Lies, Damn Lies, and Government Bureaucrats

Obamacare: Mission Accomplished

Smokey the Bear is a Fascist

It seems any government agency can and will be used to deprive you of your rights. The National Forestry Service violated Bobby Unser's rights. That's far more serious than trespassing into a 'national forest'. The Forestry Service ought to be subject to punative fines and the individuals responsible ought to be in prison.



Hat Tip: The Heritage Foundation

Leftist Climate of Hate

Union members call their governor "Hitler" only because he's trying to break up their monopolistic, budget-busting, sweetheart deals that were arranged by corrupt politicians. And they attempt to bully and terrorize those who report the facts.

Didn't You Know?, Part 3

Didn't you know that government officials promote and protect the bloody, grotesque, inhuman atrocity of infanticide? Didn't you know that so-called women's groups have no real interest in protecting women? The subject is so important and the article below so thorough and well written, I've left nothing out.

The Philadelphia Horror: How Mass Murder Gets a Pass

Let's give the "climate of hate" rhetoric a rest for a moment. It's time to talk about the climate of death, in which the abortion industry thrives unchecked. Dehumanizing rhetoric, rationalizing language and a callous disregard for life have numbed America to its monstrous consequences. Consider the Philadelphia Horror.

In the City of Brotherly Love, hundreds of babies were murdered by a scissors-wielding monster over four decades. Whistleblowers informed public officials at all levels of the wanton killings of innocent life. But a parade of government health bureaucrats and advocates protecting the abortion racket looked the other way -- until, that is, a Philadelphia grand jury finally exposed the infanticide factory run by abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D., and a crew of unlicensed, untrained butchers masquerading as noble providers of women's "choice." Prosecutors charged Gosnell and his death squad with multiple counts of murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, theft and other offenses.

The 281-page grand jury report released Wednesday provides a bone-chilling account of how Gosnell's "Women's Medical Society" systematically preyed on poor, minority pregnant women and their live, viable babies. The report's introduction lays out the criminal enterprise that claimed the lives of untold numbers of babies -- and mothers:

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy -- and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels -- and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it."

Echoing the same kind of dark euphemisms plied by Planned Parenthood propagandists who refer to unborn life as "fetal and uterine material," Gosnell referred to his deadly trade as "ensuring fetal demise." Reminiscent of the word wizards who refer to the skull-crushing partial-birth abortion procedure as "intact dilation and evacuation" and "intrauterine cranial decompression," Gosnell described his destruction of babies' spinal cords as "snipping." He rationalized his macabre habit of cutting off dead babies' feet and saving them in rows and rows of specimen jars as "research." His guilt-ridden employees then took photos of some of the victims before dumping them in shoeboxes, paper bags, one-gallon spring-water bottles and glass jars.

They weren't the only ones who adopted a see-no-evil stance:

-- The Pennsylvania Department of Health knew of clinic violations dating back decades, but did nothing.

-- The Pennsylvania Department of State was "repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell" -- including the clinic's unclean, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients and over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street -- "and repeatedly chose to do nothing."

-- Philadelphia Department of Public Health officials who regularly visited Gosnell's human waste-clogged offices did nothing.

-- Nearby hospital officials who treated some of the pregnant mothers who suffered grave complications from Gosnell's butchery did nothing.

-- An unnamed evaluator with the National Abortion Federation, the leading association of abortion providers that is supposed to uphold strict health and legal standards, determined that Gosnell's chamber of horrors was "the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected" -- but did nothing.

Meanwhile, the death racketeers have launched a legislative and regulatory assault across the country on pro-life crisis pregnancy centers from New York City to Baltimore, Austin and Seattle that offer abortion alternatives, counseling and family services to mostly poor, vulnerable minority women.

Already, left-wing journalists and activists have rushed to explain that these abortion atrocities ignored for four decades by abortion radicals and rationalizers are not really about abortion. A Time magazine writer argued that the Philadelphia Horror was "about poverty, not Roe v. Wade." A University of Minnesota professor declared: "This is not about abortion."

But the grand jury itself pointed out that loosened oversight of abortion clinics enacted under pro-choice former GOP Gov. Tom Ridge enabled Gosnell's criminal enterprise -- and led to the heartless execution of hundreds of babies. Mass murder got a pass in the name of expanding "access" and appeasing abortion lobbyists.

