Freedom?? – Florida woman living “off the grid” is being evicted from her house

**(Kudos to ‘WChildBlog‘ for bringing this to our attention…)

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How many of us have ever wondered aloud about living more simple, less cluttered lives? Regardless of one’s motivation, regardless of whether any of us would actually CHOOSE it for ourselves, living without mankind’s modern “conveniences” does have a certain allure.

As long as we’re not hurting others, isn’t such a decision is up to us? In a free society, isn’t that our choice to make?

And if it’s not, then how free ARE we, …really?

So after this initial article on Fox4 News came out, Cape Coral’s city code enforcement officers showed up and proclaimed Robin Speronis’ house to be “unfit” for human habitation.

Did she have rats? No. Was she mixing dangerous chemicals that could potentially hurt others? No. Did she owe the city money? Again, no. 

I’m not actually a “customer”, if you mandate by law that I MUST buy your “product”…

For several weeks now, the mantra that we keep hearing from Obamacare’s cheerleaders has been “give it a chance; it’s only just started“. Which is fair, to a point: it has just started, …and it’s been a frustrating, miserable disaster unlike anything which would be allowed to continue in the free market.

However, no matter how many chances we give, this can’t work for one very basic reason: government bureaucrats are in charge of it. And when those people are in charge of anything, the very last thing you can expect is excellence, at least as a private sector entity would define “excellence”.

We Have Everything We Need

“Tyranny can scarcely be practiced upon a virtuous and wise people.”

-John Adams (diary, 31 July 1796)

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“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

Therefore…make every effort to respond to God’s promises.

The Tyranny of Arbitrary Laws

Is the United States still the “Land Of The Free”? Well, most of us certainly go through our day believing we are.

Part of that belief is an assumption that, as long as we don’t try to do something wrong, illicit, or illegal, we won’t run afoul of the law. We also assume that if someone DOES blatantly break the law, they’ll be punished for it. Quickly and fairly, those people will be carted off to jail.

In years past both of those may have been safe assumptions, yet increasingly they’re no longer the case.

We’re seeing reports almost daily: from the incarceration of the 19-year-old young man who cracked a joke (in extremely bad taste, I agree, but still …just a joke) on Facebook, to the arrest of the 8th-grade kid who refused to remove his NRA t-shirt, to the non-arrest of David Gregory when he openly flouted the actual gun laws of Washington DC late last year.

When kids are threatened with jail for merely wearing clothes, and TV personalities are excused for breaking the law because prosecuting them “would not promote public safety…”, we’ve established two sets of laws:

Most ridiculous statement of the year: “Government is Inherently GOOD…”

We constantly hear various arguments from the Left and scratch our heads, wondering how such lines of reasoning are even possible. Because whether we’re discussing deficits, birth control, guns, national security, health care or education, the Left’s answer always seems to be, “more government!“. 

“I got a fever, ….and the only prescription…., is MORE GOVERNMENT!!”

Such a myopic adherence to an obviously flawed institution would be puzzling, until you consider what their true belief system is. And make no mistake, that’s where this comes from: belief. Which means that far from being a statement of logic, it’s a statement of faith.

Ronald Reagan on the gun debate… (part TWO)

Ronald Reagan believed not only in the greatness of our country, but also the supremacy of the individual. That explains his opposition to Socialism and Communism and, by definition, the loss of individual freedoms that such systems entail.

As a result, he was an unequivocal proponent of the 2nd Amendment. 

I mentioned this in an earlier post because that belief does not seem to be shared by our current Commander-in-Chief. This is also why I’m posting a column (below) written by Reagan waaaaay back in 1975, where he magnificently defended the virtue of our country’s historic stance on Gun Rights.

In light of President Obama’s recent power grab, it’s refreshing to read the thoughts of one of our country’s finest patriots on this subject.

The arguments against the 2nd Amendment are not new, just newly packaged. And the reasons they must be rejected are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago, …or 240 years ago. 

–JTR

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**Written by Ronald Reagan, from the September 1975 issue of ‘Guns & Ammo’ Magazine:

An Energy Smörgåsbord

I have several items for your energy intake today:

First up is an article from former meteorologist Brian Sussman called Drill It, Dam it, Log It: How To Fight Eco-Tyranny In America. Caution: if you have a heart condition, you may wish to pop a nitro before you read this. It’s a solid “8.5” on the Government Outrage-O-meter.

Courtesy of Forbes.com:

In a major press event staged at the rim of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona (an important swing state that year) Clinton and Vice President Al Gore announced their unilateral executive decision to designate a 1.9 million acre monument in Utah. The instant creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was a major victory for eco-activists, and a great loss to America’s energy portfolio. Portions of area are estimated to contain 62 billion tons of clean-burning, low-sulfur coal, between 3 to 5 billion barrels of oil, and 2 to 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Members of Utah’s congressional delegation were livid, as they were informed of the decision just shortly before Clinton and Gore boarded Air Force One bound for the publicity stunt. 

Over the next four years Clinton and Gore would create over 4 million acres of national monuments, all known for their rich resources.

In 2000, the Clinton administration brazenly stretched the limits of the Antiquity Act further by establishing the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) at the behest of Department of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit (a man beloved by environmentalists for his dramatic DOI press events held in front of dams, in which he would brandish a sledgehammer as a part of his self-proclaimed “sledgehammer tour,” encouraging the destruction of America’s dams). The NLCS gave the president the power to deem a simple landscape as “treasured,” thus taking its resources off the books forever. In 2009, liberal majorities in Congress fashioned an official NLCS law, which President Obama eagerly signed. The legislation, part of an omnibus-spending bill, declared 27 million acres of “treasured landscapes.”

Now, as I disclose in my book Eco-Tyranny, President Obama has been caught in a plan to potentially declare 140-million acres of land treasured. I was one of the first to see a 21-page DOI draft document describing the scheme, which declares the acreage as, “components of larger landscapes, ecosystems, airsheds, and watersheds.” Note that all of the said components are purely subjective in nature.

For a visual depiction of just how much territory the government now owns, I’ll include this from 2004:

Sussman is an excellent writer, and I urge you to read the whole article. Heck, while you’re at it, read his book, too.

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Next up is the 4th installment of Tim Dunn’s 5-Minute Energy Blog, courtesy of Hugh Hewitt’s website. If you aren’t familiar with him, Tim Dunn is CEO of Crown Quest Operating (one of the top oil producers in Texas) and board member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. And with a title like OIL-HATERS AND ENERGY-CRATS, this installment is in synch with the Sussman piece above, but with a slightly different perspective.

***To read Tim’s previous Energy blog posts, go HERE.

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And, before anyone from the save-mother-earth-blah-blah-blah crowd says, “Hey, neither of those guys is a CLIMATOLOGIST, and the CLIMATOLOGISTS all say drilling is bad, etc, etc….. Why should we care what these authors say?”, please check out one of my favorite articles from waaaay back in 2009, courtesy of the examiner.com:

What is a ‘Climatologist,’ precisely? Let me cut to the chase scene for you: It’s a job title, not an educational path. Translation: You, too, can be a Climatologist!

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I could go through every single paper presented as proof of Algore’s Earth View written by “climatologists” searching in vain for a “climatology” degree. Not there. The reason is because the very first such degree program in the world took students in just 2001.

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Just remember: