You're having a nightmare, go back to sleep

If someone were to announce today, "We the Government reserve the right to spy on you, collect any and all information about your life, micromanage your behavior, shoot you dead with impunity, wage undeclared war on nations thousands of miles from our borders, and generally ignore any poetic prose you worship about your inalienable rights," would anybody really care?

Someone might look up from tweeting about dead celebrities and say, "Oh. So THAT'S what you've been doing," and nod off again.

The evolution of American liberty

1776

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

— Thomas Jefferson, July 2, 1776

2014

There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

— George Orwell

7 questions for happy frogs in warm water

Is there something you wanted to say during a conversation about politics but decided you didn't want to risk the inevitable retaliation and/or ridicule?

Is there something you wanted to do with your property but discovered you need a government permit to do it?

Have you put off filing your tax return until the last minute because you're anxious that you will inadvertently forget something and face some penalty?

Did you pass through a sobriety checkpoint while driving somewhere recently?

Have you gone to a sporting event and submitted to a search on your way through the front door?

Have you taken a trip on an airplane?

Do you still believe you live in the freest nation on Earth?

Sebelius resigns; the worst is yet to come

The resignation of nanny-in-chief Kathleen Sebelius is good news for lovers of freedom everywhere, except for the near certainty that someone even worse will be appointed to succeed her.

The ever-increasing federal attempts to micromanage citizens' lives will no doubt move inexorably forward, no matter who is put in charge of the effort. As egregious as her efforts may have been, Sebelius is merely the figurehead of the nanny state campaign to tell us what to eat, drink and otherwise consume from day to day.

Likewise, each of the last three presidents has been the worst in U.S. history, and as long as the government's march toward totalitarianism continues, that trend will continue. It won't stop until a majority of Americans decide to assume the responsibility for their own lives again.

'Liberty Tax' collections kick in for new 'health care' system

It's fascinating to watch the administration lackeys back away from acknowledging the massive tax increase that is the "Affordable" Care Act, even going so far as to deny that someone who paid the tax needed to pay it.

Summarized here, the blood-sucking has begun, beginning with first-quarter estimated tax payments from the self-employed and entrepreneurs who in a better time would be fueling the engine of our economy.

5 gems of pith and vinegar from H.L. Mencken

No one since H.L. Mencken has been able to cast a few words into the sea and catch the truth – of course there’s the legendary observation “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Here are several more of my favorites courtesy of Brainy Quotes:

+++ Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

+++ The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out ... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

+++ The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

+++ It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

+++ I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.