Secession?  Are you Nucking Futz?

 

Not that I would disagree with leaving the union, but to give your name to the White House as being someone that is ready to vote no confidence?  I think your name on a petition for secession will earn you a choice of Hellfire Missle from a drone, or possibly a reserved space on a FEMA train cattle car.

 



Man, oh man. It's been a long time since I decided to put text to web and talk about what's going on in my little head.
The election didn't go the way that I or 48million others would have liked, actually over 49million.  I voted for Gary Johnson, along with 1.32million other Americans. 

I'm curious, how many people out there understand that the Libertarian Party candidate received pretty much one vote per dollar spent? 

Mittens and Obama spent nearly $3Billion dollars on the 115 million votes they received. That's about $26 per vote.

You want to have government spend your money effectively? Vote Libertarian.

"My circus train pulls through the night;
Full of lions and trappeze artists.
I'm done with elephants and clowns;
I want to
run away and join the office."

Mike Doughty

once again expresses my absolute feeling.

Despair and The State - Jeffrey A. Tucker

Dear Reader,
Maybe a dark column is appropriate for tax day, but, I must tell you, it is not my usual way. Nonetheless, there are certain terrible realities in the world, preventable ones, that we must speak about if we expect to end them.
The sad and tragic story of Andrew Wordes -- the chicken farmer who was driven to despair by government harassment and killed himself last month -- continues to haunt me. And it turns out to be just one of millions of cases of similar psychological torment caused by government, directly and indirectly. These are wholly unnecessary events, inflicting terrible loss on the world.
For every one person who these days who dies fighting in U.S. wars around the world, 25 other soldiers kill themselves. Veterans are killing themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. There are than 6,500 veteran suicides every year. That's more than all the American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 10 years, according to a New York Times analysis. Being a veteran apparently doubles your risk of suicide.
Economic conditions wrought by government policies around the world have contributed to the death toll. Europe is undergoing an epidemic of suicide in countries seriously hurt by the downturn. In Greece, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24% since the disaster hit. In Ireland, male suicides have shot up more than 16%. In Italy, economic-motivated suicides have increased 52%.
The big aggregates reported here do not convey the level of tragedy experienced in the lives of every single individual here. They leave behind shattered families and wrecked communities. There is an unbearably sad story behind every single statistic.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same is happening in the U.S and that the broad trend follows economic prospects. The difference between the rising prosperity of a free market and economic desperation caused by government is really a matter of life and death. The desperation and sadness wrought by war -- an extension of domestic policy and carried out with much higher stakes -- is a symptom of the same problem.
These represent both direct and indirect ways that government is spreading misery around the world. The direct way involves war and its psychological effects. Being harassed by regulators is another direct way: The person sees no way out and is thereby driven to desperate measures. The indirect way results from the economic stagnation caused by government policies.
Life is hard enough on its own. Government makes it harder. Its recession-causing policies; its policy responses that do not work; its regulations that makes people crazy; its poverty-inducing taxes and inflation; and, most of all, its wars have driven millions to despair.
Why the state in particular? It all comes down to the sense of having control over your life. The essence of statecraft is the absence of choice and the inability to escape. Many operations of the state try to disguise these features.
Once you develop a nose for this, you see it everywhere. The faces of people in line at the DMV, the sauntering mass in line to be screened by the TSA and even the blank stares you see in the post office lines. There is something about state policy that demoralizes us all. That takes a toll on our health and our outlook on life and even leads to tragedy.
I think back to the old Soviet days, which to me typify what it means for a society to be entirely under state control. The government put out a magazine called Soviet Life, and it was filled with pictures of happy, healthy people who were living fulfilling and active lives. The contrast with reality couldn't have been more extreme. Emigrants told stories of a demoralized population turning to alcohol, drugs and suicide -- anything to escape the toxic combination of sinking living standards and the absence of choice due to despotism.
Today we know that the propaganda was a lie. What we fail to realize is that this human tragedy is not unique to a fully socialized society. We can get there in small steps by growing the state and expanding its reach year by year until it envelops us in all our life activities. We have to turn to the state ever more. We are blocked by barriers. Everywhere we go, we encounter bureaucrats who demand our papers, riffle through our belongings, forbid what we want to do and mandate what we do not want to.
Of course, soldiers in war face this reality every day. They are not their own persons. They must obey orders whether they make sense or not. They see things that no one should have to see and they are ordered to do things that no one should have to be forced to do. It is hardly surprising that people who go through such an ordeal have confused perspective on the value of human life.
To a lesser extent, citizens in every country with an interventionist state face an analogous situation. They may have a dream of starting or growing a business, but they are blocked -- not because of their own lack of vision, but because of the thicket erected by public policy. The state acts as a dream killer. It becomes all the more maddening when there is nothing that the citizen can do about it. There is no real choice.
Oh they tell us that in a democratic system, we can vote and that this is our choice. We have nothing to complain about. If we don't like the system, we can change it. But this is wholly illusory. The government completely owns the democratic system and administers it to generate the types of results that government wants. More and more people are catching on to this, which is why voter participation falls further in every election season.
The great thinkers of the libertarian tradition have always told us that freedom and the good life are absolutely inseparable. I think of Thomas Jefferson, Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Albert Jay Nock, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek and so many others. Even contemporary authors have addressed the theme. They had long warned that every step away from freedom would mean a diminution of the quality of life. We are seeing these prophecies come true.
Too often public policy debates take place on the wrong level. The core point is not to make the "system" work better or otherwise fine-tune the rules within a bureaucracy. We need to start talking about larger issues about the dignity of the human person, the moral status of freedom and the rights and liberties of the individual in society. The expansion of the state is not just wrong as a matter of "public policy"; it is wrong because it is dangerous to the good life and the quality of life.
To kill freedom is to kill the essence of what makes us human.
Jeffrey Tucker
  Executive Editor
  Laissez Faire Books
P.S. Write me anytime with thoughts or suggestions!
tucker@lfb.org
  LFB Facebook @laissezfairebooks; Personal Facebook @jeffrey.albert.tucker;
  Twitter @jeffreyatucker

