Showing posts with label INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. Show all posts
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Christian Family Refuses Mandatory RFID Chip at Texas School
Video: Christian Family Refuses Mandatory RFID Chip at Texas School
Tracking School Children With RFID Tags? It’s All About the Benjamins
Student body ID cards with RFID-embedded chips. Image: Northside Independent School District
Just as the U.S. Department of Agriculture mandates Radio Frequency Identification Device chips to monitor livestock, a Texas school district just begun implanting the devices on student identification cards to monitor pupils’ movements on campus, and to track them as they come and go from school.
Tagging school children with RFID chips is uncommon, but not new. A federally funded preschool in Richmond, California, began embedding RFID chips in students’ clothing in 2010. And an elementary school outside of Sacramento, California, scrubbed a plan in 2005 amid a parental uproar. And a Houston, Texas, school district began using the chips to monitor students on 13 campuses in 2004.
It was only a matter of time. Radio frequency identification devices are a daily part of the electronic age, and are fast becoming a part of passports, libraries and payment cards, and are widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods.
And it appears that the educational move to Big Brother-style monitoring is motivated mainly by money, despite privacy and health concerns.
Two schools at the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-chip-laden student-body cards when classes began last Monday. Like most state-financed schools, their budgets are tied to average daily attendance. If a student is not in his seat during morning roll call, the district doesn’t receive daily funding for that pupil, because the school has no way of knowing for sure if the student is there.
But with the RFID tracking, students not at their desk but tracked on campus are counted as being in school that day, and the district receives its daily allotment for that student.
“What we have found, they are there, they’re in the building and not in their chairs. They are in the cafeteria, with counselors, in stairwells or a variety of places, some legitimately and some not,” district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said in a telephone interview. “If they are on campus, we can legally count them present.”
The Spring Independent School District in Houston echoed the same theory when it announced results of its program in 2010. “RFID readers situated throughout each campus are used to identify where students are located in the building, which can be used to verify the student’s attendance for ADA funding and course credit purposes,” the district said.
But privacy groups are wary.
“We don’t think kids in schools should be treated like cattle,” Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a telephone interview. “We generally don’t like it. My take on RFID is it’s fine for products, but not so much for people. That’s one of the places where the lines need to be drawn. ”
But there appears to be dozens of companies who see no need to draw such a line and offer their RFID wares to monitor students in what is still a tiny but growing market. Among the biggest companies in the market: AT&T.
“One day soon, home room teachers in your local middle and high schools may stop scanning rows of desks and making each student yell out ‘Here!’ during a morning roll call. Instead, small cards, or tags, carried by each student will transmit a unique serial number via radio signal to an electronic reader near the school door,” AT&T says in its RFID-student advertising materials.
Gonzalez said there has been minimal parental and student opposition to the program at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School. The pilot project could expand to the Northside Independent School District’s 110 other schools, he said.
As for privacy, the system only monitors a student’s movements on campus. Once a student leaves campus, the chips no longer communicate with the district’s sensors.
He said the chips, which are not encrypted and chronicle students only by a serial number, also assist school officials to pinpoint where kids are at any given time, which he says is good for safety reasons. “With this RFID, we know exactly where the kid is within the school,” he said noting students are required to wear the ID on a lanyard at all times on campus.
The lack of encryption makes it not technically difficult to clone a card to impersonate a fellow student or to create a substitute card to play hooky, and makes the cards readable by anyone who wanted to install their own RFID reader, though all they would get is a serial number that’s correlated with the student’s ID number in a school database.
EPIC’s Rotenberg was among about two dozen health and privacy advocates who signed an August position paper blasting the use of RFID chips in schools.
The paper, which included signatures from the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation and, among others, Big Brother Watch, said the RFID systems may have “potential” (.pdf) health risks, too.
“RFID systems emit electromagnetic radiation, and there are lingering questions about whether human health might be affected in environments where the reading devices are pervasive,” the paper said. “This concern and the dehumanizing effects of ubiquitous surveillance may place additional stress on students, parents, and teachers.”