As the report made clear: "With the change of administration from (pro-life Democratic) Gov. Casey to Gov. Ridge," government health officials "concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay."

Deadly indifference to protecting life isn't tangential to the abortion industry's existence -- it's at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It's the logical, bloodcurdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rooted enterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.

Vanderbilt Required Nurses to Pledge to Murder

Vanderbilt breaks the law, denies having broken the law, proves they know the allegations are true by ceasing to break the law, and gets away with all of it.

Voila! Vanderbilt drops abortion demand

Only one day after WND reported on a complaint filed by a team of Christian attorneys over Vanderbilt University's requirement that nursing students pledge to participate in abortions, the requirement has been dropped.
[...]
Bowman had explained the Vanderbilt policy violated the law providing that any institution receiving federal grants cannot force, coerce or otherwise require an individual to assist in abortions.
[...]
In a statement one day earlier, Vanderbilt University Medical Center spokesman John Howser said the ADF was mistaken.

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 3

The legacy media is deeply entrenched in Statism. As a result, they would never expose a Statist president for his or his administration's involvement in corruption. But this one isn't going to go away easily. It will have to be addressed. How will the anti-American, Statist legacy media ultimately spin this story?

The Pigford Case and Why the NY Times Doesn’t Want to Talk About It

This is pretty amazing in a number of ways:

This should be a case about public corruption, one that involves the President since he recently signed off on more money for this settlement. There are three reasons it’s not on the front page of the NY Times.

Reason 1: There were some real victims here, black victims. That’s shameful. No one likes to linger on their shame, especially not the government. And that goes for media outlets who, by and large, are on the current administration’s side.

Reason 2: If this was investigated it would undoubtedly uncover hundreds of people who took advantage of the system, all of them black. No one at the Times or the Post wants to portray blacks as victimizers of the public trust. Exposing something like this as reality would be a blow to the liberal narrative about government handouts and minorities. The Times won’t lend credence to what they see as a negative stereotype, i.e. “welfare queens.”

Reason 3: And this may be the biggest one of all. Andrew Breitbart broke the story. The liberal media is emotionally invested in Breitbart’s failure. You could see that in the grudging way they covered the ACORN story. You could see it in the gleeful way they covered the Shirley Sherrod story. They refuse to give him a win, especially one which would rehabilitate his image and make him more powerful going into 2012. They hate him. It’s obviously a factor in this situation.

There are only three courses left to the MSM. One, pretend it isn’t happening or, at best, frame the complaints as the product of far right troublemakers with no facts offered to back them up. That’s going to be increasingly difficult in light of this video tape, but it wouldn’t be the first time Times readers have gone without the facts.

Two, write a massive article full of pathos for the real victims and minimize or sidestep the fraud issue. In other words, let it be known that the Grey Lady has decided the good outweighs the bad so it’s okay to turn a blind eye on this one.

Three, investigate and let the chips fall where they may. Of all the options, this is the least likely. But you can just imagine how this would have been treated if Bush had signed off on it instead of Obama at a time of financial crisis and worries about deficits and government spending. It would have been front page news.

Abortion Industry Continues to Abet Rape

Judge: Planned Parenthood Rushed Abortion on Sexually Abused Teen

Hurley also told the newspaper there is one more issue remaining to be resolved in courts — the matter of whether Planned Parenthood violated state law requiring abortion centers to notify parents when their teenager daughter is considering an abortion.

Also, under Ohio state law, such a case of sexual abuse or statutory rape is required to be reported to appropriate law enforcement officials.
[...]
Hurley said he’s obtained a handwritten note from Planned Parenthood that mentions the phrase, “Don’t ask/don’t tell” and said the note was from a Planned Parenthood trainer, Julia Piercey.

“So, to me, their position is laughable,” Hurley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It came from their own files, from their own trainer.”

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 2

A Black Farmer Blows the Whistle on the Black Farmer Settlement

I have 200 acres in Arkansas and have raised hogs.
Pigford is the biggest rip-off this country has ever known, and there are lots of people in positions of power that know it. Politicians are using it to buy votes. Trial lawyers are using it to get rich.