Death By Regulation - by Jeffrey A. Tucker

I had previously heard nothing about the tragic and remarkable case of Andrew Wordes of Roswell, Ga., who set his house on fire and blew it and himself up as police arrived to evict him from his foreclosed-upon home. It was Agora’s 5 Min. Forecast that alerted me to the case, and this report remains one of not too many mentions in Google’s news feed.

So I got curious about this case, read some of the background, heard an interview with Andrew and read all the tributes at his memorial service and now I realize he was like all of us living under the despotism of our time. He resisted and resisted as long as he could. But rather than finally complying, he decided that a life that is not his own is not worth living.

It is a dramatic and deeply sad story that should raise alarms about the least-talked-about cost of a state-run society: the demoralization that sets in when we do not control our own lives. (I’m grateful to Glenn Horowitz for his careful reconstruction of the timeline of events.)

The whole ordeal began only a few years ago, when Wordes began to keep chickens in his backyard. His property was on 1 acre, but it was surrounded by secluded woods. He loved the birds, sold and gave away eggs to people and enjoyed showing kids the animals. He was also very good at this job, and being something of a free spirit, he chose to make something he loved his profession.
The city objected and came after him. In 2008, the zoning department issued a warning about the chickens on his property. This was odd because he was violating no ordinance at all; indeed, the code specifically approved chickens on properties of less than 2 acres. Even the mayor at the time objected to the department’s claim, but the department went ahead anyway. A year later, and with the assistance of former Gov. Roy Barnes, Wordes won in court!

But then look: The city council rewrote the law with no grandfather clause. It forbade more than six chickens on any lot, and specified that all chickens have to be in a permanent enclosure. He had tried to get approval for an enclosure, but because his house was on a flood plain, the city would not issue an approval. In the midst of this controversy, a flood did come to his house, and he had to use a Bobcat to move dirt around to save his house and his chickens.

Sure enough, the city then issued two citations for moving dirt without a permit and having illegal, unrestrained chickens. Then, the city refused to submit to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) his request for reconstruction funds after this storm (individuals on their own cannot get money of this sort). Next, the city contacted his mortgage holder, who was a friend and who had carried his mortgage for 16 years, and pressured her to sell the mortgage to stay out of legal trouble.
Do you get the sense from this that Mr. Wordes was being targeted? Absolutely. And he knew it, too. The Roswell Police Department pulled him over constantly and issued as many tickets as possible for whatever reason, tangling him in more difficulties. Police cars would wait in front of his house and follow him. And when he didn’t cough up enough money (he was nearly bankrupt after all this), they would book him and throw him in jail. This happened on several occasions. Meanwhile, the city itself filed several more suits against him.

It gets worse. The city planners came up with a “Roswell 2030 Plan” that posited a parks area exactly where his home was. Hearing of this, Wordes offered to sell his home to the city, but the city refused. They clearly planned to drive him out of it with this legal barrage. It didn’t matter that Wordes won every legal challenge or managed to get the suits thrown out in court — that only made the city angrier. Eventually, the city managed to a get probated sentence, setting up a tripwire that would eventually destroy his livelihood.

He posted on his Facebook account that he was going to be a attending a political event. While he was gone, his chickens were poisoned. Also poisoned were the baby turkeys, 10 of which were actually owned by the mayor, who was a friend. At this point, he had lost his means of support. While panicked about what to do, he missed a probation check-in. He was ordered to serve the remainder of his probated sentence in jail for 99 days.

While in jail, his home was ransacked and looted. Of course, the police did nothing. In fact, they probably approved it. Also while in jail, the new mortgage holder foreclosed on his home. His entire life was now in shambles.

The final episode came on March 26 this year. The police had come for the final eviction. Wordes locked himself in the house for several hours. He then came out and told all authorities to step far away from the house. He lit a match, and the gasoline he had doused all over the house created a gigantic explosion. Wordes’ own body was charred beyond recognition.

Maybe you think that Wordes was some sort of freak who couldn’t somehow adjust to normal life with neighbors. Well, it turns out that he was just about the greatest neighbor one could ever have. At his final service, person after person testified how he would come to anyone’s aid at a moment’s notice, how he fixed things and gave away eggs and was incredibly generous to everyone around him. I listened to an interview with him and found him extremely well-spoken and intelligent.

I tell you, if you can listen to this interview without tears welling up, you have no heart. This man was the heart and soul of what made this a great country. The law hounded and hounded him, mainly because some bureaucrats had made a plan that excluded his home. They carried out that plan. He became an enemy of the state. Demoralized and beaten down, he finally had no way out. He ended his life.

Note, too, that he had the support of the high-ranking members of the political class, including the current mayor and a former governor. Bear in mind what this signifies: The political class is not really running things. As I’ve written many times, the political class is only the veneer of the state; it is not the state itself. The state is the permanent bureaucratic structures, those untouched by elections. These institutions make up the real ruling apparatus of government.

It is hard to say that Wordes made the right decision. But it was a courageous one — at least I think it was. It is a difficult moral choice, isn’t it? When the police come to take all you have and are determined to cut out your heart and soul and reduce your life to nothing but a sack of bones and muscle, without the right to choose to do what you love — and you really see no way out — do you really have a life? Wordes decided no.

The rest of us need to think hard about this case, and perhaps you can also spare a few thoughts in memory of his good life, and even a prayer for his immortal soul. May we all long to live in a society in which such people can thrive and enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jeffrey Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is the publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, and the author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo and It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, among thousands of articles. Write him at tucker@lfb.org.

View articles by Jeffrey Tucker

CNN Enhances Zimmerman 911 Call Again — And Reporter Now Doubts Racial Slur Used

As reported in The Blaze - CNN manipulated the 911 call to make it sound like the Trayvon Martin shooting was racially motivated.  I'm sure it was at the direction of DOJ or even the White House.

Food Inflation or Fiat Currency Inflation?

As expected with ever expanding the volume of Fiat Currencies, like the Dollar, Euro and Yen, prices are rising on commodities very quickly.  Of course, as Reuters reports below, the reason for rising prices is blamed on other commodities instead of the money supply.
I believe that before anyone should be allowed to report on economics or inflationary results, they should be required to read Von Mises, Rothbard and Friedman, to name a few.

