At least, I thought it was - I realize now we hadn’t hit insanity yet. Probably still haven’t, but this comes damn close.

First, there’s Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas.
This farce of a representative cares so much about her constituents that while one of them, a cancer patient, was asking her a pointed question regarding Obamacare, she thought it would be proper etiquette to take a phone call.

 

Perhaps it was Michael Jackson’s family calling to ask her if her congressional resolution to have Michael recognized by Congress as a humanitarian had gone through yet.

Then we have Representative Melissa Bean, who thinks that having a Town Hall and talking to constituents means each constituent has to pay $25 per seat and register a week in advance. Hello?
And no, this isn’t a fundraising effort. It clearly says on the event web page that it is a Town Hall.

Town Hall Breakfast meeting with Congresswoman Melissa Bean. Hear her positions on Healthcare, Railroads, Taxes and more. Questions and answers following. Multi-Chamber event.

Includes Full Breakfast. Advance registration required.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is putting Op-Eds in USA Today calling the people who don’t agree with Obamacare “un-American”.

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

No, Nancy, we’re not afraid of differing views - you are. That’s why you tried to get this bill rushed through before Congress went into recess - so that there couldn’t be any differing viewpoints offered or any feedback from the constituents solicited.

Then we’ve got Senator McCaskill giving the typical (false) talking points about the bill at her town meeting, and when the constituents started shouting out the actual facts (you know, because unlike her, they had actually read the bill) she comes back with a genuinely confused “I don’t understand this rudeness!”

I’ll let you in on a little secret, Senator… and all of you Congressional bureaucrats who seem puzzled by the attitudes and frustration of your constituents:
We’re angry and we’re frustrated because since the day you walked into your offices this Congressional session, you have repeatedly ignored the majorities of your constituents who clearly told you that we did not want more bailouts. We did not want the Cap and Trade bill. We did not want government to enter into a fascist relationship governing over the operations of our auto industry giants. We did not want Czars. We do not want a Supreme Court Justice who rules based on her “empathy” and her diverse racial background rather than blind justice and the facts. We do not want a government-run healthcare bill. We do not want multi-trillions of dollars being pumped into a failing fiat-backed economy that we will have to pay for in the future with higher inflation and higher taxes. We do not want any of the boondoggles that you have saddled this country with and we let you know it through millions of emails, letters, faxes, and phone calls… AND YOU ALL IGNORED US AND DID WHAT YOU WANTED ANYWAY!

Yes, we have a right to be upset. Yes, we have a right to confront you on these issues and speak our minds. Yes, we have a right to assemble peacefully and hold up signs communicating our frustration with the system and with you.

And yes, we have a right to vote your precious behinds out of office in 2010. If the country lasts that long. Which, given the hyperintensive speed with which you’ve all thrown us down the toilet, might be a longshot.

It suddenly occurred to me… “Hold up. What oath will this ’security force’ take?”
Will it be the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, that our Federal military must now take? The one that OathKeepers.Org is trying so hard to remind all veterans, active personnel, and law enforcement personnel to remember and honor?
The one that by its own very words, restricts the military and police forces from violating our rights?

Would this civilian “security force” that is “just as large, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our current military, be permitted to disarm us, because it did not take the same oath?
I was reminded of Hitler’s “brown shirts”. The youth that Hitler charmed, armed, and sent out to strip people of their rights.

Even the Canadians are worried about this.

Check out Michelle Obama’s quote on the graphic.

Even more unsettling is that the transcript of that speech does not include the line about the national security force, as WorldNetDaily reports.

Think this issue is done and over, that it was one slip in a speech a year ago? Think again.

America must also balance and integrate all elements of our national power.
We cannot continue to push the burden on to our military alone, nor leave
dormant any aspect of the full arsenal of American capability. And that’s
why my administration is committed to renewing diplomacy as a tool of
American power, and to developing our civilian national security
capabilities. This effort takes place within the walls of this university,
where civilians sit alongside soldiers in the classroom. And it must
continue out in the field, where American civilians can advance opportunity,
enhance governance and the rule of law, and attack the causes of war around
the world. We have to enlist our civilians in the same way that we enlist
those members of the armed services in understanding this broad mission that
we have.

That quote is from a speech Obama gave at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. on March 12 of 2009. Again he stresses the ‘civilian national security‘ and then goes on to say that this force would “enhance governance and the rule of law”.

Excuse me, but how exactly is a civilian group going to enhance governance? One civilian has no power over another, and cannot “govern” any other person unless elected into office.
How is a civilian group going to enhance “the rule of law”? Are they going to be deputized? Are they going to be encouraged to vigilantism? Just how can a civilian group do these things - unless they are armed and somehow given positions of authority?
And just how will this civilian group “attack the causes of war”? Just what are the “causes of war”? Are they the people being accused of suspected terrorism by Janet Napolitano’s “right-wing” Homeland Security document? Are they the over one million people on the “no-fly” list that are being stripped of their rights with no formal accusation, no trial? Children such as this 4 year old? Or this five year old who happens to be named Sam Adams? Or how about the armed federal air marshals who were hired by the gov’t to protect us on flights and are now on the no-fly list?

Just who and what are the “causes of war” that the President wants his “civilian national security force” to attack?

Our military branches have one major restriction: they are all bound by the Constitution and are released only with Congress’ permission. (Well, until Congress wailed and cried and tossed that power straight to the President in an unbelievable unconstitutional move during Bush’s term.)
A civilian force would have no such restrictions, and would report directly to the President. He alone would be able to give them marching orders, and Congress would be able to do nothing about it - because it would be a civilian, not a federal, “security force”.

Think about it, folks.
A civilian “security force” that is not bound by the Constitution, takes no oath to protect you or the Constitution, and is “just as large, just as well-funded” as all of our military branches put together.
This has been done before, with horrific results.

“Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it” - Einstein.

Here’s an idea.
Instead of stripping away law-abiding citizens’ rights due to a handful of criminal thugs, you encourage the law-abiding citizens to arm themselves?

Under the “Cash for Clunkers” program, the Federal Gov’t will give out vouchers of $3,500 or $4,500 (depending on the difference in MPG in your trade-in and the new vehicle you’re purchasing or leasing) towards the purchase of a new fuel-efficient car.

What will happen to the cars that are traded in?
They get shredded and crushed.

(2) DISPOSITION OF ELIGIBLE TRADE-IN VEHI2
CLES.—
3 (A) IN GENERAL.—For each eligible trade
4 in vehicle, the title of which is transferred to a
5 dealer under the Program, the dealer shall certify
6 to the Secretary, in such manner as the Sec
7 retary shall prescribe by rule, that the vehicle,
8 including the engine and drive train—
9 (i) will be crushed or shredded within
10 such period and in such manner as the Sec
11 retary prescribes, or will be transferred to
12 an entity that will ensure that the vehicle
13 will be crushed or shredded within such pe
14 riod and in such manner as the Secretary
15 prescribes; and
16 (ii) has not been, and will not be, sold,
17 leased, exchanged, or otherwise disposed of
18 for use as an automobile in the United
19 States or in any other country, or has been
20 or will be transferred, in such manner as
21 the Secretary prescribes, to an entity that
22 will ensure that the vehicle has not been,
23 and will not be, sold, leased, exchanged, or
24 otherwise disposed of for use as an auto-
1 mobile in the United States or in any other
2 country.

Not only that, the new vehicles that are sold or leased under this program, as well as those traded in, will have their VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) placed into a Federal database:

(1) DATABASE.—The Secretary shall maintain a
22 database of the vehicle identification numbers of all
23 new fuel efficient vehicles purchased or leased and all
24 eligible trade-in vehicles disposed of under the Pro
25 gram.

So now, not only do the cars get completely destroyed and are therefore unavailable for the public to purchase in the future, but the Federal gov’t has a database of all of the new vehicles purchased.

Better hang on to those old classic muscle cars. One day you’ll be Edgar Friendly driving an illegal fossil-fuel-guzzling vehicle, too.
(Props to the movie Demolition Man.)

Photo credit to Ambo333 on Flickr.

This bill took a mere five days to make it to the House floor for voting. Five days. There are bills that languish for years in the system, getting discarded at the end of each Congressional session and re-introduced in the next session in the hopes they might make it to the floor. Yet this bill took just five days before Nancy Pelosi forced it to the floor.

Pages were added to the bill all week long, culminating in a 1,200+ page bill on Friday with an additional 304 pages added to it at 3am Friday morning. Then the bill went to the House floor for debate and voting when the members of the House hadn’t even had time to read the 1,200 pages, much less the additional 304 pages tucked in at the last minute. Representatives such as Barton publicly called for the full bill to be present on the podium so that the Representatives could have the opportunity to read it - they were denied. Barton then asked for a 15-minute recess so that the full bill could be cobbled together with the 304 page amendment and placed on the podium - again, he was denied. In desperation, Representative Boehner from Ohio used his power as Minority Leader to take the time to skim through the 304 page addition and comment on things he found there. It took over an hour for him to give his remarks.

The bill was forced to a vote - and astonishingly, the Representatives participated in this farce and voted on it - without reading it.

The bill is being passed off as “good for the environment” and a cure for “global warming”. The truth of the matter is, this bill will reduce every state to the bankrupt equivalent of California, as well as reducing the common citizen (that’s you and me) to the level of paupers.

In this bill, there is a clause that states that before being permitted to put your home up for sale, you will be required to have a federal inspector come through your home and rate it for energy efficiency. Your insulation, your windows, your water usage (such as toilet tank capacity and shower head), your water heater, your electrical appliances - will all be graded according to current (at that time) energy restrictions. If they do not meet the current restrictions, you will be required to fix/replace anything that does not meet standards before you can put your house on the market. This might be as simple as buying a new $1,200 refrigerator that meets the current energy standards, or it might be as extreme as replacing your roof, replacing all of your insulation, putting in all new windows, replacing your water heater and all major appliances… each at skyrocketing costs.

The kicker? The “current” standards get more and more strict every year that the new law remains in place. Your house might pass energy standards this year, but next year they will barely scrape by. Three years from now you’ll be in direct violation of the energy standards.

The bill will also use tax dollars to subsidize (that means give money to) companies that manufacture products that meet the bill’s standards. Things such as the “shower nazi” - a shower head that severely cuts water flow to nearly nill after a set time. Take a look at the link. Would you seriously want to be covered in eye-stinging soap and shampoo and try to rinse off with that “reduced water flow”? That’s what the government will be paying companies to make and sell to us.

Common Sense Alert: What will happen to the companies that make products that do not adhere to these stringent standards?
Well, they won’t get extra federal money like the “shower nazi” company will. As the economy further tanks and taxes go up, these companies will find it increasingly harder and harder to stay in business. As consumers are forced to purchase these subsidized devices, the other companies will find their sales decreasing. Eventually, these companies will be forced out of business not by consumer choice, but by Governmental pressure, regulation, and paying off their “chosen” manufacturers.

This bill doesn’t just affect the consumer in this way (and sadly, this is just ONE issue present in the massive legislation) - it affects Government properties as well. Before a State can receive federal funding, it will have to make sure that all of its properties and all of the buildings on those properties are fully compliant with current restrictions. This is the same thing that California has done to itself - the state that is now officially bankrupt because it cannot come up with enough money to refit and replace all of its buildings to meet the “green standards” that it has set into place. Before your state will be given any federal money - such as funding for police, fire stations, schools - it will have to spend billions of dollars retrofitting all of the public properties, replacing toilets, installing water-restricting sinks in the bathrooms, replacing air/heating systems… money that the states do not have.

End result? State after state will fall into bankruptcy just as California has in their desperate attempts to meet the yearly-increasing green standards.

