• Our economy cannot help but collapse at some point under the weight of a national debt over $12 trillion, or almost $40,000 for every man, woman, and child.  This number continues to increase at an average of $3.81 billion per day, and someday the Chinese will either quit investing in a losing proposition – or they’ll own it outright.
• Al Quaeda has won the war on terror.  You won’t see that headline on the nightly news, but you can read an excellent article on the subject by Fred Reed.  Granted, the man is more than a little crude, but he’s honest in pointing out that the goal of a terrorist is to terrorize.  On that point alone, they have won hands down. [HT to Jim.]

• So little is necessary to terrorize the world’s hyperpower. A free-lance dingaling secretes a bomb of sorts in his shoe, whereupon the US goes into convulsions and long lines of Americans stand comically barefoot in airports. Dingaling Two popularizes liquid explosives, and so Washington frenziedly confiscates toothpaste. Yes, the world’s hyperpower is afraid of Colgate, with fluoride. Dinglaling Three hides the infernal machine in his skivvies, so Obama makes Firm Pronouncements, and we will now have to undergo examination by panty scanners. Always, over and over, the terrorists have the iniative. The country reacts hugely and predictably.

• We routinely kill and maim innocent men, women, and children all over the world, and can’t even be bothered to keep a tally, because as General Tommy Franks said, “We don’t do body counts.”
• We have murdered over 50 million innocent, unborn babies in this country calling it choice, when in actuality it’s a result of the demand for freedom from the consequences of our personal actions.
• The Bill of Rights is swiss cheese.  We willingly submit to arbitrary searches at airports, train stations, and driving anywhere within 100 miles of an external border – which includes more than 2/3 of the population; we have politically-correct hate laws to prevent Christians from speaking the truth of scripture; our every electronic transmission from private phone calls to internet searches are arbitrarily monitored and sold to the government; we need “permits” to gather in protest of the latest government outrage;  habeus corpus and the Posse Comitatus Act have become quaint historical traditions; and the list goes on.
• Government officials at every level have run amok.  They ram every imaginable law down the throats of an unwilling populace; they defend bribery, blackmail, and coercion as normal political practice; and their personal, financial, and sexual “scandals” have become commonplace.

So how did this happen?  Why is America dying?

We can blame the public school system that is hell-bent on indoctrinating our children with feel-good, anything-goes secular humanism, but neglects the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the historical significance of these documents.

We can blame big business, who courts corrupt politicians to pass laws to give them an unfair advantage over the competition.

Or we can blame the power-hungry politicians, who care not about the people they are elected to represent, but only about their own positions.

Or … we can look a little deeper and recognize that the above are just symptoms of a much deeper problem, one that we have been warned about from the beginning:

… there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; George Washington, his first inaugural address, 1789

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams, speech to the military, 1798

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America . . . America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835, 1840

Above all, I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid. Grover Cleveland, Second Inaugural Address, 1893

We do not need more national development, we need more spiritual development. We do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. Calvin Coolidge, President 1923-1929

The basis of those ideals and principles is a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that, itself, is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted. Ronald Reagan, speech 1983

This sampling of wisdom is based, of course, on the Bible – that same Bible that is largely rejected or ignored in today’s America.  The latest evidence of this fact, and the one that prompted this post, comes from a recent Rasmussen poll.  These answers cannot come from Christians who put their faith in God.

National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters
Conducted December 30, 2009

By Rasmussen Reports

1*Some people say that there is a natural tension between protecting individual rights and national security. In the United States today, does our legal system worry too much about protecting individual rights, too much about protecting national security, or is the balance about right?

43% Legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights
17% Legal system worries too much about protecting national security
28% Balance is about right
12% Not sure

2* In light of the recent attempt to blow up an airliner as it was landing in Detroit, should the United States take full control of security measures at foreign airports so that anyone flying to the U.S. would have to go through U.S. security?

54% Yes
29% No
16% Not sure

3* Should the attempt to blow up the airliner be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act or by civilian authorities as a criminal act?

71% By the military as a terrorist act
22% By civilian authorities as a criminal act
7% Not sure

4* Should waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques be used to gain information from the suspected bomber?

58% Yes
30% No
12% Not sure

5* How do you rate the U.S. government’s response to the attempted airline bombing – excellent, good, fair or poor?

5% Excellent
29% Good
27% Fair
35% Poor
4% Not sure

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

Whether you agree or disagree with the majority, understand that these attitudes do not reflect Christianity.  They do not reflect the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.  And ultimately, God will give us what we ask for.

If you will fear the LORD and serve Him, and listen to His voice and not rebel against the command of the LORD, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God. If you will not listen to the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the command of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you, as it was against your fathers. (1 Samuel 12:14-15)

[Note: Last week, I was unable to continue my FFQF examination of the Declaration of Independence. I'm detouring this week, also, but hope to get back to it next week.]

That thus we have hastened through the reigns which preceded his majesty’s during which the violations of our rights were less alarming, because repeated at more distant intervals than that rapid and bold succession of injuries which is likely to distinguish the present from all other periods of American story. Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke of parliamentary thunder had involved us, before another more heavy, and more alarming, is fallen on us. Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, and pursued, unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 2 (Correspondence 1771-1779, Summary View, Declaration of Independence) > A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH AMERICA. SET FORTH IN SOME RESOLUTIONS > paragraph 141

According to a December 10, 2008 press release from the Highway Patrol, USMC Military Police participated in a joint task force with the County sheriff and state police to conduct a sobriety checkpoint on December 12, 2008. All in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits the military from participating in civilian law enforcement operations under most circumstances.

If we submit to this abuse without a wimper, then we’re gonna see jackboots every time we turn around … and we’ll have only ourselves to blame.

Thanks to Roadblock Revelations.

You remember the constitution, don’t you? It’s that dusty, historical document in Washington that used to rule our country. Presidents, present and future, don’t think alot of it, though. Here are a couple of their thoughts.

Bush, from a meeting in 2005 about the Patriot Act:

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Obama, from a radio interview in 2001 [emphasis added]:

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted. And one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways, we still suffer from that.

Hmmm … doesn’t look good for that old piece of parchment, folks.

The first thing that needs to be said is: mea culpa. I should have checked the good “doctor’s” claims before I posted, and I didn’t. Hopefully, this is a lesson I’ll only need to learn once.

The second thing is that Mike appears to be right. Fenderson’s article, among many other things, said this:

Executive Order 10995 allows Seizure of all communications media in the
United States.

I have another pathetic confession to make. I could not find my way through the maze of the Federal Register to find the actual text of this order. (If you can, please share!) So I found what appears to be the text here.

It was signed by John F. Kennedy on February 16, 1962 and titled “ASSIGNING TELECOMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS.” It establishes the position of “Director of Telecommunications Management” whose duties are as follows:

a) Coordinate telecommunications activities of the executive branch of the Government and be responsible for the formulation, after consultation with appropriate agencies, of overall policies and standards therefor. He shall promote and encourage the adoption of uniform policies and standards by agencies authorized to operate telecommunications systems. Agencies shall consult with the Director of Telecommunications Management in the development of policies and standards for the conduct of their telecommunications activities within the overall policies of the executive branch.

(b) Develop data with regard to United States Government frequency requirements.

(c) Encourage such research and development activities as he shall deem necessary and desirable for the attainment of the objectives set forth in section 6 below.

(d) Contract for studies and reports related to any aspect of his responsibilities.

To me, this sounds a lot like making sure the phones and radios in the White House work. It’s a far cry from “seizing all communcations media.”

Fie on you, “Dr. Fenderson.” You have destroyed your own credibility. I only pray that I have not done the same.

I just took a little tour around cyberspace to see who’s saying what about US Martial Law. There are literally thousands of posts about this, some from as far away as Pakistan. What I couldn’t help but notice, though, is that not even one of these articles was from a major news network.

So I went to each of the network sites, and searched their archives. I found articles about Bolivian martial law and Somalian martial law – and lots about the “debate” and lipstick – but not one about the military on US streets, the threats made to congress, or anything related.