By Svetlana Kovalyova
MILAN, April 5 (Reuters) - World food prices are likely to rise for a third successive month in March, and could gain further beyond that, with expensive oil and chronically low stocks of some key grains putting food inflation firmly back on the economic agenda.
Food prices grabbed world policy makers' attention after hitting record highs in February 2011 and stoking protests connected to the Arab Spring wave of civil unrest in some north Africa and middle eastern countries.
Prices later receded, but an upturn which began in January, initally seen as a pause in the overall downtrend, has persisted.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will update its monthly Food Price Index on Thursday and the organisation says prices could rise more in the short and medium term as grain supply tightens and energy prices stay high.
"You can see prices in the near term rising even further," FAO's senior economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters ahead of the index update.
High crude oil prices have fuelled the upward pressure on inflation since the start of this year. Consumer prices in the 17 nations sharing the euro were up 2.6 percent in March from a year ago, despite stumbling economy.
"The food price index has an extremely high correlation to oil prices and with oil prices up it's going to be difficult for food prices not to follow suit," said Nick Higgins, commodity analyst at Rabobank International.
Energy prices affect the production of fertilizers as well as costs related to food distribution and farm machinery use.
"We really saw the (food index) declines in Q4 2011 as being anomalous and related more to sell offs from the threats posed by the European macroeconomic situation rather than agricultural fundamentals," he added.
The FAO index - which measures price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar - rose in February and January.
A U.S. government report last Friday with its lower than expected estimates of grain stocks and falls in soybean and wheat plantings, added to concerns about global grain supplies and fuelled a rally in U.S. and European grain futures.
Corn and soybeans are set to be the major drivers on world grain markets until new crops are harvested with strong price swings prompted by weather changes in major producing countries, Abbassian said.
More price volatility could come if U.S. farmers decide to plant more soybeans lured by high prices, he added.
U.S. soybean futures rose about 7 percent in March and gained about 17 percent in the first quarter of this year spurred by concerns about tight supplies as drought hit South America and smaller U.S. plantings were expected.
On the physical markets, whose prices FAO uses to calculate its food index, the average monthly price of U.S. soybeans jumped to $519.43 a tonne in March from $487.31 a tonne in February, the FAO's database showed.
But FAO's Abbassian said prices could still fall in the second half of this year with new crops easing market tension and driving full-year average prices below record levels of 2011.
The FAO is also expected to update its world crops view on Thursday

Just Not Sure Anymore

It seems that every day the news brings another story of yet one more of my personal liberties has been stolen. What do we do?

"Proponents of Gold Standard May Be Violent Extremists; Report ALL Suspicious Activity To the FBI"

From Mac Slavo of SHTFPlan
If you support returning the United States monetary system to sound money backed by the gold standard and believe that our country is bankrupt as a consequence of out-of-control spending and fiat money printing, then you may soon receive a visit from your local DHS/FBI office.

This morning your family, friends and neighbors were alerted by representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that you and those who share similar ideas as you are potentially dangerous extremists that could threaten the national security of the United States:

"Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.
    These extremists, sometimes known as "sovereign citizens," believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.
"The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.
    Source: Reuters

Whether you like it or not, if you promote the ownership of gold, reject the notion that forced taxation is your patriotic duty and prefer to live in a country with limited government interference, you have now been stereotyped and grouped in with the handful of criminals who have recently turned violent against law enforcement officials. And, chances are that those close to you, who may not necessarily share your views, have now been alerted to your volatile nature and potential for violence against local law enforcement officials and the free people of the United States.

"Routine encounters with police can turn violent "at the drop of a hat," said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI's counterterrorism division.
"'We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement,' he said.
"In May 2010, two West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers were shot and killed in an argument that developed after they pulled over a "sovereign citizen" in traffic.
 Last year, an extremist in Texas opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. The officer was not hit."

The narrative is clear: If you share the same ideas as someone who has made a personal choice to turn to violence in the past, then you too must be an equal threat. Furthermore, the FBI is actively instructing businesses in your local area to be on the look-out for suspicious activity which may be precursors to anti-government activities.
In a related story from Infowars, Paul Watson reports that  FBI advisory aimed at Internet Cafe owners instructs businesses to report people who regularly use cash to pay for their coffee as potential terrorists.

