state plans.

 

8 ) At the onset of an influenza pandemic, HHS, in collaboration with the states, will begin to distribute and deliver antiviral drugs from public stockpiles to healthcare facilities and others with direct patient care responsibility for administration to pre-determined priority groups.

 

HHS will follow the WHO published guidance for national pandemic planning, which defines pandemic

activities in six phases. WHO Phases 1 and 2 are the Interpandemic Period, which includes phases where no

new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans.

 

The Pandemic Alert Period includes a phase when human infection with a novel influenza strain has been identified but no evidence has been found of transmission between people or at most rare instances of spread to a close contact (WHO Phase 3) and includes phases where person-to-person transmission is occurring in clusters with limited human-to-human transmission (WHO Phases 4 and 5). WHO Phase 6 is the Pandemic

Period, in which there is increased and sustained transmission in the general population. (Appendix C describes the WHO pandemic phases in detail.)

 

Each pandemic phase is associated with a range of preparedness and response activities directed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, after consultation with international authorities and others, as necessary. Given that an influenza pandemic may not unfold in a completely predictable way, decision-makers must regularly reassess their strategies and actions and make adjustments as necessary. This section highlights

critical pandemic preparedness and response activities to be implemented by HHS.

 

Table C-1: Summary of WHO Global Pandemic Phases (WHO Global Influenza

Preparedness Plan, 2005) – As of April, we are at Phase 5

Interpandemic Period

Phase 1. No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans. An influenza virus subtype that has caused human infection may be present in animals. If present in animals, the risk of human infection or disease is considered to be low

 

Phase 2. No new influenza virus subtypes have been detected in humans. However, a circulating animal influenza virus subtype poses a substantial risk of human disease

 

Pandemic Alert Period

 

Phase 3. Human infection(s) with a new subtype but no human-to-human spread or at most rare instances of spread to a close contact

 

Phase 4. Small cluster(s) with limited human-to-human transmission but spread is highly localized, suggesting that the virus is not well adapted to humans

 

Phase 5. Larger cluster(s) but human-to-human spread is still localized, suggesting that the virus is becoming increasingly better adapted to humans but may not yet be fully transmissible (substantial pandemic risk)

Pandemic Period

 

Phase 6. Pandemic phase: increased and sustained transmission in the general population

 

An influenza pandemic may require activation of the National Response Plan (NRP), especially if the first

appearance of the disease in the United States occurs in one or a few isolated communities and an intense multi-party containment effort led by the federal government seems feasible. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in collaboration with HHS and other response partners, developed the NRP and the associated

National Incident Management System (NIMS) pursuant to the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) #5 – Management of Domestic Incidents. Full descriptions of the NRP and the NIMS, respectively, are available at  www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf  and

www.fema.gov/nims/nims_compliance.shtm#nimsdocument.

 

The intent of the NRP is to reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, major disasters, and other emergencies;

to minimize the damage resulting from these emergencies; and to facilitate recovery. The NIMS aligns the special-purpose incident management and emergency response plans of federal government agencies into a unitary structure. Together, the NRP and the NIMS provide a conceptual and operational framework to

integrate the capabilities and resources of various governmental jurisdictions, incident management and emergency response disciplines, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector into a cohesive, coordinated, and seamless national framework for domestic incident management. The federal government can invoke the NRP partially or fully in the context of a threat, anticipation of a significant event, or the response to a significant event.

 

Other sources you may want to consult:

Selected Executive Orders on National Security

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/index.html

Federal Registry Database on Executive Orders

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/

FEMA

http://www.fema.gov/