Flag Burning 11/03

[dalebert]

Excellent article, Kat! So much better than mine. Did find a few typos to bring to your attention.

This country because a great place because, for a period of time,  the government mostly left people alone.

Here's a run-on.

No more is the little guy free to produce, he is fettered with regulations, licenses, red tape a mile long.

Could be: No more is the little guy free to produce. He is fettered with regulations, licenses, and red tape a mile long.

Just a suggestion really. Probably not incorrect.

Now, instead of making a better life for him and his family, he sits onstands in a welfare line.

The United States of today in no way respects the rights of people

I love this article. So well said. I think I'll link to it from my blog as well.

[Kat Kanning]

Thanks, and thanks for the proofreading

[BillKauffman]

This country because a great place because, for a period of time,  the government mostly left people alone.  When the fetters were removed, the little guy was free to produce, to create, to make a good life for himself and his family.  And that's just what a lot of little guys did with their freedom, making this the most prosperous nation in history.  It was a beautiful thing. 

It's gone now.

It was inevitable that freedom should gradually disappear.  The people who fought for freedom in the US appreciated it.  Their children and grandchildren grew progressively more comfortable.  They forgot what a danger government can be.  Slowly those freedoms dissolved away, like the wearing away of rock in a riverbed.  People relied on government to protect "our freedom", when really, it was something each of us needed to look after for ourselves.

Now we've come to this, the United States of today.  The government involves itself in every aspect of our lives.  No more is the little guy free to produce, he is fettered with regulations, licenses, red tape a mile long.  Now, instead of making a better life for him and his family, he sits on a welfare line.

The United States of today in no way respect the rights of people – free speech has been replaced by "free speech zones", freedom from outrageous searches have been replaced by TSA lines and no-knock warrants.  Rights to a speedy trial are laughed at by officials at Guantanamo Bay, where torturing prisoners is endorsed by the President himself.  Limits on taxation have been replaced by a system that takes nigh upon 50% of all we earn.   The government fetters laid down by the Constitution have largely been cut, leaving government free to trample the people.

The idyllic country that my mother holds dear is a dream of the past.  It could be created again, but with the same result – the gradual wearing away of freedoms.  So is the human race doomed to a perpetual cycle of revolution-freedom-slavery?  I believe as long as we hand over the responsibility to protect our freedom to someone else, we will have tyranny.  As long as pretend it's OK for government to commit aggression in our name, we will have tyranny.  As long as it's OK for one group to initiate violence, we will have tyranny.

In its ideal, governance as legitimate authority is simply a voluntary agreement amongst individuals with some mechanism to enforce the agreement so that individual rights are not infringed upon within a negative liberty framework.

What you and we should be objecting to is the "state" where a large plutocratic class uses the power of the "state" to plunder those excluded by privilege to protect their interests.

[Kat Kanning]

Here's the more newsy-type article:

http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node/260

[Tom Sawyer]

Brimming with newsyness! newsitude! it's newsalicious! 

Well written Kat, I like the personal/mom aspect.

[Kat Kanning]

Man, am I ever in trouble.     I bet she gets out the switch. 

[Tom Sawyer]

Man, am I ever in trouble.     I bet she gets out the switch. 

Does she make you cut your own switch... that is one sad walk outside.

[Pat K]

Nice work Kat.

[Kat Kanning]

Man, am I ever in trouble.     I bet she gets out the switch. 

Does she make you cut your own switch... that is one sad walk outside.

She's got a whole switch-garden!

[Pat K]

Man, am I ever in trouble.     I bet she gets out the switch. 

Does she make you cut your own switch... that is one sad walk outside.

She's got a whole switch-garden!

Don't worry Kat. I am sending this guy over
to protect you.

[Kat Kanning]

Scary! 

[drumnaked!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMV8NV9GNPk. My video pf Jesse's protest.

[David]

Strike the root link on the eleventh.  http://www.strike-the-root.com/2008/november/081111.html

[dalebert]

Strike the root link on the eleventh.  http://www.strike-the-root.com/2008/november/081111.html

Schweet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TnVHy-g2xs

[Kat Kanning]

Letter to the Editor I received about the flag burn:

http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node/277

Flag Burning, Revolution, and Secession

This letter is in reference to your article "Activist Plans to Burn US Flag Nov. 3rd" and Ryan Young's letter from Reno, NV, "Regarding Burning the US Flag in Keene"  Both article and letter appeared in the New Hampshire Free Press (October 2008). 

I, for one, wish to congratulate "Jesse" Maloney, 21, of Keene, NH [who, after announcing his valid reasons] plans to burn a US flag just prior to the election on Monday, Nov. 3rd at 2:00pm in Central Square, Keene.

However, American Revolutionary War flags, such as "Liberty", "Betsy Ross" (13 stars and stripes), "Don't Tread on Me", colonial town militia and the 13 original sovereign state flags, all predate the emergence of the flag which symbolizes the US Imperialist Empire.  These pre-US American flags should never be burned because they flew under our glorious Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the Revolution, which liberated us from British Tyranny until Shay's Rebellion (1786) was crushed by the US Empire in embryo.

American Revolutionary War flags should replace the US flag so that the Stars & Stripes shall never have to be burned again, any time, any place.

The un-American flag of the Tory hatched, Bill of Rightless Constitution of the Us Federalist "Republic", born from the jack boot of Terror over the rebellious, anti-federalist colonists of western Massachusetts in 1786, is now, as it was at birth, a symbol of Universal Tyranny.

My bet is that American Anti-federalist founding fathers, such as, Philadelphiensis Patrick Henry, John De Witt, et al, would have championed Jesse Maloney's burning of the US flag (and his reasons for doing so) because they authored the "sentiments" and precepts of the Revolution, i.e. the Bill of Rights, after having violently opposed the creation of the US Federal Constitution and Federal Government and its Tory flag which they declared to be: "a consolidated Union", "an Empire", "execrable commands of Tyranny", "commanding a standing army", "illegal", "undemocratic", "unconstitutional", "not a republic", "an aristocratic tyranny" "a despotic monarchy", "a destroyer of Equal Liberty", "a total dereliction from the sentiments of the Revolution." (1)  How else could the US Empire have conceived, carried out and covered-up the genocide of its own people on 9/11/01, if it had not been born "a total dereliction from the sentiments of the Revolution"? (John De Witt)

Again, I would like to wish many happy returns of the day to Jesse Maloney for expressing his worthy ideas and for risking loss of Liberty in America's emerging secessionist fever and War on Tyranny, American Revolutionary War style.  But, when I look into Obama's face, I see "Bleeding Kansas" and Gettysburg. (2)

Yours Truly
For a Free Menotomy*
David G. Pearson
Arlington, MA

(1) "The Letters of Philadelphiensis," The Complete Anti-Federalist by Herbert J Storing (Chicago, 1981); and The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, Vol. XII, No. 1, (1955), pp. 3-46 under the title, "Men of Little Faith:  The Anti-Federalists on the Nature of Representative Government."
(2)See Secession:  How Vermont and all the other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire, by Thomas H. Naylor, Feral House, 2008; and Vermont's free state secessionist underground think tank & citizen's network at POB 544, Charlotte, Vermont 05445, Telephone 802-425-4133, web vermontrepublic.org.
(*)  "Swift Running Water" stronghold of the Massachusetts, birthplace of the American Revolution and Uncle Sam (Wilson), originator of West Cambridge and Arlington, Massachusetts.