Could it be that the government is controlling what the mainstream media talks about? In any event, I guess it’s up to the blogosphere to get the word out, at least until they shut us down. Naomi Wolf had an excellent contribution, so I will share part of it here.

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification:

“If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?”

“Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders.”

“But these orders are now legal?’”

“Correct.”

“If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?”

“Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken.”

“If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?”

“Nothing.”

“What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?“

“Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq — send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else.”

[Note: This post was amended on 10/8/08 while a referenced article by "Dr. P. Fenderson" is checked for accuracy. Stay tuned, and thanks to "Mike" for the heads-up.]

In the years leading up to WWII, many people reported on the ominous events occurring in Germany. They were largely ignored, or written off as lunatics.

Today, many are sounding the alarm that the United States is being prepared for martial law. We, too, will be ignored, or perhaps written off as survivalist conspiracy nuts. So be it. The alarm still needs to be sounded, for those who have ears to hear.

“Martial law?” you say. “That can’t happen here!”

1. This is America!
2. We have elections.
3. We have a constitution with checks and balances that prevent the military from taking over.

“Unfortunately, it can,” I reply.

1. This is America, but it’s not the same America that our founding fathers established. It’s not the same America that our ancestors fought and died for. It’s not the America that our children are still fighting and dying for.
2. We do have elections, but they are no longer free elections. The republican and democratic machines, that are essentially identical, have a stranglehold on our political process. Anyone outside the republicrat system can’t even get on the ballot, in most cases. In essence, we have a one-party system, just like Russia.
3. And our constitution – that grand old document designed to prevent excessive central control, to prevent any one individual from becoming a tyrant, designed to protect the life and liberty of the individual – has become null and void.

Yes – null and void, and we slept through the whole process.

Since I posted a few days ago that our military has illegally been assigned to active duty here in the United States, and that members of the House were threatened with martial law if they did not pass the Wall Street bailout package, I have found the following.

John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007: This bill authorizes the President to take over the National Guard. CQ.com relates that our governors and others protested this bill, to no avail:

“This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors,” said the Aug. 6 letter signed by every member of the National Governors Association, “and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors . . .to the federal government.”

“We urge you,” they said, “to drop provisions that would usurp governors’ authority over the National Guard during emergencies from the conference agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act.”

If you add this to the general erosion of civil liberties – eavesdropping and searching innocent people without provocation, suspension of habeas corpus by declaring whoever an “enemy combatant” – an ominous note is sounded.

Add to that the detention camps that have reportedly been built in every state in the country.

• Here’s a NY Times article from 2006 announcing that a subsidiary of Halliburton – yes, the very same company that mismanaged our money in Iraq and was led by Dick Cheney before he was VP – was awarded the contract to build these camps “to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.”

• Here’s one of the many lists available that show where these camps are located. Check it out to find the camp nearest you!

• For a sneak preview, check out this video.

There are many more articles – from Salon.com and The American Conservative and InfoWars – that all point to the same thing: our President has acquired powers well beyond those specified in the Constitution, and Congress appears unable, or unwilling, to reverse this process.

If you can’t imagine what martial law would look like, watch this video of our military “training” on the streets of America – and start praying.

On October 1st, Lew Rockwell picked up the story:

“The Army Times reports that the 3rd Infantry’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is returning from Iraq to defend the Homeland, as ‘an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.’”

See here for the complete story.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids this, unless by an Act of Congress.

The militarization of civilian police and civil defense activities is an extremely serious warning signal of dictatorship coming to America, along with the federalization of the National Guard.

With such pieces in place, a government transformation to dictatorship could happen at any time and happen very swiftly.

Civilians now have an incentive to ramp up their own weaponry and their own resistance skills to counter this kind of threat.

In addition, this sort of move encourages capital flight from the U.S. as well as the flight of people.

Yesterday, CNN posted an in-depth article about all this.

Today, I stumbled across the reason for this move. It seems that Washington really, really wanted the $700 billion bailout bill passed. In fact, they wanted it so bad that they threatened some House members with martial law, no idle threat now that the troops are at hand. Listen to Rep. Brad Sherman:

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. -Voltaire