By Marion Algier - AskMarion
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker and historian who is most famous for his work Democracy in America (paperback), said, “People get the government they deserve.” and there is a similar and well-documented quotation by Joseph de Maistre: "Every country has the government it deserves.”
They are both quotes usually used to explain why our governments (worldwide) are generally pretty awful. The inference is that if people were more careful who they voted for, if they took the time to inform themselves and if more people took the trouble to vote (and get involved in the system) in the first place, we would not have such mediocre or corrupt people in government, and indeed politicians would have to clean up their act and work a lot harder than they do or they would be replaced.
When I was a young student of history, government and politics, I used to think those comments were pretty cynical, but as I have watched and chronicled America’s decline since the Reagan era I have sadly found them to be more true than I ever wanted to believe or admit.
The Great American Experiment, as America is often called, was supposed to prove that the common man could rule himself and America’s Founding Fathers gave us every tool we needed to survive as long as we stayed engaged. But even with those tools the average American is lost, uninformed and disinterested, even now as they watch the one-time greatest country in the world crashing down around them!
The American people as a whole have given the politicians in Washington D.C., and even locally, carte blanche with little oversight or interest for decades. A trend that really began as the so-called ‘Greatest Generation’ returned home from war and the inattention and apathy has grown with each generation thereafter, except by those focused on destroying America. We have allowed ourselves and our children to methodically be dumbed-down, indoctrinated, and manipulated to the point that Pravda, the former propaganda newspaper for the USSR dubbed us Sheeple. We elected and re-elected a president that we still don’t really know and who has ‘always’ surrounded himself with radicals that didn’t like the American system, American ideals or the values of the average American. And we now find ourselves with a president, his administration and a government in general embroiled in scandal, cover-ups, and over-reach. Yet half the people still don’t know about or understand the scandals, that the 2012 election probably was stolen and when asked they just say, “Our president, ‘Obama’, is cool.” The other half are losing or have already lost faith in the government, as well as in their low-informed counterparts.
How many scandals are there now? Benghazi-gate, IRS-gate, NSA-gate, Press-gate… Sebelius-gate (or ObamaCare-gate), EPA-gate, Fast and Furious, voter/election fraud and the list goes on… now State Dept-gate and maybe Islamist-gate. They are spying on us and collecting our data without cause or warrants; using czars and Executive Orders to circumvent the Constitution; they arrogantly promote and defend those involved in the corruption and they investigated and suppressed the activities of anyone or group that opposed them to steal an election. And now courageous whistleblowers and witnesses, who are finally stepping up but are afraid enough that they won’t get a fair trial (or worse), are fleeing the country. Where is the outrage?
FoxNews: NSA whistle-blower who sought to 'inform the public' in surveillance risks decades in jail.
The source of the bombshell leaks about the U.S. government gathering information on billions of phone calls and Internet activities risks decades in jail for the disclosures if the U.S. can extradite him from Hong Kong, where he says he has taken refuge after saying his sole motive was to “inform the public.”
“We have the elements of a Police State here”- Mark Levin
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, fully approves of Edward Snowden's leak about a top-secret National Security Agency surveillance program.
"I'm very impressed by what I've heard in the last couple of hours, including Snowden's own video here. I think he's done an enormous service, incalculable service," Ellsberg said Sunday night on CNN.
As for the surveillance program, Ellsberg said, "I have no doubt that this violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and probably other parts of the Bill of Rights and should have been exposed."
"Can it really be a crime to expose crime?" Ellsberg asked.
HONG KONG (AP) — The American intelligence contractor who disclosed the U.S. government surveillance programs fled to Hong Kong because he believed he wouldn't get a fair trial in his home country.
Snowden says he worked as a contractor at the National Security Agency and the CIA. He allowed both the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers to reveal his identity on Sunday (06.09.13) as the source of a series of top-secret documents outlining two NSA surveillance programs. He told the papers if the DOJ indicts him, which seems almost inevitable, that he doesn't really trust the judicial system in the United States to give him a fair trial". Most would agree that he is right.
One can only ask… wow, has America really fallen that far? It wasn’t so long ago that those would have headlines expected out of the USSR, not the USA.
Video: Neil Cavuto Erupts Over Democratic Operative's Defense of Government NSA Scandal
Infowars.com: Fox News host Neil Cavuto and Democratic strategist Julian Epstein erupted at each other on Saturday morning, when Cavuto demanded Epstein see the NSA subpoena as part of a larger pattern of oppressive behavior on the part of the Obama administration. “You see one incident after another that comes up,” Cavuto said. “It all comes back to the same basic issue: privacy invaded or potentially invaded. Institutions of all sorts doing the same thing. There is a pattern.”
Video: Judge Jeanine Slams IRS, NSA and Obama for Expanding Surveillance Program - Opening Statement
Video: “We have the elements of a Police State here”- A fired up Mark Levin talks to Neil Cavuto
Where are men (and women… the Margaret Thatchers of our day) like Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, presidents/public servants who knew the buck stopped with them, who would have made the tough decisions and taken responsibility? In Obamaland it is everyone’s fault but his. And when they (present day leaders) do surface… why don’t we recognize them? What has happened to Americans who expected their elected leaders to represent their interests and values and who would have called for the resignations or impeachments of those in power today?
Yet when we look for responsibility and blame we must also add ourselves plus everyone in Congress, government workers and the mainstream media to the list. How many people voted without knowing who or what they were voting for? How many parents and grandparents even have knowledge of the anti-American rhetoric being taught in our schools… about the Common C.O.R.E. educational program? How many informed public servants and media have remained silent? How many have misled or lied under oath? How many are uninformed themselves? Did Congress tell us about the PRISM Project… the data centers (Utah) being built and is Congress asking the right questions now?
We, and globally, have already been so programmed that too many Americans actually believe that spying on and droning American citizens is okay. After all most people voluntarily post all their information on social media for the powers that be, and everyone else, to access. We are being led like sheep(le) to the slaughter. See: Timeline of revelations about surveillance that sweeps up Americans' phone calls, data Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said, “He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither”, yet in an America who no longer knew (knows) her (or world) history, Americans could not wait for “W” and Congress to ram through the Patriot Act after 9/11, which 12-years later has only become ever more intrusive. People… if the government is watching and monitoring you, it is never good!! We are living in George Orwell’s 1984… Hear Beck’s emotional 1984 monologue HERE.
America… it is the responsibility of each of us to be informed, to vote for integrity and demand it. If the America our Founding Fathers left us is to survive, it is up to all of us to take a stand and get involved… today! Or there won’t be an American tomorrow that you will be comfortable leaving to your children!! Remember the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, “People get the government they deserve.” If you don’t inform yourself and get involved, what will you tell you children and grandchildren you were doing when America and freedom was being stolen?
