I have nothing great to say for today, but my brother Mike did, so I’m posting a rant he sent me:
Since the Patriot act, the executive branch has been immune from public scrutiny. The executive branch has been trying for 200 years to find a word that would allow them to bypass the courts. They failed with “witch”, “Mormon”, “communist”, and “hacker”, but finally succeeded with “terrorist”. Now they can prosecute without a trial in the name of national security, and can legally gag anyone who tries to expose them for it. We have no idea to what extent they abuse this power. Politics is no longer a viable solution because this magic word allows them to bypass all checks and balances in the government. Even law-makers are unaware of what they are doing because they are exempt from ever disclosing it.
The very day the Patriot act passed, all these other infringements on personal liberties were inevitable, and greater infringements yet remain inevitable while it remains law. It does no good to point a finger at the executive branch and call them “evil”. They’re just doing their job. It is we, inhabitants of “the home of the brave”, who handed over our liberties so they would protect us from “terrorists”.
In our moment of panic, we headed down a one-way path that we are certain to regret. We will not retake those liberties without bloodshed. Yet, even that will not happen in the near future. The spirit of rebellion is all-but-dead among the spoiled children of the wealthy generations that followed the rebels of moral integrity who made this nation great. Modern-day Americans think they cannot live without paying $30/month for a cell-phone contract with a company that will stab them in the back at the first opportunity. They won’t even stop posting personal information on social networks. This generation deserves what it’s getting, and it deserves the greater humiliations that are yet to come.
There was a time when supporting the United States of America was implicitly supporting the good of the world. Those days are gone. When this empire falls, it will be a plague to the world as it tries to prop up its glory days at everyone else’s expense. Consider these signs that its demise has already begun: A fallen empire believes it has a right to greatness based on its blood lines. Copyright trolls now range over the whole earth claiming that everyone owes them rent for work they did years ago. The nation is in a tizzy about locking down our borders and ensuring that only natural-born-citizens receive of the bounty of this nation. We have protestors in every state representing the 99% of people with no economically-viable skills claiming that they deserve a comfortable life and a big salary too, and that the nation must provide it. The last act of any tyrant is to rob the treasury. Congress is inflating our currency, effectively taking money right out of our bank accounts, and using it to “bail-out” its friends. The nation is unjustifiably deep in debt, and continues to argue about whether or not it has an obligation to pay it off. It continues to make new promises that it cannot afford, even while it accuses people who paid social security taxes their whole lives of pulling down the nation with their attitude of “entitlement” for the benefits they purchased. While tetering on the brink of financial disaster, it behaves as though it has billions in excess to throw at these problem, and to fund wars with no justifiable basis.
Pledging allegiance to this centralized force of corruption is no longer an affirmation of support for freedom or bravery. Pledge your allegiance to something worthy of it–perhaps liberty itself–and prepare for the pending fight against the great power that will battle against liberty in the future