Tag: Drug War

The Grand Old Party (GOP) is Not “Republican” and Was Not Anti-Slavery

There is a constant in politics. Smoke and mirrors, nothing is what it says it is or was, and everything comes down to the ability to lie well, “for humanity’s sake”

While I am picking on the GOP today, it would be equally easy to pick on the Democratic or even the so-called Libertarian Party as well.

A Republican today is someone who thinks .. :

*That unemployment compensation for laid-off workers is socialism and multi-billion dollar bailouts for banking and stock swindlers is capitalism.

*That killing women and children with high explosives in remote corners of the earth is defending “our way of life.”

*That the purpose of education is to train good workers.

*That immigration is good because it supplies good cheap workers.

*That the 10th Amendment means that the federal government should tell the States what to do rather than do it itself.

*That criticism of Lincoln is near treason.

*That the President is “Commander-in-Chief” of the country, especially when he is a Republican.

*That freedom is protected by undeclared wars and military tribunals.

*That “right to life” is a good campaign gimmick, but not to be taken seriously.

*That any campaign promise or slogan should gull the saps who are not in the know but is not to be taken seriously.

*That the way to beat the Democrats is to take up whatever they propose and promise to do it better

On that last one, know that Trump-care would follow Obamacare, the same thing only different. But I digress.

I think we can all agree to what these three parties are today, however, I do think we might have some disagreement on what these parties were in years gone past.

Today I will limit myself to the Grand Old Party, since I have limited time …

Here is some popular thoughts accepted by the masses and the people they trust from Paul H. Yarbrough:

[we can] blame the Democrat party for slavery, Jim Crow and most every other popular racial badness. The Republicans supposedly are angels wiping out these evils.

Yes, aligns perfectly with everyone’s history books, so this data must be good, but not so fast. It should be noted that:

  • Many, if not most, slave traders were Northerners regardless of political party.
  • Republicans, for the most part, were not opposed to slavery. They just did not want it extended into the western territories. They sided with the abolitionists only in that they wanted slaves freed so as they might be repatriated to Africa.
  • Republicans sponsored the Corwin Amendment introduced in 1860 by prominent Republicans William H. Seward and Thomas Corwin that would have kept slavery in perpetuity. The amendment was only ratified by two border states, Maryland and Kentucky and three Northern states: Ohio, Rhode Island and Illinois (which had passed laws prohibiting entry by free blacks into the state).

Let’s look at this amendment (would have been the 13th if ratified):

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.””

This does NOT sound like a party that is anti-slavery does it? No, this sounds like a party that changed its mind in 1862 when its invasion of the South was being frustrated, so it changed its mission from “Saving the Union” to “Free the Slaves” (to encourage a general slave revolt in the South to end the War Against Southern Independence faster).

About the Jim Crow laws that today’s Republicans claim is a legacy of the Democrats:

.. the Republicans who controlled the South during the military occupation following the war, forced the Black Codes, nonexistent in the South, on the South in 1866. The Black Codes were a Republican concept. And Northern Republicans were the creators of the later to come Jim Crow Laws.

Surprised? You should never be surprised when your beliefs based on political books like the ones on history are revealed as mere myths.

Now, how “republican” is the Republican party? About as “federalist” as the Federalist party was in the 1790s. Politicians even lie when naming their own parties, it has always been that way!

Paul H. Yarborough shares:

The Republican party is no more republican then the Democratic party is democratic. Both are oligarchies promoting their namesakes as if those in charge (power) have the interests of the people firmly in their hearts (with their pocketbooks in their hands).

True. When one looks at the legacy of the Republican party, one really has to stretch the meaning of the word to apply it even in 1856/1860 (thanks to Laurence M. Vance for his work on these very accurate attributes):

  • The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. Republicans who liked to accuse Obama of being dictatorial some years ago have forgotten all about their beloved Lincoln. He issued a proclamation that freed no slaves. He destroyed the country to save the union. He presided over the first income tax. He supported an amendment to the Constitution that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. He shut down Northern opposition newspapers and imprisoned Northern political dissenters. He oversaw the deaths of 500,000 to 800,000 Americans. He destroyed the system of states’ rights and federalism created by the Founding Fathers.

Dang. Maybe in “peacetime” Republicans are more in line with the founding fathers and this federated republic? You can bet the GOP plans ZERO peace in the near-term. It is just not in their DNA to be anything but like the Democrats, only different.