I personally know of people who have no connection to farming at all who got Pigford checks. People with potted plants in their apartments claimed to be farmers and got paid. I saw an instance where eight Pigford checks went to one house. There are drug addicts and pushers who have received payments who have never farmed a day in their life.
[...]
Congress needs to investigate Pigford immediately. I believe that probably 80 to 90% of Pigford claims are fraudulent. I know that its at least 300 cases in Arkansas alone. By investigating this fraud we are opening up a can of worms. But it needs to be done. Justice demands it.

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 1

In addition to being a concise, but thorough, summary by Breitbart himself of his exposure of NAACP racism in response to their media-complicit false accusations of racism against the Tea Party, it also introduces a report initiated to understand why Sherrod was fired, but producing evidence of yet another scandal of government fraud and corruption.

Me & Mrs. Sherrod — And The $1.25 Billion Pigford II Black Farmers’ Settlement

Despite the firestorm, there was still an unanswered question — why on God’s green earth was Shirley Sherrod fired?
[...]
My first clue came, ironically, from the epicenter of Breitbart-hate — MSNBC. It was a week into the controversy. Nation editor Chris Hayes was filling in for Rachel Maddow and reported that I was responsible for black farmers not getting their settlement money.
“Conservative con artist, 1; black farmers, 0,” liberal Journolist Hayes said snarkily.
Black farmers? Settlement money? I had no idea what he was talking about. None.
[...]
I started to research Pigford and the more we looked into it, the more I realized that this was not a story that could be researched and told quickly. In fact, it was still unfolding. And even now, it still is.
This coming Wednesday, President Obama is slated to sign the Pigford II settlement.
But that will not be the end of the story. The American people deserve a full investigation and accounting.
Today, we’re releasing a report called “The Pigford Shakedown: How the Black Farmers’ Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers — Leaving Us With a Billion Dollar Tab.”
What have we discovered about Pigford so far?
Treasure troves of information from Lexis and Google. USDA whistleblowers. A former FBI agent who was on the verge of indictments. One of the originally discriminated-against black farmers with the goods. All these people paint a very clear picture of widespread fraud, and can testify to a complex web of bad players, including politicians, trial attorneys and community organizers.
I stumbled on the Pigford story in my defense of the Tea Party, so it’s a sweet irony that the Pigford story is exactly the kind of mess that makes the Tea Party so necessary. Politicians and trial attorneys bonded together to rip off the taxpayer, and even those farmers that were discriminated against were royally screwed.
Let me be clear, our investigation convincingly leads us to believe the USDA practiced discrimination against black farmers. Those wrongs must be rectified. But Pigford is wrought with a grotesque amount of fraud, while the truly aggrieved were mostly left high and dry.
The Pigford tale is about government run amok. It is also an indictment of the American media that is so blinded by ideology that it missed the big story yet again because taking out a political enemy was far more expedient. And furthermore it is why the American people need the Tea Party and new media as a checks and balances on corrupt politicians and their corrupt journalist counterparts.
Today will be the first of many days that BigGoverment.com will release information, testimony and documents to make the case that, at the very least, the American taxpayer (and ESPECIALLY those legitimately discriminated-against black farmers) need a full accounting of the Pigford I and II settlements.

The Conspiracy to Shakedown Chevron

Outtakes from so-called documentary prove the movie maker a fraud, litigants conspirators, and Chevron innocent.

‘Crude’ Footage Reveals Lies Behind Trial Lawyers’ Suit Against Chevron

The damning revelations are the result of Chevron’s successful legal efforts to gain access to outtakes from the movie, “Crude,” which the director, Joe Berlinger, claimed to be a fair and balanced effort to show both sides in the litigation over Texaco’s operations in Ecuador between 1964 and 1990. Chevron purchased Texaco in 2001. Berlinger claimed journalistic privilege and fought to keep control of the footage, but was ordered by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on July 15 to turn over relevant material. The review by Chevron’s lawyers of the first batch of outtakes shows that not only that the legal case against Chevron is built on lies, but that Berlinger’s reputation as a serious, fair-minded documentarian is hollow.

Breaking Point

H/T Conservative Latina

Chicago Press Protects Political Machinist Rahm Emmanuel

Chicago press attempts to deny freedom of the... PRESS!

They try to drive away and even threaten violence against a reporter who is there to interview rather than for the purpose of creating good public relations in support of Chicago Political Machine veteran Rahm Emmanuel.

Democrats Keep Trying to Corrupt Elections

Now that the Tea Party is revolting against the Republican establishment, Democrats find it isn't enough to have subverted and corrupted the Republican party establishment with the likes of John McCain, Arlen Specter, etc. They must now find ways to infiltrate the Tea Party as well.

