on our current dictatorship

  Michelle Bachmann, on Monday 05 September 2011 (see here), warned that the federal government would become “a dictator over our lives” if it were to make the purchasing of health insurance conditional to citizenship. In support of the point she is trying to make, and to illuminate the majestic, abiding truth behind her words, let us review some of the other conditions that state and federal governments have forced upon the American people, conditions that violate our liberty and that Design to reduce us under absolute Despotism:
  The motor vehicle operators of this nation are being forced to insure themselves and their conveyances;
  The parents of this nation are being forced to educate their children;
  The users of this nation are being forced to choose between alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, all other drugs having been declared illegal;
  The heterosexual couples of this nation are being exposed to the threat of prosecution if found living together while not married (in Florida);
  The homosexual couples of this nation are being restricted in their right to marry;
  The women of this nation are being besieged by forces seeking to restrict their right to terminate unwanted pregnancies;
  The property-owners of this nation are being forced to pay school taxes, even if they are childless;
  The sick patients of this nation are being forced to suffer needlessly, the cures and remedies potential to stem-cell research unexplored and otherwise retarded by the staunch efforts of moralistic and religious extremists;
  The non-believers of this nation are being forced to abide by the tenets of a religion not of their choosing (Pennsylvania's blue laws, laws defining marriage according to the Christian bible), and they have little choice but to handle currency which bears the religious statement, “In God We Trust;”
  The workers of this nation are being forced to live in poverty, their jobs having been sold to the lowest foreign bidder by native corporations seeking to maximize dividends at any cost;
  The peace-loving people of this nation have been forced to accept torture as a means essential to the common defense of their homeland;
  The gullible inhabitants of this nation have been forced to live in constant fear of the specter of terrorism, their fists balling at the mere mention of Islam, their anxiety fueled by the vague warnings and hysterical rhetoric emanating from TV personalities and politicians alike;
  The minority populations of this nation have been forced to live as second-class citizens, their communities neglected, their schools under-funded, their young people incarcerated disproportionately, and their adults abandoned to the ravages of disease and addiction;
  The tranquil people of this nation are being forced to defend constantly the sanctity of their persons and other such property from unscrupulous local police officers, who, in blatant disregard of any pledge they might have made to defend and uphold the Constitution, too often resort to tricking the
people into relinquishing the protections granted them in the Bill of Rights;
  The millions of registered voters of this nation are being forced to select from candidates of but two political parties, political parties that because of their size, complexity, and ossification cannot possibly endeavor to represent the myriad opinions of a people as diverse as our own;
  The once-proud citizens of this nation have been forced to give up their inalienable rights, their elected officials passing legislation (Patriot Act) to this effect soon after 11 September 2001, legislation that has left the citizenry exposed to willful and unwarranted intrusions into its private affairs.

  Americans do not fear the threat of dictatorship: we have already engaged the existing dictatorship. I call on Michelle Bachmann to expand her efforts, and to join in the struggle to right the wrongs listed above, if not to satisfy her base, then to prove to the rest of the voters that she is prepared to battle oppression regardless of form or frequency.
  It matters little our color, conviction, or creed – we must never forget that our republic is a fragile and fleeting affair, an unusual configuration too easily corrupted by those with much to gain, too readily abandoned by those with nothing to lose. Only through vigilant and persistent action can we rekindle the Torch of Progress, and regain for ourselves and our Posterity those Blessings of Liberty that for generations have been denied us.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

religious oppression in PA

  I have recently been the victim of religious oppression. An inhabitant of the state of Pennsylvania, I was a few days ago in the market for buying alcohol, which I could not do because of the religious laws that have been adopted by this Commonwealth. On Sundays, upstanding citizens of legal age cannot purchase alcohol because it is forbidden in this state to sell booze on that day, not due to laws based on rationality or on efforts to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, but laws based on the codex of one specific religion (even though the Sabbath, which occurs on Saturday, is the day that in the Christian bible Yahweh says to keep holy, not Sunday, a day not specifically mentioned as holy in that text).

  I am not a Christian, but I am being forced to follow its (purported) teachings. I am being oppressed by the rules of one specific religion, rules that have been incorporated into the laws of the state, making Christianity the official religion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This state of affairs violates the constitutional right of all Pennsylvanians to liberty by taking away our ability to decide for ourselves on which days we should wish to purchase alcohol for private consumption. Just as women would be incensed if they were forced by the state to cover their heads or to hide their faces out of some sort of religious observation (as the Taliban did in Afghanistan), I am incensed that I am being forced by the politicians and lawmakers of the state of Pennsylvania to follow the rules of a religion not my own.

  For some strange reason not rooted in the teachings of Jesus (who himself supposedly performed a divine act at the wedding of Canna just to keep the booze flowing) but located solely in the Old Testament of the Christian bible, religious zealots in this state have found a way to codify their beliefs into law, thus restraining me in my liberty and forcing me to live under the rules of a religion not of my choosing. Additionally, these religious laws force the individual to cross state lines on Sunday to purchase booze for private consumption back in PA, an action that, as bootlegging, is illegal at the federal level because it violates the Interstate Commerce Clause.

  In order for liberty to once again reign in this state, all laws based on religious codices must be nullified and struck from its constitution. This must be done in an effort to maintain the separation of church and state, and to forestall the implementation of additional Old Testament directives, the worst of which are found in Leviticus, where Yahweh demands the murder of homosexuals, adulterers, the incestuous, and girls who are discovered, on their wedding night, not to be virgins. The right to buy booze is just one front in the national war against Liberty that is being waged by religious conservatives: laws that prohibit abortion based on the rules of the Christian religion violate the individual's constitutional right to property by restricting her ability to decide to have unwanted growths removed from within her body.

  To be the shining example to the world to which we so often aspire, America must return to rationality by putting a stop to this oppression. If one state in the Union is oppressing its people religiously, by extension all states are being oppressive, violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by passing laws that establish religion. If these laws are not struck from the books, and Americans do not regain the right to decide for themselves how best to lead their lives, our system, weakened as it has been by the actions of the greedy and the dishonest, will surely crumble under the continuing onslaught from one specific religion in a nation of thousands of different systems of belief.

  To end religious oppression in America, we must obey the constitutional mandate by securing for ourselves and our Posterity the Blessings of Liberty, a mandate that can only be fulfilled when the individual is allowed, unfettered and unhindered, to do those things she deems are best for herself and her body, so long as she is not infringing upon the right of any other person to life, liberty, or property.

  End this tyranny. Reinstate liberty among the American people. We will not stand to be ruled by one religion among many. Freedom will ring when the Blessings of Liberty are prosecuted as aggressively as certain religious observances. In the words of George Washington and John Adams, “[t]he government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” (Treaty of Tripoli); let us honor these founding fathers by making sure America remains a safe haven for all peoples, regardless of creed or color, and by fighting to the last against those who would see us dancing to the tune of whichever god they have chosen for themselves.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp