Progressive Dumb Asses of America

I supported Ed O'Reilly in his bid to unseat Botox ogre John Kerry in the Massachusetts primary this past September. Ed seems like a genuine guy who stands for portions of the real Democrat agenda that I support. He lost to the Botox Ogre, and is now looking for people to help retire his campaign debt. I got an email today where he sent birthday wishes to a supporter Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America. This is an organization whose front page features an article by James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (who among other things, has aided and abetted Fatah terrorists), decrying the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israel's "ruse" regarding the halting of settlements.

You want to criticize the building of settlements? Go right ahead. But while you do so you better be condemning Fatah, who controls the PA in the West Bank, for still refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Oh wait...it's okay to bash Israel for not meeting its obligations on settlements while ignoring the fact that the PA has failed to meet one of its obligations in any accord it has signed with Israel. Ooops, my mistake.

This bigotry, thinly veiled by mock outrage, is the hallmark of American Leftists. Spare us your bullshit if you please, dumb asses. Either condemn the violations of both sides or please shut the fuck up. Here's a newsflash to PDA: as long as Israel sees that the world is going to do nothing to end the reign of a government that seeks her destruction, settlements are going to be built as a means of mitigating the drawing of insecure, indefensible borders. Major settlement blocks will be part of Israel is the logic.

You want a halt to settlements? Halt Fatah and Hamas. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

A Wild and Whacky Show

While Rome is burning, Resident Training Wheels is going on Leno. Why? Because he sucks at lying.

Only the totally stupid are buying Pampers' faux outrage over the AIG bonuses that he approved with his signature, bonuses that his Treasury Secretary admitted his boss knew about (and how much does Pampers really know about American history when he compares Secretary Geithner to Alexander Hamilton, who attempted to subvert John Adams' bid for the presidency, destroying his own political party). Now Chris Clodd and the Pampers White House are involved in a cutthroat battle of finger pointing over who did what and to whom regarding adding language sanctioning the AIG bonuses (both Clodd and Pampers received oodles of cash from AIG, even though Pampers swore he wasn't taking corporate America's money...how stupid is a Pamperbot? Pretty fucking stupid. Hope...change...).

Meanwhile, Barney Frank is rabidly demanding that the names of those who received bonuses be revealed in the name of a holier-than-thou fest, despite pleadings in the name of AIG employee safety as nutjobs are advocating that these people, and their families, be killed over a pittance in comparison to the billions that have been thrown at AIG in bailout bucks.

So TelePrompter Jesus will go on Leno to tell America that everything will be fine if we just check to make sure our tires are properly inflated, and we stop thinking.

The powers that be should have picked an American idol with a little more brains. They should have picked someone who could at least make things marginally better while flushing us down the crapper.

But maybe the Leno appearance is more about the fact that members of the military are lining up to remind each other, and the Resident, that the oath they take when they join the armed forces is not one of allegiance to the President of the United States, but to the Constitution that he is sworn to protect and defend.

The Oath Keepers are making it clear that they will not accept or carry out any order from the President that violates the Constitution. They will not disarm Americans. They will not invade their homes without justified warrants. They will not incarcerate or place Americans in camps. They will consider the use of foreign troops against Americans as an act of war against the republic. The list goes on. I for one am sleeping much better knowing that the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect and defend us are remembering who they serve: We The People.

So yeah, if I were Pampers I'd be doing everything I could to make Americans forget that my presidency has already failed.

What did these jack off bots see in this clown?

And Iran Iran So Far Away

For those of you wondering what the Resident intends to do about the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, the answer is nothing. At least this is the answer that Israel is getting from the United States. No one in the Pampers administration was willing to talk to Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi about Iran on his recent trip to the United States. Why? Because the only thing the United States is interested in is talking about Palestine.

Now the Palestine issue is an important one to be sure, but unless you have your head up your ass, a condition which everyone working in the Pampers foreign service (including Madame Secretary) seems to suffer from, you would know that Israel is not going to spend one second talking about giving a state to genocidal Islamists and kleptocrats. So shut the fuck up about Palestine because unless the U.S. is committed to driving Fatah and Hamas from power you'll have a better chance of eating kosher ham than you do of ever seeing a Palestinian state.

