Losing our Liberty one Bureaucratic Law (Regulation) at a Time...

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FDA Moves to Regulate Cigars:

Lawmakers worry that the new rules could hurt small businesses and interfere with cigar smokers’ enjoyment of their hobby. Though the agency has yet to lay out its new regulations in detail, industry insiders speculate that it could ban flavored cigars, require ugly warning labels or graphic pictures on cigar boxes, bar customers from entering store humidors, or require that cigars be kept out of the reach of potential buyers, who typically handle and examine them before choosing which ones to buy.

There is a note of resignation by our representatives to bureaucratic regulation  otherwise known as law that bothers me.

There was a time when our lawmakers were the source of law rather than resigned to it.  Of course, we were a representative democracy then... 







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Creeping Power - Lost Liberty...

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Bill Whittle:




My grandfather worried about creeping communism from his generational perspective, my father from his and I from mine.

It is a shame that none of us can experience the true liberty our nation once offered, that made our nation to become a world power. Without that experience it is difficult to imagine the liberty we have lost as individuals and understand our nation's fall from power and influence on the world stage.




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The Liberty Squelching Nature of Free Stuff...

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Ben Stein:

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government
that requires every citizen to prove
they are insured . . . but not everyone
must prove they are a citizen.

Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges.



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Weaving a Regulatory Web of Waste and Liberty Lost...

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First they came for and got our high-dive diving boards. Now they want the pool. Why? John Stossel and Bill Whittle offer an answer and it's unpleasant.

John Stossel: (h/t Anonymous)

Big-government advocates will say that as society grows more complex, laws must multiply to keep up. The opposite is true.

[...]

F.A. Hayek wisely said, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." Another Nobel laureate, James M. Buchanan, put it this way: "Economics is the art of putting parameters on our utopias."

Barack Obama and his ilk in both parties don't want parameters on their utopias. They think the world is subject to their manipulation. That idea was debunked years ago.

They do not learn, they teach.

Bill Whittle, however, looks around and says, 'hey we aren't a free people. We are a people bound by endless regulation'.

And asks for a "sweet" spot:








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This Frog Mourns Liberty Lost...

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The sparse posting will continue for a few days more...




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The State as God...

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"The State as God" may be a better way of describing government's displacement of religion in the public square than my preference for The Establishment of an Atheocratic State ... I don't know, but it is the same idea.

An Ex-Con's View:

Secretary Sebelius, by her policy mandating these actions, creates a violation of the primary directive of the 1st Amendment against the establishment of religion. Her policy sets the government as the arbiter of religious expression and belief by requiring all religious institutions, employers and affiliated employers to provide these services to their employees. This creates and sets the government as a religion in and of itself and requires all citizens to follow the dictates of the government religion.

This also violates the second clause of the 1st Amendment regarding the “free exercise thereof…”. The mandate violates this section in that it compels all, regardless of religious belief, to adhere to the governments mandated beliefs.

The State as God is the result. Will we see the imposition of this on our Republic? Will “We the People” allow our rights to be erased in this manner?

Yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” stated:

“We have set out our policy. We are going to finalize it in the final rules, but I think what the president announced on Friday is a balanced approach that meets the concerns raised both in terms of access to health care and in terms of protecting religious liberties, and we think that’s the right approach.

Really? The only protection of religious liberties is that we must follow the edicts of the “Pope of DC”, (the President) and the appointed members of his administration.

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Obama Conceded Nothing on the Contraception Mandate....

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Washington Post:

Seeking to allay the concerns of Catholic leaders,President Obama on Friday announced an adjustment to its health-care rule requiring religiously affiliated employers to provide contraceptive coverage to women.

Women still will be guaranteed coverage for contraceptive services without any out-of-pocket cost, but will have to seek the coverage directly from their insurance companies if their employers object to birth control on religious grounds.

How is this an accommodation? Employees of the church will go to the same insurance company that their employer, the church, uses to receive "free" birth control that is paid for by the customers of the insurance company, the churches included.

Can a church choose a different insurance company that does not dispense contraceptives? No. All insurance companies will be subject to this decree, therefore churches will have no options.

This is ObamaCare.





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Why Liberals Resent the American Struggle...

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BurtPrelutski:

I can’t pretend to understand those on the Left. I don’t know why they think the way they do. Once I was being interviewed on a radio show and the host asked me if I was proud to be an American. I shocked him, and even myself a little, when I said I wasn’t. I told him that I was proud of my various grandparents, proud that they had the gumption to make their way across a continent and an ocean to get here. But what did I have to be proud of? I was simply handed a gift. I was just lucky. I won the big lottery. I got to be born an American. What I can’t fathom is why all those liberals, progressives and run-of-the-mill Democrats, don’t seem to share my sense of gratitude, harboring only resentment.

To feel a sense of gratitude for the struggles born by our forebearers in attaining the  liberty freely granted us increases  the moral difficulty of trading it away for trinkets. It is much easier for a people to trade liberty in exchange for the glass beads of government handouts when they first devalue that which they give up.

Thus, it is serves all those liberals, progressives and run-of-the-mill Democrats  to resent the American struggle.




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Using Crises to Overcome Deliberation and Democracy...

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Via Meadia:

Many of those who backed the euro understood very well that a monetary union without a political union would sooner or later fall into a crisis.  They assumed and expected that when that crisis came, the various countries in Europe would choose political union to save the currency.

Loosing liberty via the threat of calamity is nothing new ...

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

... even when it seems to be.






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