Other attributes:

  • The Republican Party is the party of the drug war. Although Republicans say they are the party of the Constitution, they show their contempt for the Constitution by their ardent support of the unconstitutional drug war that has ruined more lives than drugs themselves. Republicans are the greatest advocates of locking up people in cages for possessing substances the government doesn’t approve of.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the warfare state. Closing a domestic military base is implausible. Scrapping a weapons system is out of the question. Cutting the bloated defense budget is inconceivable. Invading and occupying other countries is viewed as defensive warfare. Bombing, maiming, and killing whomever the government labels as “the enemy” is viewed as defending our freedoms.
  • The Republican Party is the party of empire. Republicans support the stationing of troops and the maintaining of foreign military bases all over the globe—including in Germany, Italy, and Japan even though World War II ended 70 years ago. Closing an overseas military base is unthinkable. Bringing all of the troops home is unimaginable.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the welfare state. Republicans are welfare statists just like Democrats. They believe that it is the proper role of government to provide public assistance, have entitlement programs, maintain a safety net, and guarantee income security. They continually support food stamps, WIC, TANF, federal job training programs, rent subsidies, heating assistance, farm programs, SSI, and refundable tax credits that allow some Americans to receive tax refunds when they paid no taxes to begin with. They support the government providing unemployment benefits so that those who work can support those who don’t. They have no philosophical objection to the government fighting poverty by taking money from some Americans and redistributing it to others. When Bush the president and had a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress for over four years, the Republicans could have eliminated or substantially rolled back the welfare state. They did neither.
  • The Republican Party is the party of Social Security. Although Republicans may criticize FDR and many of his New Deal programs, they love his Social Security program and want to “save” it so future generations of young people can support the elderly via an intergenerational, income-transfer, wealth-redistribution welfare scheme.
  • The Republican Party is the party of socialized medicine. Although Republicans rail against Obamacare, they are silent about their passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003—the greatest expansion of Medicare since LBJ. Like Social Security, Republicans are some of the greatest champions of “saving” Medicare. And just because they criticize Obamacare doesn’t mean that they favor a real free market in health care, the total separation of medicine from the state, the complete deregulation of the health-insurance industry, or the establishment of medical freedom. Republicans believe that some Americans should pay for the health care of other Americans.
  • The Republican Party is the part of foreign aid. Republicans have no philosophical objection whatsoever to taking money from American taxpayers and giving it to corrupt foreign regimes, including bribing them with cash and military equipment to get them to obey U.S. dictates. Spending on foreign aid practically doubled during the Bush years.
  • The Republican Party is the party of federal control of education. The Democrats may have given us Common Core, but the Republicans gave us No Child Left Behind. Republicans support the federal student loan program, Pell Grants, the National School Lunch Program, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and Head Start. And instead of eliminating the federal Department of Education when they had a majority in both Houses of Congress for over four years during the Bush presidency, they practically doubled the department’s budget. Republicans believe that some Americans should pay for the education of the children of other Americans.
  • The Republican Party is the party of an aggressive, belligerent, and meddling interventionist foreign policy. Republicans believe that the United States should be a busybody who polices the world and tells every other country what it should and shouldn’t do. They fully support CIA covert activities and torture—as long as the American people don’t find out about it.
  • The Republican Party is the party of taxes. Tax reform is unacceptable unless it is revenue neutral. Tax deductions, credits, and loopholes that allow some Americans to keep more of their money should be eliminated. “The rich” should pay their fair share via a progressive tax system. The government is entitled to a portion of every American’s income.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the national security state. Republicans gave us the Department of Homeland Security when we already had a defense department. They gave us the Patriot Act to violate our liberties. They gave us the TSA to grope us when we travel. The current vocal criticism by some Republicans of the NSA would be reduced to a whimper under a Republican administration. Republicans support a CIA that spies on the whole world and works mischief throughout.
  • The Republican Party is the party of massive government spending and debt. The national debt rose almost a trillion dollars between the Republican Revolution that wasn’t in 1995 and Bush’s first inauguration in 2001. During Bush’s presidency, government spending skyrocketed, the national debt almost doubled, and the federal deficit exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. Republicans in Congress regularly vote to raise the debt limit under Republican presidents. They have no philosophical objection to spending billions of taxpayer dollars on thousands of departments, agencies, grants, and programs that are not warranted by the Constitution.