"The flyer, issued under the FBI's Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program, lists examples of "suspicious activity" and then encourages businesses to gather information about individuals and report them to the authorities.
...
"Indeed, the flyer aimed at Internet Cafe owners characterizes customers who "always pay cash" as potential terrorists.
"Of course, the vast majority of people who visit Internet Cafes use cash to pay their bill. Who uses a credit card to buy a $2 dollar cup of coffee? A lot of smaller establishments don't even accept credit cards for amounts less than $10 dollars.
"Other examples of suspicious behavior include using a "residential based Internet provider" such as AOL or Comcast, the use of "anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address" (these are routinely used by mobile web users to bypass public Internet filters), "Suspicious communications using VOIP," and "Preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attack" (this would apply to the vast majority of people who work in the news or political blogging industry)."
Source: Info Wars
    Also See: FBI CAT - Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Internet Café

In a coincidental stroke of good luck and timing for the national security apparatus of the United States, the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allows for the rounding up and detainment of  of these potential extremists without charge or trial, because the last thing we need is for courts, juries, and evidence to be involved in ensuring the security of American citizens.
Be warned fellow Americans. No one will be immune to the violative laws, policies and regulations of the police state which is quickly and forcefully embedding itself into all aspects of American life and culture.
In the new America, every man, woman and child is a suspect, person-of-interest and potential terrorist.
--Mac Slavo,
SHTFPlan.com

Stefan Moleneux and Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is, by far, one of my all time favorite writers. He combines a unique southern wit with a permanently optimistic free market libertarianism that make everyone want to go out and buy a smart phone that can connect with the world, while eating home made ice cream, just before getting into a really hot, hi flow shower!
I had the fortune to book Jeffrey Tucker to speak at the Libertarian Party of Georgia 2012 State Convention, Feb 25th.
I also had the luck to secure an address to our group by Stefan Moleneux. After booking both of these fine gentlemen to take part in the liberty movement of Georgia, I ran across an incredible gem. Stefan Moleneux reading Jeffrey Tucker's "It's a Jetson's World..."
I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to have both of these men participating in our convention.  Jeffrey Tucker says of Stefan, "He is one of the top three intellectual Libertarians of our generation, along with Hoppe and Kinsella"
I have to admit, I thought he was going to say "along with Lawrence W. Reed and Jeffrey Tucker"....

If the TSA will detain a US Senator, what will they do to you?

On Monday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul was detained by the TSA for about two hours at an airport in Nashville. By doing so, TSA officials directly violated the U.S. Constitution and they demonstrated once again why the rest of the world is coming to regard us as a bunch of disgusting, arrogant "pig people". Do we really want to get such a bad reputation that virtually nobody will ever want to visit this country? We are going to absolutely destroy our tourism industry with this nonsense. Yes, we all want to fly safely, but other countries get the job done without their security officials running around acting like a bunch of Nazi prison guards. The TSA should be shut down, but if Congress wants it to continue to exist it should be given a dual mandate. It should be directed to protect the dignity of the American people first, and the safety of the American people second. If those running the TSA don't believe that this is possible, then they should be immediately replaced, because there are a whole lot of good people out there that could get the job done. Right now, TSA officials are treating American citizens like they aren't even human. The truth is that Rand Paul got off easy compared to what has happened to many other Americans. As I have written about previously, some elderly Americans have been strip-searched, some have had their adult diapers removed, and some have even been left covered in urine by invasive TSA searches. If the TSA will treat Senator Rand Paul like a scumbag, and if they will brutally strip-search elderly women, than what do you think they are going to do to you when the time comes?

I don't know about you, but I did not sign up to live in North Korea.

I signed up to live in America.

But the country we are living in does not look much like America anymore.

It is as if the U.S. Constitution does not even matter anymore.

When TSA thugs detained Senator Rand Paul, they directly violated the U.S. Constitution, and nobody in the mainstream media seems upset by this.

Fortunately, many in the alternative media have taken note of this constitutional violation. The following is from an article by Steve Watson....

The Constitution specifically protects federal lawmakers from being detained while en route to Washington DC.

Article I, Section 6 states:

“The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same….”

Rand Paul was travelling from his home in Louisville to attend a session in the Senate today.

The TSA is publicly saying that "normal procedure" was followed during the episode involving Senator Rand Paul. He was detained in a small cubicle for approximately two hours after he inadvertently set off a scanner alarm.

