A Socialist America?

[Ryan Ruck]

An article written before the election but extremely relevant…

A Socialist America?

Jeffery T. Kuhner
Sunday, October 26, 2008

The mainstream media have downplayed the profound significance that an Obama presidency will have in combination with a Democratic congressional supermajority - the transformation of our country into a socialist state.

The U.S.A. will become the U.S.S.A., the United Socialist States of America. Capitalism, self-reliance, limited government, personal responsibility, Christian moral standards - all the key traditions that built modern America - will be swept away in a liberal tidal wave.

According to current polls, Sen. Barack Obama is poised to win the White House on Nov. 4. Democrats are also expected to increase their majorities in Congress. In fact, some polls indicate they can attain a filibuster-proof Senate of 60 seats. This will enable Democrats to pass almost any legislation without fear of Republicans blocking it. Democrats will control every branch of government.

The results will be not only "change," but a historic political shift to the left - one that will permanently alter America for the worse.

On taking office, Mr. Obama will focus immediately on passing universal health care. His plan calls for a national public insurance program modeled on Medicare, except it will be available to everyone. Most analysts predict it will shift nearly 50 million Americans from private coverage to government-run care and create a massive, new entitlement - the largest expansion of government since the Great Society.

Eventually, the program will evolve into what Mr. Obama says he truly wants: a Canadian-style, single-payer system, in which health care is nationalized. Socialized medicine will do in America what it has done in Western Europe and Canada: push politics permanently to the left. The program's vast size and immense cost will lead to rising taxes and the rationing of services. Moreover, once such a radical, complicated monstrosity is in place, it is almost impossible to dismantle it - no matter how poorly it performs (just look at Canada and Britain, where there are long waiting lines, substandard technology and poor treatment yet reform is consistently opposed by entrenched interests).

National health care will be the final piece in establishing a cradle-to-grave, liberal welfare state. America's social programs will resemble those of statist Europe; we will also resemble the Continent's anemic growth rates, lower productivity and higher unemployment. America's culture of entrepreneurialism and technological dynamism will degenerate into one characterized by economic dependency and social stagnation.

Mr. Obama will ram through Congress increases in the top rates for income taxes, capital gains and dividends. More ominously, he vows to lift or eliminate the cap on payroll taxes, which funds Social Security and Medicare. Hence, a tax designed to maintain a pension insurance system will be used for the redistribution of wealth. Democrats' class-warfare, soak-the-rich policies will deepen the economic downturn, kill job creation and discourage corporate investment. These policies will permanently expand the federal government's tax share of gross domestic product: Big government will become super-size government.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats are likely to pass a series of laws cementing their control of Congress for years to come. Their goal: to tilt the electoral playing field decisively in their favor. They will surely finally pass amnesty for the 20 million illegal immigrants in America. This will transform the Hispanic voting bloc into a key - and loyal - segment of the Democrats' coalition, and help to forge a new Democratic majority. Felons, too, will be given the right to vote. And the District of Columbia will be granted congressional representation - meaning more Democratic seats.

Also, Democrats hope to muzzle conservative talk radio. Liberals in Congress or an Obama Federal Communications Commission will attempt to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine - the pernicious notion that the public airwaves must have an "equal" and "fair" distribution of conservative and liberal views. The intent is to force radio owners to air unpopular liberal talk-show hosts, as well as empower the FCC to harass stations with potential lawsuits over allegedly "excessive" conservative content. Air America dismally failed in the marketplace of ideas. The progressive movement, however, plans to use state power to compel ideological conformity.

The Obama-Pelosi-Reid unholy alliance will complete the revolutionary project of the 1960s: a society stripped from its traditional Christian moorings. Mr. Obama has made no secret of his support for abortion rights. He is a radical, an extremist, on the issue. He opposes the ban on partial-birth abortion. As an Illinois state legislator, he even voted against a law to preserve an infant's life if an abortion is botched.

Finally, his administration will consolidate a liberal Supreme Court and thus advance the leftist social agenda of abortion on demand, gay rights, the decriminalization of prostitution, the legalization of marijuana and euthanasia. The culture of death will triumph. Democrats will finally attain the twin goals of liberalism: economic collectivism and moral anarchy.

President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal experimented with socialism. Mr. Obama's presidency will achieve it.

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Yeah, that sums it up.

But the sheeple that voted him don't get it.

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Another United Nations intrusion on our sovereignty if Barack Obama has his way

Recently I pointed out the danger looming ahead for the United States as the White House and congress are controlled by Democrats that will result from reconsideration of previously rejected treaties. It is startling how little attention is paid by the public to what will happen to our freedom if these treaties are signed by President Obama and ratified by the Senate. Even the few responsible media ignore this danger and fail to inform Americans.