You hear that you leftist Jew hating ratfuckers? Are you sure? You love the Palestinians so fucking much, then do what I do...advocate for the removal of Hamas and Fatah because, like I've said a thousand times, until they're gone the Israelis are never going to have any incentive to do thing one to move toward Palestinian statehood. You can march and make all the "Jews are Nazi Terrorist Assholes" signs you want. It won't make a bit of difference. Again, for all you obtuse ratfuckers who claim to love the Palestinians, work to get rid of Fatah and Hamas. Once that's accomplished, and the Palestinians are led by diplomats instead of robbers and gun toting idiots, then peace is possible.

Sorry Pampers, Israel cares about Iran; the country that is arming Hamas, and Hizbollah. Iran; the country that is about two years away from having the bomb (possibly sooner now that AQ Khan is on the loose...thank you Pakistan. Obviously this is bad for Israel. It's also bad for Europe and the United States because what the Leftist fart knockers don't ever seem to get is that the Islamic Jihad has nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with killing or converting everyone who is not a Muslim. So if Iran manufactures weapons grade uranium, gets a little plutonium thing going, and a suitcase bomb levels Manhattan, blaming Israel is only going to make you look more stupid than you already are. Did I type that out loud?

But in the end, Israel getting the cold shoulder is very liberating. If it isn't obvious to the Netanyahu coalition already, the U.S. is just proving itself to be the non-ally it has always been. If Bibi is smart he will be calling on India, China, and Russia while giving the United States government the fucking finger it so richly deserves for chronically selling out her interests to the oil producing nations that have been funding the terrorists that would love nothing more than to kill more Americans. For you Judeophobes out there who are too bigoted to understand, the Saudis have been paying off the radical Islamists to keep them from ousting the royal family for years...when you've figured out how to blame Israel for that you douchebags let me know 'cause I'd really like to hear that one. I know, you went to a Palestinian film festival and thought you had it all figured out. Israel is devil spawn and Fatah and Hamas are freedom fighters. Sorry to piss on your parade.

Now, am I happy about the prospect of Israel allying herself with China, the country that is eradicating Tibet, and funding the genocide in Darfur? Fuck no. But that's what very well may happen. If the United States were Israel's friend, Fatah and Hamas would have been gone a long time ago and there would be a Palestinian state in Gaza at the very least, and perhaps one state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. But you see people, Dear Leader Shirley doesn't really give a fuck about the Palestinians. Would you let a friend be fucked over by the mafia even though you had the power to stop it? Of course you wouldn't. But the U.S. is perfectly happy to let Fatah and Hamas fuck the Palestinians over and over and over again. Some friend. And Mr. Dopey Mange is going to be no different. So get used to it Shitbots.

At this point the Israelis should be thinking to themselves, "Three out of four times we walk out the front door we get hit in the head with a bucket of shit. Maybe we should stop going out that door."

Pampers and his band of lackeys are proving their ineptitude once again. I have to think that Hillary is smart enough to know this shit, but apparently doesn't care enough to do anything about it (is Bubba's foundation getting Arab money hand over fist at the moment? Maybe.). Smiling and nodding at Israel while Iran gets the bomb is not good for America Hillary.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, the Pampers envoys continue to say Hamas won't get any aid money until they recognize Israel. Well, I wonder if anyone was paying attention when Muhammed Dahlan admitted the other day that Fatah hasn't recognized Israel either? Probably not, because not only does the U.S. government not give a fuck about the Palestinians, it doesn't give a fuck about Israel either.

So for those of you delusionals out there that thought Barry was going to fart and bring peace to the Middle East, sorry to disappoint. He's just going to do what he's been doing for the past three months: pissing off everyone that matters. That's change you can believe in.

Redress of Grievances Part I: Disaffiliation

A few short months ago I began advocating a mass disaffiliation from the Democrap and Republicrap Parties. It caused a bit of a stir. I received quite a bit of mail, cross posts, and support for this notion. With the Juan Martin Luther Lincoln Peron Jr. Jr. administration and Democrap controlled Congress stuffing us in a Chinese handcuff I say it's time to revisit this and resume the call. At least 50% of the American electorate registered as Independent or Unaffiliated. It's time the parties got the message: GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU FASCIST ASSHOLES!

cross posted from City Tavern

The question of how to proceed with handling our federal government’s operating outside the Constitution is on the Tavern table. I have alluded to two steps that I consider essential to remedying this situation; weakening the influence of our political parties, and exercising our power under the First Amendment to initiate a redress of grievances.

