1776 Rage Coming Again, Nadler Warns

March 11th, 2011 | Posted by jclifford in Legislation | Liberty - (3 Comments)

Our regular readers know by now that we are at Irregular Times are going to Washington D.C. tomorrow to protest against the Patriot Act. If we’ve been talking about this protest a great deal, it’s because we believe that the repeal of the Patriot Act is extremely important – to the survival of the United States as we have known it.

patriot act protestThat’s a very strong statement, it’s true, but we’re not alone in this assessment. Consider the warning from Congressman Jerrold Nadler, delivered in a speech about the Patriot Act on the floor of the House of Representatives: “Section 206 provides for roving wiretap orders, supposedly to catch up with technology, but these orders identify neither the person to be tapped nor the facility to be tapped. This is, for all practical purposes, a general grant of authority to wiretap anyone anywhere that the government wants. They should either have to identify either the person or, because of modern technology, the facility. But one or the other. There are almost no limits to this authority and no requirement that the government name a specific target. This is akin – very similar – to the British general writs of assistance which engendered the first colonial outrage that led to the American Revolution. Here we are coming full circle.”

What is the United States of America if the Bill of Rights is no longer functioning? What’s the point of having freed ourselves from a monarchy if we turn around and reinstall the tyrannical policies of that monarchy ourselves?

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees us protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The searches and seizures taking place under the Patriot Act are clearly unreasonable, with tens of thousands of violations under the Patriot Act having been found so far. The Fourth Amendment requires that when searches and seizures take place, they occur under a warrant that specifies the specific place and person to be searched. The Patriot Act’s “lone wolf” spying power blatantly violates that clause of the Fourth Amendment, allowing government intelligence agents to search and seize without warrants specifying what or who they are going to search and seize.

Congress is scheduled to attempt to extend such provisions of the Patriot Act again in just a little over two months from now.

To have the American government so openly ignore the Constitution creates a grave threat to our democracy. The lessons of 1776 should not be forgotten. Liberty matters. That’s why we’ll be protesting outside of Congress tomorrow, and I hope to see some of you there too.

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Republican Tea Party Org Begs Members Not To Form 3rd Party

June 8th, 2010 | Posted by Truman in Alternative Parties | Politics - (3 Comments)

The Tea Party phenomenon was started with the assertion that the American federal government is tyrannical in ways that are similar to the British colonial government, requiring a revolutionary movement to take down the powers that be, because Americans are angry and are not going to take it any more! Comparisons to the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution of 1776 were unapologetic.

An odd little thing has happened to the Tea Party “movement”, though. From a movement of angry citizens against the political establishment, it’s been turned into a defense of the political establishment against angry citizens.

Consider the message that the Tea Party Patriots organization sent out to its members last night, for example:

“Tea Party Patriots is issuing this statement in order to make it clear that we are not associated with any attempts to form a third party. Additionally, we believe that such efforts, even those that might be well intentioned, are unproductive and unwise at this time. The history of third party movements in this country is one of division and defeat. We believe that it is instead time for all Americans to rise up and demand appropriate reform within their own existing parties. The mechanisms exist for citizens to participate in their parties, and to drive their parties in the right direction.

The Tea Party Patriots encourage all citizens to get involved in the party process, and to reshape their parties into something in which they may once again believe. This country does not belong to any one party, nor does it belong to the career politicians. And it certainly doesn’t belong to people who would like to trick you into voting for ‘tea party’ candidates so you will waste your vote.”

Imagine if this message were sent out to the Continental Congress by the people who had organized the Boston Tea Party. They’d be urging against revolution, saying that declaring Independence would be the path “of division and defeat”. They’d be urging that, instead of forming their own political organizations, American colonists should just send letters to members of the British Parliament, seeking reforms. In short, the so-called “Tea Party Patriots”, if they were living in 1776, would be Tories, not revolutionaries.

Just who is this Tea Party Patriots organization anyway, and why is it so interested in keeping its members within the power structures of the current political parties? The evidence strongly suggests that Tea Party Patriots is a Republican organization set up to use the Tea Party label in order to channel Tea Party enthusiasm to perpetuate the GOP’s agenda.

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Happy Democracy Day!

April 15th, 2009 | Posted by Truman in Economy | Liberty - (4 Comments)

I call today, April 15, Democracy Day, because it’s the day when I get to pay taxes in a democratic nation. That’s a privilege 233 years old in the USA.

As much as the current day tea party protesters might say that they’re representing the spirit of ’76, they’re actually dead set against it. The Revolution of 1776, after all, was not a revolt against taxation. It was a revolt against taxation without representation.

democracy tea party

Protests like the Boston Tea Party rejected particular taxes as a means of revolt, but not as the end of revolt. Consider the salt tax protest organized by Mohandas Gandhi in 1930. The British had imposed a tax on salt that made it illegal for people in India to collect their own salt, so Gandhi led a group of people on a march to the sea, where they gathered salt in defiance of the law. Like the Boston Tea Party, the Gandhi’s salt protest aimed to free a colony from British rule. Would Gandhi have been satisfied if the salt tax went away, but British rule remained? No, because the underlying problem was lack of self-rule for India, just as it was in the American colonies.

tea party idiotsThe Revolution of 1776 did not do away with taxes, and it wasn’t intended to. There were taxes before independence and taxes after independence. The difference is that, after independence, taxes came along with representative government, so that citizens could have a voice in how their taxes were used.

Our taxes contribute to the government as we make it – and if we aren’t happy with the government, then it’s our duty to reform the government to make our taxes worthwhile. To some extent, that’s what the current tea party protests are trying to do. The problem is that the tea party protests seek a withdrawal of democratic government, for the sake of saving money in the short term. They aren’t really working toward a more representative government. They’re working toward the reduction, or even the elimination, of representative government.

Their idea of replacement for democratic government? Unrestrained oligarchy. As one tea party protest sign says, the goal is to “Let Market Not Government Control Economy” The Market, of course, isn’t established democratically. It’s controlled by the people and corporations who have the most money, and the rest of us have almost no say.

The idea of a tea party protest has changed from no taxation without representation in 1776 to no taxation or representation today.

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Spirit of 1776 remixed like Obama on the FISA Amendments Act

July 4th, 2008 | Posted by Truman in Barack Obama | Fiction Experiments | Liberty - (0 Comments)

What if the Founding Fathers had decided to take Barack Obama’s approach to liberty, as demonstrated through his support of the FISA Amendments Act? What if they sought to compromise their freedom with King George, as Barack Obama has done with George W. Bush? Here’s how things might have been different:

Patrick Henry:
“Give me liberty, or give me compromise!”

John Paul Jones:
“I have not yet begun to compromise.”

Thomas Paine:
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, compromise. I promise to review the British rule over America after I am elected, and have my Attorney General issue recommendations.”

Benjamin Franklin:
“We must all hang together, per se.”

Benjamin Franklin:
“”They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, will pick up swing voters and get elected.”

Nathan Hale:
“I only regret that I have but one chance to compromise my liberty.”

Thomas Paine:
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, let someone else defend them.”

Israel Putnam:
“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes! Then shoot at the ground!”

George Washington:
“Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of Liberty – that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. Slavery isn’t all bad, though, if you think about it.”

George Washington:
“The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny mediated against them. Let us therefore give King George whatever he wants.”

Thomas Jefferson:
“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, well, what are you going to do about it?”

Jonathan Mayhew:
“No taxation without representation… is an extremist position. We’ll move to the center, and support taxation without representation, but with a court that can observe our money going on the ships back to England.”

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