Change and hope

I have received some emails regarding my last post, accusing me of being an Obama supporter. Far from it, and if you dig into my blog you will see that I despise both of the current political parties. Every year, one party or the other makes promises that they will make our lives better by restricting our freedoms. As a result, we lose freedoms and liberties, while gaining no real improvement. Let me show you:

1 We have been engaged in a "War on Poverty" since 1964. The poverty level has remained near 12% ever since the United States abolished the gold standard in 1973, with the current level being 12.7%. It is important to note that the method the Government is using to calculate the poverty line only takes inflation into account, instead of the more accurate model, which compares the percentage of the cost of living to household income. Using this method, the current cost of living has risen from 30% of individual income in 1965 to 50% of household income in 2003. Where it used to take one income to support a family, it now takes two. This means that the effective poverty rate, when expressed as a real percentage of household income, has more than doubled since the “War on Poverty” began.

The reason this has happened is that a country cannot tax itself into prosperity. The average American spends 40% of his productive life as a slave to the collective, and that is not enough. We as a nation then borrow even more. All of this accomplishes nothing.

2 We have been engaged in a "War on Drugs" for the better part of 40 years. What has this gotten us? No-knock warrants, property forfeiture, midnight raids, and police seizing property of citizens without trial. We have the highest level of incarceration of any advanced country, yet drugs are cheaper and easier to get than ever before. Odds are that every American reading this is within a 15 minute drive of at least one drug dealer.

3 20,000 Gun laws have resulted in the criminalization of machine guns, the carrying of weapons, mail order weapons, weapons that look scary, and weapons that are accurate over long ranges, yet gun crime still happens. Criminals still get guns. Criminals still break the law. Honest citizens are now left without the most effective tools for self defense-

Politicians do what politicians do. What do they do? Pander to whomever they can to get elected. Some pander to one side, while others pander to the other side, all the while sacrificing your rights on the alter of their careers.

Remain ever vigilant.