Fear And Loathing In Government (Guest Post)

I have been often asked in political polls if I consider myself a conservative or a liberal. My reply is that the two terms are not mutually exclusive depending on there use. My interpretation of State and Federal Constitutions is liberal in regards to the Bill of Rights and the rights of the People, while very conservative in regards to the limited powers lent the governments by the people.

Sadly, Local, State and Federal Courts long ago began a practice of reversing the vision of the founding fathers, in that they now have become extremely conservative against the Bill of Rights in a continual incremental erosion of the rights of the people, while being more liberal in expanding the power and reach of the government over the people and into every aspect of their lives. This is a result of nearly a hundred years of influential and privileged elitists transforming our nation from a Republic into a progressive oligarchy.

The old axiom is: “when People fear the government, there is Tyranny. When the government fears the people there is liberty. Unfortunately, that no longer hold true as our increasingly “Progressive” local state and federal governments are changing that into a new axiom whereby “when the government oligarchy fears the power of the people, they will institute tyranny until they completely control the people and make them fear the government.”

This fear and loathing that the government has towards the people is reflected in many ways, but few are as disturbing as that which is resulting in the arming of Federal agencies that were never armed before, their stockpiling of weapons and ammunition, and the militarization of even the lowest levels of Law enforcement. A subject which an Indiana police office has finally admitted as to why:

DHS Labels Veterans “Violent” “Extremists” Who Are “‘Disgruntled’ About the Takeover of the US.”

Operation Vigilant Eagle: Is This Really How We Honor Our Nation’s Veterans?

DHS’ Domestic Terror Warning Angers GOP

“To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable,” Boehner said.

David Rehbein, commander of The American Legion, a congressionally chartered veterans group that claims 2.6 million members, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing concern with the assessment, which made its way into the mainstream press after conservative bloggers got wind of the analysis.

One such blogger, Michelle Malkin, called the report, “one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS.”

Rehbein called the assessment incomplete and said it lacked statistical evidence. He said the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by military veteran Timothy McVeigh was one instance of a veteran becoming a domestic terrorist.

“To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical `disgruntled military veteran’ is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam,” Rehbein said in the April 13 letter.

Napolitano stands by controversial report

The Times reported Tuesday that the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) issued April 7 the nine-page document titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” Outcry from veterans groups, Republican lawmakers and conservative activists followed, but the reaction spread Wednesday to Democratic lawmakers and liberal-leaning groups.

In his letter to Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Thompson demanded that Homeland Security officials explain how and why they wrote the report and whether it poses any threat to civil liberties.

“As I am certain you agree, freedom of association and freedom of speech are guaranteed to all Americans – whether a person’s beliefs, whatever their political orientation, are ‘extremist’ or not,” Mr. Thompson said.

Mr. Thompson said the report “blurred the line,” and that he is “disappointed and surprised that the department would allow this report to be disseminated” to law enforcement officials nationwide.

Read that last line again. One Indiana Law Enforcement Office admitted that the DHS report is behind the Obama Administration’s unprecedented move to heavily arm and militarize all federal, state and local law enforcement agencies: Police Now “Armed For War” Against Returning Veterans

In a chilling story entitled Armed for War: Pentagon surplus gives local police an edge, we learn how a Mine Resistant Vehicle (MRAP) which was once used during the occupation of Afghanistan will now be “patrolling the streets of central Indiana,” according to the report.

Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department states, “When I first started we really didn’t have the violence that we see today,” adding, “The weaponry is totally different now that it was in the beginning of my career, plus, you have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build IEDs and to defeat law enforcement techniques.”…(snip)

…Indiana seems to be a major trial balloon for the militarization of law enforcement given that the Indiana National Guard has also just purchased two military UH-72 Lakota helicopters which will also be used by local police and the DHS for “homeland security missions”. Downing’s claim that armored tanks are necessary to deal with violent crime doesn’t jive with actual statistics which suggest that violent crime is in fact on the decrease.

Downing’s admission that the armored vehicles are partly about combating the threat posed by returning veterans correlates with similar rhetoric at the federal level….(snip)

…It seems to have been completely forgotten by police departments, the media and Americans in general that having military-style tanks patrol the streets is symbolic of a collapsing banana republic or an authoritarian Communist state.

