Patriot Act Charade

Every single person inaugurated into elective office, all people who serve in the military, over six million of them,  swear to protect and defend the constitution.   It is a short document.  The very most important part of it personally, to you, and to me, is the Bill of Rights, without which the thirteen colonies would not have signed on to become the United States; not enough protection.   The most personal part of the Bill of Rights which are the first ten amendments to the constitution is the Fourth Amendment.   It protects You, a person.

The Fourth Amendment reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In short it means you and your stuff are free, unless there is a search warrant signed by a judge with particulars stating where, who and what is to be searched and seized.

That was regretfully obliterated by the ‘lone wolf ‘ provision of the patriot act. The enemy needs no affiliation.   That means is could be you, or me, anybody.

Sorry, they say.   There is no law, The world is a dangerous place and we are here to protect you…. but forget the fourth amendment and all the millions of Americans who swore to protect it, and those who died thinking they were protecting it.

I have been too morose to post this.   I guess you could call it denial, the first stage of grieving.     I have a good carpenter friend who just lost his house.  Oh, and his family.   He got securitized out of his mortgage after eleven years paying on it.  I  feel I am losing my country.  I made the vow as I entered the Navy to protect and defend the constitution.    So did President Obama and all congressmen and senators now serving.  I repeat myself because I cannot believe all these people do not honor their own word.

What nudged me out of my stupor was when Miss USA was driven to tears by the personal violation by a TSA airport frisker.   Flying home through Dallas she had the ‘freedom of choice’ to get radiation from a new high powered airport scanner that virtually undress you and gives an unhealthy dose of radiation, or to be molested by a female TSA frisk specialist.  But that is for another post.

The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act was prewritten when 9-11 happened and was passed with the hysteria of that very dramatic moment, quickly.  It was not deeply considered then, nor by the congress  when it sunsetted a decade later, conveinently, Osama bin Laden had just been killed and a huge trove of intelligence was captured, and what responsible congressman had the political counterwieght to say “Stop Everything, let us discusss the Forth Amendment and the Patriot act.”  Few, the two Oregon Senators  Wyden and Merkley and Udhall from Utah, but not enough.  So the Patriot Act was extended without discussion another four years, fourteen years after September 11th of 2001.      Meanwhile, the population, especially those who travel by air, become habituated to being frisked for….. being in the USA.

And that is the latest from yourconstitution.   Honored, in the breach.

As the US acts as a crazy sick-person. Now What?

If the United States were to be a person… who would it be?

My guess is a sick crazy-person.

Crazy, because our societal nerves do not work. The Press:
the Newspapers, who do the deep reporting, are dying because opinions are free on the internet, and folks don’t seem to miss the absence of fact in our public discourse. And people will not pay for what is already free.

The press is the equivalent to a person’s nervous system. How one knows oneself.
And what sickness would the society of the United States, if it were a person, have?

Well, we act anemic, blind, schizophrenic, depressed and way out of joint. Our nerves are shot and we are addicted to some drug called blackberry, iphone, ipod, texting, tweeting, sports or TV.

What does that mean?
anemic because there is no blood surging in our veins ( call it income)

blind: because we have no vision.

schizophrenic: because half of us believe the other half is nuts and absolutely devoid of common sense.

depressed: not only because we have no vision, but the pres. and the press are telling us everything is swell when we know it is not.

out of joint: because the left hand cannot coordinate with the right. Is global warming real or not? Is it stimulus or deficit reduction? We fight two wars which are absolutely important on the other side of the globe while the war near our border in Mexico is not.

So the question is…. how do you treat a sick crazy-person?

I would say that you treat the crazy part first, or he will not accept treatment. What is that? To fix the press.

What is wrong with the press? It’s funding model has been broken and does not work. Why? It used to be funded by the display advertising model, and Google outdated that with its intentional marketing model. It works better to sell stuff. No problem there. The problem is that no funding has emerged to replace the missing display model funds, and there is no money to pay reporters to investigate unknown stories and dredge up new facts. Thus all we have today is the pander press, as old stories and trivia recirculate.

