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Turn Your Back This Fourth of July

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Post  Anti Federalist Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:17 pm

Turn Your Back This Fourth of July

by eric • June 27, 2013 • 192 Comments

http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/06/27/turn-your-back-this-fourth-of-july/

Turn Your Back This Fourth of July  4th-lead-300x215

In a few days, we will all have an opportunity to peacefully inflict a major psychological blow on the rapidly coalescing police state by the simple but powerful act of refusing to play along with the absurd pantomime on the 4th of July that we live in an even nominally free country – one with the rule of law, an operative Constitution and respect for individual rights. One that isn’t a thugocracy.

We can turn our backs on the flag. Decline to participate when urged to cheer and sing. No fireworks. No barbeques.

We can sit down – and bow our heads.

We can mention the unmentionable: That there is no longer any meaningful limit to the power of the government over our lives. No line beyond which it may not tread. That it lies, spies and tyrannizes.

We can admit to ourselves the shoddy – and frightening – reality bubbling up all around us.

By so doing, we can shatter the illusion that this government operates with anything remotely approximating our consent. This is absolutely essential. The 4th of July pantomime requires that we deny the obvious – that we instead pretend we’re free people living in a free country; one in which the government is accountable to the people, one in which the government is limited by law. One in which people can’t simply be dragooned into prisons without due process, held incommunicado, tortured. A country with a president who doesn’t have kill lists – or use the instruments of state power to punish and intimidate his political opponents. One in which citizens must be suspected of a crime before their personal correspondence is filched through and recorded for later use against them. One in which a traveler is free from arbitrary and random searches of his person and effects. One in which the attorney general of the United States isn’t able to get away with providing guns to gangs or brazenly lie about his use of the power of his office to go after political “enemies” rather than pursue justice.

All these things are everyday realities. And the reality is that the America we once celebrated on the Fourth of July is gone, replaced by something dark and ominous.

It is painfully obvious – so why pretend otherwise?

More to the point, why should we celebrate this ugly transformation?

Mourning is what’s called for.

If we decline to play along – and we still have this option, for the moment – we can shatter the idea that all of the foregoing loathsomeness is done with our approval. We can redefine the relationship between ourselves and the government in an honest way. No more pretending we’re free. No more pretending we’re protected by the rule of law – and not ruled over by a thug caste – a mafia – that does literally whatever it wants, to anyone, at any time – without any real consequences whatsoever. None of this requires elaboration. Everyone knows it to be true. The Constitution is no longer even paid lip service to.

It is a sick joke.

We are in the position of a battered spouse who is expected to rouge her bruises and tell her friends that – whoops! – she fell down the stairs. But hubby is a swell guy.

I say, to hell with that.

I say, let’s not give them the cover they still apparently crave. I say, let’s out them – by openly displaying our bruises and no longer denying how we got them. Let the world see the true nature of the relationship between us and those who rule us.

China had its Tiananmen Moment – when one brave man stood up to a column of tanks and changed history by the simple act of refusing to play along. By peacefully forcing the thugocracy’s hand. It faced a hard choice: Either it could either run that man down in full view of live TV, crush him under the treads of a T-72 and thereby give real-life and incontrovertible evidence of the true nature of the relationship of the Chinese government vis-a-vis the average Chinese. Or it could back down – and thereby be compelled to alter the relationship in a way at least somewhat more favorable to the average Chinese.

We have a similar opportunity coming up. A chance to confront the police state by refusing to pretend it’s not a police state. By coming to grips with what it is.

And what it is is nothing to celebrate.

I urge you to join me this July 4th in turning your back on the flag – on all grotesque homilies to a country that no longer exists, because of the government which does exist – and which desperately wants us to keep on playing patty cake and pretending that it doesn’t.
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Post  News Hawk Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:13 am

America is not a police state.

Our TVs tell us so.

Arrow 
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Turn Your Back This Fourth of July  Empty Don't we have a flagmaker in Wolfeboro?

Post  News Hawk Mon Jul 01, 2013 4:37 am

An inverted US flag could mean anything.

Where might I buy a US flag with a black border?

pale 
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Post  fshnski Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:36 am

What's the difference between what you think we should do and what the schmucks walking on our nations flag are doing. If I saw either act of disrespect I would be upset.
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Post  Anti Federalist Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:14 pm

fshnski wrote:What's the difference between what you think we should do and what the schmucks walking on our nations flag are doing. If I saw either act of disrespect I would be upset.

And I'm more upset at people waving around a Made In China piece of cloth that now represents a tyrannical police state.

You might as well go around waving a Swasticka or a flag of the USSR.
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Post  Anti Federalist Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:19 pm

I suppose I should fess up now and admit I don't recite the Pledge (written by a national socialist to sell flags) or the anthem.

I recite the following when I find myself in such situations:

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...

...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these states; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present federal government is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world...

(Fill in your atrocities here)

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

A government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyranny, is unfit to govern a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our fellow citizens. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
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Post  Anti Federalist Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:25 pm

Uncelebrating the Fourth

http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/JulyFourth.htm

by Harry Browne

July 4, 2003

Unfortunately, July 4th has become a day of deceit.

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declared its independence from Great Britain. Thirteen years later, after a difficult war to secure that independence, the new country was open for business.