Dems Admit Rep. John Adler Planted Fake Tea Party Candidate

In May, Geoff Mackler, Adler’s Campaign Manager, along with Democratic consultant Steve Ayscue gave a presentation outlining the “DeStefano Plan” at the Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters:


"The goal was to take 5 percent of (Republican Jon) Runyan’s vote," said a Democrat with direct knowledge of the Adler campaign and CCDC operations.

"Steve Ayscue designed the plan with Geoff Mackler following his lead."

Legacy News Covers Up SEIU Terrorist Connection

Chicago Media Omit Fact That FBI Terror Suspect is Chief Steward for SEIU

One might think it would be big news that a Chief Steward for a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is being investigated by the FBI for possible connection to overseas terror networks. Apparently, though, several Chicago news outlets didn’t see a reason to add this little fact to their stories.
[...]
But it isn’t just TV that missed this fact. The Associated Press also seems to be blind to the fact that Iosbaker is a union operative.
[...]
The fact seems to be that Iosbaker is not just a little fish in the big union pond. He is at least a middle-manager and local union muckety-muck. So why did so many news outlets somehow forget to mention this fact? Isn’t his status as a union operative with some station and position significant?
One is tempted to think that these news outlets were trying to cover for the SEIU.

Our Anti-American President

Obama's Arizona Jihad - HUMAN EVENTS

The Obama Administration’s jihad against Arizona continues to rage. Most recently, it included SB 1070 (Arizona’s new immigration law) in a report to the United Nations on human rights abuses.
[...]
I didn’t think it could get any worse than the Obama Administration suing a sovereign state for simply enforcing federal immigration law—indeed, for simply defending its citizens—but it has.
President Obama has decided to have the United Nations review the law of Arizona. You have got to be kidding! We’re now going to have countries like Cuba, Libya and Uganda sitting in judgment on Arizona’s laws? Enough is enough!
[...]
Sheriff Joe’s crack down on illegal immigration led the Mexican drug cartels to put a $1 million bounty on his head last month.

When the sheriff of America’s fourth-largest county is threatened by foreign enemies, you would think that the President would assist him. Instead, Obama is siding with the cartels. While they are sending their guns against Sheriff Joe, Obama is sending his lawyers.
[...]
Americans need to wake up! Obama’s assault on SB 1070 and Sheriff Joe has absolutely nothing to do with the Constitution, civil rights, or even the relationship between federal vs. state authority on immigration.

It is about Obama’s refusal to enforce our immigration laws. He won’t let the federal government enforce the law. And if a state tries to pick up their slack and protect its citizens, he sues them.

This is the Obama’s Civil Rights Division of $145 million and 399 attorneys attacking Arizona and its citizens. This is a battle of epic proportions. They have the support of highly funded left-wing open-borders legal advocacy groups like the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. Bring it on!!

Dim Bulbs in D.C.

Not only is it morally wrong for the government to try to run your life, but also the government is simply very bad at doing it.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Proceed with Caution
By Peter Wilson

Many people, however, don't like curlicue light bulbs, and not because these people are uninformed, shortsighted, or on the payroll of Big Carbon. The list of objections is long, but here are a few:



• CFL manufacturers claim that a 13-watt CFL emits the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent, but it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world. I've been in CFL-lit hotel rooms where I need a flashlight to read my dog-eared copy of The Road to Serfdom.


• Warm-up time: it takes up to 5 minutes for a CFL to reach full strength, which may be related to the point above (why CFLs seem less bright). My friend has installed them in a hallway where illumination is needed only for the thirty seconds it takes to navigate the staircase. Not ideal when Grandma visits and can't see the skateboard on the stairs.


• Few CFLs last for their advertised lifetimes of five years or more. Many people report replacing them after one year, making those return on investment numbers a bit less rosy. Using them in ceiling fixtures, on dimmers or timers, and for less than fifteen minutes per use reduce their life.


• CFLs contain mercury and should be returned to a hazardous waste center for disposal. Studies assume a 25% recycling rate, with the rest going into landfills. (The Westinghouse website recommends recycling only when disposing of "a large quantity" of fluorescent tubes and doesn't mention how to dispose of their CFLs.) According to a 2008 Yale study, burning coal to supply electricity to incandescent bulbs emits more mercury per bulb than a CFL contains, but regions that rely on cleaner fuels like natural gas experience greater mercury contamination with the introduction of CFLs. Why would environmentalists advocate to bring a toxic product into every home?


