Archive for the 'Yes yes yes!' Category

Noel Edmunds…Your new hero?!

Monday, September 15th, 2008

When a very popular man stands up and says what needs to be said…

For 30 years he was one the BBC’s star presenters, stitching up celebrities and subjecting guests on his show to the horrors of the gunge tank. But now Noel Edmonds himself could be in the line of fire, after he announced that he was leading a boycott of the television licence fee.

The former Noel’s House Party presenter, who accused the BBC of “hectoring and threatening” the public into paying the £139.50 annual charge, could be stripped of his ceremonial title of Deputy Lieutenant of Devon, after confessing to his criminality, The Times has learnt.

In an interview at the weekend, Edmonds declared that for four months he had refused to pay the licence fee, a legal requirement for anyone who owns a television, adding that he was prepared to be prosecuted for evading the tax.

Eric Dancer, Lord-Lieutenant of Devon, said yesterday that he would investigate whether Edmonds should lose his position, which carries the blessing of the Queen.

Edmonds assumed the title – which involves assisting the Lord-Lieutenant in arranging the monarch’s visits to Devon, leading the local magistracy and hearing grievances between citizens and tax officials – in 2004.

Mr Dancer told The Times: “If a deputy did do something that was a criminal offence, I’m sure that people who commit serious misdemeanours are not allowed to continue to serve.”

Edmonds made his remarks in an interview with the Breakfast show on BBC One on Saturday, the day before hosting a one-off show on Sky aimed at helping to mend “broken Britain”.

Referring to advertisements by the TV Licensing Authority that threaten prosecution of those who fail to pay the fee, Edmonds said: “I worked for the BBC for 30 years. When I was there it promoted the licence fee by saying how wonderful it was. But now Auntie’s put boxing gloves on.

“I am not going to have the BBC or any other organisation threatening me. I’ve cancelled my TV licence and they haven’t found me. Nobody’s coming knocking on my door. There are too many organisations that seem to think it is OK to badger, hector and threaten people.”

The BBC launched a public consultation last week after receiving complaints that advertisements which warned, “Your town, your street, your home . . . it’s all in our database”, amounted to bullying.

[…]

Noel’s HQ, screened last night on Sky One, was aimed at promoting a “fairer, more caring Britain”. Edmonds told viewers: “You clearly feel frustrated and at times angry at the tidal wave of new rules, regulations and laws that have been introduced in the name of health and safety, security or the environment. Well, the politicians have had their turn, and now it’s ours. It’s down to you, me and them, and to everyone who wants to live in a more caring society.”

[…]

The Times

From the most unexpected quarter…someone who could actually rally millions of people says ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Is Unassisted Childbirth Safe? You bet it is!

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Whilst googling around today for the uses of colloidal silver after reading an extraordinarily inflammatory post that I wont trouble you with, I wandered onto some facts about how children are being born in the USA. It is now the law, (a real, not color of law, actual statute, unlike the non existent mandatory vaccine laws) that Silver Nitrate or some other anti bacterial wash be dripped into the eyes of a newborn as soon as it emerges:

§16-3-10. It shall be unlawful for any physician, nurse-midwife or midwife, practicing midwifery, or other health care professional to neglect or otherwise fail to instill or have instilled, immediately upon its birth, in the eyes of the newborn babe, the contents of a single-use tube of an ophthalmic ointment containing one percent tetracycline or one half of one percent erythromycin or the equivalent dosage of such medications or other appropriate medication approved by the director for prevention of inflammation of the eyes of the newborn. Every physician, nurse-midwife or midwife or other health care professional shall, in making a report of a birth, state the name of the appropriate medication which was instilled into the eyes of said infant. The director shall establish a list of appropriate medications for prevention of inflammation of the eyes of the newborn. The list shall be kept current and distributed to appropriate health care facilities and such other sources as the director may determine to be necessary.

[…]

WTH??!!

‘What the heck’ indeed.

Naturally, the first reaction of any decent person is to think, “how the hell can anyone get away from this madness?”.

Home Birth is the first obvious choice; having a birth plan where Silver Nitrate or tetracycline is refused clearly is not an option, since the staff will simply say, “its the law” and secondly, they take your baby from you immediately and then do all their dastardly deeds out of sight.

But there is another way that is gaining momentum: ‘Freebirth’.

A Freebirth or Unassisted Childbirth is a birth where midwives and doctors are excluded by choice in advance.

This is what it looks like:

Of course, doctors obstetricians and the medical establishment are against this with all guns blazing. The fear-mongers are full of rubbish of course.

Read this from Laura Shanley’s Born Free website:

One of the greatest myths perpetuated by the medical system is that hospitals are the safest place to give birth. Stories abound of women dying in childbirth before the advent of modern hospitals. And yet, few people realize that women were not dying due to the fact that childbirth is inherently dangerous, but rather because of the living conditions at that time. Poor women were generally underfed and overworked during pregnancy, while wealthy women were often deprived of fresh air and sunshine because brown skin was considered socially unacceptable. Wealthy girls were corsetted from the age of eleven, so that by the time they turned fourteen, their pelvises were literally deformed. These physical factors, combined with various psychological ones (fear, shame, and guilt) led to the problems that some women encountered.

Throughout history, normal, healthy women have rarely died in childbirth. In fact, when birth moved from the home to the hospital in the 1920s, the infant and maternal mortality rates actually rose. A major study done as early as 1933 showed that hospital births were not as safe as home births. Studies done in the last twenty years, prove this is still the case. (Mayer Eisenstein, MD, The Home Court Advantage, 1988.)

When a laboring woman goes into the modern-day hospital, she is surrounded by medical personnel and machinery. Often she is told what to eat (generally nothing), what position to be in (generally flat on her back, which narrows the pelvic outlet and prevents her from utilizing the natural gravitational force), and when and when not to push (which interferes with her own instinctive knowledge of birth). Her progress is charted and measured and she is treated more like a machine than a thinking, feeling, intelligent adult.

If her labor is not progressing at the speed at which the hospital has arbitrarily decided it should be, she is often given drugs to speed things up. The drugs, however, may make her contractions more painful, which in turn, cause her to take more medication to deal with the pain. Not only does this medication prevent her from fully participating in the birthing process, it also crosses the placenta, adversely affecting her unborn baby.

Sometimes a woman’s body simply shuts down after all this intervention, and the woman is told she needs a cesarean section in order for her baby to be born safely. Unaware that the intervention she received actually caused the “complications” in the first place, she often consents “for the good of the baby.” Nearly one in four babies in this country are now born by cesarean section.

Many women who have given birth in the hospital report dissatisfaction not only with the way they were treated, but with the way their babies were treated as well. Babies are often taken away from their mothers immediately after birth to be weighed, measured, tested and cleaned. Eye drops are administered “just in case” a mother has a venereal disease, and Vitamin K is administered because babies are supposedly born “deficient.”

When a woman gives birth at home, she is free to eat what she wants, assume any position she wants, and push or not push depending on how she feels. When no one is telling her what to do, she is able to “tune in” and listen to “the still, small voice within.” The same loving consciousness that knew how to grow her baby inside her perfectly, knows how to get her baby out safely and easily, if only she will let it. With no one shouting commands at her, a woman is free to relax, and naturally birth her baby. After the birth, there is no one there to separate her from her baby. She can hold and nurse him as long as she wishes. Women all over the world are rediscovering the fact that birth works best when it is interfered with least.

In the past several years I have received hundreds of stories from women and couples who have successfully given birth without medical assistance. Their stories speak for themselves. No one, however, regardless of their “expertise,” can guarantee that a baby will be born safely. Some babies die. It’s simply nature’s way.

[…]

http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/isucsafe.html

That is all true, My friends™.

Finally, from the Washington Post article linked above:

The intensifying contractions were three minutes apart as Lynn Griesemer tried to reassure her 11-year-old daughter, who hovered anxiously beside her. Her husband, Bob, had not returned the four increasingly urgent messages she’d left on his cellphone and had neglected to give her his new office number at the Pentagon. The couple’s sixth child would be born that Friday in June 2002 and Griesemer was worried he might not make it in time.

Heh.

When someone from the Pentagon chooses unassisted childbirth, it makes you wonder, “just what has he read about vaccines and vitamin K to make him choose something so unusual?”.

But I digress.

I know someone who delivered his own son completely unassisted. He will tell anyone who asks that it is a most wonderful thing to deliver your own child.

And then there are all the other benefits of not having a drugged wife or a drugged baby, no arguments with bolshy staff about Vitamin K, bizarre vaccinations or harsh chemical eye wash, no forceful rotation of your baby’s legs to see if she has ‘clicky’ hips….a perfectly clean, natural fresh start, with everyone calm and no one destroyed or unnecessarily disturbed.

And just in case you didn’t know, if your baby DOES get conjunctivitis, all you need to do is squirt some breast milk into his or her eyes and it clears up perfectly.

Nature is best!

The usual disclaimers apply; if you have an elective Caesarian because of your workload in your job at the bank, and you want every vaccination going to be shot on day one, and you want Vitamin K, guthrie test with addition to DNA database, clicky hips rotation, eyes washed with tetracycline AND Silver Nitrate, straight onto vitamin fortified formula milk from Nestle, put directly into the crib and shipped off with the nanny….THAT IS YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR RIGHT.

Can you get drunk on corgettes and blackcurrants?

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Sent in by a particularly observant lurker:

Punters at a village pub have developed an ingenious way of beating the credit crunch without compromising on their daily pint.

Thrifty punters have begun bartering home-grown produce in exchange for beer and even pub meals.

Various items of fresh fruit, fish, meat and vegetables have been exchanged, with the amount of pints, meals or vouchers offered linked to the size, quantity and quality of the items presented.

A sign placed inside the pub says: ‘If you grow, breed, shoot or steal anything that may look at home on our menu, then bring it in and let’s do a deal.’

So far pints have been swapped in place of potatoes, mackerel and a kilo of fresh fruit.

Locally shot rabbits, pheasants and pigeons have also been exchanged for beer.

The Pigs pub, in Edgefield, near Holt, Norfolk, even encourages locals to contribute to its traditional food menu in return for free alcohol.

Manager Cloe Wasey, 24, said the offer has taken off as people have started to feel the pinch financially.

‘We’ve been doing it for almost two years now but the success of it has only just recently started to boom with the credit crunch setting in,’ she added.

‘People need to find different ways to go out and this helps.

‘It’s also great for us because we get produce at a good price, although we have high standards so the food we get in has to meet those.

‘We find the home grown stuff is often much better than what we can get from the suppliers.

‘Someone will say “that rabbit tasted great” and we say ‘here, meet the person who shot it”.’

Driver Derek Feast, 64, a regular in the pub, recently swapped some of the free range chicken eggs he breeds for a pint.

‘I have a job where I earn the national minimum wage so this little bit of extra money helps me get out,’ he said. ‘The odd penny here and there really helps.’

Miss Wasey, who runs the pub with her business partner Tim Abbott, 24, who is head chef, said the scheme has helped cement the pub’s place at the heart of the village community.

‘It gives us a more local feel,’ she said.

[…]

Daily Mail

People without any exposure to the ideas of economics in the abstract understand and are attracted to barter on a gut level.

With barter, there is no middle man. There is no VAT, no record of transaction, in short, there is no law involved.

The next clear step is to organize barter with cards and computers, and there have been some attempts at this, the biggest one seems to be Bartercard, which started in Australia:

Bartercard is unlike any other credit or debit card because you fund our card with your own goods and services…NOT CASH. Bartercard currently helps over 55,000 smart businesses in 12 countries around the world (over 4,000 in the UK) to increase sales, customer base, cash-flow and profit. Bartercard enables member businesses to exchange goods and services with other Member businesses, saving valuable cash, without having to engage in a direct swap of goods.

Bartercard runs to facilitate Business to Business barter. Some interesting feedback on it thanks to the Google. It is run as a franchise world-wide

The next step has already been taken; one example can be found in the form of the Totnes Pound, where the idea of barter is pushed into the background and the (more understandable) idea of alternative currency is in the foreground.

After this the next step is to create a barter system that works on mobile phones, specifically the iPhone and iPod touch. A barter system running on a mobile platform, exposed to millions of people, could pick up enough momentum to become a powerful alternative to debt based, inflation cursed, corrupt currencies and the organized crime gangs that operate them.

France Bans BabyFirstTV

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

PARIS – France’s broadcast authority has banned French channels from airing TV shows aimed at children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age.

The High Audiovisual Council, in a ruling published Wednesday, said it wanted to “protect children under 3 from the effects of television.”

France’s minister for culture and communication, Christine Albanel, issued a “cry of alarm” to parents in June about channels dedicated 24 hours a day to baby-targeted programming. In a newspaper interview, she called them “a danger” and urged parents not to use them to help their children get to sleep.

She was referring to two foreign channels that can be seen in France on cable television, BabyFirstTV and Baby TV.

The council’s ruling aims to prevent the development of such programming on French channels. It also orders French cable operators that air foreign channels with programs for babies to broadcast warning messages to parents. The messages will read: “Watching television can slow the development of children under 3, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them.”

The ruling cites health experts as saying that interaction with other people is crucial to early child development.

“Television viewing hurts the development of children under 3 years old and poses a certain number of risks, encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and concentration as well as dependence on screens,” the ruling said.

When BabyFirstTV first aired in the United States in 2006, it escalated an already heated national debate. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said babies should be kept away from television altogether.

BabyFirstTV and other companies say their products are designed to be watched by babies and parents together in an interactive manner. Critics say such channels are used as a baby sitter.

Baby TV is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The three companies behind BabyFirstTV are Regency Enterprises, a film and TV production company that is a partner of News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment; Kardan N.V, an investment group based in the Netherlands and Israel; and Bellco Capital, a private Los Angeles-based investment fund.

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080820/ap_on_en_tv/france_baby_tv_ban

France controls music with lyrics not in English.
France shuns Fast Food.
France bans BabyFirstTV.

Vive La France!

Pincer Movement: Home Education in Britain on the way to banishment

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… …when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.” Isabel Paterson ‘The God of the Machine’

There is a new consultation, hot on the heels of the last one outlining the proposed guidelines for Local Authorities who have a ‘…a new duty to establish the identities of children missing education.’

Everything that could be wrong, is wrong with this. Lets pull it apart section by section:

1.1.1 There is wide agreement about the outcomes we all want for every child – they should be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing.

That is completely wrong. There is no ‘wide agreement about the outcomes that we want for every child’. That is why millions of families are home educating. There is no ‘we’ in all of this. Each family is separate, and there is no collective ownership of children. Any normal parent wants their child to, “be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve”. The shape that that takes is up to each family, and has nothing to do with and cannot be defined by the state.

None of this is negotiable.

The same goes for ‘economic well-being’ this is not something that can be defined by the state, especially when it concerns future economic well-being. And for an idea of what a country looks like where everyone has a degree, just look at third world countries where there are so many people with them that many of them are bus conductors. No parent wants their child to be a bus conductor, and yet, if everyone in the country achieved a university degree, would not this eventually be the case? But I digress.

1.1.3 The guidance in this document aims to help Local Authorities (LAs) to effectively implement the duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education. […]

Everything in this document (except the database references) would be acceptable if all mention of home education was removed. Home education is not relevant to this in any way, and if this document was designed to guide Local Authorities for all cases of bad children or children at risk (which home educated children are not a subset of) then it would be fairly innocuous. Sadly, the imbeciles who authored this are clearly against home education and have, from the outset, wanted to create a system of organized harassment to suppress home education in the UK.

As I have said before, no one in a Local Authority has the right to tell a parent what is or is not ‘suitable education’ anyone with even a single brain cell can see that this is the case. A parent may want their children educated and nurtured in their culture and religion; no Local Authority Apparatchik has the right to come into your house and tell you that your child must receive facts deemed by the state to be necessary to life. The very idea should be anathema to all decent people.

1.1.4 Children not receiving a suitable education are clearly at risk of a range of negative outcomes that could have long term damaging consequences for their life chances. For example they are at risk of not attaining the skills and qualifications they need to succeed in life, and are at significant risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) once they have reached the compulsory school leaving age. They are also are more likely to be vulnerable in one way or another. They may be from disadvantaged families, (experiencing multiple risks such as poverty, substance misuse, mental ill-health and poor housing), travelling communities, immigrant families, be unaccompanied asylum seeking or trafficked children, or be at risk of neglect or abuse or disengaged from education.

The schools that the state runs produce negative outcomes that have long term damaging consequences for the life chances of British children. That is why so many people choose to home educate. Many state educated children do not attain the skills and qualifications they need to succeed in life. The system is so bad that they have to reduce the difficulty of exams so that these educationally impoverished children have a chance of getting a ‘passing’ grade. This is why universities and commercial enterprises have to set their own exams to see who can do what after 100 candidates all with 5 grade ‘A’ A-Levels come to interview but none of them can spell.

Disadvantaged families, families in poverty, substance abusers, mental health cases, travelers, immigrant families, asylum seekers, trafficked children – none of these categories have anything whatsoever to do with home educated children, and it is illogical and offensive to mention them in the same breath as the unfortunates in that list. The Local Authorities already have many duties related to these groups. They cannot run the schools they are already tasked with organizing. New Labour ministers avoid them like the plague; what is it that they fear so much about home educators that they must lump them in with these trouble cases?

