Friday, May 17, 2013

You Might Be Living Under Tyranny If... Part II

In Wednesday’s post we covered three scandals in the news right now revealing the tyrants running our federal government. I hadn’t planned on a part II, but there is some follow-up information on these scandals, as well as a couple of additional issues exemplifying the tyrannist attitude.


Romeike Family Update
You might be living under tyranny if the administration makes arbitrary decisions about who can be allowed to enter the country, regardless of the law or natural rights.
We talked about the Romeike family from Germany (recently on March 22 and earlier in October 2011), here in the US legally since 2008, based on seeking asylum when their native Germany severely fined and threatened the parents with jail time and loss of custody of their children. In 2010 a US circuit judge granted their asylum, along with a strong statement about parents having a right to make decisions like education and religion for their own children. Out of the blue (no apparent request from Germany), the DOJ insists on overturning the ruling and kicking this law-abiding family out of the country. Why? To declare to the American people and the world that there is no inherent right to parent your own children; government reserves the “right” to impose its decisions on parents and their children.
This should be an easy win for the family, as it had been the first time. But this week the ruling came out against the Romeikes; they lose their right to be in the US, because the judicial system has decided the threat of losing their right to parent and maintain custody of their children is not sufficient to gain asylum. To paraphrase, "We can’t go willy-nilly granting asylum to people just because they could lose their family and their freedom from imprisonment; bad stuff happens all over. We don’t want to encourage people to come here for freedom, or we’d get some kind of unmanageable influx."
Meanwhile, if someone comes here illegally, because economic conditions are inferior where they come from (or not), even if they commit a crime, the DOJ feels so strongly that they should be allowed to stay that it sues states (Arizona, for example) for any effort to protect its own borders.
The road hasn’t ended quite yet for the Romeikes. There are still a couple of levels of appeal. And then, if all continues to go against them, I hope they will be allowed to find another less tyrannical country that will accept them, rather than be turned over to the oppression facing them in Germany. 

Sibelius Obamacare Overreach
You might be living under tyranny if the government tries to control your health care decisions. The IRS, already proven untrustworthy, is put in charge of health care financing. (Note: a single judge decided the government had the right to force Americans to buy health insurance if you called it a tax, even though the monstrous bill passed by the slimmest of margins, following various shenanigans, only because of the insistence it was not a tax.) If things weren’t bad enough, the IRS happened to seize some 60 million personal health records.
Further, you’ve got the head of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, pressuring health care industry providers, over which she has oversight, to do her bidding to recruit participation in Obamacare. This does not convince anyone of the intention to provide more and better health care at lower, fairer prices. Prices might actually be 100%-400% higher than predicted.  

Targeting for Political Reasons
You already know you’re living under tyranny when you’re a target for being a patriot. Targeting of organizations because of their pro-Constitution (and therefore presumably anti-regime) beliefs, is bigger than the IRS policy of tagging organizations applying for 501(c)4 status. Individuals have been targeted for IRS audit as well. And corporations have also been targeted—being forced to publicly announce any of their political or issue-related donations. The purpose here is the chilling of First Amendment freedom to express ideas.

I wanted to point out that 501(c)4 status implies that there will be political and issue advocacy purposes, including lobbying related to the organization’s mission. Donations to such an organization are not tax deductible. The advantage is only to the organization; it has a cultural, social, or educational benefit and purpose rather than making a profit, and therefore it does not have to pay taxes on money going through the organization. This is the kind of organization Obama spent his career years creating. So he knows what they can accomplish—and that is why he wants to ensure that those he considers ideological enemies are prevented from succeeding in their missions.
screen shot from Glenn Beck's 5-15-2013 show
Glenn Beck sought input to name the combination of scandals. His news people will start saying “Intimigate,” but for his purposes, he is changing the spelling to “IntimOgate,” with the O being the Obama logo. 

Implausible Deniability
You might be living under tyranny if your tyrant combines a claim of leadership skill with a claim of unawareness of the behaviors of rogue underlings. Why would the underlings so frequently behave in tyrannical ways, if the tyrant’s leadership didn’t create the spoken or unspoken understanding that oppression against the enemy is acceptable, even expected—as long as you don’t get caught?
Thursday the president held a brief and pointless press conference, repeating that he knew nothing about the IRS problem. Actually, what he specifically said was, “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the [inspector general] report.” He didn’t say he didn’t know about the policy or practice of targeting political enemies. He specifically denies knowing only the findings in the report. And his swift action to hold people accountable? Accept the resignation of the acting IRS Commissioner, who was stepping down in June anyway. Take that, IRS! That is what the wrath of an outraged president feels like, when he’s out to protect our freedoms.
Oh, and in case you didn’t know, that division that targeted Tea Party groups the last couple of years? Their leader was promoted to run the Obamacare office of the IRS—because Obama was so outraged. Yeah, that’s it.
He didn’t know what happened in Benghazi. And his Secretary of State was out of touch as well, both of them unaware it wasn’t a spontaneous response to an internet video, even though all the rest of us knew it was a terrorist attack.
His DOJ head didn’t know about the AP phone record overreach either. (And of course can’t be blamed for the collection of data related to phonecalls from the AP that just happened to connect to the legislative branch.) He knew it was in response to one of the most crucial leaks of classified information in our lifetimes, a clear danger to the American people, and therefore worth getting the legal permissions for the invasive move. But it wasn’t important enough to mention such a threat to the president, who remained unaware entirely until he heard about it on the news. Nor did Attorney General Eric Holder remember any details, because he recused himself from the case early on, for reasons that he couldn’t recall.
Did we mention that this administration, in five years, has prosecuted more whistleblowers (for leaking classified information that endangers the country?) than all of the previous presidencies combined? It’s an everyday event for the DOJ, but the AG wouldn’t know about that.
If any more scandals pop up in the coming days, be assured the president will hear about it on the news, just like the rest of us. Comedian/commentator Jon Stewart put together a collection of the president’s new favorite buck-stops-somewhere-else explanation about knowing nothing before the news reports. It’s a 5-minute clip; the part about the president getting his briefings by the news starts at about 2:40 in:

 

This much scandal is upsetting. But it also could be a good thing. We’re hearing about the news. In such a flood that it’s hard to take in, but at least these things are being reported. And, because of the AP scandal, some news sources might actually begin to make assumptions other than, “those are just right-wing conspiracies,” and think, “maybe the president hasn’t been entirely truthful up till now.”
All along it has been my hope we could have clarity. Let truth prevail, and not deception. I still believe people who know the truth choose freedom and civilization, rather than tyranny and savagery.

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