• Cleaning up a broken CFL doesn't require a haz-mat team, but you have to take significant precautions to avoid mercury contamination of living areas.


• Manufacturing CFLs is labor-intensive. No CFLs are made with expensive U.S. labor; most are made in China, where hundreds of factory workers in CFL plants have been hospitalized for mercury poisoning. The last major light bulb factory in the U.S., a GE plant in Winchester, VA, closed earlier this month.


• CFLs require six times as much energy to manufacture as incandescent bulbs, not to mention -- if you're concerned about such things -- the carbon footprint of shipping them from China.


• CFLs appear to cause migraines and epileptic seizures in a small number of people. Other health risks are being studied.


• CFLs work poorly in cold temperatures -- as a wintertime front porch light, for example. In cold climates, the heat of incandescent bulbs is a useful -- if inefficient -- byproduct.


• CFLs degrade the quality of the electric current (so-called "dirty electricity" with uneven sine waves) on a circuit into which they are plugged, causing problems for other electronic devices and possible health hazards to humans.

History in the Making

I was pretty sure I understood the meaning, but I looked it up just to be sure.

Pyrrhic
1885, from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who defeated Roman armies at Asculum, 280 B.C.E., but at such cost to his own troops that he was unable to follow up and attack Rome itself, and is said to have remarked, "one more such victory and we are lost."

Pyrrhic Victory? Right Diagnosis, Wrong Patient
By Randall Hoven

Assume the geniuses are right. In fact, assume the worst case: O'Donnell loses the general election and the Senate ends up 50-50, with the tie-breaking vote going to Joe Biden. If we wing-nuts hadn't screwed things up by electing O'Donnell in the primary, the Senate would be majority Republican in 2011-12. How much better would a majority-by-one outcome be?

We do not have to hypothesize such a situation. Exactly that happened in 2001. And this is what happened: Jim Jeffords, nominal Republican, left the Republican Party to caucus with the Democrats, putting them in majority control for the remainder of that Senate term.
[...]
When we really, really needed him, Jumpin' Jim jumped. To be clear, all of the good do-bee Republicans who supported our "moderate" Republicans from the Northeast still got screwed. They lost the money they sent him and lost the Senate anyway. Strike one.

Move to the next northeast state, Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey ran against Arlen Specter in the GOP primary in 2004. There was nothing wrong or "wing-nut" about Toomey. He had served in the House for the previous six years. He was a Harvard graduate for goodness sake. But, he wasn't the choice of the Republican Party geniuses. The geniuses knew their incumbent, Arlen. And Arlen proved, if nothing else, that he could win elections in Pennsylvania. So Arlen got the GOP money, the GOP backing and President Bush's endorsement.

Then, when we really, really needed it -- when it might have been possible to filibuster Obama's stimulus in 2009 if a mere 41 GOP senators could hang together -- three GOP senators, all from the Northeast, broke ranks: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. Strike two.

Then, when we really, really, really needed him, to defeat ObamaCare by filibuster, Arlen did Jumpin' Jim one better and became an out-and-out Democrat. He ended up voting for ObamaCare as a Democrat. He took GOP money when he ran in 2004, and then voted against the GOP when it counted most. Strike three. And I'm out.

Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party Era
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

There isn't a Tea Partier who doesn't understand the danger of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. Any Republican taking any title for granted, however, is a problem. Now, you've got to earn it. With this first federal election of the Tea Party era, the choice is no longer between the lesser of two evils.

Christine O'Donnell is that lesson. At Friday's Values Voter Summit in Washington, she said, "They don't get it. We're not trying to take back our country. We are our country." That reminded me of another outsider derided by the establishment: Ronald Reagan.

With Democrats on the run in so many races, their resources are stretched. Democrats will need to rely on bitter Republicans to fend off O'Donnell's run in Delaware. Conservatives mustn't allow the bitter Republicans to destroy the chance to take the Senate by backing down from, or making excuses for, their establishment "friends."

The 2010 elections will show who's on our side. It's up to the people who care too much about America to no longer care what the establishment thinks of them.