What would fix this? Simple. A free people must liberate themselves from a pun. Instead of considering the “free press” in the gratis column, the same as “free beer”, the people would hold to the same standard as colonists held themselves during Ben Franklin’s time and realize that a free press meant liberty (not gratis) and must be funded by a free people to the tune of $30 a month (That is the current value of the $1.50 a month the colonists paid.)

So simple. One half of a family’s internet bill to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) would go to pay for content…. $30/month. And recipients of pay for content would reintroduce the fairness doctrine, that requires an airing opposing views, so that we give up our current pathology of talking past one another and believing with conviction that the other half of America is dumb as a stump. Democracy will not work in the context of a mutual castigation society.

It is said the majority of Americans today believe we should receive better services and yet, are unwilling to pay for them. In our current formulation, there is no cost for being incoherent. None.

The Republicans want to fund two wars, extend the Bush tax cuts, and yet are not willing to extend unemployment insurance when roughly 20% of Americans are out of work. People must wait until the ripe old age of 18 before they vote, seeming because we do not let children make decisions of state. Yet when adults act as infants, and produce entirely incoherent positions, what are we to do?

And this is not to exonerate the Democrats who are equally incoherent in their positions, for example they too support a war in Afghanistan, apparently to give voting rights there for women in a population that is 80% illiterate and who live in a forth century goat herding culture in profoundly mountainous terrain, when we are firing teachers in our home states because we cannot afford to pay them.

But all this refers back to the press not functioning, because it is not reliably funded, and thus is pandering for eyeballs and wishes not to offend.

The truth shall set us free. Are we each, willing to pay for it?
I contend it must become the ethic of a free people to fund a free press.

That’s what I think. Do you have a better idea?

As the US acts as a crazy sick-person. Now What?

If the United States were to be a person… who would it be?

My guess is a sick crazy-person.

Crazy, because our societal nerves do not work. The Press:

the Newspapers, who do the deep reporting, are dying because opinions are free on the internet, and folks don’t seem to miss the absence of fact in our public discourse. And people will not pay for what is already free.

The press is the equivalent to a person’s nervous system. How one knows oneself.

And what sickness would the society of the United States, if it were a person, have?

Well, we act anemic, blind, schizophrenic, depressed and way out of joint. Our nerves are shot and we are addicted to some drug called blackberry, iphone, ipod, texting, tweeting, sports or TV.

What does that mean?

anemic because there is no blood surging in our veins ( call it income)

blind: because we have no vision.

schizophrenic: because half of us believe the other half is nuts and absolutely devoid of common sense.

depressed: not only because we have no vision, but the pres. and the press are telling us everything is swell when we know it is not.

out of joint: because the left hand cannot coordinate with the right. Is global warming real or not? Is it stimulus or deficit reduction? We fight two wars which are absolutely important on the other side of the globe while the war near our border in Mexico is not.

So the question is…. how do you treat a sick crazy-person?

I would say that you treat the crazy part first, or he will not accept treatment. What is that? To fix the press.

What is wrong with the press? It’s funding model has been broken and does not work. Why? It used to be funded by the display advertising model, and Google outdated that with its intentional marketing model. It works better to sell stuff. No problem there. The problem is that no funding has emerged to replace the missing display model funds, and there is no money to pay reporters to investigate unknown stories and dredge up new facts. Thus all we have today is the pander press, as old stories and trivia recirculate.

What would fix this? Simple. A free people must liberate themselves from a pun. Instead of considering the “free press” in the gratis column, the same as “free beer”, the people would hold to the same standard as colonists held themselves during Ben Franklin’s time and realize that a free press meant liberty (not gratis) and must be funded by a free people to the tune of $30 a month (That is the current value of the $1.50 a month the colonists paid.)

So simple. One half of a family’s internet bill to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) would go to pay for content…. $30/month. And recipients of pay for content would reintroduce the fairness doctrine, that requires an airing opposing views, so that we give up our current pathology of talking past one another and believing with conviction that the other half of America is dumb as a stump. Democracy will not work in the context of a mutual castigation society.

It is said the majority of Americans today believe we should receive better services and yet, are unwilling to pay for them. In our current formulation, there is no cost for being incoherent. None.