For decades Republican presidents or Republican-controlled congress were steadfast in refusing to take up these treaties even those signed by a sitting Democrat president. Perhaps the most important of these were the Kyoto Treaty signed by President Clinton and the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) refused to be considered by President Reagan. Had the Kyoto Treaty been ratified our total society and economy would be subject to draconian United Nations regulations that would be devastating. Unfortunately it is a great likelihood that the newest version will probably be accepted now. LOST is also likely to become the law of our land and American independence on the high seas will be also “lost” as will our independent ability to explore and benefit from under sea deposits. The United Nations will be in control and American sovereignty will be diminished.

Although each of the international treaties avoided until now are important, few will have the far reaching affect on Americans as the “U.N. Treaty on Children’s Rights.” Behind this fine-sounding treaty lurks the most intrusive penetration of American ideals and lives and recasting the relationships between parents and their children. This is no exaggeration.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international convention committing signatories to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. All countries that ratify this international convention are bound by it by international law. Compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child which is composed of members from countries around the world. Once a year, the Committee submits a report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which also hears a statement from the CRC Chair, and the Assembly adopts a Resolution on the Rights of the Child. Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically to be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country.

The treaty obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities but acknowledges that children have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate and to have their privacy protected and requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.

Under the treaty the United States would be obligated to provide separate legal representation for a child in any judicial dispute concerning their care and requires that the child's viewpoint be heard in such cases. The treaty also forbids capital punishment for children.

Article 29 of the treaty limits the fundamental right of parents and others to educate children in private schools by requiring that all such schools support the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, including a list of specific values and ideals. This is in conflict with U.S Supreme Court decisions that a combination of parental rights and religious liberties provide a broader right of parents and private schools to control the values and curriculum of private education free from state or federal government interference.

Article 37 prohibits sentencing of juveniles to life imprisonment with no opportunity for parole. Laws in approximately 20 states conflict with this article. The 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons found juvenile execution unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment, but does not cover the question of life without possibility of parole.

Ratification of the UNCRC by the United States would require the U.S. government to appear before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a panel of child rights experts from around the world, every 5 years to explain their implementation of such issues as universal health insurance for all American children.

Among other provisions contrary to U.S. law are the participatory rights granted to children.

Article 12 states:

"Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child ... the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child."

The treaty, adopted by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, has been ratified by 193 countries. The United States and Somalia are the two countries that have not ratified it. Critics have declared national self-determination (national sovereignty) is at the heart of why the treaty should not be ratified.

As CNSNews.com reported, “This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation,” - Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Smith said that if Congress ratifies the treaty, it would give the United Nations authority to object to federal and state laws that it thinks violate the treaty and mandates Congress have the power to pass laws to make the country comply with its provisions – a fact even advocates of the treaty do not deny. Smith said further: "This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation".

Howard Davidson, Director of the American Bar Association Center for Children and the Law said “Every national government in the world, except the United States, has developed in response to the Convention of the Rights of the Child official detailed national reports on how children are fairing in their country.” This is supposed to make the country feel guilty if it does not do the same.

Austin Ruse is president of the conservative United Nations watchdog group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He has said that the treaty reflects a worldview that rejects the idea of sovereign nations. Ruse said “They no longer want independent nations deciding what to do, but good citizens in a new international order.”

The treaty contemplates that children have rights apart from their parents. It separates parents from their children because the rights of children are created that encroach upon the rights and responsibilities of the parents.

The United States has the best laws protecting children in the world. We do not need the radical members of the United Nations to decide for us how to protect children. By any account this is a power grab by globalists who want to exert global rule over national sovereignty. The most dangerous thing about the Treaty is that rather than building stronger families, it will damage relationships by giving children “rights” to question their parents’ decisions on a range of issues, including discipline, religious training and education.

President-elect Barack Obama expressed a willingness to consider sending the treaty to Congress for ratification during his campaign. “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” Obama said. “I will review this.”

True to their plans for United Nations domination, Meg Gardinier, acting chairwoman of the Campaign for the U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child said:

“We are very excited to think we are finally in a moment in time when the U.S. might very well join that ratification process and we can join the other 193 countries who are currently using this important rights treaty as a pivotal guide to improve the child’s survival, protection and development.”

Is this what you want for our country? If not, Americans need to be fully aware of the possibility the treaty will be ratified by the United States and mount a substantial effort to see that our country does not lose still more sovereignty by accepting United Nations’ dictate of the parent-child relationship.
Posted by Vincent G. Gioia at 3:00 PM

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Glenn Beck presents the Obama National Anthem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_...cle/198/19344/

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GLENN BECK: USA - Road to Socialism

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3_IG...e=channel_page

Here is one liberal that will be working for socialism

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3_IG...e=channel_page

Here is one liberal that will be working for socialism

You got that RIGHT! They need their masks uncovered NOW! Before the middle class evaporates and we find ourselves in workcamps.

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Bill O'Reilly lays out the "Far Lefts Agenda" using immigration to force America into Socialism

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NEWSWEEK Cover: We Are All Socialists Now

COVER


In the February 16 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands February 9), "We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas observe that the America of 2009 has become a more socialist country, and the shift began not under a Democrat but a Republican. Plus: how the United States is turning European; the draw of gangs in L.A.; the blackberry president; why Americans don't hate the rich; and an interview with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. (PRNewsFoto/NEWSWEEK)

Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas on Why "We Are All Socialists Now" "Can America Adopt a More European Model, Only With a Faster Rate of Growth?"