Gonzalez said John Jay High has 200 surveillance cameras and Anson Jones Middle School, about 90.
“The kids,” he said, “are used to being monitored.”
Also Checkout: Parental Rights in the U.S. >> Go to http://parentalrights.org/
Related:
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The ‘new chip’… especially for you!
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Technorati Tags: War on Christianity,Christians,Christianity,RFID chips,Texas,Big Brother,Constitution,parental rights,parenting,God,First Amendment,Bill of Rights,individual freedoms,freedom is not free,stand-up American,stand-up Christians,1984,Verichip in the Healthcare Bill,Verichip,Microchips,Smart Card
Saturday, July 28, 2012
"Eat Mor Chikin" while Rahm eats crow!
Threats to Chick-fil-A 'height of stupidity'
Legal team warns city officials, like Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who promise trouble for restaurants: “Make My Day”
Free Chick-Fil-A Coupons Save w/ Top Chick-Fil-A Coupons! Free Chick-Fil-A Coupons.
Sign Petition Supporting Chick-fil-A, freedom of speech and freedom of religion HERE
The issue before us is not an anti-gay issue. It is a pro-freedom of speech and freedom of religion issue. Chick-Fil-A does not discriminate against gays. But Chick-Fil-A is a private company whose owner stand-up for their Christian beliefs. Hello, this is America where that is allowed. And America is still the land of the free, governed by a Bill of Rights and Constitution, where the majority of people are Christians.
Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy said he believes in the natural, biblical view of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
How, in America, could that viewpoint possibly be considered controversial or discriminatory?
Have our nation’s values and culture collapsed that far?
Apparently, liberal politicians like Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel think so. Upon hearing of Cathy’s stand, radical pro-homosexual organizations and sympathizers immediately began calling for boycotts, “kiss-ins,” and other types of protests against the family-friendly national chain of restaurants.
Then, government officials from major U.S. cities like Chicago and Boston said they plan to prevent Chick-fil-A from opening new restaurants in their jurisdictions.
Demanding a public apology from Cathy, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno said that he will deny Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Herald that he would block Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in the “Cradle of Liberty.”
Never one to “let a good crisis go to waste,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel followed suit. Emanuel’s statement that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago’s values” was both legally ignorant and ill-advised. Emanuel, the former Chief of Staff at the Obama White House, surely knows that viewpoint discrimination violates federal Civil Rights statutes!
++These threats of action and discrimination against Chick-fil-A because of the viewpoint of its owner are not only illegal – they are toxic to every business and businessman in America!
To deny business permits or zoning approvals to Chick-fil-A because the president of the privately-owned family business expressed his biblical view of natural marriage is outrageous.
Any city trying to ban Chick-fil-A will not win this battle. If this discrimination is challenged in court – Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be eating crow, and in large portions! Even the ACLU condemned the knee-jerk announcements by ultraliberal Mayors Emanuel and Menino!
These government officials ought to be ashamed. For a public official to threaten denial of a right to do business because the president of a private company supports natural marriage is the height of stupidity and intolerance.
Unfortunately, their response is typical of intolerant homosexual activists. They will go to any lengths to silence the majority of Americans who believe that children do best when raised in a natural family with one mom and one dad.
A legal team that specializes in religious and civil rights and the Constitution says city officials who are promising to punish Chick-fil-A restaurants for the religious beliefs followed by their chief are asking for trouble.
“These government officials ought to be ashamed. For a public official to threaten denial of a right to do business because the president of a private company supports natural marriage is the height of stupidity and intolerance,” said Mathew Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel.
“Unfortunately, their response is typical of intolerant homosexual activists. They will go to any lengths to silence the majority of Americans who believe that children do best when raised in a natural family with one mom and one dad,” he said.
The issue has turned into a firestorm over the last couple of days. Among the results? The Henson Co., creator of the Muppets characters, said it no longer would work with Chick-fil-A. The mayor of Boston publicly bashed the restaurant chain. Chicago officials said they would not want the company to operate in their wards. And “kiss-in” protests were announced in front of company outlets on college campuses.
