Government spying

There has never been an easier or more efficient or more effective time to spy on your own citizens as there is today.  Whereas, in previous years you might need to have someone on the inside of an organization in order to infiltrate it and neutralize it, that isn't even often a step that need be taken.  Listening devices are sophisticated, reliable, portable, cost-efficient, and effective, and while there may be laws that are suppose to protect you from indiscriminate eavesdropping by the government, the fact of the matter is, there are so many additional laws that supersede these "protections" that the government need not worry about them.  Additionally, you don't need the manpower to track vehicles and where they go, where they stop at and where they visit at, the cars own GPS is vulnerable to hacking and if not hacked, the information is stored by the GPS provider and can be accessed.

The main problem that the Government has at this point in monitoring you is not the lack of information, but the overwhelming amount of information that has to be processed, correlated, and analyzed.  Any thought that you can hide from the government, be anonymous to the government, can only occur if you are living a life that has no involvement with modern technology whatsoever, and people like that are virtually never a threat to the government.

There isn't anyone watching the watchers, while there may be oversight committees they are toothless and without effectiveness.  In any event, even if these oversight organizations were to discover something untoward, they are so far behind the eight ball, that any hope of them being able to stop or prevent government spy agencies from doing what they desire to do is misguided and hopeless.  Our present spy system is like a runaway train that cannot be stopped, cannot be diverted, and cannot be slowed down.

We are at the mercy of anonymous government spying agencies that will stop at nothing to obtain all the actionable information that they can obtain from its citizens and visitors within the United States.  We would be wise to remember this prescient quote from C.S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

These are dangerous times.  These are times in which the common man has no defense for spying agencies that have an ax to grind against them for legitimate or illegitimate reasons.  Also, when government spy agencies have all the pertinent information that they can obtain from you, it is then easy for them to manipulate that data, to change and distort some facts, in order to best make a case against you because in theory their data is inviolable, whereas in actuality it isn't. 

Also, ask yourself this question, what does an individual with immense spying power and the authority to use it, do in a situation in which he says to himself, "I don't like my neighbor and I wish to destroy him."  He probably annihilates him, completely, irrevocably, and without mercy.  Far from serving us, the people, government spying agencies serve only themselves in which their purpose it clear: We are all their slaves, their servants, and their subjects, and if we get out-of-line they will eviscerate us. 

In short, God-like powers in the hands of fallen human beings is a formula for absolute tyranny and oppression. You have been warned.

First, Do No Harm

The Hippocratic Oath contains the words "… and never do harm to anyone," and further "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion."   Virtually all American medical doctors swear an oath or oaths before receiving their medical license to practice and although these oaths vary from school-to-school, they are similar in concept and have as their foundation the code that a medical doctor has an obligation to perform their duties to the benefit of their patients, and to their health and to their life, further that they will perform no actions that will bring shame or discredit to the profession, nor will they cause deliberate harm nor provide lethal drugs to their patients.

It is important that medical doctors take this oath, because as a patient, there is an implicit trust between you and your doctor that any prescriptions and any procedures that you engage in are to your benefit and not deliberately to your harm.  Additionally, we need only to look back at history to see that doctors under the aegis of the State, are not hesitant to perform all sorts of dubious medical procedures such as mandated sterilization, serological experiments, pharmaceutical testing on certain human subjects, infanticide, and euthanasia.  That these procedures are conducted upon human beings at all is abhorrent, that these procedures are conducted by medical doctors is unprincipled.

Medical doctors should be held to a higher standard than other human beings since they have the necessary knowledge that can help or harm our natural life.  In regards to euthanasia, clearly this is an action that no well-meaning doctor can possibly conceive as being within the confines of a good and moral action.  A physician that believes that he has the right or the obligation to terminate the life of a patient has willingly taken a step too far and has consequently disavowed his Oath to his chosen profession. 

In regards to abortion, you have an area of medical practice that has significant moral challenges that are not easily answered.  Because of Roe v. Wade, abortion is legal in all 50 states of the Union; however, the law within those states in regards to how abortion is treated does vary from state-to-state.  The legality of abortion, nonetheless, does not by definition, mean that this is a medical procedure that conforms or adheres to the Oath that medical doctors attest to.   In fact, according to Dr. Rachel Phelps ”… only 2% of obstetricians perform over 50% of all abortions."  The dilemma in regards to abortion is between the woman's right to choose (her body, her choice) and her unborn child's right to life.  America has decided to restrict abortions based on the length of pregnancy in most states, which places abortion in both a legal and moral gray area, in which the answer appears to be that abortions are okay within a certain prescribed amount of weeks, but typically not okay outside of that timeline, with timelines ranging from when the first fetal heartbeat can be detected, to when a fetus can first feel pain, to when a fetus is considered to be viable outside the womb, to no restrictions at all.

The medical profession and its position towards abortion is a great and terrible moral quandary.  This is a tragedy played out on a daily basis, time and time again, leaving a trail of tears.

Defending Your Country

There are about 190 countries in the world and although there are plenty of people who don't believe in the adage "my country, right or wrong", most people do believe in defending themselves especially from foreigners or outsiders that would attack them, their institutions, their beliefs, their land and to also to protect themselves from those who would take aggressive actions against them, whether foreign or domestic.  Not all of us are born into wonderful countries that are known for freedom, liberty, and the American way; in fact, most people are born into countries that are in various degrees of misery, poverty, and oppression.  Even worse within that country, your education may be limited, your economic choices may be anemic,  and your freedom of both thought and movement may be severely constrained, yet, within that all, this is virtually all that you really know.   

Consequently, when your country is under attack, in the normal course of events, your native sympathies will be to protect the little that is yours.  It is not your fault that you have been born in a particular country, that is just your lot in life, whether for good or for bad, and in all likelihood you will do the best that you can do given your circumstances.  However, when put into the position in which your life, your livelihood, your home, and your family, are in imminent danger you will almost without hesitation do whatever is necessary to protect your turf, whether compelled to do so by your country's law or military or not. 

Therefore in the scheme of things, you are not concerned, in fact it's not even really a thought, whether your country is in the right or the wrong.  What you are concerned about is somehow your country is under attack and this fight is a fight for survival, nothing more, and nothing less.   In most cases, you know the basic law within your country, it may not be ideal, it may not be desired, but it is the conditions that you have accommodated yourself to.  In all probability, especially with propaganda that demonizes those that attack your country, you will be cognizant of the fact that if your country is defeated that things will get worse, perhaps much worse, because after all there will be a new master to answer to and he does not know you, nor will he care to respect you.

It is not wrong to defend your country.  During our civil war, there were two sides to this conflict, in which for the most part, the country was divided into a clear sectional conflict.  Those that were from the southern States that seceded opposed the rest of the nation that remained as a modified United States of America.   Whether your physical presence was in the North or in the seceded Southern states, it was that physical location itself that determined in most instances the side that you fought on.  You may not have had a strong feeling about the war one way or another, but by golly, when a man in a different color uniform is trying to kill you, to take and destroy your property, your family, and your land, you will defend yourself or perish. 

Those that defend their country are only doing the natural thing in the given circumstances, they aren't traitors, not even in our civil war in which the South was vanquished but allowed to come back into the Union upon a loyalty oath and ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution forbidding slavery.  You will defend yourself, you will defend your country, and you will do this because the unknown and the uncertain are far scarier than the known and the certain.  Few people welcome their conquerors, and fewer still are satisfied with them, it is the exception to the rule when conditions improve upon conquest

Christ as the Second Moses

The Torah is the first five books of the Bible which are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  These books are known as the Five Books of Moses in which the great Hebrew prophet, Moses wrote down the dictated and revealed words of God during his forty days and forty nights at Mount Sinai and then passed this knowledge onto his Hebrew people.  From this point on, the children of Israel were indeed a divine people with a specific chosen destiny.

In Exodus 3:2, in regards to Moses and Mount Sinai we read: "And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." In Matthew 17: 1-3 in regards to Christ andthe mountaintop we read: "And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.  And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him."  Although we are prone to look upon the physical form of mankind and believe that that is all there is, in reality, as beings made in God's image, we are beings of Light, encased in a physical body, but that body is nothing more than our outer garment.  The image of God as a burning bush that is not consumed and speaks law unto Moses, and the transfiguration of Christ in the presence of Moses indicates a brotherhood of he who was the bearer of Light for the Jews, and for he who was born of the tribe of Judah, who would ultimately be the bearer of Light for the Gentiles.