• Sunday February 8, 2009, 12:53 pm EST

• Yahoo! Buzz
• Print

NEW YORK, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- "Whether we want to admit it or not the America of 2009 is moving toward a modern European state," Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas write in an essay opening the February 16 Newsweek cover package, "We Are All Socialists Now" (on newsstands Monday, February 9). Meacham and Thomas write that the America of 2009 was moving toward a European social democracy, even before President Obama proposed the largest fiscal bill in American history. "If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world," they write.

PR Newswire - ...

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090208/NYSU002 )
Meacham and Thomas observe that this shift towards more government intervention in the economy began not under a Democrat but a Republican.

"The architect of this new era of big government? History has a sense of humor, for the man who laid the foundations for the world Obama now rules is George W. Bush, who moved to bail out the financial sector last autumn with $700 billion." The Obama administration is now caught in a paradox, having to borrow and spend to fix a crisis created by borrowing and spending. "Obama talks of the need for smart government. To get the balance between America and France right, the new president will need all the smarts he can summon," Meacham and Thomas write.

Also in the cover package, Europe Editor Michael Freedman reports on the extent to which the United States is turning European. When Obama said that it was time to get past stale arguments over whether government is big or small, he was echoing the eclectic philosophy of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and in endorsing the "Buy American" rules, members of the Obama administration were seconding the old French culture of "economic patriotism." "Until the financial crisis began last year, this kind of business bashing and protectionism was largely relegated to the far left, and it seemed axiomatic in the United States that the business of America was business," Freedman writes. "But with an urgency not seen since Ronald Reagan declared that government was in fact the problem, policymakers are now reconsidering the relationship between government and the private sector."

While it's impossible to know just what the day after the crisis will look like, the broad contours of the new economic world are becoming visible. "Now one of the big debates in the U.S. is how to bridge the gap between business and government in a way that avoids stagnation while still satisfying the intense demand for financial and social services. In other words, can America adopt a more European model, only with a faster rate of growth?" Freedman believes that if Obama can somehow forge a middle path that builds upon the best of the European safety net while also encouraging the dynamism and innovation that has helped the U.S. prosper, it will provide evidence that government can actually be a part of the solution.

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Sunday, February 08, 2009
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Communist: Obama looking
to nationalize U.S. economy
Claims 'people advocate president'
pushing through radical agenda

Posted: February 08, 2009
7:30 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily


Communist Party USA leader Sam Webb

President Obama is "considering" a radical agenda to nationalize the U.S. financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank, and private industries such as energy and other sectors whose future is "problematic" in private hands, claims the leader of the Communist Party USA.

In a major speech focused on Obama titled "Off and running: Opportunity of a lifetime," CPUSA leader Sam Webb also alleges Obama's administration is considering turning education, childcare, and health care into "no profit zones;" rerouting investment capital from military infrastructure to "green economy" projects and public infrastructure; and waging a "full scale" assault on global warming.

"We now have not simply a friend, but a people's advocate in the White House," declared Webb at a recent speech in Ohio for People's Weekly World Communist newspaper.

"An era of progressive change is within reach, no longer an idle dream. Just look at the new lay of the land: a friend of labor and its allies sits in the White House," Webb proclaimed.


He stated Obama and the "broad coalition that supports him will almost inevitably have to consider – and they already are – the following measures:

Public ownership of the financial system and the elimination of the shadow banking system and exotic derivatives.

Public control of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Counter-crisis spending of a bigger size and scope to invigorate and sustain a full recovery and meet human needs – something that the New Deal never accomplished.

Strengthening of union rights in order to rebalance the power between labor and capital in the economic and political arenas.

Trade agreements that have at their core the protection and advancement of international working class interests.

Equality in conditions of life for racially minorities and women.

Democratic public takeover of the energy complex as well as a readiness to consider the takeover of other basic industries whose future is problematic in private hands.

Turning education, child care, and health care into "no profit" zones.

Rerouting investment capital from unproductive investment (military, finance and so forth) to productive investment in a green economy and public infrastructure.

Changing direction of our nation's foreign policy toward cooperation, disarmament, and diplomacy. We can't have threats, guns and military occupations on the one hand and butter, democracy, goodwill, and peace on the other.

Full scale assault on global warming.

Serious and sustained commitment to assisting the developing countries that are locked in poverty and misery."

Webb lauded Obama's $800-plus billion so-called stimulus package as "a good bill that will ease the pain of this crisis, create jobs, and begin to reflate the economy."

He explained labor unions, which he said were instrumental in Obama's election, must work to keep the White House in check by "exercis[ing] an enormous influence on the political process. Never before has a coalition with such breadth walked on the political stage of our country," he said.

Indeed, in an article just after last November's election titled, "Special Interest or Class Consciousness? How Labor Put Obama in the White House," Political Affairs reported on polling data released that revealed the extent of union support for Obama.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, sponsored a poll showing union members supported Obama by a 68-30 margin and strongly influenced their family members.