Boston’s mayor reconsiders his position on Chick-fil-A expansion in his city.
All brought on by advocates for homosexual behavior because Dan Cathy, whose father, Truett Cathy, founded the $4 billion-plus a year business, gave an interview to the Baptist Press.
“We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that,” Cathy said.
In a separate radio interview, Dan Cathy said, “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think we can try to define what marriage is all about.”
Earlier today, Billy Graham, the longtime dean of Christian leaders in the United States, expressed his support for the Cathy family
“I want to express my support for my good friends Truett Cathy and his son Dan Cathy, and for their strong stand for the Christian faith,” he said in a statement released by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
“I’ve known their family for many years and have watched them grow Chick-fil-A into one of the best businesses in America while never compromising their values. Chick-fil-A serves each of its customers with excellence, and treats everyone like a neighbor. It’s easy to see why Chick-fil-A has become so popular across America,” he said.
Liberty Counsel noted the city officials who are on thin ice include Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno, who “said that he will deny Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Herald that he would block Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in the ‘Cradle of Liberty.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel followed suit.”
“There is absolutely no evidence that Chick-fil-A has discriminated against anyone,” Staver continued. “The intolerance displayed by these government officials ought to serve as a wakeup call to the majority of Americans who support the commonsense understanding of natural marriage.
“If given the chance, these intolerant officials would silence anyone who supports natural marriage. They have placed extreme ideology over freedom,” Staver said.
“To deny business permits or zoning approvals to Chick-fil-A because the president of the privately owned family business expressed his biblical view of natural marriage is outrageous. Any city trying to ban Chick-fil-A will not win this battle,” Staver said.
Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
But as WND reported, hundreds of thousands of people across America are pledging to support Chick-fil-A restaurants.
A Facebook campaign has been launched by Gov. Mike Huckabee seeking to build support for the chicken-sandwich chain famous for closing its stores on Sundays so employees can attend church if they choose.
Huckabee, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate, invited Americans to join him Wednesday, Aug. 1, for a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Some supporters are advocating showing support every Wednesday.
He noted the company now is a $4 billion a year effort with more than 1,600 stores.
“The militant homosexual advocates have launched an all out assault on Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A, pushing for a boycott because the Cathy family has contributed to traditional marriage organizations. The attempts to hurt or destroy Chick-fil-A is nothing short of economic bullying. In the name of ‘tolerance,’ there is an effort being mounted to put pressure on people to stop eating at Chick-fil-A. Even worse is the vilification of the company and its employees. The Christian world view of Dan Cathy is being met with intolerance and vicious hate speech,” Huckabee’s announcement said.
“I ask you to join me in speaking out to your constituency via Facebook, Twitter, email, broadcast, etc., to make Wednesday, August 1 ‘Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.’ No one is being asked to make signs, speeches, or openly demonstrate. The goal is simple: Let’s affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1.”
John Hayward at Human Events said the attacks are reaching unhealthy levels.
“The name of the game being played against Chick-fil-A involved ending the discussion, by ruling one side of this important social debate completely out of order, and dismissing their beliefs as unworthy of respect. All resistance to gay marriage is instantly transmuted into personal hatred of gay people. On the other hand, criticism of traditional marriage proponents cannot be viewed as hateful, no matter how angrily it might be expressed. It’s a rigged heads-we-win, tails-you-lose game,” he said.
Chick-fil-A appears to have taken itself off the soapbox, at least for now, with a corporate statement that said: “The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 restaurants run by independent owner/operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”
Related:
Can it be un-American to be a Christian?
Rahm Emanuel chickens out on Chick-fil-A ban
'The View' Co-Hosts Defend Chick-Fil-A After Chicago Alderman Announces Ban
Biggest name in Christianity defends Chick-fil-A
Liberty Action Counsel Stands with Chick-Fil-A
See what the biggest companies in the nation are doing to promote homosexuality.
