My.Declaration_of_Independence.Org
Drawing a line in the sand for liberty, part 1

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.... etc. Yours truly, Tom J. et al

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Background and Setup

Independence Day is coming, and here in the Hinterland we're a week away from Memorial Day—well, I guess we're a week away from Memorial Day outside the Hinterland, too. Duh! But my thoughts today tend toward memorializing the source of my/our country... which lies, after all, in the workings of a few brave men (and dream-enabling, equally brave women) during those hot summer days in Philadelphia in 1776, men who looked the Royal Power in the eye and emphatically uttered, "Up yours!"

The precious words written by Thomas Jefferson still take my breath away, bringing chills from head to toe. To me, and to all my kindred souls in the freedom movement, what the Declaration of Independence captures is nothing less than the meaning of sentient life in the Cosmos. Yet as important as these elegant, stirring phrases are, the actions they led to are the object of art. The colonists did not limpwrist, "Oh, Crown Official, by the way, we've looked things over carefully and, hellloooo!, we're getting a raw deal. So, if it isn't too much trouble, please consider changing your policies so as not to work undue hardship on the women and children. Have yourself a special day, now. Byyeee."

No, it was time for a Momentous Action-Bearing Decision. Our people's representatives had been pleading to deaf ears for years; the Philadelphia assembly knew another "Comprehensive Big-Ass Plea from Colonial VIPs" would be seen as craven capitulation.[1] Moreover, a year previous, police-state action in New England had shed blood in Lexington and Concord. The Battle of Bunker Hill demonstrated the colonists could successfully counter the monarchy's highly trained military goombahs in pitched battle. Finally, through the early months of 1776, Thomas Paine's Common Sense was sweeping like wildfire through America's places of the heart:

Suddenly everyone on the American continent was saying to the Brits, "Hey, George, who died and made you King?" So the time had come to state clearly what "we" were going to do, in the short run, about the Brits' unwarranted political authority (withdraw allegiance) and, in the long run, about replacing it with a more humane system (secure the Rights of Man)... a system to which we could adhere. Today the $640,000 Question (inflation) is, "Whither that system framed by our significant ancestors?"[2]

American-Republic Status, 2009

Republic? Republic?
We got no stinkin' republic.
We don' need no stinkin' republic.

Our country has just barely escaped an eight-year regime that led us into a bloody holocaust in the Middle East by creating (through orchestration of the 9/11 attacks, a new "Pearl Harbor" justifying every assault on our lives and freedoms—not to mention the lives and freedoms of millions of individuals living in the targeted regions (and everywhere else). Using 9/11 and lying about the threat from Iraq and "Al Qaeda," the Bushoviks initiated a preemptive war, which implemented or accelerated US official practice of all manner of war crimes: torture, kidnapping, rendition, false imprisonment, murder, assassination, civilian massacre, and so on.

Further the Neocon[3] Bushies and their "running dog lackeys"—I always liked that young-commie expression—depleted the US treasury, sending $trillions of dollars to their friends in the war machine and so-called finance-capitalist (or state-capitalist) insiders[4]. Under Dick the Stick, they ran assassination squads and implemented the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and several other "acts" that violate our sacred founding principles. Mostly they simply ignored laws they didn't like.

And they got away with it! (so far)

The Oligarchy (<singular controlling entity>)

Nor were the presidencies that preceded the Bush Catastrophe some Golden Age of World Peace, Justice, and Harmony. Even though Ike warned us about the military industrial complex in the 1950s[5], the MIC was well underway even then. World Communism was the carefully engineered convenient enemy. In return for giving the West a "menace" to justify hundreds of $billions[6] in taxpayer expropriation, a bunch of chubby, underachieving Russian peasant-bureaucrats were given their own private nine-million-square-mile human ant farm to mismanage...

"And, here, take Eastern Europe while you're at it."