This is a direct attack on a philosophical difference that home educators have with the collectivists in New Labour. New Labour does not want any child left behind…from the indoctrination and brainwashing that creates mindless drones who will believe anything that they are told, who cannot think at all, never mind think for themselves. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’; look at the results of the schools they have been running. They produced a generation of people capable of enjoying ‘Lad Mags’, an epidemic of binge alcoholism, feral street children and decent people fleeing their ‘education’ system.

1.1.5 Local authorities, through their Children’s Trust, must have robust measures in place both to identify quickly when a child is not receiving a suitable education, and to follow through with effective tracking and enquiry systems. These measures should be at the heart of the local strategies for preventing negative outcomes for children and young people, and ensuring their safety and well-being.

The best way to ensure that children do not have ‘negative outcomes’ is to make the schools that they attend good enough to achieve these results. When they are able to make the schools perform properly, the incentive to home educate will be eliminated, and the only people left doing it will be those with children who have special needs. Until they have done this, they do not have a leg to stand on on this front, quite apart from the moral aspect of a parent’s right to educate and nurture their children in whatever way they see fit.

1.2.1 This document is issued under the section 436A (inserted before section 437 in Chapter 2, Part 6 of the Education Act 1996 (school attendance) by the Education and Inspections Act 2006), which provides that local authorities must have regard to statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State. This document provides that statutory guidance and applies to England only. Local authorities in England must take this guidance into account and, if they decide to depart from it, have clear reasons for doing so.

My emphasis.

What this means is what I asserted before. These guidelines are not new law, they are guidelines, and as such, you are free to ignore them, just as the Local Authorities are free to ignore them.

1.2.2 This document is a revised version of original statutory guidance issued in February 2007, updated to place implementation of the duty in the revised strategic context following on from publication of the Children’s Plan (December 2007); to reflect priorities that emerged since the original version was published; and to reflect local authorities’ initial experience of implementing the duty.

Translation: “We could not have possibly put all of this in the original guidelines, otherwise there might have been a rebellion.”

1.2.3 Section 436A requires all local authorities to make arrangements to enable them to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of children residing in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. In relation to children, by ‘suitable education’ we mean efficient full-time education suitable to her/his age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs the child may have.

And here is the true purpose of this entire exercise.

This is the way they are going to get every child in England into and justify the existence of ContactPoint.

Quite apart from that, this section is absurd on its face. It is not the place of the state to determine what is or is not a suitable education. It is not the place of the state to say what is or is not an efficient education, and neither is it their place to mandate full-time education.

1.2.4 The duty applies in relation to children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll, and who are not receiving a suitable education otherwise than being at school, for example, at home, privately, or in alternative provision.

The goal of these guidelines is to create a way to sweep up all the home educating children in the UK, identify them, categorize them and put them on a database, together with the names of their parents, siblings, ethnicity and other details. See below. Once again, children who are being educated at home, privately, or in alternative provision should not be subject to being identified for this purpose, since they are being eductated quite legally. Are they going to go to all the private schools in the UK and ask for their student registers? If the Local Authority has a duty to identify every child who is not on a school roll, how are they to know which ones are being home educated and which are in private schools? The only way to know would be to collect in a database, a list of all children who are in any type of school and then the numbers that are left are ‘at risk’, and lo and behold, further in the report, we have:

Access to rolls for all providers
6.19 When the named person(s) receive notification about a child believed to be in their area it may be necessary to check the child’s name and other details, if available, against all alternative provision rolls in the local area held by the local authority and schools to see if they are already registered. One way to achieve this is to have all names of school-aged children kept on a central database which is frequently updated and can be checked by the staff members who require access. (This is not a requirement to set up new IT systems for children not receiving education. See paragraph 6.37 for suggestions for utilising existing databases).

6.20 Another way to check a child’s name and other details would be via communication links with all educational providers: this includes all schools; Pupil Referral Units; custodial institutions and other providers of alternative provision (local authorities and schools should establish a contractual agreement that providers of alternative provision will keep a register to check if the child is registered with them.

God help you if your child has the same name as another child who is a bad egg deep in the system. All it will take is for one of these Apparatchiks to misidentify you and your life will be turned into a living hell. If you let them.

They are actually saying that PRIVATE schools must turn over the rolls of their students to the Local Authority. It simply beggars belief, but it is totally logical; they want EVERY CHILD IN THE DATABASE, and being able to afford private education is not going to be an exception.

1.2.5 In order to help local authorities achieve consistency in how they share information in order to meet this duty, this version of the guidance includes, at Appendix 1, a workbook that provides standard data definitions. The data definitions were produced taking into account the views of local authorities based on their experience of implementing the duty since its introduction in February 2007.

This is unacceptable. Period.

1.2.7 Local authorities have a duty to make arrangements to enable them to establish whether a child who is being educated at home (under section 7 of the Education Act 1997) is not receiving suitable education.

This is perhaps the worst part of all, and it is something we have covered at length. No public servant has the right or the ability to say what is or is not a suitable education, and by including this in the guidelines, they are opening the door for widespread harassment and abuse. Once again, for many parents the lack of provision of a suitable education by the Local Authority is the very reason why parents are opting to home educate. It is completely absurd that they should now be given guidelines that say they should pass judgement on families when they are manifestly incapable of providing themselves what they are looking for in a home educator.

What this boils down to is mandatory inspection. And if you do not measure up, you can be compelled to send your child to receive an inferior education.

1.2.8 ContactPoint, to be implemented across England by mid 2009, will help local authorities discharge the duty by recording the place where a child is being educated, where that is known. Where it is known that a child is being educated at home, that would also be recorded. This will enable local authorities to focus their efforts on identifying children who are not receiving education, and putting in place the necessary support. ContactPoint will also show whether a Common Assessment Framework has been undertaken with a child, and whether the child has a ‘lead professional’ co-ordinating any support required.

And there you have it. They are going to use ContactPoint to list all home educators and then pick them off one by one for inspection and shut-down. This section is completely absurd. It says that where a child is being EDUCATED at home, ContactPoint will enable Local Authorities to find children who are NOT BEING EDUCATED!

1.3.2 The duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education can make a cross-cutting contribution to a number of local priorities and should strengthen and complement existing duties. It should be incorporated into the local authority’s Children’s Trust governance and strategic planning arrangements, which are made under section 17 of the Children Act 2004, and the cross-cutting arrangements of safeguarding and inter-agency co-operation to improve the well-being of children. (Children Act 2004 Guidance http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/strategy/guidance/).

1.3.3 The relevant partner agencies are: (these are the partners referred to in The Children Act 2004 in relation to a number of duties)

  • Education (maintained schools, independent schools, Academies, Pupil Referral Units, special schools and City Technology Colleges)
  • Children’s Social Care
  • Health (Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts)
  • Police and police authorities
  • Youth Offending Teams
  • Community safety teams, anti-social behaviour teams
  • Young Offender Institutions
  • Secure Training Centres
  • local authority Secure Children’s Homes
  • Housing providers.

Other key partners are

  • HM Revenue and Customs
  • Connexions
  • statutory and voluntary youth services
  • UK Border Agency
  • the Fire and Rescue Service
  • Other Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership agencies
  • voluntary and community organisations.

There may also be others, depending on local circumstances.

1.3.4 Information Sharing Guidance was published April 2006 and can be found on the Every Child Matters website.

??!!

No doubt sensitive data from ContactPoint will be shared with all of these agencies.

Simply ASTONISHING.

6.24 Local authorities should not make “blanket” enquires (by email or hard copy). Contacting all local authorities with a list of children asking them to search their databases is seen as poor practice and the majority of local authorities will ignore this request, as it is time consuming with little reward (very rare that they find the child in their area). It is also not secure. Best practice is for local authorities to carry out thorough local checks in their own authority area before contacting specific local authorities that they believe to be linked to the child/young person that they are looking for.

Amazing. Fishing expeditions are ‘seen’ as poor practice, they are not ACTUALLY poor practice, and, “don’t bother doing it anyway, since your request will probably be ignored”. Well, I feel so much better that these goons are concerned about security!

Of course, we know that ContactPoint itself is not secure, and here, we can see an example of why that is the case. They are going to share information on every child they can get their hands on, between all agencies with a computer, and Local Authorities will be able to search private and public databases at will for any child that they cannot find in their own databases. This is going to be one of the leakiest databases ever…and it will be a database of CHILDREN!

It gets worse:

Useful information to share with another local authority in England
To enable local authorities to make their best efforts to search for a child/young person on behalf of the enquiring local authority the following basic information could be shared (as appropriate) with the named officer:

  • Name (plus any know aliases)
  • Date of Birth
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Parents/carers names including who has parental responsibility
  • Siblings names
  • Previous Address
  • Previous school and date of last attendance
  • Possible new address and school if known or suspected
  • Previous home education
  • Date child/young person left area
  • If recent entry to UK – their country of origin.