- God You Think You Know The Bible Well? Test Yourself With Our Trivia Game www.BibleTriviaTime.com
- Chick-Fil-A Franchise Find out about owning a franchise. Get the info you need fast & free! www.FindaFranchise.com
Announcing the Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day on August 1
July 26, 2012 
Christian-owned Chick-fil-A has come under assault once again, this time because CEO Dan Cathy recently affirmed his personal view that the Biblical view of marriage should be upheld.
The "Big Gay" machine has ramped up an un-relenting and vicious public attack against Chick-fil-A. Homosexual activists are spewing hate-filled bigotry and intolerance toward the company in unprecedented fashion.
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day is our way of showing our support for a company whose leaders believe in marriage as that of one man, one woman. http://66.210.221.105/index.html
Join millions of others in showing support for Chick-fil-A by visiting your local Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1, 2012. The plan is simple. At least once on August 1, eat a meal at Chick-fil-A and politely let the staff and management know you appreciate the company's Christian value system.
Let us know you're supporting Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day by signing up today! We'll let Chick-fil-A know to expect record sales on August 1! http://66.210.221.105/index.html
"Eat Mor Chikin" while Rahm eats crow!
Thanks to patriotic Americans of all stripes from Billy Graham to the ladies of The View, Chick –Fil-A’s media coverage and sales are up!
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Food Fights and Class Warfare
There was a time when full tables signified prosperity and thick waistlines were considered attractive. The ability to eat one's fill was what separated the gentry from the peasant making do with a few crusts and salted leftovers. Fat was in because it represented leisure and wealth. Thin meant you were on the road to the poorhouse or to consumption, which meant your body was being consumed, not that you were the one doing the consuming.
Then feudalism went the way of the dodo, agriculture was revolutionized and starvation went extinct in the West. Between the widespread availability of cheap food and social welfare programs covering everything from soup kitchens to food stamps, it became hard to starve. Not only was the availability of food no longer associated with prosperity, but even the poor had begun to eat so well that fat began to carry working class and lower class associations.
Fat was no longer wealth, instead conscientious fitness became a mark of prosperity. The laden table made way for micro portions and exotic but barely edible foods. Thin was in on the plate and the waistline.
In Third World countries where feudalism never ended and the agriculture revolution never mattered, the values often never flipped. Instead of anorexia, teenage girls suffer from being force fed to make them more marriageable. The wealthy are fat and the feasts at the top never end.
In the West, weight stands in for class, at a time when explicit classism has become politically incorrect. When Europeans sneer at how fat Americans are, and American coastal elites sneer at the rest of the country for being fat, it's a class putdown that dressed up longstanding contempt in the colors of the welfare state.
Just because the left and its class warfare worldview, which pretends to be concerned about the plight of the underclass, dominates Western societies does not mean that it is not classist. The left is elitist and its underclass protectionism creates a new wave feudalism with a vast government funded upper and middle class dedicated to caring for the underclass, subsidizing it, caring for it and taxing it to pay for all those services.
The obesity concern trolling is a combination of classism and nanny statism that brings to mind the days when their ideological forebears thought that the way to deal with the poor was to sterilize those who seemed less capable than the rest to improve the breed. There is something equally Darwinian in the sneers aimed at Paula Deen. The breed being culled while the elites try to teach their less evolved cousins to survive by eating their arugula.
The nanny state is built on a technocratic confidence in the ability to create one size fits all solutions, overlaying that on a map of the current medical wisdom leads to the creation of single standards, which often have less to do with health than they do with the status symbols of the leisure class. 19th century popularized medicine created so many of these fads that some of them are still around today. The 20th century created even more.
Death though is not only inevitable, but it cannot be dodged with a one size fits all standard. Fitness guru Jim Fixx who helped kickstart the running craze died in his early fifties of a heart attack. Fixx had quit smoking and lost weight, and still died at an early age. Jackie Gleason who spent his life looking like a walking health attack, smoking and drinking, outlived him by nearly twenty years.