Perhaps the main reason why police officers are being trained that veterans are a major threat is because returning vets are in a perfect position to recognize that America is beginning to resemble an occupied country like Afghanistan.

As should be expected: The United States of SWAT? Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizens.

“Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” journalist Radley Balko writes in his 2013 book Rise of the Warrior Cop. …(snip)

…The proliferation of paramilitary federal SWAT teams inevitably brings abuses that have nothing to do with either drugs or terrorism. Many of the raids they conduct are against harmless, often innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.

Congratulations! Your tiny town has an MRAP and is ready for war (MRAP, or Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored personnel vehicle.)

For the past few years, the Pentagon has been giving these vehicles to police departments across the country. The unwieldy behemoths have little real application in domestic police work. They’re designed for use on a battlefield. (The Pentagon offers no training to police departments when it gives the vehicles away. And they’ve been known to tip over.)

But police departments are snatching them up. It’s part of the general trend toward more militarized domestic police forces that’s been happening since about the early 1980s.

Some in Washington DC are getting very concerned about the “civilian corps” military build-up: Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah): End Federal Agency SWAT Teams

“I understand that federal agents must be capable of protecting themselves. But what we have observed here goes far beyond providing necessary protection. It is a demonstration of the federal government’s distrust of the American people, excessive concentration of power and an ability to intimidate us in ways that we never could have imagined just a few years ago.

We are witnessing the criminalization of America, where any one of us may find our front doors broken down and a SWAT team in camouflage standing in our living rooms. It is also why we may find ourselves under arrest for some innocent action that no reasonable person would think is illegal, like helping an injured bird, getting lost on a snowmobile on federal land, or shipping lobsters in plastic instead of cardboard boxes. And as absolutely absurd as these examples sound, they have all led to federal investigations of private citizens.

The militarization of agencies and the criminalization of trivial actions are only symptoms of a much deeper and more troubling problem within Washington.

The heart of the problem is that the federal government no longer trusts the American people. When all of us feel that we are no longer seen as citizens but as potential suspects – a relationship of trust is impossible.”

It appears to me unquestionable that State and Federal governments are gearing up in preparation to repel civil insurrection against the iron-fisted enforcement of their authority in exactly the same historic manner of socialist takeovers of the last century. All of this is going to come to a head eventually possibly resulting in a Tienniman Square scenario. Just considering the unbelievable level of espionage the government(s) are doing on the American people. Now we have Harry Reid’s plans to limit the first Amendment and free speech. And even Establishment Republican’s considering bringing in illegal immigrants into the military (somewhat reminiscent of the Hessian mercenary troops during our Revolutionary War). We have to wonder what the Progressive Democrat and Republican leaders plan to do with the “dissidents,” many of whom are ready to oppose further oppression.

Considering: Obama citizen-detention plan in trouble & Judge to feds on citizen detention: I said no!

A federal judge has told the Obama administration that all Americans are protected by her preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of a citizen detention clause in a new federal law supported by Obama… (snip)

U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest shot back in a new Memorandum Opinion and Order yesterday that said because the possible injury to Americans includes the loss of their rights, her order was intended to protect everyone.

“The injunction in this action is intentionally expansive because ‘persons whose expression is constitutionally protected [and not party to the instant litigation] may well refrain from exercising their rights for fear of criminal sanctions by a statute susceptible of application to protected expression,’” Forrest wrote.

On May 16 she issued a preliminary injunction banning enforcement of Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act. The section allows indefinite detention of people designated by the government as terrorists or terror-linked.

The law allows them to be held without hearing, charges or bond – essentially without their civil rights. And their detention can be indefinite.

The Obama administration asked for reconsideration and said it was interpreting the injunction as a protection only for the individual plaintiffs.

Wrong, the judge wrote.

We have to seriously consider the implication of the Obama Administration’s desire to incarcerate American citizens indefinitely as if they were terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. Why also has the: Obama court nominee wrote memos justifying drone strikes on U.S. citizens been nominated (and since approved by the Senate) to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals. With Obama not able to use his detention camps, will history repeat itself resulting in mass graves of American political prisoners on US soil?

“When any nation mistrusts it’s citizens with guns it is sending a clear message. It no longer trusts it’s citizens because such a government has evil plans.” – attributed to George Washington