A Daily Caller article described what happened to Senator Paul when he attempted to leave the cubicle that he was being held in....

“I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle!’ So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

That is how TSA agents are trained to behave. They are trained to bark orders at us. It doesn't even matter if you are a U.S Senator apparently.

TSA agents on the scene wanted to subject Senator Paul to an "enhanced pat-down" during which his genitals would be touched. Understandably, Senator Paul did not want to submit to such a humiliating inspection....

“For an hour and a half, they said ‘absolutely, I would have to [accept a pat-down],’” Paul said. “And, because I used my cell phone, they told me I would have to do a full body pat down because you’re not allowed to use your cell phone when you’re being detained.”

Thankfully, Senator Paul was eventually allowed to go back through the original scanner and it did not beep the second time through.

Other travelers have not been treated so nicely.

When informed about this incident, the Obama administration was quick to defend the TSA.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the following about the incident....

"I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe."

Of course that is a bunch of nonsense. Dozens of other countries have a far better air security record than we do and yet they do not subject their citizens to this kind of abuse.

Rand Paul's father, presidential candidate Ron Paul, issued a statement which strongly condemned the actions of the TSA....

"The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe."

Hopefully this will become a major issue during the race for the Republican nomination.

Instead of spending all of our time discussing Mitt Romney's taxes or Newt Gingrich's "skeletons", we should be spending a lot more time talking about how the United States of America is rapidly being transformed into a totalitarian police state.

It is absolutely disgusting what some Americans are being forced to endure just to get on a flight.

During a Congressional hearing in 2011, Senator Paul expressed outrage over the fact that TSA agents are feeling up the private areas of little girls in the name of "national security"....

"You’ve gone overboard and you’re missing the boat on terrorism because you’re doing these invasive searches on six-year-old girls."

And you know what?

What the federal government does sets an example for the rest of the nation.

Over in Stark County Ohio a couple of years ago, it was documented that police strip-searched female suspects until they were fully naked, recorded them on video and then left them naked in their cells for up to six hours.

Of course all of that was done in the name of "keeping us safe", right?

Some example we are setting for the rest of the world, eh?

Our country is going downhill so fast that it is hard to find words to describe it.

A lot of us are not flying anymore because we don't want the TSA examining our private parts, but now the TSA is bringing its own special brand of "security" to thousands of other locations across the United States as the Los Angeles Times recently detailed....

The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

"We are not the Airport Security Administration," said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. "We take that transportation part seriously."

The TSA's 25 "viper" teams – for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response – have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

Who ever thought that we would see the day when "VIPER teams" were running around all over America setting up internal security checkpoints?

Even if you just sit home all day there is still a good chance that you will get the attention of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is now diligently watching the Internet.

According to a recent Fox News article, the Department of Homeland Security has decided that it is important for them to keep an eye on "forums, blogs, public websites and message boards"....

Though still in development, DHS is looking to establish a system for monitoring "forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The idea is to gather and analyze publicly available information, and then use that information to help officials respond to disasters and other situations.

In case you were wondering, yes, they will probably read this article. Hopefully it will shame some of them into cleaning up their acts.

This country is being run by a bunch of psychotic control freaks that are obsessed with watching, monitoring, tracking and controlling virtually everything that we do.

Sadly, most Americans have bought into the lie that unless they give up huge chunks of liberty and freedom none of us will be safe.

But when we give these un-American control freaks an inch, they just keep trying to take a mile.

With our children, they are starting very early. As I have written about previously, most of our public schools are being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps. Millions upon millions of Americans children are being trained to be good little slaves and most parents have no idea what is going on.

America is supposed to be about freedom and liberty.

It is supposed to be a place where we don't have control freaks on our backs 24 hours a day.

But instead we are becoming the exact opposite of what America is supposed to be.

No matter how much liberty and freedom we give up, the world is always going to be a very dangerous place.

In the future, there are undoubtedly going to be some very bad things that happen in our world.

But having TSA thugs touch the private parts of our women and our children is not going to prevent any of it from happening.

Instead of being an example for the rest of the world, we are becoming a bad joke.

Please wake up America.

Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.

Ron Paul Is The Man For Our Time