Medicine is individual and the collectivization of medicine is a technocratic solution that leads nowhere except to few doctors and ranks of unionized medical personnel nudging patients into following the script handed down to them by professors who have never actually practiced medicine a day in their life. This is the outcome of a nanny state outlook that sees individuals as dispensable, that is concerned only with group outcomes.
This view requires seeing all people as endowed with certain problems that require broad stroke solutions, like adding calories to menus and other rats in a maze tactics designed to modify human behavior on a national level. The targeting of fast food restaurants, public school meals and food stamps reeks of the same elitist arrogance that drives the nanny state.
The politicization of food by the elites of the left always comes down to class, no matter how it may be disguised in liberal colors. From exotic to locally grown, the trajectory of food politics follows the upselling of food prices The only difference is that the dominance of the left has wrapped the added cost with no added value in their own politics. The more affordable food becomes, the more the left finds ways to add cost to food, without adding value.
But the politicization of food goes beyond the fair trade and locally grown fetishes of the politically correct elites, the more politics ends up on your plate, the more the elites are driven to involve everyone else in their food fights. What begins as a way of raising prices while diminishing value to assert wealth and privilege becomes imposed on everyone in the name of their political morality. Once everyone else is paying more and getting less, then the classist left demands new ways to set its superior moral eating habits apart. Instead of everyone ending up with more food, everyone ends up with less.
The cultural ascendance of the left has meant that instead of conspicuous consumption, the consumption has to be disguised with conspicuous political pieties. The food may cost twice as much, but it's locally grown on a farm run by handicapped union workers who visit Cuba to receive free health care or by the indigenous peoples of Tuba-Tuba with the proceeds going to a complete sonic library of their chants and ceremonies. The entire thing is meaningfully meaningless, but it disguises the consumption in a hairshirt, which is the entire point.
Conspicuous consumption is now for the poor while conspicuous conservation is for liberal elites. Al Gore may live in a mansion but he still has the carbon footprint of a mouse. The problem is the truck driver whose vehicle emissions are killing the planet. Whole Foods is just fine, but we need to do something about McDonald's.
Conspicuous conservationism has made America a poorer country, destroyed millions of jobs and outsourced them overseas. Now it's beginning to make America a hungrier country. In a moment of horrifying tone deafness that makes Marie Antoinette seem enlightened, the left is cheering that fewer Americans are eating meat, without seeming to understand that it's because fewer Americans are able to afford it because of their economic policies.
What the left's food police can't accomplish with nudges and shaming, they can finish off with policies and regulations that end up raising the price of food or by making it too difficult to sell. As the left tries and fails to sell the general public on conservation as a status symbol, it moves in the heavy bureaucratic artillery.
It isn't unusual for elites to use the legal system to enforce their own values on the general public, though it was the kind of thing that the universal franchise was supposed to put a leash on, but there is something grim about their growing preoccupation with the habits and mortality of the population. It's the kind of concern that has a habit of ending in eugenics and the more medicine is universalized, the easier it is to start cutting off access to medical treatment for those who haven't been nudged far enough in the right direction.
Social medicine politicizes food consumption and a globalized economy politicizes food production. And the politicized American plate has less on it and at a higher price. While the left obsessively pursues its mission of destroying fast food in the name of lowering social medicine costs and being fairer to farmers, what they are truly accomplishing is to take affordable and filling food off the shelves, as they have done with countless other products that they have targeted.
By the time the left was done with Russia, it had gone from a wheat producer to a wheat importer and many basic food staples were hard to come by even in a country filled with collective farms. Finding modern day examples of that isn't hard. We only have to look as far south as Venezuela to see empty store shelves under the weight of government food policies. But one day that may be the local grocery store if the left gets its way.
By Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish - Cross-Posted at True Health is True Wealth - h/t to TMH of the NoisyRoom
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wicked Writ of the Midwest
Wicked indeed… It would seem the elitists in Houston County, Minnesota want to implement Agenda 21 and take away citizen’s property rights. Disparaging the Constitution and treating the local populace as if they were nothing more than serfs. The very arrogant face of Progressivism and evil without a doubt.
