A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I am one of those hapless Verizon customers the government is snooping on ... and I don't like it -- at all!
Look. We Americans simply MUST realize we have a government gone rogue! Corruption has now overtaken the bureaucrats and they have forsaken their green eye shades for whips and chains and shackles -- of the electronic sort, of course.
“Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right, allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government?” -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Read the original report on this latest US government atrocity here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order
Americans today are experiencing an unprecedented erosion of civil liberties and a blatant disregard for transparency at all levels of government. And it is only going to get worse.
Consider the following: "Despite his clear and popular promises to the contrary, President Obama has not shifted the balance between security and freedom to a more natural state—one not blinded by worst fears and tarred by power grabs. If anything, things have gotten worse.
Killing civilians and U.S. citizens via drone.Seizing telephone records at the Associated Press in violation of Justice Department guidelines.
Accusing a respected Fox News reporter of engaging in a conspiracy to commit treason for doing his job.
Detaining terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, despite promises to end the ill-considered Bush policy.
Even the IRS scandal, while not a matter of foreign policy, strikes at the heart of growing concerns among Americans that their privacy is government's playpen.
And now this: The Guardian newspaper (Of the UK) reports that the National Security Agency is collecting telephone records of tens of millions of customers of one of the nation's largest phone companies, Verizon." SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/welcome-to-the-bush-obama-white-house-they-re-spying-on-us-20130606
It appears to have finally come down to the government against the people in America. All this simply means -- Americans are no longer free.
Just as an aside, does anyone else sense the irony that we Americans have a "black" American President creating the new American plantation upon which ALL Americans are slaves??? Is this some kind of cruel joke? Hardly.
What did you expect, those of you who voted for Obama? He plainly told you he planned to fundamentally change America -- and he HAS!
You cheered and applauded when he said: " It’s been a long time coming.
But tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America." -- President Barack Obama, November 5, 2008.
And so, dear reader, the police state was ushered in to America -- not so much ushered in as elbowed in.
You know, as I think back to my high school days, when we actually studied the US Constitution, I recall that the Founders of the US warned us that the constitution would only work for a “virtuous and moral” people. If that is, in fact, the case, then all this chaos in our government today was inevitable. I mean, we Americans are a lot of things but today's American is NOT a “virtuous and moral” character. Nosiree! Anyone of our major cities would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a monastery.
Just so we are clear -- the constitution did not fail us. No. WE failed the constitution!
Today we can look back and say the Founders of America were naive. Perhaps they were. But -- they were honorable men and often honorable men tend to be a bit naive.
Maybe the Founding Fathers assumed that America would always see to it that only honorable men would hold national elective office. Well, that didn't last long. In less than one hundred years the first President to be impeached, Andrew Johnson, was impeached AND acquitted in 1868. And it has been, pretty much, down hill from there.
The plain and simple truth is, dear reader, we Americans have done this to ourselves. It will only be undone if we suck it up and do whatever is necessary to right the ship of state and return America to the course set for her by those honorable men two hundred and thirty some odd years ago.
The longer we wait the more difficult our task will become. Some feel we have already waited too long. My personal assessment is that we are on the cusp of having waited too long. There is a window, left slightly ajar, for a reform movement to take America back, but -- realistically -- it is closing rapidly.
This latest atrocity by our power hungry government is just a symptom of the disease rotting the heart from our formerly great country. It is even more frightening to wonder WHAT ELSE the government is doing.
Finally, for this scribe, the most troubling part of all is the lack of interest shown by so many Americans today concerning the loss of freedom.
For Americans less than 50 or 60 years of age, a loss of freedom is unfathomable. They have no clue what we "old fogies" are yelling about. They were born into an America in which American freedom was already greatly curtailed and they have never known the freedom, personal freedom, and liberty my generation had the great good fortune to enjoy. They don't miss it because they never had it!
Today, I think it has been made clear that the American police state we have been awaiting, arrived, already. We are just now becoming aware of it.
Sadly, those of my generation, those who see so clearly what America has lost are, due to the limitations of age and health, unable to do little more than enlighten the masses through our writing, and vocal protestations. We can only make available the truth and hope that a spark will ignite the love of freedom once again in the breasts of the citizens of the once great America and rouse them to action with the determination to rescue their country from the jaws of a socialist dictatorship so deeply entrenched in our halls of government.
Look. A world without America in a leadership position is a dangerous place. Just look at the globe-scape today. We are racing toward Armageddon. We are stumbling and bumbling our way into a world-wide conflagration. Only one nation can lead the world out of certain disaster -- AMERICA. Unfortunately, America's leaders have chosen NOT TO LEAD.
America must be rescued and restored. And it must be done quickly. Time really IS running out.
© J. D. Longstreet
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