The Republicans want to fund two wars, extend the Bush tax cuts, and yet are not willing to extend unemployment insurance when roughly 20% of Americans are out of work. People must wait until the ripe old age of 18 before they vote, seeming because we do not let children make decisions of state. Yet when adults act as infants, and produce entirely incoherent positions, what are we to do?

And this is not to exonerate the Democrats who are equally incoherent in their positions, for example they too support a war in Afghanistan, apparently to give voting rights there for women in a population that is 80% illiterate and who live in a forth century goat herding culture in profoundly mountainous terrain, when we are firing teachers in our home states because we cannot afford to pay them.

But all this refers back to the press not functioning, because it is not reliably funded, and thus is pandering for eyeballs and wishes not to offend.

The truth shall set us free. Are we each, willing to pay for it?

I contend it must become the ethic of a free people to fund a free press.

That’s what I think. Do you have a better idea?

Grieving ….

Fact 1.
Ted Glick will be charged in Washington DC with up to three years for displaying a banner in the US Senate building that said: ” Green Jobs Now” and “Get to Work”. He was petitioning the government for a redress of grievances, namely, its inattention to Global Warming.

Fact 2.
The US constitution states: Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (the full text of the First Amendment in which this is found in Exhibit A below)

Fact 3/
Most police work to enforce statutes, which are the laws that usher from the law of the land, the constitution. They are made by the legislature and in theory are in concert with it. Most lawyers argue statutes in court. Almost no one today refers to the constitution out of what some see as perverse custom, very different from the early days of our country. If you Know the constitution, and Know grammar well enough to abstract correctly what is written in Fact 2. above from the full text of the First Amendment below, and can state that to the police…. you have a very good case.

Question: Is the Constitution, which is written in clear English to be obeyed? If not, why not.

Exhibit A.
The full text of the first Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Liberty

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

– Emma Lazarus
New York City, 1883
(Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty)

July 4th 1789, The First Act

“Looking back we can recall that the very first act of the first Congress was a tariff, signed, sealed and delivered by George Washington, July 4, 1789. The great majority of that first Congress were farmers.  They lived close to the soil and they understood the physical economy.  No less than five Founding Fathers became presidents, while the Tariff of 1789 was anchored in the statue books.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

“George Washington spoke for the free people he led.  Their safety and interests required the nation to promote the manufacturing they needed for self-sufficiency, otherwise they would surrender their independence and sovereignty.   The suggestion that foreigners could provide military supplies was a reflection on the mental acuity of those holding such an opinion, according to Washington.

“John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, none found a bit of dissatisfaction with protection.  Indeed, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and presidents down the line to Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft agreed….”

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__ Charles Walter wrote this in 2003 in his introduction to his analysis of money, markets, banks and prosperity in America in his book:  “Unforgiven…. the American Economic system Sold for debt and war”.

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I believe what America was then, would be called an “emerging market” today.

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Imagine for a quick minute, if we charged a tariff on every gallon of oil imported onto this land of the United States, or for any oil used by our military equal to the value that is lost by its use: carbon injection, pollution, smog, spills, wars, accidents.

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While I had the good fortune to meet Charles Walter in 2008, about a year before his passing, I was tremendously impressed with his depth of understanding of the triad of economics, how money works, and prosperity.   You will note that in academia  Economics  and Finance and Small Business are separate majors.    It is just recently that I have had the chance to delve into his book: Unforgiven.   Charles Walter was the publisher and editor of Acres magazine,  www.acresusa.com   a publication concerned from the very early years with organic farming.

He was known for both his work in economics and agricultural economics, which as an academic may share with you, usually have their offices at opposite ends of the campus.

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Charles, like Thomas Jefferson and some of the Founders leaned toward the Physiocratic way of thinking.  It was a French creation that honored the production from the land and was good in that realm.   The French version was flawed in some other aspects, namely that they did not value manufacturing.  Some opine today that Capitalism too has its flaws.    Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations in 1776, which was after the revolutionaries had their tea party, and struck out to remove their colonial shackles, which, by the way were economic.

What relation do you think tariffs have with self-sufficiency, and do you think self-sufficiency  is important?