One of the strongest American freedoms we have is the right to own property. It is what makes us a free society and is the very cornerstone of liberty.
Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
Exercising their quintessential American rights, landowners in Houston County, Minnesota decided they had had enough five years ago and set out to reclaim their rights after the County Commissioners started making directives on how people could and could not use their own land. The fight continues today as threats, court proceedings, the stripping of Constitutional rights and lawyer’s fees fly frantically back and forth, egged on by Progressives in positions of power who are more interested in the environment and instituting Agenda 21 than they are in the rights of property owners. Cass Sunstein, is that you hiding behind the EPA again? Who’s a little Marxist?
Enter Houston County’s Commissioner who called the Constitution an ‘old document.’
“I know we’ve sworn to uphold the Constitution but it is an old document; times have changed,” stated Commissioner Tom Bjerke.
Well sir… If you think that the Constitution is outdated, perhaps you should take your viewpoint and move to a more ‘Progressive’ country in Europe, or perhaps Russia would be a better fit for you. I’m sure you would be much happier with like-thinking comrades. Don’t let the American door hit you in the behind on the way out.
The County Commissioners have told those citizens attending meetings to sit down and shut up. The local paper has told them that they have said enough and have quit taking letters to the editor longer than 500 words. But if you are on the side of the Progressives, well have your say! The media propaganda machine is in full swing skewing the truth as usual as I understand it.
From The Blaze:
In 2007, Houston County sued a young, newly married couple due to the new land use plan. The couple, who had just legally bought the home, was given four options to “settle the situation.” The couple was required to move their house fifty feet, purchase an additional 32 acres of land, sell their property to a neighbor, or tear their house down. Dealing with “impossible options,” the couple chose to appeal the ruling in the Minnesota Supreme Court. The court refused to hear their case, thus leading them to sell their property. The couple is now renting the very house they once owned.
That’s ridiculous and just wrong. And they didn’t even get to have their day in court, which probably wouldn’t have mattered any way since the County and State have already decided that this couple had no rights, Constitutional or otherwise. What a farce. This makes me boiling mad. And this couple is not alone, there are over 50 landowners in the area facing similar situations. Ask yourself, what would you do?
The County Commissioners have ignored the petition requesting they resign – over 700 landowners signed that petition. For a small county in the southeast corner of the state, that is a huge number of petitioners. These Commissioners have ignored all efforts by the people to have their voices heard concerning their Constitutional rights as landowners. They are told at meetings, in no uncertain terms, not to bring up the Constitution.
But these patriots are not giving up:
A small group of landowners decided that it was time to educate others, and themselves. With easy-to-read handouts of the Declaration of independence, quotes of the Founding Fathers, and parts of the Constitution, the group spent their evenings going from door to door, talking to their fellow citizens and asking for support.
And the march to take back their freedom has brought them to the Minnesota Federal Court, where they will plead their case. Fighting oppressive regulations and the blatant violation of Constitutional rights, these patriots are also fighting the insidious label by the Progressives of restricting their property’s use for “the public good.” That is Progressive lingo indicating that they: a) don’t feel there is any such thing as private property, b) the Constitution is irrelevant and c) landowners are too stupid to know what is good for them. If they do not prevail in Federal Court, property rights will be gutted and zoning rights will be the standard. Mull that over for a second… It renders the Constitution meaningless – individuals will no longer have the right to say what they can and can’t do with their own property – bureaucrats will wield that power. How very Marxist.
From the Let Freedom Ring Blog:
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation”. Houston County is essentially saying that they aren’t taking the property. They’re just telling private property owners that the county, not the landowner, will control the use of private property.
This is unacceptable. If Houston County wants to be the final arbiter of what land can be used for, then it should be required to purchase the land from the landowners at a fair market price. If Houston County isn’t willing to purchase the land for a fair market price, then it shouldn’t have decision-making rights, final or otherwise.
Essentially, Houston County wants everything for nothing. That sounds more like what happened in the former Soviet Union than in the United States.