Absolutely unbelievable and unacceptable.

6.26 Care must be taken to ensure information is factual and evidence based. (Also consideration should be given to guidance on “custodians of child protection register”

This is absurd. First, they want to check every home educator to make sure that the provision is ‘suitable’, and then, they want to make sure that information is ‘evidence based’. You cannot have it both ways; you cannot on the one hand lump all home educators in one basket and say that they are all putting their children at risk based on no evidence at all and then say that information should be factual and evidence based. In the law, you are guilty until proven innocent. You cannot enter someone’s house or data or communications without probable cause. These guidelines violate some of the most important principles of the law and of free countries, this is quite apart from violating the sanctity and centrality of the family.

6.27 The following may give an indication of the level of vulnerability of child:

  • reason for leaving if known
  • home educated child where the local authority considers that the parent is not providing a suitable education
  • the child is or has been the subject of a child protection plan

[…]

You see? Suspicion is generated by the mere fact that parents are home educators. Unacceptable!

6.34 Local authorities should keep a record of children who are known to be educated at home by parents. Parents are not, however, required to inform the local authority if they decide to home educate a child who has not previously attended school.

This is insane. Local Authorities need to keep a record of all home schoolers (why?) but parents are not required to inform the local authority. How are the Local Authority going to keep records of all home educators, as the guidelines say they must? Any self respecting parent will not offer up their children to this system, and so when the Local Authority come calling and the parent says nothing (as is their absolute right), a conflict will occur.

This is bad guidance, and like the last set of guidance that ignored all the consultation entries, it is full of contradictions, prejudice, ignorance and offensive, immoral twaddle.

One thing is for sure; these guidelines will only affect the most vulnerable home educating families – the ones without money or influence, the ones who are debilitated by having children with problems. Any parent with a powerful solicitor can simply have a single letter written and these Apparatchiks will be frightened off.

These new guidelines are offensive. They are offensive because they illogical, and do not take the reality of home and state education into account. They do not take the needs of children into account. They do not take the rights of parents into account. They recklessly and violently violate the privacy of parents and children, and then share their sensitive and private data with anyone they care to, without the consent of anyone.

These guidelines are what we expected; another step in the incrementalist approach to total control and outlawing of home education in the uk.

Another interesting aspect of this is related to the German home educators experience of their Hitler written home education law (its completely banned). Germans wishing to home educate have moved to the UK and even to Iran to live freely. When the state finally decides to outlaw home education here, will they deny parents the right to move out of the country? Will it be the case in the future that everyone needs an exit visa to leave the UK? Just as it is in Germany and as I said before, if all of this is genuinely being done for the good of the children, how cold you possibly let them leave the fatherland to be educated outside of the German system in Iran, or Britain or the USA? Logically, you would have to bar all movements of all children out of the country so that you can ensure that they are receiving a suitable education in the state system.

Under ideal circumstances, we would never be confronted by Local Authority guidelines like this, or the sinister databases or anything else in this wretched document. In a a slightly less than ideal world, we would expect to see a union of all home educators in the UK to combine as a single voice to say that these guidelines are moot and will not under any circumstances be obeyed. There would be a fighting fund, the most powerful lawyers hired, a hell of a stink raised and the state humiliated and sent packing.

Sadly, we live in the worst of all possible worlds; there are many home educators who will feel that all of this is perfectly OK, who will go along with it and who will deride anyone who thinks otherwise.

We have Local Authorities and government bodies that are completely and willfully ignorant about and hostile to home schooling, who will do anything to stamp it out and will hurt any number of children that they can in order to achieve their nefarious goals.

This document is literally sickening. Every aspect of it is nauseating and what is most insulting is the fact that no matter who complains and no matter what logic is applied to it, it will be published as written, without change, because the evil people behind it (and some of the dimwitted on the receiving end of it) simply do not care about anyone’s rights.

Another nail in the coffin of Great Britain.

Read all our other posts on this subject.

How long will you stand aside?

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Sent to me by a lurker, this image:

seen today on a church noticeboard behind the national gallery

and if you Google “have stood aside watched

You get:

I have stood aside and watched while the once greatest, most civilized, and most humane nation in history was being converted into a jungle.

I have stood aside and watched white the greatest good will the world has ever seen between multiple white nationalities within one nation, was being deliberately changed into suspicion, dissension and hatred.

I have stood aside and watched while this “land of the free and the home of the brave” was being conditioned by traitors to seek peace at any price-even at the price of independence and freedom.

I have stood aside and watched while our courts encouraged and our press glorified the perpetrators of crime who have spread riots, vandalism, robbery, and murder across our land.

I have stood aside and watched while our colleges have been taken over by misguided children without the slightest understanding of the civilization they have inherited, or of the evil forces by which they have been duped by.

I have stood aside and watched while our great system of public education has been turned into a propaganda agency for revolution and spawning ground for homosexuality, race mixing, sex abuse and crime.

I have stood aside and watched while meretricious scoundrels, using our television media, our motion picture screens, our newsstands, and other available means, have contrived to bring about a breakdown of morality that is reducing millions of Americans to the level of animals.

I have stood aside and watched while the basic human loyalties- loyalty to God, loyalty to country, and loyalty to family- were being destroyed by evil forces, which now permeate every segment of American life.

And I have had enough. I am only one person, but I shall no longer refuse “to get involved” what about you? How much longer will you stand aside????

The tide has turned against ID cards

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

ID cards: aviation industry a political pawn say airline bosses

Britain’s leading airline bosses have accused the government of using their industry as a political pawn in the national identity card debate by forcing aviation workers to join the scheme next year.

In a scathing letter to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, the chief executives of British Airways, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic and BMI said that forcing airport workers to have an ID card from November next year was “unnecessary” and “unjustified”.

All airport airside workers, who work in departure areas and on runways, must enrol in the scheme from next year under government plans, but the aviation industry is claiming it will bring no security benefits.

“First and foremost, no additional security benefits have been identified. Indeed, there is a real risk that enrolment in the national ID scheme will be seen to provide an added, but ultimately false, sense of security to our processes,” said the British Air Transport Association (Bata) letter, signed by airline bosses including Willie Walsh of British Airways and Andy Harrison of easyJet.

It also accused the government of singling out the industry for politically motivated reasons, contradicting previous pledges that the scheme would be voluntary.

“This supports our view that the UK aviation industry is being used for political purposes on a project which has questionable public support,” said Bata.

The first wave of the ID card scheme will see the cards becoming compulsory for non-EU foreign nationals living in Britain this year, and for 200,000 airport workers and Olympic security staff from next year.

[…]

Guardian

At last, someone in the Aviation Industry is showing that they have a pair.

We now have a new feature of BLOGDIAL. It is called ‘a B3‘. It means BLOGDIAL Brass Balls. It looks like this:

And the first ever award goes to the chief executives of British Airways, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic and BMI.

The ID card scheme is a total scam. Everyone knows it. Now, some of the most prestigious and important figures in industry and the economy are openly saying so.

Now is the time to re-affirm your stance of absolute non compliance. Jacqui Smith can go straight to hell and she can burn there with her ID card, started off by that imbecile Blinkett, carried by the elephantine liar Clarke to be fluffed by this revolting hideous fashionless shit eating rights destroying MONSTER.

Hopefully now the unions will get in line with ID card resistance and there will be even more energy directed against this immoral, illegitimate, illogical, authoritarian, money spinning nonsense.

Oklahoma asserts itself; the feds are in BIG TROUBLE

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

STATE OF OKLAHOMA

2nd Session of the 51st Legislature (2008)

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 1089 By: Key

AS INTRODUCED

A Joint Resolution claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers; serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates; and directing distribution.

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

WHEREAS, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE 51ST OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.

THAT this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

THAT a copy of this resolution be distributed to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state’s legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation.

[…]

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=119309;

Just like Arizona, Oklahomans have had ENOUGH of the Federal Government of the USA, and is asserting its rights, indeed, its OBLIGATIONS under the Constitution.

And all of this is coming just in time; when Obomba comes to office it could cause a massive reaction in the states legislatures finally putting the Federal Government in its place.

It may be the case that the Constitution will be put back in place in several states thanks to the critical mass of animus caused by the election of a warmongering, bilderburgering, CFRing, trilateralling, PATRIOT approving collectivist puppet monster. Think about it; the USA would be split into something looking like a sandwich cookie, with the east and west coasts accepting ‘the better decider’ Obomba and his Federal Government, with the states in the middle all asserting their Constitutional rights and obligations, kicking out the Feds and restoring something like Real America™.

I wonder what sort of biscuit that would resemble?!

Think about it.

The tipping point is coming, and the election of Obomba might just push it over.

EU backs use of open-source software

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

By James Kanter
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, delivered an unusually blunt rebuke to Microsoft on Tuesday by recommending that businesses and governments use software based on open standards.

