Is it ever moral to desert?

My old friends know that I used to think like they do....so there is really nothing for me to consider when it comes to their view point...what grieves me is that (for the most part – I'm not going to lump all my friends together) they won't stop to examine or consider my point of view.   Maybe I have learned something that they haven't, maybe I can see a bigger picture they can't yet.  Maybe my eyes and heart are open to seeing that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. I'm not taking any credit. I know that only God opens eyes. Indeed it is a grave thing to be burdened by so much knowledge. The grief of knowing - the grief of others not seeing - it's all too much sometimes...

The photo that started it all.

We may never know the entire truth about this particular case (Sgt Bowe Bergdahl). The real issue it whether it's moral/just/right for someone to desert (break a contract) when they discover they have been lied to and are merely pawns/cannon fodder for the multi-national corporate interests/global elite. When they discover their mission is protecting poppy fields or territory for oil pipelines or rich mining resources. Or toppling a leader so a more “favorable one” (to US interests) can be installed.

22 suicides per day according to official records, 800,000 plus vets are homeless, how many can't live with themselves for the atrocities they committed or enable others to? Not to mention the fact that they are guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies! God only knows how many lives and families are ruined as a result.

When did it become “okay” for a “christian nation” and flag waving church goers to champion invasion, death, destruction, plundering, genocide even - all in the name of “patriotism” or rather “nationalism” (expansion/exceptionalism, imperialism)?

Take a look at the history of America from sources beyond the approved government texts. Look at the history from victims' narrative instead of the victor's. When you realize what the Fed Govt of these United States has done over and over again you will never again believe official sources, official news stories coming from the “ministry of truth” and their approved outlets of propaganda – fear mongering, war mongering, fanning the fires of hate, prejudice, distracting, dividing, creating enemies so they can justify and gain support for the latest invasion - annihilation - destruction. It's the same play book they've used for years.

Why do people still believe it? Keep falling for it?

Because if you tell a lie often enough it becomes “truth” - quoting Goebbels. Because if you control the mainstream news outlets and have agents as “journalists” you control what people see, think and “know” - because you can plant disinformation and set up kooks in alternative news outlets to discredit sources outside the mainstream propaganda. When the same corporations who report the news also profit from the perpetual “war on terror” you won't hear the real story. Why would they report something that harms their bottom line? I've read that all mainstream media is controlled by just SIX corporations. You won't get “fair and balanced” from any of them. Just slightly different flavors of left or right and an illusion of any real difference between them!

Because people for the most part are comfortable and don't want their ideas, their beliefs challenged. I know I didn't! It's too much to even consider – that most everything we've been told and learned is fiction or that our tax money pays for CIA covert ops, coups, regime change, assassinations, terror cells, false flags, plundering for the multinational corporations, which ALL result in BLOWBACK. 

The enemies are created for a reason...perpetual war, control of resources, depopulation and billions in profits for military industrial complex, oil companies, those in power, etc. etc.

Big Brother....more domestic spying on Americans coming down the pike???

House Passes CISPA in Surprise Vote; Opponents Will Continue to Fight in Senate (click for original post)

 Friday, 27 April 2012 11:20 By Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report

The House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in a surprise vote late Thursday despite a veto threat from the White House and opposition from civil liberties groups that say the bill undermines existing privacy law and would allow private companies to spy on American citizens.
The House passed CISPA by a vote of 248 to 168, with votes for and against coming in from both parties. A vote was expected on Friday, but the House came to a vote soon after debating the bill. The Senate will now consider the bill.
CISPA is designed to break down barriers between the government and private business and allow for open sharing of intelligence on cyber threats, such as foreign hackers. Big tech and web firms, including Facebook, AT&T and IBM, support CISPA and hope the government will provide them more information on cyber threats.
Civil liberties and Internet freedom groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU claim the bill goes too far and would allow private companies and the government to circumvent existing privacy laws that prevent domestic spying and allow big web firms to hand over private data and information, such as emails, to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. The ACLU and the EFF say they will continue to oppose the bill in the Senate.
"Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans' online privacy," said ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson. "As we've seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there's no going back."
Senior White House officials said Wednesday that President Obama would veto CISPA because the bill fails to protect personal privacy and does not do enough to protect the nation's core cyber infrastructure.
With online momentum leftover from the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), activists launched a massive Internet campaign to stop CISPA that included more than 100,000 Tweets to members of Congress and more than one million petition signatures.
"Hundreds of thousands of Internet users spoke out against this bill, and their numbers will only grow as we move this debate to the Senate," said EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman.
CISPA's opponents also claimed that the government could use personal information gathered by private companies to crackdown on citizens for a variety of offenses beyond cybersecurity, such as late taxes or immigration violations. Lawmakers recently worked with civil liberties groups, however, to pass amendments clarifying that the government can only use intelligence gathered under the act to address cybersecurity threats, threats to national security, threat of bodily harm to individuals and child pornography.
The House rejected additional amendments offered by Democrats and supported by CISPA opponents that would have prevented information from private citizens from landing in the hands of the National Security Administration, which was caught in 2006 working with AT&T to data mine Internet traffic and gather thousands of phone records from customers. 

