How much will you take?

By Geoff Metcalf

Frederick Douglass once observed, “Find out just what people will
submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and
wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until
they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of
tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

What will the American people submit to?

  • Taxes: When the income tax was first proposed it was only for
    1 percent. One percent of the camel’s nose into the tent — the big lie
    of incrementalism.

  • Fractional banking and the Federal Reserve: The Ponzi schemes of
    the century — DESIGNED to fail.

  • The 17th Amendment: Separating U.S. Senators from the people they
    are supposed to represent “for the greater good”?

  • Gun control: People don’t need military weapons to hunt. Excuse
    me, the Second Amendment was designed not to grant a privilege, but to
    acknowledge an inalienable/God-given right! The Framers wanted the
    citizenry armed specifically so as to provide the means to overthrow a
    tyrannical government.

  • Smoking: Hey, smoking is bad. How about designated smoking
    sections in restaurants? Tell ya what, let’s ban smoking in
    restaurants and move it to just the bar area. Wait … smoke moves
    around … if you want to smoke, you’ll have to do it outside — unless
    you are in California, then you’ll have to smoke in Nevada.

  • Privacy: Gee, what have you got to hide? If you’re not doing
    anything wrong, it shouldn’t matter if your government knows everything
    and anything about you from cradle to grave? You can trust your
    government. The same government that sells classified nuclear secrets
    to enemies for campaign contributions.

  • National ID cards linked with some flavor of biometric
    identifier: First it was the corruption of the Social Security number
    into a national ID number; next they want a thumbprint or retinal scan.
    Eventually (if the incrementalism is unchecked) our grandchildren will
    be fitted with sub-dermal biochip implants.

What WILL the American people accept? Too damn much!

There was a recent story about a couple of bad guys that were caught
with the benefit of whiz-bang technology. An Altoona father-and-son
burglary team was arrested after investigators got some help from a
monitoring device that tracked their movements by satellite.

“Authorities obtained a search warrant to place the Global
Positioning System (GPS) monitoring device in the suspect’s car and then
matched his travels around Iowa with reported burglaries.”

There is a TV commercial bragging about a GPS system that can and
will call you if or when you have a breakdown. Cool! Someone somewhere
knows exactly where you are all the time. That can be very reassuring
and comforting. Unless the folks tracking you don’t have any respect
for your best interest or privacy.

Technology exists, and is in use — which permits someone you may not
want to — to have the power to shut off your car, find your exact
location, and more. A recent caller to my radio talk show reported of
an incident in which he drove a rental car from Nevada into Arizona for
some sightseeing. Moments after crossing the state line into Arizona, a
NEVADA police car pulled up to inquire if he was all right, and what was
he doing in Arizona? The police had been notified a Nevada rental car
had crossed a state border.

On board diagnostic systems in newer cars allow “someone” to render
the car inoperable. If you don’t make a child support payment, are late
on taxes, fail to respond to a summons, etc. your car can be rendered
inoperable.

Some will say “Good! Serves the deadbeat so-and-so right!” However,
what if the report is a clerical error? What if the bureaucrat making
the decision to stop your car is not using the tool as a champion of
justice, but (as Joe Farah and the Western Journalism Center discovered
about their IRS audit) the action was prompted by “political
motivation”?

Consider the potential for harassment. What if every Western
Journalism Center writer, every Congressional opponent, every
administration critic suddenly were rendered car-less. THAT might get
some attention even the mainstream co-conspirators couldn’t ignore.
However, what if not everyone was halted at the same time? What if
“bureaucratic oversights,” administrative “whoops” were to happen
randomly and periodically?

The key goal and objective of the tyrant is to CONTROL. Whether it
is gun control, smoker control, tax control, or control of the ability
to freely move.

In order for any tyrant to oppress a people, it is necessary to
control the crucial elements of their lives. Control of their money,
fuel, food and water, and freedom of movement accomplishes that. In
order to prevent them from rising up against a tyrannical government, it
is necessary to disarm the people.

Now before you sluff this off as the paranoid ramblings of another
radical right wing wacko, please take a moment to connect the dots.

Long ago the Army taught me to do a SWOT analysis in developing a
situation report. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities
and Threats. Here is your homework assignment: Do your own SWOT
analysis of our contemporary republic. What are our remaining
strengths? What are the potential opportunities? What are the current
and pending weaknesses? And lastly, list the current and potential
threats to the Constitution and Bill of Rights?

If you honestly and objectively complete the above assignment, you
can join the ranks of those that love their country, but distrust their
government.