Kroes has fought bitterly with Microsoft over the past four years, accusing the company of defying her orders and fining it nearly ?1.7 billion, or $2.7 billion, for violating European competition rules. But her comments were the strongest recommendation yet by Kroes to jettison Microsoft products, which are based on proprietary standards, and to use rival operating systems to run computers.

“I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed,” Kroes told a conference in Brussels. “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one.”

Kroes did not name Microsoft in advance copies of her speech, but she made her meaning clear by referring to the only company in EU antitrust enforcement history that has been fined for refusing to comply with European Commission orders – a record held by Microsoft.

“The commission has never before had to issue two periodic penalty payments in a competition case,” she said.

The EU has previously ruled against Microsoft for abusing its dominance in the markets for software to play music on computers and to communicate with powerful server computers on a network. In recent months, Kroes has opened new investigations against Microsoft after complaints that it was competing unfairly in the market for Web browsers by using the Explorer software. Kroes is also investigating whether Microsoft is making it too hard for rivals to work with its Office suite applications.

In her speech, Kroes said there were serious security concerns for governments and businesses associated with using a single software supplier. She praised the City of Munich for using software based on open standards, along with the German Foreign Ministry and the Gendarmerie Nationale, a department of the French police force.

Kroes, who is Dutch, encouraged the Dutch government and Parliament to continue moving toward use of open standards. EU agencies “must not rely on one vendor” and “must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession,” she said.

A policy by the European Commission adopted last year to promote the use of software products that support open standards “needs to be implemented with vigor,” she said.

[…]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/10/technology/msft.php

Amazing. It looks like they are finally beginning to GET IT.

Micro$oft Winblows === BAD
GNU/Linux/Gnome/Ubuntu === GOOD

M$ Office === BAD
Open Office === GOOD

.doc === BAD
.odf === GOOD

Freedom === GOOD
Slavery === BAD

Simple really!

News Sniffer: So Cool!!!

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

I just came across a site called News Sniffer, whilst looking for examples of the stamps of Rudolph Hess manufactured by the Deutche Post custom stamp service. They produced twenty stamps, and that is enough to send them into a blind panic. But I digress.

New Sniffer came up in a google search and provided this page:

http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/124994/diff/1/2

Which does a ‘diff’ between two different versions of a BBQ piece on this story.

Absolutely brilliant.

What this means is that we now have a service that will cache BBQ propaganda, and all of the revisions that they do to try and cover their tracks, and ramp up the lies. We can go back and see how they lie, how they censor and what a bunch of scum they really are.

News Sniffer, in addition to, “monitor(ing) corporate news organisations to uncover bias.” Tracks BBQ ‘have your say’ to see how many comments are being censored. They are currently monitoring 1,186,509 comments and found 15,120 censored.

Check out the comments that they retrieved and cached before they were censored.

And, quite appropriately, they have an image of Pinocchio in their header.

Look at this page, where an article from ‘bbc’, was first published or seen on Fri May 23 14:37:14 UTC 2008 and has 13 versions.

THIRTEEN VERSIONS IN ONE DAY.

No newspaper has the luxury of re writing their pieces THIRTEEN TIMES. Interestingly this is a story about MP’s expenses.

A fabulous idea, beautifully executed, very useful….well done boys!!!!!!!

To the People of the United States

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

To the People of the United States of America,

I am writing today because no one has asked my opinion in any poll. No candidate has sought my vote, and no lobbyist taken up my cause. It seems that of all of the “special interests” in America, mine is forgotten – unworthy of notice by politicians, activists, media commentators, and the press.

It may be because I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, nor represented by lobbyists for the disabled, senior citizens, minorities, trade unions, nor any other lobby. In fact, I am not a member of any group whatsoever.

I am the individual. Our Constitution was written to protect me from the majority. I am the victim of Democracy, which has overwhelmed the safeguards of the old Republic and replaced the Republic with mob rule. I am raising my voice now, while I am still able to raise it, if for no other reason than to let posterity know that I was still here when the ruins of our Republic are examined.

I have lived my life in a country that proclaims itself to the world to be the “land of the free,” but have watched my freedoms erode. The most basic right I had – ownership of the fruits of my labor – has been taken from me. Now, politicians argue over what portion of my labor will purchase medical care for the poor and elderly, what portion will pay social security, what portion will educate other people’s children, and what paltry sum I will be allowed to keep so that I may go out tomorrow and work another day.

I once lived in a country which recognized my right to do as I pleased, as long as I did not violate the rights of others. Now, mountains of laws and regulations have been passed in the perverse effort to prevent me from having even the opportunity to commit a crime. As a result, I am rendered paralyzed, as there is almost no action that I can take, beyond rising from my bed, that cannot be construed by someone to be a crime or violation.

More of my property is seized to support grand adventures in foreign lands, where my government spreads “freedom” through the crosshairs of its guns. My government’s invasion of countries that pose no military threat to us whatsoever has made me hated throughout the world, merely for being an American, and helped enslave my children to unserviceable debts.

Most ominously, even the legal protections of my person have been revoked in the name of protecting my fellow citizens against “terrorism. ”

While the Constitution guarantees me sound money, as only gold and silver shall be legal tender, I am nevertheless forced to use the worthless paper notes of a private banking cartel that decreases their value daily, providing me no safe store of value to save for my future. To aid financial speculators who produce nothing whatsoever, the volume of these notes is increased out of all reason whenever these gamblers and thieves stand to suffer a loss. As a result, the purchasing power of this slave currency is constantly decreased, widening the gap between rich and poor, and destroying the middle class. I am left with no practical means to participate in free trade and civil society.

I give my fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt, and believe that they have merely forgotten what the true nature and purpose of government is. I remind them that government is nothing more than the collective use of force – and that the use of force is never justified except in defense. It is, by definition, a last resort. Government has almost limitless power, but very few rights. It has no right to do anything beyond protecting my life and my freedom.

Government has no right to provide for the needy with monies extorted at gunpoint from its citizens. I will gladly work with my fellow citizens to help those in need, once I have a choice. In the meantime, I demand that my labor cease to be taken from me without my consent.

Government has no right to bring freedom to the oppressed by initiating force. I remind my fellow citizens that all of the tyrants of history justified their conquests under the false guise of “liberation. “I will gladly stand with my countrymen to fight any foreign power that truly threatens us, but I demand that my government immediately cease to invade foreign countries in my name.

Government has no right to “manage the economy. “Trade is only truly trade when it is free – the result of exchanges between people by mutual, voluntary consent. There is no role for government in this whatsoever. I demand that my right to trade freely with my fellow citizens and citizens abroad be respected and no longer subject to inspection or interference.

Government has no right to “prevent crime. “It may only punish activities that are truly criminal, and those are relatively few compared to the ocean of laws and regulations that have been passed. I demand that any law prohibiting an act that does not directly harm another person be repealed, along with any law that prohibits unpopular thoughts or speech. Neither the threat of terrorism, poverty, natural disaster, nor epidemic justifies the surrender of one ounce of liberty. I demand that habeas corpus be restored.

Finally, government has no right to rob me of my property by forcing me to use paper currency whose value is subject to its whim. I demand that gold and silver no longer be taxed as capital gain if it rises in price relative to paper currency.

While I owe my fellow citizens nothing in return for heeding these demands, I nevertheless offer a thousand-fold in return. My fellow citizens are running out of fossil fuel – I will discover a new, renewable energy source. Our planet is growing crowded – I will unlock the secrets of traveling to others. The productive members of our society will soon be outnumbered by those less able or unable to produce any longer – I will feed them all. For it was I – the free individual – that gave you everything you have. It was I that invented the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, and the computer. It was I that devised methods to produce mass amounts of goods, making them affordable and available to everyone. It was I that devised a system of government where the rule of the jungle was replaced by the rule of just laws.

In return for restoring my rights, you will again free my creative power to give you more than you can possibly imagine, and solve problems which you are unable to solve without me. I ask nothing more in return, for it is no more my right to make claims upon my fellow citizens than it is their right to make claims upon me. I hereby waive any supposed “entitlement” to public welfare, medical care, retirement benefits, or any other benefit that requires coercion of my fellow citizens to provide it. In return I demand that my liberty be restored. As I believe that I am the last individual left on earth, I do not believe that my tax money will be missed. However, if there are other individuals besides me that would claim their freedom as well, I invite them to join me, and to them I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.

Regards,

Publius

[…]

http://www.restoretherepublic.com/content/view/1165/71/

This is beautiful, but there is something crucial missing.

  • I demand that my labor cease to be taken from me without my consent.
  • I demand that my government immediately cease to invade foreign countries in my name.
  • I demand that my right to trade freely with my fellow citizens and citizens abroad be respected and no longer subject to inspection or interference.
  • I demand that habeas corpus be restored.
  • I demand that gold and silver no longer be taxed as capital gain if it rises in price relative to paper currency.

And what if these ‘demands’ are not met?

What makes you think that demanding anything will be met with nothing more than silence?

Ask the two million people who marched in London against the mass murder campaign what the result of ‘demanding’ is.

The time of demanding is OVER. Like the Founding Fathers, you must TAKE what is rightfully yours, and no longer ASK for your freedom, otherwise, the red coats will simply come to your house and kill you and your family and steal what is left of your property.

You want to keep the fruits of your labor? KEEP THEM.
You want ‘your’ government to stop the war machine? KEEP THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR.
You want to trade freely with your fellow citizens? CREATE A LOCAL CURRENCY, STOP USING THE DOLLAR.
You want habeas corpus to be restored? MOVE TO ARIZONA.

The last one is just completely absurd. What gold you have or do not have is no one’s business in the first instance, and so it should not be subject to any tax whatsoever. The very fact that you acknowledge that there is such a thing as ‘capital gains tax’ and that someone has the right to levy it on you, shows that you are not yet awake. This is further demonstrated by your use of the phrase ‘my government’. That government has not belonged to the people of the USA for….a very long time, certainly, you and your father and his father never lived in a time when it belonged to the people.

What is nice about this is that people are slowly coming to the inevitable, inescapable conclusion that there is only one way out of their trouble. Once all of this demanding fails to work, they are going to have to put their feet down and say ‘THAT IS IT’, and then the showdown will come.

That is what the Arizona legislation is all about; they are at the point where they will not accept any further erosion of the tiny pebble shaped remnants of their freedom that was once a granite boulder. They have drawn a line in the sand and dared the federal government to cross it.

What ‘Publius’ needed to say is:

  • I withdraw my labor and will no longer allow its fruits to be taken from me without my consent.
  • I withdraw the fruits of my labor from this illegitimate government henceforth until it immediately ceases to invade and occupy in any way and to any extent, foreign countries in my name.
  • I assert my right to trade freely with my fellow citizens and citizens abroad and shall longer submit to inspection or interference.
  • I declare habeas corpus to be restored and put on notice all law enforcement that the citizens of this country will punish violators of habeas corpus.
  • I withdraw my wealth from the fiat currency system and shall only transact in debt free currencies including but not limited to gold and silver, as I see fit.

Now, this would be something that has some teeth, and which will actually cause something to be DONE, instead of begging like a leper, bowl in hand, at the feet of war criminals and organized crime!

It cannot be long before someone somewhere does this, even at the legislative level. ‘The Arizona Event’, I am sure, is about to be followed by declarations of this sort, and in fact, they naturally flow from that legislation; if Arizona declares the federal government nullified, then all federal laws are simultaneously abolished and that laundry list is automagically done.

Arizona fires a warning shot….Civil War!

Thursday, May 15th, 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------
 ¦ REFERENCE TITLE: abolish federal government; state sovereignty ¦
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 ¦                                                             ¦
 ¦                                                             ¦
 ¦                                                             ¦
 ¦ State of Arizona                                            ¦
 ¦ House of Representatives                                    ¦
 ¦ Forty-fourth Legislature                                    ¦
 ¦ Second Regular Session                                      ¦
 ¦ 2000                                                        ¦
 ¦                                                             ¦
 ¦                                                             ¦
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 ¦                          HCR 2034                           ¦
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 ¦                       Introduced by                         ¦
 ¦              Representatives Johnson, Cooley                ¦
 ----------------------------------------------------------------

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

PROPOSING THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IF CERTAIN CONDITIONS OCCUR.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

Whereas, on July 4, 1776, our founding fathers proclaimed that the people had the right to alter or abolish their government and declared thirteen British colonies to be free and independent, or sovereign, states; and

Whereas, on March 1, 1781, the thirteen states formed a central government they called the United States of America under a charter known as the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which stated that “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence”; and

Whereas, on September 17, 1787, the leaders of the Continental Congress signed the present Constitution of the United States, which was then transmitted to the thirteen states for ratification and the formation of a new central government; and

Whereas, several of the states delayed ratification of the Constitution and three states made clear their position regarding sovereignty by stating that “the powers of government may be resumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness”; and

Whereas, eventually all thirteen of the independent states ratified the Constitution of the United States and joined the new Union, while retaining their sovereignty as states. The states made the new central government sovereign only to the extent that the states delegated to it limited and specific powers; and

Whereas, the Constitution of the United States is merely a treaty among sovereigns, and under treaty law when one party violates the treaty the other parties are automatically released from further adherence to it unless they wish to continue; and

Whereas, the fifty current principals, or signatories, to the treaty have done well in honoring and obeying it, yet the federal agent has, for decades, violated it in both word and spirit. The many violations of the Constitution of the United States by the federal government include disposing of federal property without the approval of Congress, usurping jurisdiction from the states in such matters as abortion and firearms rights and seeking control of public lands within state borders; and

Whereas, under Article V, Constitution of the United States, three-fourths of the states may abolish the federal government. In the alternative, if the states choose to exercise their inherent right as sovereigns, fewer than thirty-eight states may lawfully choose to ignore Article V, Constitution of the United States, and establish a new federal government for themselves by following the precedent established by Article VII, Constitution of the United States, in which nine of the existing thirteen states dissolved the existing Union under the Articles of Confederation and automatically superceded the Articles.

Therefore

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring:

1. That when or if the President of the United States, the Congress of the United States or any other federal agent or agency declares the Constitution of the United States to be suspended or abolished, if the President or any other federal entity attempts to institute martial law or its equivalent without an official declaration in one or more of the states without the consent of that state or if any federal order attempts to make it unlawful for individual Americans to own firearms or to confiscate firearms, the State of Arizona, when joined by thirty-four of the other fifty states, declares as follows: that the states resume all state powers delegated by the Constitution of the United States and assume total sovereignty; that the states re-ratify and re-establish the present Constitution of the United States as the charter for the formation of a new federal government, to be followed by the election of a new Congress and President and the reorganization of a new judiciary, similarly following the precedent and procedures of the founding fathers; that individual members of the military return to their respective states and report to the Governor until a new President is elected; that each state assume a negotiated, prorated share of the national debt; that all land within the borders of a state belongs to the state until sold or ceded to the central government by the state’s Legislature and Governor; and that once thirty-five states have agreed to form a new government, each of the remaining fifteen be permitted to join the new confederation on application.

2. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit copies of this Resolution to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona.

[…]

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/legtext/44leg/2r/bills/hcr2034p.htm

This is taken directly from the official web site of the Arizona State Legislature.

This time it’s for real. We are reaching a tipping point, where the number of awake people will outnumber the sleeping and their collective momentum will be so great that the media will not be able to re-somnabulize them.

This is one of the greatest things I have ever read!

It’s breaking down from all sides

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Swiss banks cannot be expected to police foreign clients’ tax affairs, one of the country’s top banking officials said Monday, rejecting German demands for greater cooperation to catch tax evaders.

The president of the Swiss Bankers Association laid the blame for tax evasion squarely at the feet of governments that demand too much of their citizens’ income.

“Countries which worry about tax evasion of their citizens should have a good think about the way they tax their people,” Pierre Mirabaud told journalists in Geneva.

The European Union, in particular Germany, has been pressuring Switzerland to crack down on EU citizens who hide money in Swiss banks in order to avoid paying higher taxes at home.

Switzerland, which is not a member of the 27-nation bloc, fiercely protects the privacy of banking customers, including foreigners who have deposited more than 1 trillion Swiss francs (US$950 billion; €640 billion) in its vaults.

“It’s necessary to clearly show Germany and the European Union where their sphere of influence ends and where our sovereignty begins,” Mirabaud said, adding that his members don’t regard themselves as responsible for their clients’ actions.

“We are not a tax authority and we are not a police authority,” he said.

Leading Swiss politicians and bankers reacted with outrage earlier this year when it was revealed that German intelligence had purchased confidential information on bank customers in neighboring Liechtenstein. Mirabaud said at the time that Berlin had used “Gestapo” methods to acquire the data, but later retracted his comparison to Nazi Germany’s secret police.

The information led to a series of high-profile raids against individuals and businesses in Germany, as well as further investigations by authorities in Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Switzerland, like Liechtenstein, provides no judicial assistance to foreign authorities in cases of tax evasion because it is considered an administrative offense subject only to fines rather than a crime punishable by a jail sentence.

A visit last week by German chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the tax issue failed to change Switzerland’s stance on the matter.

Mirabaud said criticism of Switzerland was misplaced, and largely driven by competitors jealous of the Alpine nation’s success as a leading center for international finance.

“For any Anglo-Saxon newspaper, it’s much easier to attack Switzerland than the United Kingdom or the U.S.,” he said.