I’m sure there are tons of legal documents being issued. This cannot stand. I’m beginning to see the scene from The Patriot where Benjamin Martin says to plead with the King and plead again if necessary. But pleading has been done on this over and over to no avail. Better yet, this is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson and his Manifest Destiny. The question is if the Federal Court rules against Constitutional rights, will we allow this wicked writ of the Midwest to stand? Or will it be time to take a stand that will shake this country to its very foundations?
I will leave it to each of you to search your souls and decide what side you are on. Remember the principles of our founding fathers and the Constitution – remember what this country was founded upon. Here is the press release announcing the lawsuit:
The Houston County, Minnesota Landowners Concerned About Property Rights have endorsed new litigation to get government back in the hands of “We the People.” The Complaint, to be filed in the Minnesota Federal District Court, asserts that the Houston County Commissioners, the Board of Adjustment, and the Planning Commission, as well as Houston County Zoning Administrator Bob Scanlan and Environmental Service Director Richard (Rick) Frank are violating the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the landowners in Houston County.
The case, which will be filed during the week of October 3, 2011, argues that the County, Scanlan and Frank have violated the private property rights, the rights of due process, the rights to freedom of speech and association, the right to petition for redress of grievance and the right to equal protection of the law to similarly situated landowners in the application of the County’s Land Use Plan and Zoning Ordinance. The case is being brought under the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1871.
“We are not a litigious group,” said Robert Ideker, a Houston County landowner. “We have tried to work with the County; we have attended dozens of meetings and hearings; we have written dozens of letters, but no one will listen. This last year, we even tried to talk to the Commissioners individually to express our concerns about the protection of property rights, and some landowners were told that the Commissioners would not speak to them. These are our elected representatives; it boggles my mind that they won’t even hear what we have to say.”
“At some of the meetings, we are told not to talk about the Constitution and the protection it guarantees to U.S. citizens. We need to get government back in the hands of the people; we just want the use of our property, our land and buildings. As we have told the County numerous times, we are not against civil law, but if our property use is not harming our neighbors or the environment, we should be able to use our property. We aren’t disrespectful to the County, but they should listen to our side as well. We are disappointed that we have to resort to the federal court to get a fair hearing on our concerns.”
The disagreements with the County came to a head when concerned citizens who had been deprived of their property rights went to the county officials, only to be rebuffed for their concerns. The landowners, often referred to as Landowners Concerned About Property Rights, then drafted a resolution, which was signed by 700 of the County’s landowners, that urged the County Commissioners to recognize the protections for private property and property use. That petition was presented to the Commission in 2007. The Commissioners never responded.
The Concerned Landowners filed litigation in state court challenging the land use plan and zoning ordinance in 2010, but during the research and discovery in the case, many landowners learned that the issues between the County and its citizens were significantly deeper than the land use plan; those issues go to the heart of the guarantees in the U.S. Constitution that are protected by the Federal Civil Rights Act. That is why the landowners are dismissing the state court case and endorsing the Federal District Court Civil Rights case. Dismissal of the state court case does not mean we agree with the County, it means we want to resolve all the claims at once and that can only be done in Federal Court.
“Civil rights are the rights belonging to an individual by virtue of his or her U.S. citizenship, especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and by subsequent acts of Congress, including property rights, civil liberties, due process, equal protection of the laws, and freedom from discrimination,” explained Ideker. “Specifically, section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act makes monetary and equitable relief available to those whose constitutional rights had been violated by a bureaucrat or official acting under State authority.
The Federal Civil Rights Act stands as one of the most powerful authorities under which federal courts may protect those whose constitutionally guaranteed rights are deprived. Section 1983 provides a way individuals can sue to stop past and prevent future violations of constitutionally protected rights. Section 1983 applies to both governmental employees as individuals and to state and local boards and commissions acting under state authority. It requires that the individuals or boards be responsible for the decisions they make, and not simply hide behind a claim that they are ‘following the law.’”
“It is disappointing that it has come to federal court litigation, but there is nowhere else to turn. We would still be open to talking to the County officials to try to come to a resolution,” said county land owner Tom Groeschner. “But we can’t really talk to them if they won’t listen to us. Don’t we have to put government back in the hands of ‘we the people?’”