It was truly unique — the first nation in all of history in which the individual was considered more important than the government, and the government was tied down by a written Constitution.

It was the one nation where you could live your life secure in the knowledge that no one would ask for your papers, where you weren't identified by a number, and where the government wouldn't extort a percentage of your income as the price of holding a job.

And so each year July 4th has been a commemoration of the freest country in history.

False Celebration

But the America that's celebrated no longer exists.

The holiday oratory deceitfully describes America as though it were the unique land of liberty that once was. Politicians thank the Almighty for conferring the blessings of liberty on a country that no longer enjoys those blessings. The original freedom and security have disappeared — even though the oratory lingers on.

What made America unique is now gone, and we are much the same as Germany, France, England, or Spain, with:

confiscatory taxes,

a Constitution and Bill of Rights that are symbolic only — merely documents used to justify governmental actions that are in fact prohibited by those documents,

business regulated by the state in the most minute detail,

no limits on what Congress or the President might decide to do.

Yes, there are some freedoms left, but nothing like the America that was — and nothing that you can't find in a few dozen other countries.

The Empire

Gone, too, is the sense of peace and security that once reigned throughout the land. America — bound by two huge oceans and two friendly neighbors — was subject to none of the never-ending wars and destruction that plagued Europe and Asia.

Now, however, everyone's business is America's business. Our Presidents consider themselves the rulers of the world — deciding who may govern any country on earth and sending Americans to die enforcing those decisions.

Whereas America was once an inspiration to the entire world — its very existence was proof that peace and liberty really were possible — Americans now live in fear of the rest of the world and the rest of the world lives in fear of America.

The Future

Because the education of our children was turned over to government in the 19th century, generations of Americans have been taught that freedom means taxes, regulations, civic duty, and responsibility for the whole world. They have no conception of the better life that could exist in a society in which government doesn't manage health care, education, welfare, and business — and in which individuals are free to plot their own destinies.

Human beings are born with the desire to make their own decisions and control their own lives. But in most countries government and social pressures work to teach people to expect very little autonomy.

Fortunately, in America a remnant has kept alive the ideas of liberty, peace, and self-respect — passing the concepts on from generation to generation. And so today millions of Americans know that the present system isn't the right system — that human beings aren't born to serve the state and police the world.

Millions more would be receptive upon being shown that it's possible to have better lives than what they're living now.

Both groups need encouragement to quit supporting those who are taking freedom away from them.

You and I may not have the money and influence to change America by ourselves, but we can keep spreading the word — describing a better society in which individuals are truly free and government is in chains (instead of the opposite).

And someday we may reach the people who do have the money and influence to persuade tens of millions of Americans to change our country for the better.

I don't know that it's going to happen, but I do know it's possible. I know that the urge to live one's own life is as basic in human beings as the will to live and the desire to procreate. If we keep plugging away, we may eventually tap into that urge and rally the forces necessary to restore the real America.

And then the 4th of July will be worth celebrating again.
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Post  WHL Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:16 am

I would love to see the real America be restored. Eventually it will collapse so something has to happen.
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Post  News Hawk Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:52 am

fshnski wrote:What's the difference between what you think we should do and what the schmucks walking on our nations flag are doing. If I saw either act of disrespect I would be upset.

The Government is figuratively "walking on our flag".
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Post  News Hawk Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:56 am

Turn Your Back This Fourth of July  P2046B-US-Flag-Black-Border-Patch-450x320
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Post  News Hawk Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:16 am

WHL wrote:I would love to see the real America be restored.  Eventually it will collapse so something has to happen.

From Indepence to Dependence...
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Post  fshnski Wed Jul 03, 2013 8:55 pm

News Hawk wrote:
WHL wrote:I would love to see the real America be restored.  Eventually it will collapse so something has to happen.

From Indepence to Dependence...

Not for all of us.
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Post  WHL Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:31 am

We hope.
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Post  News Hawk Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:36 pm

Where does A-F get the line,

"A government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyranny, is unfit to govern a free people."

Question 
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Post  News Hawk Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:56 pm

Surprised 

What Anti-Federalist has spawned:

"Vandals damaged about a dozen flags put up in downtown for Turlock’s big parade, jumping to pull the stars and stripes down with their weight, severely bending the poles. The flags drooped down nearly to the sidewalk. If we’re talking money, it’s about $500 worth of damage. But of course, we’re talking about the flag, so it goes deeper than that."
CBS Sacramento
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Post  News Hawk Sun Jul 07, 2013 2:07 am

Anti Federalist wrote:I suppose I should fess up now and admit I don't recite the Pledge (written by a national socialist to sell flags) or the anthem.

I recite the following when I find myself in such situations:

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...

...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these states; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present federal government is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world...

(Fill in your atrocities here)

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

A government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyranny, is unfit to govern a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our fellow citizens. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

Turn Your Back This Fourth of July  ?ui=2&ik=9ce0d51578&view=att&th=13fb66bd4e9cb230&attid=0.1
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Post  Anti Federalist Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:24 pm

News Hawk wrote:Where does A-F get the line,

"A government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyranny, is unfit to govern a free people."

Question 

That's all mine...a little update to Mr. Jefferson.
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