We've talked about this before. I've come up with a number of concepts/ terms to designate the financial interests behind and ultimately benefiting from the antihuman cabals in play at the corporate state level—such as the MIC, the Neocons, the Nazis, the Communists, the CIA. My Coffee Coaster signature term is the Kleptocons. People who have studied the <singular controlling entity> also refer to it as the Cartel, the Money Power, the Power Elite, the Kleptocracy, even the Matrix. All of these are good terms, but for practical purposes, let's simply call the <SCE> the Oligarchy.

The Oligarchy (the Ollies) represents a sophistication over the monarchy of King George that our founders overcame. As I outline in The Sacred Nonaggression Principle, the War for Independence and its establishment of the first literate human society based on the concept of individual rights (the nonaggression principle) presented a major impediment to the authoritarian impulse embodied in European monarchies. The imperative was change or die. They changed. They learned to masquerade as liberal democracies while maintaining full privileges for their "men behind the curtains" who kept pulling all the significant strings.

The whole subject of who rules is a long one, tho straightforward. All we need to know now is that when Jefferson wrote the Declaration, we were declaring our independence from the Monarchy. Today, we declare our independence from the Oligarchy. It's the same deal.

So is it soup yet?

Lately, by popular request, I'm trying for more humor and genuine human interest in my Coffee Coaster pieces. Which makes it difficult to tackle subjects like the imminent, crying need for a personal declaration of independence of every standup person from the antihuman Oligarchy. But I have to press ahead because "the long train of [its] abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object [most assuredly] evinces a design to reduce [us] under absolute Despotism." Soon. [Please, as a concession to popular request, for the remainder of this column and its sequel, think funny or happy thoughts whenever possible.]

Oddly, some people believe that the recent change of administrations from an illiterate pseudo-Texan to a former Harvard Law Review president constitutes a change in fundamental direction for the Oligarchy. If that were true, the Obama administration would vigorously investigate/prosecute war crimes, bring home the troops, call on Israel to end its massacres and occupation in Palestine, end the drug war, liberate education from government coercion, stop US client states from torture, abandon CIA renditions and kidnapping, radically cut government spending, prevent the international banking Cartel from looting $trillions from the Treasury, and legalize agricultural hemp... to mention a few serious Crimes of the Oligarchy that still afflict us.

Yes, it's soup. What has Obama brought to the table? Better yet, what has he failed to bring to the table? The fundamental distinction between Bush and Obama is that the current leader of the "Free" World reads newspapers and speaks in complete sentences. Obama is every bit as dangerous a tool of the Oligarchy—an enemy of Constitutional liberty—as his predecessor. More so, because the thought-control machinery has the brain-dead minions believing that O is some kind of Black Messiah. What I want to do now, however, is simply run down the list of modern Oligarchical crimes, much as Jefferson listed the assaults of King George:

Wall Street Insider takeover—This is the easiest and most current crime to document; the link is to the epochal article by Matt Taibbi that originally appeared in Rolling Stone. "A $trillion here and a $trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Civil liberties—Every day from every media source, mind-control or not, one more outrage or atrocity by police state goons—legislators, police, prosecutors, judges, even jurists who cave to judicial intimidation. Check out this interview with Luke Rudkowski by Russia Today, of all sources.
Drug war—70 years of moralistic nightmare interspersed with 20 years of real wars, now that's the kind of program sadistic monsters of the Oligarchy can get behind. As libertarian superhero, Peter McWilliams, put it: Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do. But the Ollies keep trampling on freedom and tightening the screws.[7]
Wars of empire—Today a BrasscheckTV video crossed by monitor, featuring a real war hero describing "the racket of war." I'd never looked at it that way, but every viewer needs to read G. Edward Griffin's magnum opus, The Creature of Jekyll Island. Not only does Griffin nail the Fed and central banking, he explains the "Rothschild Formula" as a powerful wealth transfer engine... and how virtually every war since the Revolution has been executed by and for the money-power elites.
Torture and rendition—As a handmaiden of war and systemic legal aggression, torture and physical terror sit at the pinnacle of normal operations for the Oligarchy's Death Star. Its CIA's methods—now fortunately we're seeing the tip of the iceberg—simply follow on from secret societies of the medieval Church of Rome and the Nazis.
Massive government spending—The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is generally the latter prefer borrowing over taxing to support spending. Today, there isn't a government bond's worth of difference between the two Oligarchical parties.[8] And the debt just keeps on a' humpin'. "But we owe it ourselves."
Homeland Security abuses—These occur so regularly, they should appear on every US government Website like a quote of the hour. Here's a poor girl from Iceland, manhandled. An Academy Award nominated movie, The Visitor, details the common uncommonly cruel-and-unusual deportation and detention scenario. And HS is up to its ears in the Ashton Lundeby kidnapping described below.
Prosecutocracy—A term coined by an unfortunate UK businessman, Conrad Black, falsely prosecuted and incarcerated in the US. If you live long enough (and the republic is not soon restored) you will be a victim (I guarantee it), as I have been. But especially if you're famous, like NY Giants' wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, watch out!
Farm policy—Again, what the Ollies are doing to destroy the family farm makes the Grapes of Wrath look like the Garden of Eden. Have you heard of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)? (Fortunately, it looks like it may stall out like Real ID—whole lotta people rising up.) Then, of course, hemp prohibition costs our farmers and merchants $1 trillion per year potentially.
9/11 and coverup—As a member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, I've followed the evidence pertaining to the attacks of September 11, 2001... for seven years. The official story is a demonstrable lie; I've never met anyone who believes the official story and who cares to consider any of the evidence against it.
Federal Reserve—We've alluded to the quintessential book on the subject of the United States Central Bank of the Oligarchy, by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island. Lately, the Fed is implicated in massive theft of the taxpayers for selected Ollies; Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed now has 156 sponsors.
Income tax—Some new knowledge has come to light, at least from the early part of the century. Without the "income tax"[9] and the Fed, it would have been impossible for the Ollies to stage all of their other crimes against humanity. My perspective on the "income tax" continues to evolve, but, along with millions of others upholding the rule of law, I won' be steppin' and fetchin' like befo.
NAFTA and sovereignty violations—I've lost awareness of how the Oligarchy is now promoting the über-corporate one-world-order. Very little on Google that's current. But does anyone remember the Texas Transcontinental Corridor? After 911, after Homeland Security, after the Torture Deal, after the trillion-dollar bailouts, etc., no Ollie Slash-and-Burn policies should surprise us.
Corporate privilege—An area that makes many libertarians of the so-called right nervous. The link refers to Thom Hartmann's classic book on corporations, how they emerged masquerading as the "free enterprise system," yet consistently funneled real human wealth to the Ollies. Indeed, the hidden purpose of every modern government policy—from the drug war to agriculture—is perpetuation of specific corporate protections and privileges.
Compulsory military service—Not as much of an issue, but you still have to register. Paul Jacob refused to register and went to jail. The Oligarchy has created an effective compulsory draft by taking so much wealth from the economy that kids sign up in order to get three square meals, some bling, and travel. So what if they have to help Blackwater kill a few funny-looking strangers.
Compulsory social service—Something that our current Anointed Ones have been advocating, in concert with surprising numbers on the right. Many see no problem with "giving something back to their country." Grow up. If you're forced to perform charitable or public-service acts, the acts cease to be charitable. Young Americans for State Service => the Nazis' Triumph of the Will.
Gambling prohibitions—Read my recent two-parter on online gambling and you'll be shocked, shocked, to find there is systematic Prosecutocracy brutality going on here. And equally shocked to learn the multibillion-dollar bricks and mortar gambling interests are the qui bono receiving the bono of the state's aggression.
General consensual-crime prohibitions—Everywhere crimes. In the Free State, of all places, it is illegal to conduct a manicure without a state license. A man did so and was arrested and charged. The "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" crimes —here's a guest column on jitneys (unlicensed transportation providers)—do nothing but further the interests of the Ollie-protected/privileged.
Detention centers—Take a browse over to Alex Jones' Infowars sites, and check out a relatively recent column by Steve Watson. The measures being considered (mostly in secret) by Congress all relate to plans for martial law; here's a related story by Watson, too. Whether the authorities can actually accomplish such a monumental dislocation is debatable, but many like the idea.[10]
Police-state buildup—The police state is 'the thang,' the generic sickness that fills in the moral vacuum when sound political principles (e.g. the nonaggression principle) are abandoned. Several articles have been written about the increasing militarization of our police; the police state and the Drug War go together like milk and cookies. So, too, do the police state and any war.[11]
Mind control technologies—All one need do is read a few copies of the Rock Creek Free Press and one will realize the extent to which the American people—and somewhat less, the people of the West in general—have been propagandized into a stupor. Blindly obedient subjects are a necessity for the Oligarchy's survival.
Education tyranny—Closely allied to thoroughgoing mind control in a society is a centralized system of forced schooling, which prepares its citizens as cannon fodder and consumers for the Ollie elites. The government schools in America were patterned after the Prussian authoritarian model in the early 19th century. Johnny can't think, because Johnny is not supposed to think. He is to obey.
Liberty Dollar raid—I'm using the raid on the Liberty Dollar as only an example. Virtually every item in these 25 is accompanied by the initiation of brute government force upon innocent civilians. How the government simply seizes private property with no pretense of law is as much a mystery as why Dick Cheney and Karl Rove walk around as free men when they architected waves of human torture.
Political prisoners—How long has Irwin Schiff been in jail? How many are in jail for drug offenses? I've mentioned two British nationals who have been jailed arbitrarily for having something to do with online gambling. Check out the story of the 16-year-old boy, Ashton, who was kidnapped and jailed without information, below. All political prisoners. So many. The only difference between them and Nelson Mandela is/was South African politics and media interest. When we restore the Republic, WE WILL FREE THEM ALL!
Zionism—Any factually respectful analysis must include a reference to key ideology. The preeminent Western Rothschild Financial Dynasty has always advanced the cause of a Jewish-State takeover of "Palestine." Leading figures of the Oligarchy, such as John D. Rockefeller, have supported these objectives. It is likely the Oligarchy at its pinnacle is ideologically a mixture of militaristic Jews and Christians (Zionists and Calvinists) who exercise deep fundamental social control—run the Oligarchy—via a number of secret societies whose aim is world domination.