This article is a Truthout original.

Tyrannical Power is Absolute.....

"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would
be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to
prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in
perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice,
provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a
government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only
arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and
supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their
principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property,
and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care
of thinking and all the trouble of living?"
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
[Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Alexis.de.Tocqueville.Quote.62D1

I am thinking about daytime curfews........

From a pragmatic stand point, yes, it could seem necessary, but from a liberty stand point, it's just moving us further from where we ought to be. The government will always come up with a "good reason" to limit our freedom. For safety, security, etc. But then we end up a LONG way from where we should be. And it happens little by little, unnoticed by most people. Frogs in the kettle.

We have truancy laws in place - there is no need for a daytime curfew. If the current laws aren't sufficient then that should be addressed.

If kids don't want to stay in school, then we should address the reasons for that.

Infringing upon parental responsibility will do nothing to encourage it.

In the Dallas city council meetings they were telling us, don't worry we won't bother your neighborhoods (meaning white neighborhoods), that's not the point. Then they said we won't bother homeschoolers, they can get an ID! That's the last thing we want!

Curfews only limit the freedom of law abiding people, those bent on committing crimes will continue to do so. They just change their working hours.

Studies have shown there is no conclusive evidence that curfews are effective.

Whether or not you mind being stopped and ID'd is not the issue. The right to freely travel and assemble is infringed upon when people are inconvenienced unnecessarily by the police. We are talking about basic unalienable rights.

No one should live in fear of being caught doing something that isn't a crime. We should feel free to go about our lives and not feel apprehensive when we see a patrol car or someone in uniform.

I for one don't appreciate being pulled over late at night so they can check on me and ask where I'm going and where I've been. That is none of their business. If I'm not committing a real crime or suspected of it, then they have no business to approach me or stop me or ask me anything. No matter what hour. Same goes for our youth. Especially young adults who could pass for children.

We don't think of curfews as a form of martial law, but that's really what it is. We don't think of where the easy acceptance of such policy can lead.

Our youth have the same basic unalienable rights we do.

Our country is becoming more and more over criminalized. Laws that aren't enforced teach us to disregard the law. Encroaching or unconstitutional rules teach us to disrespect the law and its agents.

Isn't this quote the truth?

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand

...Thanks to our media and many government officials, Americans have become conditioned to view the state as our protector and the solution to every problem. Whenever something terrible happens, especially when it becomes a national news story, people reflexively demand that government do something. This impulse almost always leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty. It is completely at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and rugged individualism.

Do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors? Do we really believe government can provide total security? ..... Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security?...

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons. Ron Paul

For liberty and justice for all,

Debbie McKee

www.lewrockwell.com

Hmmm...........

IT'S ALL FOR MY SECURITY

A satirical poem © June 16, 2008 by G. Edward Griffin
I woke up Sunday morning (Father's Day) with a silly limerick running through my head. It was a satirical comment on how Boobus Amricanus is so willing to give up liberty in return for the false hope of security against terrorism. I couldn't get it out of my head so, after dinner, I began to play with the words and eventually produced a first draft. Because satire often communicates an idea more forcefully than dull documentation and logical argument, I am publishing it to see if it has any such utility. I hope you will find it useful with your friends who don't yet get it.

IT'S ALL FOR MY SECURITY

It's more than mortal man can bear.
Those terrorists are everywhere:
on land and sea and in the air.
Network TV bill of fare
daily warns us to prepare
for bugs and bombs and poison air
and other things enough to scare
the bravest man to deep despair.

They hate our freedom so we're told,
our way of life so uncontrolled,
our rich, our poor, our young, our old.
I guess their hatred just takes hold
and burrows in and makes them bold
enough to kill and spend their gold
and set in motion plans untold
to get us ALL, or so we're told.

Seems strange to me they don't resent
the other guys who represent
a way of life with free consent
or those who are benevolent.
The only ones they seem intent
to devastate to great extent
are those whose aero-planes were sent
to bomb their homes with such torment.

Never mind, the war will stay.
We're going to fight this all the way.
But there's a price we have to pay
to keep the enemy at bay.
Let our leaders take away
our lives and liberty TODAY,
and then our fears will go away
that they'll be lost some future day.

My phone is tapped. My mail is read.
They know the thoughts inside my head.
The money I deposited
is now reported to the Fed.
They chip my hand, dispense my bread.
I think they watch me go to bed.
I don't object. I'm glad instead
to be controlled until I'm dead.

CHORUS
And so I very happily
let them take my liberty.
No matter what they do to me,
it's all for my security.
You see, you see, you see?
I'm just as glad as I can be
to let them take my liberty.
No matter what they do to me,
it's all for my security.