According to the survey, Obama won among white men who are union members by 18 points. Union gun-owners backed Obama by 12 points, while union veterans voted for Obama by a 25-point margin. In the general population, Obama lost these groups by significant margins.

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Israel's perspective...

Our World: Obama's new world order and Israel

As we go to the polls today, the world around us is quickly changing in new and distressing ways. The challenges the international system will present the government we elect will be harsher, more complicated and more dangerous than the ones its predecessors have faced.

Bluntly stated, the world that will challenge the next government will be one characterized by the end of US global predominance. In just a few short weeks, the new administration of President Barack Obama has managed to weaken the perception of American power and embolden US adversaries throughout the world.

In the late stages of the presidential race, now Vice President Joseph Biden warned us that this would happen. In a speech before supporters he said, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama... [We're] gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy... They may emanate from the Middle East. They may emanate from the subcontinent. They may emanate from Russia's newly emboldened position."

As it happens, Biden's warning had two inaccuracies. Rather than six months, America's adversaries began testing Obama's mettle within weeks. And instead of one crisis from Russia, the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent, Obama has faced and failed to meet "generated crises" from all three.

TAKE RUSSIA for example. Since coming into office, Obama has repeatedly tried to build an alliance with the "newly emboldened" Russian bear. A week after entering office, he announced that he hoped to negotiate a nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia that would reduce the US's nuclear stockpiles by 80 percent. At a security conference in Munich last weekend, Biden stated that the administration wishes to push the "reset button" on its relationship with Russia and be friends.

Responding to these American signals, the Russians proceeded to humiliate Washington. Last week President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbak Bakiyev in Moscow. After their meeting the two announced that Russia will give the former Soviet republic $2 billion in loans and assistance and that Kyrgyzstan will close the US Air Force base at Manas which serves American forces in Afghanistan.

After cutting off one of the US's major supply routes for its forces in Afghanistan, Russia agreed to permit the US to resume its shipment of nonlethal military supplies for Afghanistan through Russian territory. Those shipments were suspended last summer by NATO in retaliation for Russia's invasion of Georgia. And now they are being resumed - on Moscow's terms. The US, for its part, couldn't be more grateful to Moscow for lending a helping hand.

THE US ITSELF WOULDN'T have found itself needing Russian supply lines had the situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan not deteriorated as it has in recent months. Much of the situation in Pakistan today is due to the Bush administration's incompetent bungling of US relations with the failed state. For years the US gave tens of billions of dollars to the military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf in turn used the money to build up Pakistan's military presence along the border with India, while allowing al-Qaida and the Taliban to relocate their headquarters in Pakistan after being ousted from Afghanistan by US forces.

Vigilant in maintaining his power, for years Musharraf repressed all voices calling for democratic transformation. For their part democrats in places like Pakistan's Supreme Court were not friends of the West. They did not oppose the Taliban and al-Qaida. Rather their enemies were Musharraf and the US which kept him in power.

Responding to a sudden urge to encourage the forces of democracy in Pakistan, while advocating their abandonment throughout the Arab world, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice compelled Musharraf first to resign as head of the Pakistani military - thus ending his control over the country's jihadist ISI intelligence services and over the pro-jihadist military. Then she forced him to accept open elections, which unsurprisingly, he lost.

The democrats who replaced him had absolutely no influence over either the ISI or the military and realized that their power and their very lives were in the Taliban's hands. Consequently, since Pakistan's elections last year, the new government has surrendered larger and larger areas of the country to the Taliban. Indeed, today the Taliban either directly control or are fighting for control over the majority of Pakistani territory. Moreover, the Taliban and al-Qaida have intensified their war in Afghanistan and are making significant gains in that country as well.

This would have been a difficult situation for the US to contend with no matter who replaced George W. Bush in the Oval Office. Unfortunately, due to Obama's stridently anti-Pakistani rhetoric throughout the campaign - rhetoric untethered to any coherent strategy for dealing with Pakistan - the Pakistanis no doubt felt the need to test his mettle as quickly as possible.

For his part, Obama gave them good reason to believe he could be intimidated. By letting it be known that he intended for his special envoy to the region Richard Holbrook's job to include responsibility for pressuring US ally India to reach a peace agreement with Pakistan over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir province in spite of clear proof that Pakistani intelligence was the mastermind of the December terror attacks in Mumbai, Obama showed that he was willing to defend Pakistan's "honor" and so accept its continued bad behavior.

LAST FRIDAY, the Pakistanis tested Obama. The Supreme Court freed Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove - A.Q. Khan - from the house arrest he had been under since his nuclear proliferation racket was exposed by the Libyans in 2004. Through his nuclear proliferation activities, Khan is not only the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal - but of North Korea's and Iran's as well.