[My book, The Sacred Nonaggression Principle, provides a simple metaphysics to facilitate understanding the psychological authoritarianism and ideologies buttressing the Oligarchy.] Any one of the above offenses is cause for concern by normal humans and reason to consider ending allegiance to the offending personnel—the Oligarchy qua American state —posturing as legitimate government. Taken together, any real American reading the bill of particulars has no choice: it's independence or slavery.

The Ashton Lundeby kidnapping

For today's posting, I do wish to present one of the straws that broke the camel's back for me: the kidnapping, from a suburban Raleigh, North Carolina, home, by Homeland Security and 10 heavily armed FBI agents, of a 16-year-old boy, Ashton Lundeby, for <charges unspecified> and held in <location unspecified>, probably somewhere in Indiana. I was notified of this atrocity by BrasscheckTV through this link. It's a short one, so I won't describe it further... only to quote his mother Annette, "... never in my worst nightmare did I think it would be my own government that I would need to protect my children from."[12]

The Restoration

So what are we waiting for?

The Oligarchy's goons are stealing children from our homes. We have a former vice-president stating that he authorized a full-scale policy of torture, knowing full well torture was against the law. We have a president admitting they made up intelligence to justify an invasion of another country. Armed federal agents routinely confiscate the wealth—e.g. the Liberty Dollar—of American citizens and others, with no pretense at legality. The chairman of the Fed tells Congress that he will not identify to whom disbursement of $trillions of taxpayer-obligated funds was made. Etc., etc., etc.

Do I have to draw you a picture? This is real, people. Stir yourselves.

Nobody is doing anything to end and to prosecute these Oligarchy crimes, because nobody in the national government represents the victims of these crimes, i.e. "us." Everybody in the government (with a couple of exceptions) is an agent, either fully knowing or partially knowing, of the Oligarchy. They're the king's men and women down to their rotted bones. They're the "not us" responsible for the crimes against the "us." And the time to replace them with Constitutional government—or to leave the friggin' government out of it entirely—is now. No moral sanction, no more funding, no mas. And if they leave immediately, we won't send them to jail.

It's time to dust off the founding literature and refresh the Tree of Liberty. For a start, remember Patrick Henry:

"It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace, Peace— but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others will take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Now that's what I call a firm proposal.

Through the next week, I'm going to flesh out this foundation part, and by Monday following (Memorial Day, 2009), I'm giving a college try to crafting a modern D of I. I won't attempt to emulate the mastery of Thomas Jefferson, but I do feel there's room in our modern lexicon for a succinct statement of independence and loyalty to the Sacred Nonaggression Principle to which any normal freedom-loving American can publicly attest... and I certainly hope thousands, if not millions, will.

Free the American 300 million!

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[1] Ref. John Adams role in the proceedings. While Jefferson may have supplied the powerful prose, Adams led the assembly in seeking full political independence from England.

[2] By significant I mean anyone who saw the light of liberty and cared, in one way or another. In a natural state of freedom, people tend to be significant in and of themselves.

[3] Neoconservative.

[4] The war machine and so-called finance-capitalist (or state-capitalist) insiders are pretty much the same group of fellows. For penetrating insight into the roots of war and the roots of the Oligarchy's deception, please refer to G. Edward Griffin's masterpiece, The Creature from Jekyll Island.

[5] The quintessential Eisenhower quote: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

[6] Because I understand the UK has a different notion of billion and trillion than we do in the States, I specify that a billion = a thousand million (a 1 with nine zeroes after it) and a trillion = a million million (a 1 with 12 zeroes after it).

[7] We're seeing some grudging change, lately, mainly because the governments are having budget problems funding prison planet. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia is holding hearings regarding the "criminal justice" system that will expose Incarceration Nation for what it is: a gulag for people who defy the state's perverse pharmaceutical preferences.

[8] I've come up with a phrase for how the Democrats and Republicans are on the same side, and in any given project, say a war or a welfare program, they are jointly responsible for its failure. I call it a JORDFU, for Joint Republican-Democrat Foulup. (Remember JANFU for Joint Army-Navy Foulup?)

[9] The chief discovery for me, in Hendrickson's book Cracking the Code, is that a) the framers despised direct taxes [a direct tax is a general tax on people's earnings and property], and the Constitution prohibits them (except if apportioned), b) for that reason no federal "income" tax has ever been legislated (as a direct tax), and c) the current federal "income" tax is legally defined as an indirect or excise tax, a tax on federally privileged "income." If you do not work for the federal government or participate in federal office or in a federal corporation, you do not have—as a matter of law, observed for the most part by the Treasury Department by refunding incorrectly taken funds— "income" subject to the tax.

[10] One of the most encouraging developments to come along in years is the advent of the Oath Keepers, active-duty cops and military who refuse to carry out illegal, unconstitutional orders. As the script says, "official men with guns siding with the people is the tyrant's worst nightmare."

[11] The recent development of the sovereignty movement in the states is highly relevant as a warning by the people's more immediate representatives that they will not submit to arbitrary, unconstitutionally exercised federal power. In case of a showdown, my guess is now the feds would blink... but we must take martial law off the table.

[12] I received an update on the Ashton Lundeby case from a reader who pointed me to this link on LewRockwell.com. The column provides some measure of comprehension to the actions of the federales, but the facts remain scary in a regime where the executive branch reserves the right to torture and break down "anyone it pleases."