Coordinating the Fight

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
- Benjamin Franklin

After my first experience this week (account to follow...not as obnoxious as actor Wil Wheaton's but still Unconstitutional) in opting out of the back-scatter xray machines, I started looking for a petition online, either calling for TSA restrictions or for the government to shut them down outright. I was happy to find such petitions and dismayed at how fragmented they were.

A few petitions run into the thousands of signatures. If you added the signatures all up, they'd total close to 70,000 signatures and you have to start thinking that if they keep growing and the government receives 100,000 signatures on a petition, they'll have to back down to some extent. Unfortunately some of those signatures are on conservative sites (the largest one with 38,000 signatures is) and others are on liberal sites. The old "divide and conquer" strategy works far too well on us here in the US...it's time to realize we need to cooperate with each other when facing a common enemy if we want to defeat it.

As a political moderate, I'm therefore urging that everyone reading this blog take the time to visit and sign petitions at ALL these sites. I'll stop back here at this blog entry occasionally and update its totals or add new petitions. We have to find a way to cooperate or we're never going to get this mindless beast back on a short chain.

Come on people...let's send Napolitano and Pistole to the unemployment line!

http://www.wnd.com/airportscreening 38,000

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-tsa-to-stop-intrusive-body-searches 9,000

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/882/104/966/ 8,701
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-body-scanners-and-intrusive-tsa-pat-downs/ 227
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/27/abolish-the-tsa/ 20
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-tsa/ 115
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-tsa-gropingnapolitano-must-resign/ 77
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tsa-scanners-and-pat-downs-ok-prove-it/ 247
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/full-body-airport-scanners-pose-too-high-a-risk-to-human-health/ 200

http://www.senatenj.com/index.php/doherty/tsa-petition/sign-the-petition-help-stop-invasive-tsa-screening/7149 4,000

http://www.petitiononline.com/StopScan/ 2,972

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-tsa-no-more-patdowns-for-minors 1,200

http://abolishthetsa.net/sign-the-petition/ 308

http://www.change.org/petitions/tsa-must-revise-screening-procedures-for-amputees 120

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/tsa - Count unknown but this one is mentioned in several places

Push Back Now

I'm here to make the argument with this essay that we're at a critical point in time in terms of retaining some control over our government but that it's time to push back HARD because the beast's hunger for more power is getting ever more voracious.

Case in point: the TSA and the general government overreaction and paranoia about terrorism. Certainly there are some bad people who want to kill us and who need to be ventilated but we're now letting the government treat everyone it encounters in ways that we'll eventually feel really stupid about, like looking back on Joe McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt or the decision to send innocent Japanese citizens to concentration camps in World War II.

This week's news shows that the civil liberty infringements are just getting worse:

- In response to a highly publicized case in which a 6 year old was patted down, TSA goon Janet Napolitano is asking for legislation guaranteeing TSA the power to search minors without parental consent

- Not satisfied with turning airport travel into an exercise in public humiliation, the TSA this week occupied a train station, detaining and searching passengers.

It looks to me as if they'll keep grabbing more power for their ineffective yet insulting little bureaucracy until we show some dignity as a people and push back, HARD.

Abortion and Guns

I don't support the GOP's current push for abortion restrictions in legislatures elected on a "small government" platform.

One thing I'll point out, though, is that the current atmosphere is what Clinton's 8 years in office were like for gun owners. It's what being a gun owner is like in a handful of states (New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey), most of the time.

At least we can be sure that the ATF and FBI won't be laying siege to any Planned Parenthood buildings.

Maybe these comments will provide some food for thought for people able to look outside their own set of beliefs and wonder if supporting freedoms they don't like is necessary for keeping their own rights. Most likely people on both extremes of the political spectrum will just be annoyed by my comments.

C'est la vie...

We’re Number One?

We Americans seem to think it’s really important that people think we’re the best country in the world. But are we, really? At the moment, I’d say we’re more like a guy with a genius level IQ, an acceptance letter to a prestigious university and lots of resources. But instead of attending university, he settles for a dead end job at Pizza Hut, drinks heavily in front of the TV every night, has frequent dumb brushes with the law and flips a coin in the voting booth when he bothers to vote.

Now imagine someone who realizes that guy is wasting his potential sits him down and gives him a good talking to, pointing out that he still has the opportunity to carve out a fantastic life. That’s where we are right now in the US, standing at the crossroads between two paths: one leading to excellence, the other to entrenched and unnecessary mediocrity. Which way would you choose?

• We never talk about goals or destinations; we only talk about changing directions whenever we get bored. When one group or the other says we need higher taxes or lower taxes, peace or conflict, let’s have some sort of objectives and value system decide the answer instead of just deciding based on what we feel like at the moment.

• We let the two major parties distract us, with each making us angry or fearful of the other, when it’s the parties themselves that are our common enemy. Look at the slimy decision the Supreme Court rendered yesterday, with Justices Thomas and Scalia indifferent to the injustice that a lower court nearly sent an innocent man to his death. Look at President Obama supporting the TSA’s contemptible and unconstitutional “security” practices over American civil liberties. Look at Tea Party candidates elected on a small government platform and now obsessing about abortion, where Democrats do the same regarding dumb firearms restrictions.

• We allow the media to keep us in a constant state of irrational panic.

• We don’t make education and a robust infrastructure as much of a priority, compared with keeping up on Dances with the Stars

• We’re arguably a society that excels at obedience but is poor at the intelligent cooperation that is the basis for advanced societies. I see this highlighted when I go up to Canada: the driving is brisk, with vehicles staying to the right except when passing. Here in the US, speed limits are set ridiculously slow and the passing lane clogged with morons in pickup trucks and people having earnest cell phone conversations in SUVs. When there's a cop watching us, we're on our best behavior - otherwise, we act like sullen teenagers.
  

We still have the potential to always be one of the leading countries in the world but if we don’t act on it soon, hungry, determined people from other countries who appreciate opportunity will take our place there.