The Economy

The Economy

… is not the most important issue in this year’s presidential election. It wasn’t the most important in the last election either. Oh it is important to be sure, but it isn’t the most important aspect of Presidential or congressional power. The state of the economy (good or bad) affects elections because it is used as a wedge against and a distraction from the most important issue America has ever addressed. Freedom. Without freedom private enterprise suffers and the economy with it, but having less money and or opportunity to get it pales in comparison to the loss of freedom.

Folks we are there now. The TSA violating the 4^th amendment rights of thousands of people at airports all over the country is so passé now. The once freedom-loving people of the land of the free and the home of the brave who boasted they would defend freedom with their very lives have come to accept being treated like cattle by a government who doesn’t recognize even the most basic of the original constitutional rights.

As I write this, Chicago has been turned into a police state for the NATO summit. Did I miss a constitutional amendment somewhere? When did we give up our rights to freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble to petition our government for a redress of grievances? Now, there is a difference between a peaceful protest and a violent mob, but there is also a big difference between policing serious threats to property and life on a case by case basis and locking down an entire city with a small army of armored cops and military grade aerial surveillance before any protesters even show up. Word of the near Martial Law state that was coming to Chicago for the NATO summit was broadcast through major media outlets well in advance. Citizens were warned to evacuate. Read that again and let it sink in. Citizens of Chicago (an American city last I checked) were warned to evacuate. Today the advisory is that if you are still there and can work from home, do it at home and don’t go out at all.

If you think that last paragraph is an overreaction to a little security then you need to wake up, re-read the Bill of Rights, and brush up on your Ben Franklin. “Those that would give up a little liberty to purchase a little security deserve neither and will lose both.” The NATO summit in Chicago right now is a text book example of a tyrannical government and the loss of personal freedom. NATO is an international body that not one citizen ever votes for and they answer to no one. Chicago mayors have a long dark history of running the city like third world dictators and that is exactly what Rahm Emanuel would be if he could get away with it. Oh wait, he has! All that riot control equipment Chicago has bought over the past year or so, all those new riot control laws Rahm Emmanuel has built up and is now enforcing literally by the force of a police baton and end of a gun barrel will be the new normal for Chicago for a long time after NATO leaves.

Now that you have lost your first and 4^th amendment freedoms America, ask yourself this. What will be the next protected right lost? Trial by jury? Protection against excessive bail? The right to legal counsel?  Too late. That happened with the last National Defense Authorization Act. Just how much longer will it be until the next unelected jackboot demands that you must give up another constitutional protection or be arrested for non-compliance?