It Is A Madhouse Out There By Chuck Baldwin

[Freedom Is Not Free]

I think we need to face it: 2010 is more than a new year; it is also part of
a new era in which all vestiges of normalcy and common sense have been left
behind. In other words, it is a madhouse out there. Let me give you some
examples of what I'm talking about.

Example Number One: In the world of anti-gun elitists, only common people
are not allowed to defend themselves.

According to the Richmond (North Carolina) Times-Dispatch, "A sheriff says a
North Carolina state senator shot one of two intruders at his home and
hospital officials say the man is in fair condition.

"Multiple media outlets reported that Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten
said that 74-year-old Sen. R.C. Soles of Tabor City shot Kyle Blackburn late
Sunday afternoon."

According to the report, "Batten says the shooting occurred when two men
went to the senator's house and tried to kick in his front door. No charges
have been filed."

Now, don't get me wrong. If the fellows were indeed breaking into his home,
I'm glad the senator defended himself with a firearm. The miscreant deserved
to be shot. Chalk up another one for the right to keep and bear arms.
"What's the problem?" you ask. The problem is, the good senator is one of
the most anti-gun politicians in North Carolina. According to gun owners in
NC, Soles has made a career out of opposing lawful gun ownership for the
general public. In other words, in R.C. Soles' world, his life is worth
defending with a firearm, but your life or family (and mine) can go ahead
and rot.

Soles is typical of Big-Government elitists who will allow themselves the
luxury of all kinds of personal protection, while denying it for the common
man. They hire professional bodyguards (does anyone remember Ted Kennedy's
personal bodyguard who was caught trying to take multiple loaded
weapons--and over 100 rounds of ammunition--into the Capitol Hill building a
few years back?); build exotic security fences and surveillance systems; and
personally obtain firearm permits that are routinely denied the common
person. Then they gladly take millions of dollars from gun control zealots
to finance their Big-Government, anti-freedom agendas.

My question is, how does an elitist gun grabber like R.C. Soles get elected
and reelected in the great State of North Carolina?

Example Number Two: With little notice, President Obama has signed Executive
Order (EO) 12425, which grants complete immunity to foreign police agencies,
thereby allowing them to potentially arrest American citizens on US soil
with no constitutional protections or considerations afforded those
arrested. (This EO also effectively allows INTERPOL to successfully hide any
and all potential information and evidence it has from the American
public--including evidence of Obama's birthplace.)

This action is so draconian and deplorable it is difficult to put in words.

According to the Washington Examiner, "Obama has given an international law
enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority
the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has
freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and
accountability, the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]."

See the story at:

http://tinyurl.com/obama-frees-interpol

Of course, not only could US citizens be subjected to unconstitutional
treatment at the hands of foreign governments operating freely on American
soil, how do we know that our own federal government would not use foreign
police organizations to do their dirty work for them? The answer is, we
don't.

The fact is, this new executive order makes it even more convenient for
already overreaching federal police agencies to bypass and ignore
constitutional protections for the American citizenry. Good grief! Under
this EO, they would not even be required to submit to the Patriot Act,
which, in itself, grants the federal government almost unlimited power to
arrest, interrogate, and incarcerate just about anyone they want--with
almost no constitutional accountability. But, now, this EO removes virtually
every constitutional protection that may yet be intact by authorizing
foreign police organizations to arrest and incarcerate American citizens at
will--with ZERO accountability or oversight.

Of course, all of this is done in the name of fighting terrorism, which
leads to:

Example Number Three: In order to fly commercially, the American people are
now being required to remove not just their shoes--but also their clothes.

After the failed Christmas Day terrorism attempt on a Delta flight
approaching Detroit, Michigan, the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) is planning to spend $25 million of "stimulus" funds to install 150
new full-body scan machines in airports around the country. This is in
addition to the 40 full-body machines that are already in use.

Make no mistake about it: when you step into a full-body scan machine, you
are being undressed in front of the screener. Do you really want TSA agents
gawking at the nude body of your wife and daughters? And speaking of
daughters, will someone please explain to me why these TSA agents are not
guilty of watching child porn? After all, they are spending all day long
looking at nude bodies--including the nude bodies of little children! If you
did this, you would be arrested, incarcerated, and required to register as a
sex-offender for the rest of your life. Yet, TSA agents will now be allowed
to look at the nude bodies of little children and get paid for it!

Furthermore, what is to prevent the agents from storing the naked images
they look at and sharing them with their friends? After all, the peeper
(screener) is housed in a private room, completely removed from the public.

Then there is also the question of the risk of radiation. Any amount of
radiation can increase the likelihood of cancer, which is why most medical
experts advise pregnant women and children to avoid the use of radiation
machines altogether.

And as Bill Press asks, "What if it doesn't work? What's next? We already
know. The latest terrorist plan is to plant explosives inside a body cavity
and detonate the bomb with a cell phone. Experts admit that, had Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab done so, no full body-scanner would have picked it up.

"So that scary new greeting at airports . . . could get even worse: 'Welcome
to the Friendly Skies. Now take off all your clothes--and bend over.' A full
search of body cavities may be next on TSA's list of ways to keep us safe.
Still want to fly home for Mom's birthday?"

See Bill's column at:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121301

Think of it: we've spent nearly $100 billion on national security
intelligence gathering, and yet, the federal government allowed this
Abdulmutallab idiot--a foreigner commonly known to be a security risk--to
board an American jetliner. (While at the same time, police agencies are
instructed to be on guard against American citizens who may have voted for
Ron Paul or Chuck Baldwin, or returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.)
But that's just par for the course with the powers that be these days. They
routinely allow people to fly into America from countries known to be
sympathetic to terrorist organizations. Furthermore, our national borders
are open sieves for virtually any and all illegal aliens. And just watch: it
won't be long into this new year before Barack Obama and John McCain join
together in another push for amnesty for illegals. But now, you and I are
being required to be electronically strip-searched when we want to board a
commercial airliner.

Bill Press also makes a good point by comparing the "war on terror" with the
war against drunk driving. He says, "Consider drunk driving. The best way to
stop it would be to station a cop outside every bar to test every customer
leaving the premises. No matter how much we abhor drunk driving, Americans
would never tolerate that--even though drunk drivers killed 11,773 people in
2008. Only 876 people died worldwide in plane crashes.

"Same with airline security. We must accept the fact that there will always
be risks. The idea that we have to choose between safety and privacy is not
only a false choice, it's a dangerous one. For once we give up even the
tiniest slice of our privacy, we'll never get it back." Amen.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin said, "They who can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

If we were really serious about making airline travel safer, we would
immediately cease and desist from this incessant infatuation with meddling
into the internal affairs of foreign countries, stop invading and occupying
foreign countries, and stop our own State Department and CIA from sticking
their noses where they don't belong--which only serves to agitate the world
against us. We'd stop giving out travel visas to people from countries
sympathetic to terrorists; seal the US border--especially the southern
border; and allow pilots, policemen, and any other citizen lawfully
qualified to carry a firearm to carry those weapons on board the aircraft.
(It was, after all, an American citizen--not an Air Marshal or other federal
agent--that stopped and subdued Abdulmutallab.) But instead, we continue to
push the envelope toward a police state. One could even get the idea that
our federal government may actually want terrorists to enter our country and
board our airplanes so that they might use them as an excuse to exact
greater and greater acts of oppression upon the US citizenry.

"Oh, yeah! I'm way out of line!" (To quote Jay Leno.)

Like I said, it's a madhouse out there. And it appears to me that the
lunatics are running the asylum.


This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2010/cbarchive_20100112.html