Mirabaud insisted that Switzerland has some of the world’s strictest rules against money laundering and has done much in recent years to shake off its reputation as a safe haven for dictators to stash their funds.

Millions of dollars (euros) hidden in Swiss accounts by the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and Philippines strong man Ferdinand Marcos have been returned to their governments, and Swiss authorities are seeking to do the same for money deposited here by former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

But on the matter of tax evasion, Mirabaud said the solution is for countries to demand less from their citizens.

“Humans being what they are, if the tax burden becomes too high there will always be tax evasion,” he said.

[…]

IHT

My emphasis.

At last, some bankers with bottle!

Common sense from one of the best countries on Earth. Instead of copying the Swiss model, and reaping the benefits, the western police states insist on the slave model of insane taxation, war and waste, and expect everyone to simply put up with it.

The first flower of spring

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

City councillor Gavin Webb could be thrown off a school’s board of governors after making controversial calls to legalise heroin and prostitution.Liberal Democrat (Libertarian) councillor Gavin Webb’s position is being reviewed after publicly expressing controversial views.

Thistley Hough High School, in Penkhull, could now decide to sack him from its board of governors.

The chair of governors, Gill Miller, said she is seeking advice on Mr Webb’s position in light of complaints about comments he hasmade.

She said: “I have alerted the governing support unit at the city council and the governing body is currently considering Mr Webb’s position.”

Talking about drugs, Mr Webb said: “I believe we should legalise the lot, including the most harmful substance heroin.”

He has also described the police’s drug-busting Operation Nemesis as a “waste of money”.

He has also said: “The only person one can trust in protecting one’s own life, is oneself. That is why I also advocate that individuals should have the right to carry a handgun.”

Other controversial views expressed by Mr Webb include that drink-driving is not a crime, that brothels should be legal and that Britain’s borders should be opened up to anyone who wants to enter the country.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Liberal Democrat group leader, Councillor Jean Bowers, said she was concerned about some of the comments Mr Webb has made in recent weeks. She said a member of the public had contacted her to complain about some of his views.

Mr Webb, pictured, said he is aware that some of his views were unpopular, and could even jeopardise his position as a governor.

He said: “I am getting flak from various people, but part of the role of politicians is to tell people to take responsibility for their own lives, instead of blaming other people.”

“At the end of the day, it’s up the board of school governors whether they support me or sack me.”

Many of Mr Webb’s controversial statements were made on The Sentinel’s website.

Mr Webb is also being investigated by the Standards Board of England after an alleged four-letter outburst at a fellow councillor.

What do you think of Gavin Webb’s views?

[…]

http://www.thisisthesentinel.co.uk/

What do I think?

I think this man is 100% correct!

Is this the beginning of a sea change in the UK? A return to sanity? An awakening from the nightmare of Bliar, Brown, Murder Inc. and all the horrors we have been putting up with?

Lets hope so!

Be realistic, demand the impossible

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

MAY 1968 GRAFFITI

It is forbidden to forbid

Beneath the cobblestones, the beach

In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices.

Commute, work, commute, sleep . . .

Meanwhile everyone wants to breathe and nobody can and many say, “We will breathe later.” And most of them don’t die because they are already dead.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.

We want to live.

Don’t beg for the right to live — take it.

In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.

The liberation of humanity is all or nothing.

Those who make revolutions half way only dig their own graves.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

Masochism today takes the form of reformism.

Reform my ass.

The revolution is incredible because it’s really happening.

I came, I saw, I was won over.

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

Quick!

If we only have enough time . . .

In any case, no regrets!

Already ten days of happiness.

Live in the moment.

Comrades, if everyone did like us . . .

We will ask nothing. We will demand nothing. We will take, occupy.

Down with the state.

When the National Assembly becomes a bourgeois theater, all the bourgeois theaters should be turned into national assemblies. [Written above the entrance of the occupied Odéon Theater]

Referendum: whether we vote yes or no, it turns us into suckers.

It’s painful to submit to our bosses; it’s even more stupid to choose them.

Let’s not change bosses, let’s change life.

Don’t liberate me — I’ll take care of that.

I’m not a servant of the people (much less of their self-appointed leaders). Let the people serve themselves.

Abolish class society.

Nature created neither servants nor masters. I want neither to rule nor to be ruled.

We will have good masters as soon as everyone is their own.

“In revolution there are two types of people: those who make it and those who profit from it.”
(Napoleon)

Warning: ambitious careerists may now be disguised as “progressives.”

Don’t be taken in by the politicos and their filthy demagogy. We must rely on ourselves.

Socialism without freedom is a barracks.

All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We want structures that serve people, not people serving structures.

The revolution doesn’t belong to the committees, it’s yours.

Politics is in the streets.

Barricades close the streets but open the way.

Our hope can come only from the hopeless.

A proletarian is someone who has no power over his life and knows it.

Never work.

People who work get bored when they don’t work. People who don’t work never get bored.

Workers of all countries, enjoy!

Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases.
My father before me fought for wage increases.
Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen.
Yet my whole life has been a drag.
Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them.

The boss needs you, you don’t need the boss.

By stopping our machines together we will demonstrate their weakness.

Occupy the factories.

Power to the workers councils.
(an enragé)

Power to the enragés councils.
(a worker)

Worker: You may be only 25 years old, but your union dates from the last century.

Labor unions are whorehouses.

Comrades, let’s lynch Séguy!
[Georges Séguy: head bureaucrat of the Communist Party-dominated labor union]

Please leave the Communist Party as clean on leaving it as you would like to find it on entering.

Stalinists, your children are with us!

Man is neither Rousseau’s noble savage nor the Church’s or La Rochefoucauld’s depraved sinner.
He is violent when oppressed, gentle when free.

Conflict is the origin of everything.
(Heraclitus)

If we have to resort to force, don’t sit on the fence.

Be cruel.

Humanity won’t be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat.

When the last sociologist has been hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat, will we still have “problems”?

The passion of destruction is a creative joy.
(Bakunin)

A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of total revolution.

The tears of philistines are the nectar of the gods.

This concerns everyone.

We are all German Jews.

We refuse to be highrised, diplomaed, licensed, inventoried, registered, indoctrinated, suburbanized, sermonized, beaten, telemanipulated, gassed, booked.

We are all “undesirables.”

We must remain “unadapted.”

The forest precedes man, the desert follows him.

Under the paving stones, the beach.

Concrete breeds apathy.

Coming soon to this location: charming ruins.

Beautiful, maybe not, but O how charming: life versus survival.

“My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast.”
(Unamuno)

Conservatism is a synonym for rottenness and ugliness.

You are hollow.

You will end up dying of comfort.

Hide yourself, object!

No to coat-and-tie revolution.

A revolution that requires us to sacrifice ourselves for it is Papa’s revolution.

Revolution ceases to be the moment it calls for self-sacrifice.

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today’s boredom.

When people notice they are bored, they stop being bored.

Happiness is a new idea.

Live without dead time.

Those who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring to everyday reality have a corpse in their mouth.

Culture is an inversion of life.

Poetry is in the streets.

The most beautiful sculpture is a paving stone thrown at a cop’s head.

Art is dead, don’t consume its corpse.

Art is dead, let’s liberate our everyday life.

Art is dead, Godard can’t change that.

Godard: the supreme Swiss Maoist jerk.

Permanent cultural vibration.

We want a wild and ephemeral music.
We propose a fundamental regeneration:concert strikes,
sound gatherings with collective investigation.
Abolish copyrights: sound structures belong to everyone.

Anarchy is me.

Revolution, I love you.

Down with the abstract, long live the ephemeral.
(Marxist-Pessimist Youth)

Don’t consume Marx, live him.

I’m a Groucho Marxist.

I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires.

Desiring reality is great! Realizing your desires is even better!

Practice wishful thinking.

I declare a permanent state of happiness.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

Power to the imagination.

Those who lack imagination cannot imagine what is lacking.

Imagination is not a gift, it must be conquered.
(Breton)

Action must not be a reaction, but a creation.

Action enables us to overcome divisions and find solutions.

Exaggeration is the beginning of invention.

The enemy of movement is skepticism. Everything that has been realized comes from dynamism, which comes from spontaneity.

Here, we spontane.

“You must bear a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star.”
(Nietzsche)

Chance must be systematically explored.

Alcohol kills. Take LSD.

Unbutton your mind as often as your fly.

“Every view of things that is not strange is false.”
(Valéry)

Life is elsewhere.

Forget everything you’ve been taught. Start by dreaming.

Form dream committees.

Dare! This word contains all the politics of the present moment.
(Saint-Just)

Arise, ye wretched of the university.

Students are jerks.

The student’s susceptibility to recruitment as a militant for any cause is a sufficient demonstration of his real impotence.
(enragé women)

Professors, you make us grow old.