Let’s talk party business first.

Americans must accept that both major political parties are demonstrably corrupt. The Republican Party, beginning with Ronald Reagan, launched an aggressive plan of deficit spending with the stated intention of creating a crippling debt that would eventually leave the government with only two functions: rewarding the rich and waging war. In the words of Grover Norquist, the goal is to make the government so weak that it can be “drowned in the bath tub. The ultimate goal is to shut down what is considered to be the socialist programs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government welfare, and other such social safety net programs. For the record, I supported the welfare reforms that were put in place during the Clinton years. Putting people to work with usable skills rather than collecting a check brought a greater sense of pride, and improved the economy. During the campaign a number of people who considered themselves welfare reform success stories came into the Clinton campaign office to volunteer, grateful for what her husband and the Congress had done. I am sorry to see that the current administration is bringing this to an end. But I believe that our children, retirees, the elderly, the disabled can have help from what it the strongest, most vital economy on the planet.

As of now it appears that Mr. Obama is committed to furthering the erosion of our social safety net, with the exception of returning us to the days of government welfare handouts, a government run healthcare system that breaches anything resembling privacy, and a centralized government run green energy scheme; all of which you pay for from beginning to end while being financially raped to bailout banks that fell victim to ACORN and Fannie/Freddie’s Ponzi scheme. Give a man a fish and he’ll learn to keep coming back for more fish. But if you want to make the largest number of Americans your dependents so they must kowtow and pay homage, this is one way to boost the numbers.

It was the Republican Party that brought us Iran/Contra and its violations of the Constitution. It was Congressional Republicans that were cheerleading the Bush II program of warrantless wiretapping, and the suspension of habeas corpus, and wasted millions of American tax dollars in a futile attempt to bring down the Clinton White House that resulted in impeachment because the President lied about getting a blowjob. However, the corruption and constitutional violations of the second Bush administration were ignored. This speaks to either an inability, or lack of desire on the part of Congressional Republicans to fulfill their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Apparently violating the fourth amendment was not a concern for Republicans, or Democrats in Congress as Bush sailed away free as a bird.

The Democratic Party is guilty of its own corruption. From violating its own charter by stripping a candidate of delegates and awarding them to someone whose name didn’t appear on a ballot, to using intimidation and coercion to get delegates to aid and abet the defrauding of voters by staging a phony roll call, to the abuse of access by an Ohio state employee to open the tax records of “Joe the Plumber.” And let us not forget the apparent collusion between Democratic Congressmen and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which is at the heart of our economy’s viral collapse. It is also clear that Congressional Democrats could care less about protecting and defending the Constitution as Speaker Nancy Pelosi failed to bring articles of impeachment to the floor for the Bush administration’s wire tapping scheme. And while she bravely stated that telecom immunity was off the table in the winter of 2008 she, like Obama, did a somersaulting handspring waffle reversal, endorsing the wiretapping scheme, and voting to grant immunity to the complicit telecom companies. Is it a coincidence that the DNC swag bag proudly displayed the logo of its primary corporate sponsor, AT&T? As I recall, going into June, convention events were being trimmed due to the DNC’s inability to raise money. Lo and behold FISA got approved with telecom immunity, and Obama got his wreath of laurel on Mount Olympus.

Reforming these bloated corporate shill behemoths is a futile gesture in my opinion. The corruption of the Democratic Party is rampant at every level from local to national. The Republican party is a rudderless ship with Newt Gingrich deifying Ronald Reagan as the pillar of conservatism when Reagan himself engaged in the above rampant deficit spending, and violations of the Constitution that he thought he couldn’t remember.