More relevant words for this week:

wa·ter·shed   
[waw-ter-shed, wot-er-]

–noun

1. Chiefly British . the ridge or crest line dividing two drainage areas; water parting; divide.


2. the region or area drained by a river, stream, etc.; drainage area.


3. Architecture . wash ( def. 44 ) .


4. an important point of division or transition between two phases, conditions, etc.: The treaty to ban war in space may prove to be one of history's great watersheds.

mile·stone   
[mahyl-stohn]

–noun

1. a stone functioning as a milepost.


2. a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc.: Her getting the job of supervisor was a milestone in her career.

sea change 
–noun

1. a striking change, as in appearance, often for the better.


2. any major transformation or alteration.


3. a transformation brought about by the sea.

Boston Govenment School Takes Children to Pray at Terrorist Mosque

Bureaucratic Tyranny

I pay property taxes to the county in which I live. This is a good thing. The taxes paid by residents are used to provide services, one of which is the use of the county dump sites.

But now we have a problem. Only county residents have paid taxes which provide for the dump. Each county has its own dump(s). Residents of other counties should not be using the dump in my county. For this reason, as well as many others including the orderly management of personnel, land, and waste, we suddenly need to provide for the management of these facilities. And this also has a cost that must be borne by taxpayers.

But as is typical, the policing of the use of the county dump is done preventively rather than punitively. That is, rather than penalize those who misuse the dump, provision is made to prevent the misuse of the dump. In some cases, this approach is appropriate. It may be in this case, in which the goal is to prevent non-county residents from using the dump. The way this is pursued (though not achieved) in my county is through the issuance of decals that can be applied to the vehicle window belonging to county residents and must be displayed when discarding waste at the dump site. Naturally, these decals also cost money.

This approach does not prevent non-county residents from using the dump. Obviously, through a variety of methods, a non-county resident might obtain a decal that will allow him to illegally use the county dump. This is actually a little humorous to me because a much more effective method is so easily available. Any proof of residency like a driver's license could easily be used to authorize use of the county dump. And such a method would save money to the taxpayer and the county.

However, what bureaucrat could conceive of such an elegant solution? Bureaucrats tend to be 'little kings' running their own fiefdoms and enjoying the opportunity to enforce upon the unwashed peasants the rules which they majestically devise. Examples abound, most notably and frighteningly at the Federal level. I won't cite them here. Be on the lookout.

In addition, bureaucrats provide never ending excuses to add tax after tax in order to pay for their endless and typically needless, poorly designed, and inefficiently managed programs. Quite obviously, these endeavors are designed to generate revenue in many cases, not merely to pay for themselves.

As for me, when traveling to the dump I place the decal, still stuck to its original backing, on the dashboard of my vehicle so that it can be seen by the dump attendant. This has always been acceptable. I find repugnant the idea that I should drive around my whole life displaying a decal that I only use a few minutes every other week or so. That's just silly. Also, I sometimes borrow a pickup truck from a family member or a friend, who may or may not be a resident of my county, in order to deliver refuse too large or too numerous to fit in my sedan.

So, as one might expect, the 'little kings' have decided the dump can no longer be used except by professed residents of the county who are driving vehicles with decals actually affixed. I will no longer be permitted to use the dump if I simply temporarily lay the decal on my dash for the very few minutes that I need it. The poor soul who lives across the road from the dump will not be permitted to simply walk across the street with his garbage.

What purpose does this serve? First, additional decals must be purchased for those residents who may use a variety of vehicles to deliver waste to the dump. It might also be assumed by some pencil pusher who lives in the city, has his garbage collected, and never actually uses the dump he oversees that requiring the decals to be affixed might prevent the loan of decals to non-residents. To any rational person with the most rudimentary experience in the real world, such a notion is laughable. But what rational person in touch with real life would aspire to the position of bureaucrat?

Prevention may be preferable to punishment in some cases when the consequences are life-threatening. But it has become the norm in every situation and it offers no exceptions to a sacrifice of our liberty. Most obvious and egregious is the case of our 2nd amendment.

When exposed to any discussion of regulation, certification, licensing, or qualification, consider the legal requirement in question and whether the approach is preventive or punitive. A preventive methodology will nearly always be observed. Then consider to what extent the preventive measures have curtailed your rights. Finally, decide whether the security gained by such prevention is worth the price you pay in the currency of your liberty.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin, 1759