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton - the NoisyRoom
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Californians, please act now against SB250 – Save Our Dogs – Save Our Rights
I hate “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” as much as the next gal, but you know, when big hunks of blue stuff dotted with clouds are crashing into your head while you walk across the street, what are you gonna do?
So, Californians who think that medical decisions about your animals should be made by you and your veterinarian and not the good folks in Sacramento, please check out this action alert from Laura Sanborn of Save Our Dogs, who says that despite recent amendments, the core provisions of California’s SB 250 are unchanged — and very similar to the defeated mandatory spay/neuter bill, last year’s AB 1634:
Violate an animal control law even once and you may never be allowed to own an intact dog ever again. One violation and your intact licenses can be denied or revoked at any time, forever. No one can have intact dogs under those conditions. Suppose your county unknowingly hires a PETA member as head of animal control. In an effort to balance the budget, this person revokes and denies all intact licenses, including yours, generating millions of dollars in fines. He/She is fired six months later but it’s too late, your dogs have already been surgically sterilized. It’s not possible to reattach the parts even if they decide to give you back your licenses.
This will cost local jurisdictions money. Say you get a citation for some minor animal control infraction. No longer can you just pay the ticket. You have to fight tooth and nail every step of the way to preserve your future right to own intact dogs. If you lose you either get out of dogs or leave the state. Instead of getting a check for $50 in the mail, the county will have to hold a hearing, and maybe an appeal hearing, go to court, etc. In the end the county will pay thousands in staff costs to collect one $50 fine. It’s only $50 to the county, but it is your life with your dogs to you so you’ll do whatever it takes.
The new fees for having intact licenses denied or revoked almost seem designed to drive dog owners underground. The state has a poor licensing compliance rate already, 10-30% compared to over 90% in Calgary. If you apply for a license and it is denied, you can be charged an additional fee for having the license denied. Maybe the local agency doesn’t charge such a fee now, but they may when it is time for renewal. Just one more thing to drive people away. And of course what will they do if you don’t pay the fee? Impound and kill your dogs, of course. You can’t even sell your dogs or give them away. You have to have a intact license to do that.
All these new fees and punishments will be enforced with the threat of impounding your dog. Any law that impounds owned dogs or increases the cost of redeeming impounded dogs will kill dogs. Most owned dogs that are forcibly impounded are ultimately killed. Taking dogs from their owners is usually a death sentence. Increasing the costs to redeem a dog, especially with an 11% statewide unemployment rate, will kill dogs. Before they are killed, the impounded dogs will sit in the shelter for the state mandated waiting period. The state is required by the existing Hayden Act reimbursement mandate to pay local governments for this cost. The state already pays over $20 million a year for this reimbursement. How many more fire fighters, police officers, teachers, and nurses will have to be laid off to cover the addition reimbursement the state will have to pay out if SB 250 passes?
We fail to see the point of this bill. There is no action that is currently legal that SB 250 makes illegal. All it appears to accomplish is give local animal control the power to forcibly spay/neuter as many dogs as possible. What it does do is make responsible pet owners afraid of their local animal control agency. This will reduce licensing compliance and licensing fee income. It will increase the cost of enforcement. Fewer dogs will be adopted because the public will avoid contact with the shelters. More dogs will be impounded. More dogs will be killed.
SB 250, The Pet Owner Punishment Act, just kills dogs… And it is another erosion of personal rights!
This is a terrible and stupid law. It will not do what it claims to want to do, and it will worsen the lives of pet owners, cost money, and kill pets. Please follow these simple action steps and help stop SB 250. Act now!
UPDATE: Gina mentioned this in the comments, but I’m adding it here, too: Alley Cat Allies is urging Californians to contact their legislators to speak against SB 250, saying it will hurt stray, homeless, and feral cats. You can read their take on it, and use their action tool, here.
Sources: Just One More Pet
Posted: Knowledge Creates Power
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