Khan's release casts a dark shadow on Obama's plan to dismantle much of America's nuclear arsenal, because with him free, the prospect that Pakistan is back in the proliferation business becomes quite real. Already on Sunday Khan announced his plan to travel abroad immediately. For its part, the court in Islamabad specifically stated that Khan is free to resume his "scientific research."
Pakistan's open contempt for the US and its weakness in the face of the Taliban's takeover of the country has direct consequences for the US's mission in Afghanistan - and for its new dependence on Russia. This week the Taliban bombed a bridge on the Khyber Pass along the Pakistani border with Afghanistan that served as a supply line to US forces in Afghanistan. As US Brig.-Gen. James McConville stated in Kabul, the latest attack simply underlines how important it was for the US to resume its shipments through Russia.

MANY HAVE POINTED to Pakistan as an example of why Israel and the West have no reason to be concerned about Iran acquiring nuclear arms. To date, they claim, Pakistan has not used its nuclear arms, and indeed has been deterred by both India and the West from doing so.

While it is true that Pakistan has yet to use its nuclear arsenal, it is also true that since its initial nuclear test in 1998, Pakistan has twice brought the subcontinent to the brink of nuclear war. In both 1999 and 2002, Pakistan provoked India into a nuclear standoff.

Moreover, due to its nuclear arsenal, Pakistan successfully deterred the US from taking action against it after the September 11 attacks showed that al-Qaida and the Taliban owed their existence to Pakistan's ISI. Although Pakistan's government is not an Islamic revolutionary one like Iran's, the fact is that since it became a nuclear power, Pakistan has moved away from the West, not toward it. Indeed, its nuclear deterrent against India - and the West - has empowered and strengthened the jihadists and brought them ever closer to taking over the regime in a seamless power grab.

Far from arguing against preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the Pakistani precedent argues for taking every possible action to prevent Iran from acquiring them. After all, unlike the situation in Pakistan, Iran's regime is already controlled by jihadist revolutionaries. And like their counterparts in Pakistan, these forces will be strengthened, not weakened in the event that Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

Indeed, since Obama came into office waving an enormous olive branch in Teheran's direction, the regime has become more outspoken in its hostility toward the US. It has humiliated Washington by refusing visas to America's women's badminton team to play their Iranian counterparts. It has announced it will only agree to direct talks with Washington if it pulls US forces out of the Middle East, abandons Israel and does nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It has rudely blackballed US representatives who are Jewish, like House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman, at international conclaves. And it has announced that it will refuse to deal with Obama's suggested envoy to Iran, Dennis Ross, who is also a Jew. In all of its actions, Iran has gone out of its way to embarrass Obama and humiliate America. And Obama, for his part, has continued to embrace Teheran as his most sought-after negotiating partner.

MOVING AHEAD, the question of how our next government should handle America's apparent decision to turn its back on its traditional role as freedom's global defender becomes the most pressing concern. It is clear that we will need to embrace the burden of our own defense and stop expecting to receive much from our alliance with the US. But it is also clear that we will need a new strategy for dealing with the US itself.

In formulating that policy, the next government should draw lessons from fellow US-ally India. Once it became clear to the Indians that the Obama administration intended to treat them as the strategic and moral equivalent of Pakistan, they struck back hard. When the administration signaled that it would agree to Pakistan's assertion that its problems with the Taliban were linked to India's refusal to cede Jammu and Kashmir to Islamabad, New Delhi essentially told Washington to get lost.

In an interview on Indian television last week, ahead of Holbrook's first visit to the area this week, India's National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said that Obama would be "barking up the wrong tree" if he were to subscribe to such views. He added that India would be unwilling to discuss the issue of Jammu and Kashmir with Holbrook and so compelled Obama to remove the issue from Holbrook's portfolio.

At the same time, the Indian government released a dossier substantiating its claim that the December attacks on Mumbai were planned in jihadist terror training camps in Pakistan and enjoyed the support of the ISI. Moreover, in response to Khan's release from house arrest on Friday, India called for the international community to list Pakistan as a terror state.

In acting as it has, India has made two things clear to the Obama administration. First, it will not allow Washington to appease Pakistan at its expense. Second, it will do whatever it believes is necessary to secure its own interests both diplomatically and militarily.

A sound example for the next government to follow.

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The Socialist's Trojan Horse...
Jonah Goldberg on Glenn Beck Explaining the Socialist Agenda Behind the Stimulus Bill

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Star Parker on Glenn Beck - "Obama Will Bring us into Communism"

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MEDIA MATTERS
Rush: Democrats in full assault on capitalism
'They are destroying the engine that creates wealth, the private sector'

---

Posted: February 11, 2009
2:39 pm Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Rush Limbaugh

Talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh is blasting the so-called economic stimulus plan of President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress, calling it an assault on capitalism intentionally designed to harm the private sector and lead to bigger government.

"This is a full-fledged attack on capitalism, and the leftists Democrats have been seeking this for the longest time," Limbaugh said on his program this afternoon. "That's why they can't stop themselves. It is Christmas morning every day for these people. There's nobody that can stop them."

A question e-mailed to the host asked if the Democrats really understood that they're "destroying the source of the wealth that they want to redistribute."

Yes!" Limbaugh exclaimed. "These people are not uneducated and stupid. They know full well what they are doing. They are destroying the engine that creates wealth, the private sector, and they are turning it to the government."

"If people are just left alone, a recession cannot happen in and of itself," he explained. "The whole point of people engaging in commerce is growth."

Tell your government to stay away from censoring talk radio and manipulating news coverage: Sign WND's Petition to Block Congressional Attacks on Freedom of Speech and Press now!

Limbaugh said the economic downturn has not been caused by "the poor schlubs" in charge of banks, but rather "government spending, irresponsible orders from government to banks telling them they had to lend to people who had no business borrowing money."

"Recessions are caused by intervention, obstruction, you name it. If left alone, economies do not go into recession."

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The Peron pattern

America is heading down the road to socialism - and ruin.

Numerous proposals have been enacted to reverse the economic downturn. First, in the spring of 2008 came the $180 billion stimulus program. Then, the 2008 summer $345 billion housing bailout. This was followed by the 2008 fall $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Now, the House and Senate have passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus package. Hence, more than $2 trillion will have been spent in a futile attempt to revive the economy.

We are imposing upon our children and grandchildren the burdensome costs of our addiction to big government. And this doesn't even take into account Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan for the taxpayer to absorb another $2 trillion to $4 trillion in debt to clean up the financial system. In other words, America is being buried under a mountain of debt - a debt that will trigger soaring inflation, crushing taxes and high interest rates. This is a recipe for economic disaster.

President Obama is playing Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush's Herbert Hoover. In the 1930s, it was FDR who expanded his New Deal liberalism from the activist policies of Hoover. Mr. Obama is building upon the massive budget deficits and reckless government spending of the Bush administration. Unlike Mr. Bush, however, Mr. Obama is shrewdly erecting an enduring majority electoral coalition - just as FDR did.

The stimulus plan has something for every important Democratic special interest group - labor, the teachers unions, big-city bosses, environmentalists, Hispanics, and African-Americans. Key constituencies will benefit from school construction, infrastructure projects, public works, retooling federal buildings with green technologies, expanding Medicaid and unemployment insurance, and more money for strapped states and localities. The plan is primarily designed not to stimulate the economy, but the size and scope of government. More citizens will be dependent upon government largesse. This empowers the Democratic Party and its liberal elite.

As National Review's Jonah Goldberg has rightly noted, modern American liberalism is a form of fascism - otherwise known as national socialism.(Can anyone say NAZI?)

Its goal is to establish a centralized corporatist state, in which a ruling class manages to transfer power from the private to the public sector.

Liberalism champions huge entitlements, expensive social programs and the regimentation of nearly every aspect of people's lives - from smoking bans and university admissions policies, to prayer in schools and how much right-wing talk-radio one can listen to. It seeks to dominate not only politics and the economy, but culture and the arts as well.

Liberalism fuses statism with class-based populism. It is perpetually at war against some perceived national enemy, whether it be the "rich," conservative Republicans or traditional Christians. It designates an entire group of people - in America, it is unborn babies - as being less than fully human and lacking basic rights. It believes that politics, not religion, is the salvation of humanity. It constructs mass movements based on charismatic, messianic leaders, such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR, John F. Kennedy and Mr. Obama, bestowing upon them almost divine, saintly qualities. It is obsessed with using activist government in the service of social engineering. Since liberalism is consumed with power, it contains the seeds of its own destruction; it is the ideology of national suicide.

The disastrous path on which America is currently embarked was tried in another country - in the Western Hemisphere: Juan Peron's Argentina. During the 1940s until a 1955 coup ousted him from power, Peron presided over a fascist state.

What is not commonly known about Argentina is that prior to World War II, it was an economic powerhouse. Beginning in the 1880s and continuing through the 1920s and 1930s, it was regarded as one of the most prosperous and advanced nations in the world.

Argentina had a strong industrial base, thriving agricultural exports and a broad and expanding middle class. Like America, it served as a magnet for immigrants from all over the world, especially Italians. Within 15 years, however, Argentina went from being one of the richest to one of the poorest countries.

This was due largely to Peronist policies. Upon coming to office, Peron, along with his popular wife, Eva, established a corporatist state characterized by lavish social spending, elaborate welfare programs, protectionism, confiscatory taxation and runaway deficits.

Peron used strident class warfare rhetoric, attacking big business, the banks, corporations and the propertied class. He greatly strengthened labor unions, making them pivotal allies of his regime.

Peronism transformed the Argentine state. The bloated bureaucracy and massive government intervention fostered widespread corruption. Central economic planning destroyed productivity and growth. Investment capital fled. Inflation and interest rates soared. The middle class was wiped out. The independent judiciary was undermined and eventually smashed. The fawning media class became co-opted by Peron's allies. His -and Eva's - cult of personality fostered a climate of violence and political persecution of the regime's enemies. Argentina degenerated into the Latin American basket case that it is today.