Now you have a flavor of a political party that in no way reflects the “republican” nature of government that Thomas Jefferson, who formed the Democratic-Republican Party (formally called the Republican Party)  around 1792 to oppose the centralizing policies of the new Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury and chief architect of George Washington’s administration.

Words matter. You know, like the “Patriot” Act. As Ron Paul points out:

The Patriot Act waters down the Fourth amendment by expanding the federal government’s ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight. The requirement of a search warrant and probable cause strikes a balance between effective law enforcement and civil liberties. Any attempt to dilute the warrant requirement threatens innocent citizens with a loss of their liberty. This is particularly true of provisions that allow for issuance of nationwide search warrants that are not specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight.

The Act makes it far easier for the government to monitor your internet usage by adopting a lower standard than probable cause for intercepting e-mails and internet communications.

How patriotic is that?

It is a minefield out there. Be careful in your assumptions! The labels are many times very misleading.

-SF1

Parasites: Always Looking for More – How Fighting Vice then Pre-Crime Can be Lucrative

I know I can over-analyze and assume that someone is behind the bigger picture, like a mafia boss looking for more work to keep the “family” in the money.

I really think the latest drive by MSM/Government towards divisiveness is to not only take the focus on the corrupt government (politicians, MSM, Deep-State, elite, etc) but to also is a great marketing campaign to generate more business and more revenue.

It has worked with the CIA for decades, its black-budget ops funded by being the middleman to the black market drug trade (thanks to the government “war on drugs” AND the US’s continued presence in Afghanistan, home to 90% of the world’s opium) that they have in place where the price of drugs remains high (no pun intended), for now, until marijuana is legalized in the USA. What was a vice before the 1930s, then became a crime especially in the 80s/90s (with its parallel spike in violence that ALL prohibition generates), is bound to become a vice again in the 2020s.

This same forecast of legalized pot is seen by local, state and federal police leaders and politicians as a threat to their status quo and the prison-industrial complex. The only way forward is into the arena of pre-crime, since fighting vice (which all victimless crimes are) will no longer generate revenue like the drug war did.

Enter the new hate crime definitions stacking up and the interest of the police state to “research” this area and venture into keeping society “safe”. The latest is from Michigan where Remus at the Woodpile Report shares:

What is hate speech? Legally. According to the Supreme Court. Joe Briggs cites the controlling case, Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which states hate speech must meet three conditions: Intent, imminence and likelihood.

You have to intentionally be inciting people to commit crimes of violence. Those crimes have to be specific and imminent. “Let’s go down the street and hang this guy” would be specific and imminent. “I’d like to string that guy up” would not be. And there has to be a strong likelihood that once the threat is made, the crimes will actually be committed. If any of these three things is lacking, the speech is protected. It can be hateful as all get-out, but it’s still protected.

That was then .. this is now:

Michigan’s attorney general and Department of Civil Rights on Friday laid out plans to increase the documentation and prosecution of hate crimes and incidents while citing a reported uptick in extremist and hate groups in the state.

Uptick in “extremist” groups no doubt because there are new definitions (like veterans, etc) and the surge in MSM reporting on a fake story for two years that drove many people crazy with “Russia-fever”, but I digress.

[Attorney General Dana] Nessel’s new unit will fight against hate crimes and review any groups identified in the SPLC list, her spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney said.

OK, wait a minute. The SPLC is in a world of hurt lately as it was finally revealed as to how corrupt an organization like this can get. That corrupt organization will be the reference point? What can go wrong? (Sarcasm alert)

Arbulu’s plans for a database would document hate and bias incidents that don’t rise to the level of a crime. The database would then be used to identify areas where awareness and education programs are most needed, he said.

So prosecuting actual crime is no longer the first order of business in Michigan because they have run out of the revenue that actual crime generates. So what would be the proper recourse for the state to let someone know that what they said to someone was hate, but not a crime? A 1AM SWAT team intervention?

Riding the wave of the latest snowflake triggering hate “speech” means an opportunity for the parasite .. errr I mean state to offer its “services” .. at a special rate I am sure ($$$).

I wish I could say that voting better might change this, but I would be lying. The swamp extends well beyond Washington DC, so it is time that people start waking up to that fact.

Short of this, how about everyone just mind their own business, and when someone offends you, just keep the police state out of the resolution equation.

‘Nuf said.

-SF1