Democrats, particularly women and LGBTs (the ones who were paying attention) realized some very hard truths this year. The Democratic Party doesn’t give a damn about women’s rights, about gay rights, about democracy, about the Constitution. They are realizing that they are more patriotic than they understood. They have come to realize just how dissatisfied they are with how they are being served. They are angry, and rightfully so. Some are even starting to realize that they have been replaced by ACORN’s fraudulent voter rolls and are no longer listened to, as they are no longer needed. There is no reforming the Democrat Party from within. The partisans don’t care whom they crap on: AS LONG AS THEY WIN.

What do these disillusioned Democrats have in common with many disillusioned Republicans and conservatives? Love of country, respect for the Constitution, the desire to see government work for the interests of the people, instead of getting in their way and violating their rights. These two sides need to find one more common thread: the realization that being affiliated with corrupt political parties that are only interested in gaining and maintaining power for their own benefit does not help the country, does not provide a path of Liberty, and does not promote the protection of our rights.

Currently, statistics show that approximately 30% of registered voters are Unaffiliated. Some of them lean to the right, some to the left. Why is it that there are this many people in the American electorate who are not members of either major party? I think it’s safe to say that it is because of the reasons I have stated above; and the numbers in the Lagoon of the Unaffiliated seem to be growing with each passing election cycle. It is no wonder then that the Democrat Party, in conjunction with the campaign of that party’s presidential nominee, unleashed such a widespread campaign of voter registration fraud; they must no longer have the numbers to win elections based on their legitimate voter rolls…or was it because the rank and file’s support of the chosen candidate was thin?

What do you suppose would happen if the American electorate, over the next two to four years, shifted from 30% unaffiliated to 50%? Perhaps both parties would actually give a damn about what the people think, what they want, where they want the country to go. Suddenly the levers of Roe v Wade, Reproduction, Gayness, etc would no longer matter. Perhaps the parties would be forced to ideologically disarm. Both parties have used those issues, and others, to drive wedges and foment conflict while they rob us blind and shred the Constitution. But it is not simply enough for us to disaffiliate. We must also evaluate ourselves, see where we are politically; what we want for our country; what we want from our government. If you feel your party is broken, your government is working against your interests, and your liberties are being violated then you are not alone. The question is, are you willing to abandon your personal ideology to work with others who may not have the same politics as you, in order to get our political parties, and the federal government, to once again be beholden to We The People, and the Constitution? If you have answered yes then you should think about leaving your party, and let the conversation begin.

Leave your party. Disaffiliate. Stop enabling the behemoths. Make them come to us.

No Play for Mr. Gray

If people aren't talking about Eva O'Jackie Peron's sleeveless dresses, it's Juan Martin Luther Lincoln Peron Jr. Jr.'s graying hair. No doubt his excremental followers are elated over this turn of events, fulfilling their geriatric bondage fantasies. I would imagine this is a refreshing break from pillaging their inflatable lover of the month selection. I suppose the "I've Never Heard of Jeremiah Wright" Speech is getting old for them too, at least as fantasy material. Good for them. And Kenner's Little Bot TelePrompter playsets are selling like hotcakes. And you said Douchulus wouldn't work.

I'm still in stitches over the Resident giving legally blind Gordon Brown a set of DVDs, and Eva forgetting to buy gifts for the Brown boys. It's like having Al and Peg Bundy in the White House. In next week's episode, the Perons give the king of Slobovia's bulimic daughter a bucket of vomit. I've heard it's hilarious.

But alas, it bores me. I have gotten quite a few emails demanding more bearded nutbags. The people have spoken, and I have heard your voice. It's an Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Shitheads Marathon.

Let's start with a real winner. He issued a fatwa calling for the killing of Jews (and you Leftist infidels too). He's everyone's favorite blind homicidal Islamic radical, currently serving a life sentence at Butner for fatally impersonating Elwood Blues. Let's have a big hand for.....Omar Abd El-Rahman!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

Killer Beard, Dude!

I have tried to grow my beard out long, ya know like ZZ Top, Chassidic style. But all that ends up happening is that it bushes out, gets itchy, and looks like shit. This guy however, has got it goin' on.

Too bad Muhammed Hussein Yaqoub is a psychotic, genocidal nutbag.

Here's the text:

"You Must Believe That We Will Fight, Defeat, and Annihilate Them, Until Not a Single Jew Remains on the Face of the Earth"

"If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. [Ed. note: and Israel's motivation to turn land over to terror kleptocracies is what? Peace? Ho ho ho...] The Jews are infidels - not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: 'The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.' It is Allah who said that they are infidels.

"Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: 'You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.' Third, you must believe that the Jews will never stop fighting and killing us. They [fight] not for the sake of land and security, as they claim, but for the sake of their religion: 'And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back you’re your religion, if they can.'

"This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle - and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth."

"As For You Jews - The Curse of Allah Upon You... You Pigs of the Earth! You Kill the Muslims With That Cold Pig [Blood] Of Yours"

"It is not me who says so. The Prophet said: 'Judgment Day will not come until you fight the Jews and kill them. The Jews will hide behind stones and trees, and the stones and tree will call: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him - except for the Gharqad tree, which is the tree of the Jews.' I have heard that they are planting many of these trees now.

[...]

"As for you Jews - the curse of Allah upon you. The curse of Allah upon you, whose ancestors were apes and pigs. You Jews have sown hatred in our hearts, and we have bequeathed it to our children and grandchildren. You will not survive as long as a single one of us remains.

[...]

"Oh Jews, may the curse of Allah be upon you. Oh Jews... Oh Allah, bring Your wrath, punishment, and torment down upon them. Allah, we pray that you transform them again, and make the Muslims rejoice again in seeing them as apes and pigs. You pigs of the earth! You pigs of the earth! You kill the Muslims with that cold pig [blood] of yours."

Fucking great, even the trees are chomping at the bit to get rid of us. I wonder which side the shrubbery is on? I'll be honest, I haven't heard about this "tree of the Jews," to which Yaqoub is referring, but it's got a cool name; the Gharqad tree...pretty sweet. Do you think drugs are required to come up with this shit, or are people just insane? Oh here I go again being an irrational, paranoid Jew. Shame on me.

I'll be honest, right now I'm thinking about changing my name. What do you think about Gharqad Farquar? And Mr. Yaqoub oughta lighten up. Maybe we should have a fundraiser to pay for dues to AORBS, the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.

A Shekel for an Ex-Leper

Mark Twain has been quoted as saying,

"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."

Lately I am finding this more and more to be the case in certain circles on certain issues.

It seems to me that how you see yourself is largely determined by the shard of the broken mirror into which you choose to gaze. Truth is only going to happen after you acknowledge the mirror is cracked in the first place.

Rumors are swirling around so I will simply say that after a brief tenure at The Confluence I have decided to leave. I will not go into specifics here. Suffice it to say that the reasons being reported as to why I made this decision are largely inaccurate. Anyone can feel free to get in touch with me if they desire first hand information regarding my reasons.

To quote Twain again, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Oh, and Big Jew Hater Joe Cannon has declared that it is his opinion that Israelis want to kill all the Palestinians.

"I do think that the Israelis want — in the end — to kill or to expel all Palestinians. It is the Palestinians, not the Jews, who are being “driven into the sea” as the axiom has it. In fact, the plan has been pretty open for some time now."

You got it. Joe, I thought you were just another bigoted leftist Jew hating dumbass, but you figured it out. Killing Palestinians is the Israeli national pastime. That's why there are none left. And to think that I saw it on Confluence Street.

You Enjoy Myself

I used to work at a place that had a subscription to US magazine. They have a section about how movie stars are just like us...they eat out of trash cans, do laundry, go to the bathroom...shit like that. Well, not to be outdone, The Daily News did something similar for Pampers.

I decided to take some Shtuey liberties to bring you Pampers is Just Like Us:

He bangs his head like an idiot on expensive military hardware

"Hey look at me!" "Doh!" "Shit."

He gets explosive diarrhea in a library full of school kids...

When you go to the library and the smell's extraordinary diarrhea...diarrhea

But you'll have to go to the Shtuey News Network to see the photo that set Sesame Street ablaze with Muppet rage and violence.

A Great Expense of Blood

Reposted from City Tavern

When I think about what I want this country to be, the ideals I want this republic to stand on and live by, I look to the man that Jefferson referred to as the “colossus of independence,” and his wife, (without whom the colossus would have floundered, and so too the cause of independency): John and Abigail Adams. Abolitionists and revolutionaries, John and Abigail Adams, above all their peers, understood the potential for what America could become. When Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal the Adamses knew that meant all men (and if John didn’t think all women as well, Abigail constantly reminded him).