The failure of Peronism should serve as a warning: Socialism and a sky-rocketing national debt can permanently impoverish even the wealthiest nations. America is not immune from the laws of economics. Prosperous republics - ancient Rome, the Italian city-states, Argentina - have seen their wealth squandered, never to recover.

Mr. Obama is taking the first dangerous steps toward an American version of Peronism. His followers see him as a political messiah, a revolutionary change agent who will foster national cohesion and unity. He and the Democrats are plundering the state, using it as a vehicle to reward supporters (and punish foes). He is our Dear Leader, whose image is everywhere from magazine covers to T-shirts to baseball caps. His wife, Michelle, is the Eva Peron of our time - glamorous, chic, a fashion trend-setter who is beloved by the media.

Most ominously, Mr. Obama is repeating the statist populism that didn't work in Argentina, and will not work in America. Professor Philip Jenkins wryly observes that the United States of America risks becoming "the United States of Argentina." He is right.

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

[vector7]

A generation of tax paid public schooling gets society here...

Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.

Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.

There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans - by an 11-to-1 margin - favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism. As for those not affiliated with either major political party, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.

The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism

It is interesting to compare the new results to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a “free-market economy” attracts substantially more support than “capitalism” may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.

Other survey data supports that notion. Rather than seeing large corporations as committed to free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe that big government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.

Fifteen percent (15%) of Americans say they prefer a government-managed economy, similar to the 20% support for socialism. Just 14% believe the federal government would do a better job running auto companies, and even fewer believe government would do a better job running financial firms.

Most Americans today hold views that can generally be defined as populist while only seven percent (7%) share the elitist views of the Political Class.

[vector7]

« TSA releases (censored) ID checking procedures

Today we’re all prisoners in the USA

As of today, June 1, 2009, even U.S. citizens are officially prisoners in the USA, or exiles barred from entering our own country without the government’s permission.

We are now forbidden by Federal regulations from leaving or entering the USA, anywhere, by any means — by air, by sea, or by land, to or from any other country or international waters or airspace — unless the government chooses to issue us a passport, passport card, or “enhanced” drivers license (any of which “travel documents” are now issued only with secretly and remotely-readable uniquely-numbered radio tracking beacons in the form of RFID transponder chips), or unless the Department of Homeland Security chooses to to exercise its standardless “discretion” to decide — in secret, with no way for us to know who is making the decision or on what basis — to issue a (one-time case-by-case) “waiver” of the new travel document requirements.

If you’re in the USA without such documents — even if you were born here, or are a foreigner who entered the USA legally without such documents (a Canadian, for example, who entered the USA by land yesterday when no such documents were yet required), or your document(s) have expired or have been lost or stolen — you are forbidden to leave the country unless and until you procure such a document, or unless and until the DHS gives you an exit permit in the form of a discretionary one-time waiver to leave the country — but not necessarily to come home, unless they again exercise their discretion to “grant” you another waiver.

If you are a U.S. citizen abroad without such a document (for example, if you entered Canada legally without it yesterday by land, when it wasn’t required, or again if your document(s) are expired, lost, or stolen) you are forbidden to come home unless and until you can procure a new document acceptable to the DHS, or unless and until the DHS gives you permission to come home in the form of a discretionary one-time waiver.

The DHS admits, at the top of its GetYouHome.gov propapganda website, that it might take “several weeks” to obtain such a document if you don’t have one already or if it expires or is lost or stolen. A temporary paper drivers license without a photo, or even a standard photo licnese or state ID, won’t suffice — only an extra-fee EDL with an RFID chip, which also takes several weeks to obtain in those few states that issue them at all. Backlogs for even “rush” passport issuance can be even longer, as we pointed out in our comments to the DHS. It doesn’t matter if your next-of-kin is dying in Canada or Mexico. (Suppose a relative gets sick or injured, and needs you there to make medical decisons or escort them home, but you were’t going on the trip with them, and don’t have a passport.) You can’t go unless the U.S. government approves your papers or approves a standardless discretionary “waiver” for you to leave the U.S. — which won’t guarantee that they’ll let you come back..

This is the final stage, effective June 1, 2009, of implementation of the so-called “Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative” (WHTI).
You don’t need us to tell you what’s wrong with this picture. But if you want it spelled out, you can read the comments here and here that we submitted to the DHS when they proposed the WHTI regulations imposing these ID and exit and entry permit requirments, first for airports and seaports and then for land border crossings.

We shouldn’t have needed to point out to the DHS that the WHTI travel document requirements are in flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the most important human rights treaties which the U.S. has signed and ratified. Article 12 of the ICCPR guarantees that, “Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own,” and “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.”

This article of the ICCPR has been interpreted by the U.N. Human Rights Committee (and by the U.S. when it has criticized other countries such as Cuba for their exit restrictions on their citizens) as making those rights near-absolute. The WHTI document rules are also in violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the NAFTA Implemdentation Act, by imposing a barrier to Canadians and Mexicans wishing to come to the U.S. to compete for business — the requirement for a passport or enhanced drivers license (EDL) — that doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens doing business within the U.S.