As I said, this is just ONE of the hundreds of mind-boggling changes that the Waxman-Markey bill enacts. Read it yourself. Keep in mind though, that you’ll need a good chunk of time to do so… this bill is longer than Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and not nearly as entertaining. The restrictions in this bill force energy restrictions that are equivalent to the year 1910 (1875 if you figure in population growth over the time span of the increasing restrictions). As the regulations get tougher year by year and more and more businesses are unable to meet them, these businesses will fail. Every business that fails is more jobs lost. Prior to the 304-page amendment being added at 3am, job loss predictions from this bill were at 2.5 million per year. Utility bills (your gas, electricity, etc) will rise 90% by 2035, says a study by the Heritage Foundation. If your summer electric bill is $200 now, it will be $380. Can you afford that? Will you be able to afford it once your employer is forced out of business by this increasingly harsh legislation? The average net income will be reduced by 57% over the bill’s span from 2010 to 2035 - can you afford that? Take into consideration the income reduction of more than half of what you have now, coupled with the near-doubling of utility bills. Just grab a pen and paper and work that out and you’ll see the kind of poverty this bill will force us all into… and that’s just scratching the surface.

It’s not just impartial entities such as the Heritage Foundation going through the bill and calculating these costs; even the Congressional Budget Office has stated that this bill will result in a tax increase of $827 billion just by 2019. That’s a direct $2,700 increase in your tax bill. That’s not even factoring in inflation! That’s not even considering that the CBO is not finished reading the bill and calculating everything!

This bill is the largest tax increase in history. The House of Representatives passed it without reading it. Will the Senate do so as well?

Call your Senator. Write your Senator. Tell them to vote NO on the cap and trade bill.
Because if it passes, god help us all.

“The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress
to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens
from keeping their own arms.”
–Samuel Adams

A timeline is in order here.

April 4, 2009: HSA - Rightwing Extremism
The nation is the unintended recipient of a Homeland Security bulletin outlining who the administration views as being suspected of terrorist activity, which you can download and view for yourself above.

April 29, 2009: H.R. 2159: “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009″.
H.R. 2159 is submitted, its stated purpose being “To increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.”

So first they define who a “suspected terrorist” is, and then they quietly introduce a bill to deny firearms to those “suspected terrorists”? Where is the presumption of innocence? Where is the Habeus Corpus?

Something to keep an eye on. Add it to your tracker on your GovTrack.us page.

Photo by AndreJenny of Flickr

I’ve been thinking about what I actually want to do here at SoundTheBell.
I have always considered myself a conservative of some sort - it just made sense to me. (Insert here people automatically closing their browsers and blowing me off as a right-wing extremist simply because I’ve mentioned the words “right” and “conservative”. Well, *waves* see ya.)

America was founded on Principles. The strong underlying theme of the Declaration of Independence is stated right in its name: Independence.
I don’t support you, you don’t support me. We’re independent of each other. We can interact with each other in any capacity that we wish to and initiate, but we are not bound to be dependent on each other for any reason whatsoever.

The Republicans, with all of their rhetoric, seemed to support that ever since I was mature enough to sit and listen through an entire speech without thinking that playing with my Star Wars toys would be a better investment of my time. The Democrats… well, they simply didn’t seem to support it at all. Probably the two most polarizing figures in that time were Presidents Reagan and Clinton. Take Reagan’s stance on smaller government, less taxes, and personal responsibility. Put it up against Clinton’s stance of “nationalized” health care (bigger government), “necessary” tax raises to pay for programs (more taxes), and our responsibility to help out everyone else - except, it seemed, ourselves (no personal responsibility). For a long time, the two parties seemed to be - seemed to be - separated on those basic issues.

In 2000 Al Gore scared the shit out of me with his talk of national ID cards and national health care. Moreso the ID cards. It was like hearing “Here’s your papers, ma’am”, or “Hold out your wrist so we can tattoo your number there”. As if our Social Security numbers aren’t bad enough, and being exploited and used against us for identification; let’s just get the pretences over with and slap everyone with a number for the explicit purpose of easier government tracking. The doors that this would have opened for the government to trample on our individual liberties literally shook me to the core.

That election was the last one that really strikes me as the two parties having a shining demarcation, where the Republicans held the line on our rights and personal responsibilities.