Terminate the university.

Rape your Alma Mater.

What if we burned the Sorbonne?

Professors, you are as senile as your culture, your modernism is nothing but the modernization of the police.

We refuse the role assigned to us: we will not be trained as police dogs.

We don’t want to be the watchdogs or servants of capitalism.

Exams = servility, social promotion, hierarchical society.

When examined, answer with questions.

Insolence is the new revolutionary weapon.

Every teacher is taught, everyone taught teaches.

The Old Mole of history seems to be splendidly undermining the Sorbonne.
(telegram from Marx, 13 May 1968)

Thought that stagnates rots.

To call in question the society you “live” in, you must first be capable of calling yourself in question.

Take revolution seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.

The walls have ears. Your ears have walls.

Making revolution also means breaking our internal chains.

A cop sleeps inside each one of us. We must kill him.

Drive the cop out of your head.

Religion is the ultimate con.

Neither God nor master.

If God existed it would be necessary to abolish him.

Can you believe that some people are still Christians?

Down with the toad of Nazareth.

How can you think freely in the shadow of a chapel?

We want a place to piss, not a place to pray.

I suspect God of being a leftist intellectual.

The bourgeoisie has no other pleasure than to degrade all pleasures.

Going through the motions kills the emotions.

Struggle against the emotional fixations that paralyze our potentials.
(Committee of Women on the Path of Liberation)

Constraints imposed on pleasure incite the pleasure of living without constraints.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

SEX: It’s okay, says Mao, as long as you don’t do it too often.

Comrades, 5 hours of sleep a day is indispensable: we need you for the revolution.

Embrace your love without dropping your guard.

I love you!!! Oh, say it with paving stones!!!

I’m coming in the paving stones.

Total orgasm.

Comrades, people are making love in the Poli Sci classrooms, not only in the fields.

Revolutionary women are more beautiful.

Zelda, I love you! Down with work!

The young make love, the old make obscene gestures.

Make love, not war.

Whoever speaks of love destroys love.

Down with consumer society.

The more you consume, the less you live.

Commodities are the opium of the people.

Burn commodities.

You can’t buy happiness. Steal it.

See Nanterre and live. Die in Naples with Club Med.

Are you a consumer or a participant?

To be free in 1968 means to participate.

I participate.
You participate.
He participates.
We participate.
They profit.

The golden age was the age when gold didn’t reign.

“The cause of all wars, riots and injustices is the existence of property.”
(St. Augustine)

Happiness is hanging your landlord.

Millionaires of the world unite. The wind is turning.

The economy is wounded — I hope it dies!

How sad to love money.

You too can steal.

“Amnesty: An act in which the rulers pardon the injustices they have committed.”
(Ambrose Bierce)
[The definition in Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary is actually: “Amnesty: The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.”]

Abolish alienation.

Obedience begins with consciousness;
consciousness begins with disobedience.

First, disobey; then write on the walls.
(Law of 10 May 1968)

I don’t like to write on walls.

Write everywhere.

Before writing, learn to think.

I don’t know how to write but I would like to say beautiful things and I don’t know how.

I don’t have time to write!!!

I have something to say but I don’t know what.

Freedom is the right to silence.

Long live communication, down with telecommunication.

You, my comrade, you whom I was unaware of amid the tumult,
you who are throttled, afraid, suffocated — come, talk to us.

Talk to your neighbors.

Yell.

Create.

Look in front of you!!!

Help with cleanup, there are no maids here.

Revolution is an INITIATIVE.

Speechmaking is counterrevolutionary.

Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.

Don’t get caught up in the spectacle of opposition. Oppose the spectacle.

Down with spectacle-commodity society.

Down with journalists and those who cater to them.

Only the truth is revolutionary.

No forbidding allowed.

Freedom is the crime that contains all crimes. It is our ultimate weapon.

The freedom of others extends mine infinitely.

No freedom for the enemies of freedom.

Free our comrades.

Open the gates of the asylums, prisons and other faculties.

Open the windows of your heart.

To hell with boundaries.

You can no longer sleep quietly once you’ve suddenly opened your eyes.

The future will only contain what we put into it now.

[…]

http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm

German constitutional court creates new fundamental right to digital privacy

Monday, April 21st, 2008

February 27, 2008
(presse@ccc.de)
Today, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, flatly rejected North Rhine-Westphalia’s Constitutional Protection Act, which is designed to permit the so-called online search of computers and other IT systems.

The Karlsruhe judges made it clear with their decision that the society has a legitimate interest in the confidentiality and integrity of the IT systems it increasingly depends on and that freedom of thought also exists if ideas are stored on to a computer. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has been demanding this right to digital privacy for over 25 years. The protection of the digital self not only affects computers but also telephones and other networked devices. “We can only hope that the politicians who only know the internet from print-outs don’t need another quarter of a century until they have taken this new fundamental right on board”, Dirk Engling, the CCC’s spokesman, commented.

The constitutional court judges point out in their oral reasons for the judgement that the systematic tapping of communication data and the creation of personality profiles are serious violations of basic rights. “We assume that this judgement will also apply to the constitutional review of the Data Retention Act”, Dirk Engling said. Several constitutional complaints have been filed against the data retention that came to effect in January.

“The judges have given the lawmakers a slap in the face for allowing all kinds of information systems to be spied on, in contravention of basic rights”, Dirk Engling continued. “Spying on hard disks will only be possible within strictly defined limits. The Federal Constitutional Court has provided humanity’s virtual self with a digital protective shield.”

Analysing the data seized will also have to be based on the criteria relating to the new basic right. The investigation authorities’ procedures when collecting evidence by digital means must now be immediately put to the test. The searching of hard disks by private companies, which has recently become commonplace, is therefore clearly unconstitutional. The judges also determined that informational self-protection through encryption is a right that may only be abrogated under very strict conditions.

The Chaos Computer Club once again came to Karlsruhe for the delivery of the judgement with the black, red and gold “Federal Trojan”, which is the symbol of resistance against online searches. The Green Party, which recently attracted negative attention by waving through former interior minister Otto Schily’s “spying laws” and endorsing the ban on hacker tools, tried to demonstrate their newly found love for digital civil rights with a vigil in front of the court. This civil rights friendly position will hopefully be maintained if the Greens get back into government.

The lawyers will turn their attention to interpreting the judgement in the next few weeks and draw the relevant conclusions. “Although the Federal Trojan was positively slaughtered, important other decisions on basic rights are imminent. However, we don’t expect Wolfgang Schäuble (the Federal Interior Minister) or Dieter Wiefelspütz (the German Social Democratic Party’s expert on domestic policy) to suddenly take our constitution seriously. The new basic right will only come to life if it is aggressively defended and exercised.”

http://www.ccc.de/updates/2008/trojaner-notschlachten?language=en

A man who talks BLOGDIAL

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

An Idea Whose Time Has Come – G. Edward Griffin – Freedom Force International

This is a lecture, where G. Edward Griffin says everything we have said on BLOGDIAL for the past seven years is repeated point for point.

You should watch it.

Then check out his website:

http://www.freedom-force.org/

Where you can read his ‘Freedom Creed’:

THE CREED OF FREEDOM

Intrinsic Nature of Rights
I believe that only individuals have rights, not the collective group; that these rights are intrinsic to each individual, not granted by the state; for if the state has the power to grant them, it also has the power to deny them, and that is incompatible with personal liberty.
I believe that a just government derives its power solely from the governed. Therefore, the state must never presume to do anything beyond what individual citizens also have the right to do. Otherwise, the state is a power unto itself and becomes the master instead of the servant of society.

Supremacy of the Individual
I believe that one of the greatest threats to freedom is to allow any group, no matter its numeric superiority, to deny the rights of the minority; and that one of the primary functions of just government is to protect each individual from the greed and passion of the majority.

Freedom of Choice
I believe that desirable social and economic objectives are better achieved by voluntary action than by coercion of law. I believe that social tranquility and brotherhood are better achieved by tolerance, persuasion, and the power of good example than by coercion of law. I believe that those in need are better served by charity, which is the giving of one’s own money, than by welfare, which is the giving of other people’s money through coercion of law.

Equality Under Law
I believe that all citizens should be equal under law, regardless of their national origin, race, religion, gender, education, economic status, life style, or political opinion. Likewise, no class should be given preferential treatment, regardless of the merit or popularity of its cause. To favor one class over another is not equality under law.

Proper Role of Government
I believe that the proper role of government is negative, not positive; defensive, not aggressive. It is to protect, not to provide; for if the state is granted the power to provide for some, it must also be able to take from others, and once that power is granted, there are those who will seek it for their advantage. It always leads to legalized plunder and loss of freedom. If government is powerful enough to give us everything we want, it is also powerful enough to take from us everything we have. Therefore, the proper function of government is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens; nothing more. That government is best which governs least.