I believe it is a misnomer to say that the principles of our nation are embodied in the Constitution. They are not. The Constitution is a reflection of those principles…to an extent.

The three-fifths clause, or the so-called “Great Compromise” legitimated slavery in America for nearly another hundred years. In elementary school our teachers called it “Great” because without this compromise it is more than likely that the United States would not have survived. It is also because of this “compromise” that 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War. The sin of slavery was a blood debt America was going to pay in 1789 or the 1860s not because of conscience, but because of one simple principle: “Economic motivation is paramount in man,” (the Civil War was not fought to free the slaves, it was money money money).

Yes, it was culturally accepted in the slave owning South, and in much of society at large in the North, that the African was inferior to Europeans, but the three-fifths clause was about money and power. It overrode any sense of conscience that southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention might have had, and ultimately the perceived need to form a stable system of national governance overrode the consciences of delegates from the North. And it wasn’t until the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791 that American principles of our freedoms were ameliorated and applied to our legal codex. But before all this, John and Abigail Adams were laying down principles that, though not always followed and too often ignored, are the compass by which Americans must now navigate if we are to have any hope of undoing what we have allowed to happen. Here are a few of my favorites from John Adams (Abigail deserves her own post, and so she shall have it).

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have… a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.
Society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

How is it that we as a society have lost sight of these notions to such an extent that we are now witnesses to the very undoing of our republic, a potential end that has been long in coming, and that we have been dutifully ignoring?

Untold millions of Americas indigenous people were slaughtered on this land. Women who sought the right to vote were jailed, beaten, and murdered to secure the right of franchise (For the record, the Constitution does not protect or guarantee our right to vote. It merely defines who in our society is allowed to vote–scary thought isn’t it?). And what have we done?

We have squandered our freedoms and rights. We have allowed them to be usurped to the point where the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed the stimulus bill that was recently passed by Congress, and they did not listen. You are not being heard. Your desires, your needs, your opinions, your liberties do not matter to the people who are now heavily engaged in generating for themselves the greatest set of controls over our private lives in the history of this country. They already sanctioned the warrantless tapping of your phone. I certainly do not want the government having access to my medical records. Do you?

On independence, and creating a society for free people Adams said,

The object is great which we have in view, and we must expect a great expense of blood to obtain it. But we should always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate, as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of equal importance to mankind.

If Adams’ contention, that having the freedom to form and maintain a civil government, whose purpose he argued is to protect our rights and liberties to best allow for our common happiness, is so precious that the lives of enslaved Africans, our First Nations, and our citizens whose blood has been spilled at home and abroad was a price worth paying, then that blood is on all of our hands if we sit idly by and watch it all slip away.

What the hell are we going to do about this?

The Struggle for Human Rights Begins At Home

Cross posted from City Tavern

If the human rights struggle is universal then it stands to reason that one advances the cause by fighting for the protection of their own rights first and foremost. We must be our own advocates, and stand on the solid foundation of our own liberties if we are to be advocates for others. As the saying goes, “Think globally, act locally.”

Just as the American revolution inspired the people of France to rise up against an oppressive aristocracy, Americans must once again stand up against the oligarchical autocrats that have assumed control of our federal government. We should not be subjected to tax muggings without our consent. Our right to habeas corpus should not be suspended without our consent. The tapping of our phones without warrants is a direct violation of our Constitutional Rights. The sovereignty of our states should not be encroached upon by the federal government, particularly by extortion and blackmail, which the stimulus and omnibus bills do.

Your rights to privacy, your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are under assault by the White House and the Congress. We must defend and protect those rights if we are to continue to do the work of fighting for the upholding of human rights for all. If we do not, who then will hear our voice? As Rabbi Hillel asked more than 2000 years ago, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

So what does this entail? It is insufficient to simply stand up to the President and Congress. We must advance the equality of all our citizens, be they women, gay, of color, or minority culture, or religion. It must also be remembered that your liberty ends where mine begins. The advancing of the rights of some cannot impinge the free exercise of the rights of others.

It is a simple formula. No one is free while others are not. If you are only for yourself what are you?