Fast forward to 2007, with Bush having taken opportunities to erode our liberties left and right, and both Obama and McCain jawing about how “we have to” do something about health care, gov’t programs, yadda yadda. Even when McCain was advocating lower taxes and smaller government, he was also advocating more governmental programs to solve this issue or another (that could be solved better with a healthy dose of personal responsibility and private sources, such as churches and non-profits). The two approaches he was advocating were polar opposites, and there was no way for them to meet. You cannot have smaller government and less taxes if you’re giving more funding to federal programs and even creating more federal programs to solve society’s woes. It takes more government employees to run those programs, and it takes taxes to pay those employees as well as pay for all of the overhead (office space, electricity, computers, etc) and varied expenses (flyers, pamphlets, advertising, etc) of running those programs. You can’t have them both.

I realized, during that (obsessively long) campaign… that I was afraid of both parties. They were saying the same things, just with different candy coatings to make the pill easier to swallow. Sarah Palin was the only bright moment between the two parties; her no-bullshit attitude and straight talking was a refreshing change and she actually spurred the two candidates into attempting to appear more “to the right”, which was really just thicker candy coating, unfortunately.

Enter Doctor Ron Paul.
Here was a fellow I could listen to and actually shake my head yes, instead of angrily throwing my hands up and screaming at the tv screen “No! No! Don’t you GET IT?” He got it. I didn’t agree with him on every point, but the majority of what he said “hit home” with me.

And then I got to consciously observe the media completely wipe out his candidacy with an alarming proficiency… by simply ignoring him.
He would appear at state rallies with other candidates. They would get sound bytes and air time - he wouldn’t. The newspapers would print paragraph after paragraph of what other candidates said… but the only mention that he was there would be his name stuck in the middle of all of the attendees. Radio shows were busy waving the red flag in front of the bull that is this country, going on for hours about Hillary’s hair or how her Presidency would actually be Bill’s third term, completely distracting the public from noticing that unassuming, gentle-spoken man who said simply that our liberties were being eaten away and we had been trained to forget what personal responsibility meant.

In the end, it came down to “the media sensation with less tarnish” versus “the most ‘centrist’ [ie:left-leaning] guy in the party that we could find”.
And both of them had their feet planted firmly on the left side of the aisle, regardless of what their labels said.
For years McCain had been hosting little radio clips “debating” Ted Kennedy on political issues. Kennedy would give his thick, left-leaning stance, and then McCain would begin his “rebuttal”. More often than not it began “I agree with Senator Kennedy…”
A wolf in sheep’s clothing, that one was.
Nevertheless, he got my vote. Damn him.

The truth is, we are in a two-party system. Oh sure, we have the freedom to sprout up any number of parties that we wish; but in the end the only ones that will be reported on and have information disseminated about them to the public are two parties: Democrats and Republicans. If any other parties are mentioned at all, it will either be an indifferent passing, or an all-out mockery.
I could not stand the thought of my vote going to either candidate, but knowing full well that voting for Ron Paul would be “throwing my vote away” and in effect strengthening the Democratic side, I felt forced to choose “the lesser of two evils”, and voted for McCain.

No more.

The Republican party hasn’t “left me behind”, as the media loves to say.
The entire government has left me behind.
It’s steaming down the rails full-bore towards an end that is diametrically opposed to what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stand for.
Some media pundits would say that I’ve “gone fringe” and simply moved further to the right.
Not so.

I have stayed the course.
Individual rights and responsibility. Freedom. The pursuit of happiness - my own version of it, as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else’s rights.
That’s what I’ve always believed in, it’s what I’ve always stood for.
I haven’t moved. I did waver once - I voted for Clinton in his first term, but that’s a long story and a large regret. Suffice to say there were a LOT of outside influences and I paid more attention to them than to my own common sense and reason.
Other than that, I’ve stood solid… and my government has left me behind. It left me behind generations ago; it just took me about 30 years to realize it.

So what I hope to do with SoundTheBell is to point out those areas where the government is purposely leaving behind its founding articles and principles, where it’s making incremental steps towards infringing further upon our rights, and to hopefully… sound the bell.

Wake up, boys! The redcoats are coming… and we the people voted them in.
Such fools we are.

No more.