And that’s not to mention the incompatibility with the U.S. Constitution of these restrictions on travel, movement, and assembly.

DHS APIS regulations already require airlines to obtain individualized prior permission from the DHS before they allow anyone (even a U.S. citizen) to enter, leave or transit the U.S. by air, and the the Secure Flight scheme will require the same for domestic flights as soon as the travel industry can build the elaborate and expensive infrastructure needed for such a real-time travel surveillance and control program.

Meanwhile, the DHS is exapnding their assertion of similar and increasingly intrusive powers of search, seizure, interrogation, and above all surveillance (monitoring and logging) and control of travel and movement within the U.S. through warrantless, suspicionless checkpoints on roads that don’t cross any border and are up to 100 miles from coasts or borders, and at airports for passengers on domestic flights.

Previous court decisions upholding government discretion in whether or not to issue passoports has been premised on the assumption that passports were useful to facitlitate travel, but were not required for travel or for the exercise of any other rights. Those decisions will, obviously, need to be revisited in light of the fact that government-issued documents are now explicitly required as a condition of the exercise of those aspects of the right to travel — the right of anyone to leave the U.S., and the right of U.S. citizens to return to our own country — that are most explicitly guaranteed by international treaties to which the U.S. is a part, and which under the U.S. Constitution are “the supreme law of the land”.

The DHS is cleverly saying that at first they will only issue warnings and waivers, in most cases, to U.S. citizens seeking to enter or leave the U.S. without the newly-required travel documents. Presumably, they hope that the new ID and permission-based travel control regime will become a well-established fait accompli before anyone is able to bring a court challenge of a DHS decision to bar someone from leaving the U.S., or barring a U.S. citizen from entering the country.

[American Patriot]

Ummmm This guy that clueless? We have ALWAYS had to have a Passport to enter other countries. And to get back into the US you usually had to PROVE you were a citizen to begin with - and a passport was pretty much required.

[American Patriot]

Archived: Jan 29, 2007
http://uwmpost.com/article/51/17/175...-Mexico-Canada

Passports needed to re-enter U.S. by air from Mexico, Canada
By Kevin Lessmiller

With travel companies offering spring break packages affordable for college students, obtaining a passport is the next step in planning for a memorable vacation.

As of Tuesday, Jan. 23, all U.S. citizens are required to have a passport for re-entry into the United States from Mexico, Canada or any other place in the Western Hemisphere when traveling by airplane.

The new proposal, called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), comes from recommendation by the 9/11 Commission and is backed by the Department of State and Homeland Security.

According to the department’s Web site, as early as Jan. 1, 2008, citizens re-entering the United States by land or sea from other counties in the Western Hemisphere may be required to present a valid passport or other documents. That would include Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda.

In order to receive a passport, applicants must have two photographs of themselves, proof of U.S. citizenship, a birth certificate and a valid photo ID, such as a driver’s license.

A passport costs $67 for those 16 and older, and $52 for those younger than 16.

When applying for a passport for the first time, travelers must apply in person at one of 9,000 passport acceptance facilities in the United States. They must also apply in person if their previous passport has expired and was issued more than 15 years ago, or if the previous passport was issued when they were under 16.

But poor planning can be a typical problem encountered for people getting a passport in time for a vacation like spring break.

“You need to know exactly when you need it,” said Nick Cherubini, a clerk at the Milwaukee Main Post Office. “Some airlines won’t sell you tickets without a passport.”

And there can be problems if travelers wait until a few weeks prior to their vacation to apply for a passport.

“It usually takes about six to eight weeks, depending on the volume of applicants,” Cherubini said.

Anyone who has received a passport within the past 15 years and was older than 16 when it was issued can apply for renewal by mail. Passports are valid for 10 years. Passport renewal applicants can be downloaded from http://travel.state.gov.

If the passport has been altered or damaged, travelers must apply for renewal in person.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students, along with other Milwaukee residents, can apply for a passport at local post offices, including the Milwaukee Main Post Office, the Bay View Station Post Office, the North Shore Branch Post Office and the Juneau Station Post Office.

[American Patriot]

Mexico, Canada to U.S.? Passport Now Required


Stricter Passport Rules Go Into Effect at Border Crossings for Travel by Land June 1


By KIRIT RADIA and JASON RYAN
May 31, 2009




If you're planning to travel to Mexico or Canada next week, be prepared to show the proper identification.
Yolanda Limon fills a form for her daughter to request a U.S. passport at the post office Los...


Yolanda Limon fills a form for her daughter to request a U.S. passport at the post office Los Angeles in this May 28, 2009, file photo. Less than a month before the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it is ready for the June 1 date when all Canadian and American citizens entering the United States by land will be required to have passports or other enhanced driver's licenses.
(Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)



Starting Monday, the last implementation stage of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will go into effect, requiring travelers to present a passport or other valid travel document when entering the U.S. by land or sea.


The requirements were put into place by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. While parallel provisions for air travel went into effect in January 2007, this stage of implementation for land and sea travel was delayed because the government feared Americans were not adequately prepared.