There are many parallels between Moses and Christ, such as: Pharaoh commanded that all male new-born babies were to be killed in Moses' time, whereas King Herod ordered all male new-borne babies to be killed in Christ's time.  Each fasted forty days and forty nights on a mountain, each performed miracles, Moses blessed each tribe of Israel, Christ blessed his twelve disciples, and each fed their brethren supernaturally.  Moses spoke of a prophet to come in Deuteronomy 18:18: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."  Christ fulfilled this prophecy in Matthew 26:56:”But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled…"

Moses was the supreme lawgiver, Exodus 31:18 reads: "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God."  Because these words of God were inscribed on tablets of stone they were given special significance and created the Decalogue or Ten Commandments that we are so familiar with today.  Later in Christ's time, the Pharisees who were meticulous in their obedience to God's law, asked Christ in Matthew 22: 36-40: "Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."  Does this then mean that Christ' teachings superseded Mosaic Law?  Christ made it clear in Matthew 5:17 that he came not to destroy the law of the Prophets but to fulfill it.  This paradox then can best be answered by understanding that Christ wished to impart to us the knowledge that our sole purpose in life is to find our way back to God and in so doing one will see that God is in each and every human being.

Black Abortion Genocide

One way to control your population mix and your population growth is to reduce your procreation rate for all peoples or just for certain peoples.  This can be done through a myriad of ways such as: birth control, abortion, propaganda, and government mandates (e.g. one child per family).  In America, if you are of legal age to bear children, you may have as many children as you desire, subject to your ability to have adequate housing and the necessary creature comforts that maintain and sustain life.  A person's desire to have and bear children is based on numerous factors such as: fertility, education, background, religion, and age.   There is, however, no biological reason that I am aware of, that the race that you are identified with would be the controlling factor as to your fecundity.

Initially then, one would premise that the abortion rates for all races within America should be approximately the same, even taking into account the differences and disparities between  races, in regards to income, family background, religion, and education.  However, this clearly is not the case, in which according to abort73.com, in America for every 1,000 births for white women there are 138 abortions, and for every 1,000 births for black women there are 501 abortions.  The ratio between 501/138 is a staggering 363% higher abortion rate for black woman as compared to white.  That type of abortion discrepancy cannot easily be explained by any mitigating or series of mitigating circumstances and on the surface appears both suspect and disturbing.

Since mankind is finite, that is to say, he is born and he must inevitably die, one way to control your population mix is to control the life and death of your citizens; but that type of government coercion brings an innumerable amount of problems.  Far better, perhaps prescient, is to somehow convince certain population segments to voluntarily abort their own offspring, thereby reducing the population of a particular demographic to suit those that support a specific goal.  Since abortion is legal for all races, it could be questioned that there isn't such a policy goal in mind, but the facts of the abortion rate for blacks disproves this point, in addition according to prospect.org, an astounding "42 percent of women having abortions live under the poverty line", whereas only 15 percent of Americans as a whole live under the poverty line, so clearly abortion unfairly targets both the impoverished and blacks.

The government, its' lackey press and media, protest again and again that of course there isn't any hidden agenda for killing black unborn babies, that Margaret Sanger who was chairman of the Birth Control Council of America, which later changed its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, was a strong advocate for eugenics (improve population by controlled breeding), but of course, that was before we all knew better.  Seems to me as Queen Gertrude said in Hamlet:  "the lady doth protest too much methinks".  Clearly, if you want to keep a segment of the population under your control, you do not allow them to procreate themselves at a normal rate.  Instead, you convince them, that their pregnancy is an inconvenience, a burden, an undesirability, and with a smile on your face and smooth words from your mouth, you persuade them that killing their unborn child is the right thing to do. 

It isn't.

Birth and Death

Here in the America, we celebrate birth with plenty of pictures, family, video, and the like recording for posterity this beautiful and heartfelt event.  Tears that are shed at childbirth come from the mothers' noble effort and grace, along with the tears of joy for the newborn baby, and of course, the baby itself cries upon entering this brave new world.  Childbirth is one of those seminal moments which are rightly celebrated in this country as a day of love, joy, and appreciation.  Death, on the other hand, is often treated with regret, fear, and reluctance.

You might believe that birth and death are polar opposites, but they are more akin to ying and yang and the cycle of life.  For instance, when you are within your mother's womb, this is the only world that you have ever known, your mother's womb provides everything that you could ever wish for and you are perfectly safe, yet when you are compelled down the birth canal, life as you have always known it inside your mother's womb is now over, it is therefore dead to you, and you are now born into a bright new world, naked and exposed. 

Death, on the other hand, is the cessation of life as you know it in this material world, your physical body has met its end, but your soul, the real you is now freed from the confines and limitations of its physical casing.  Your soul yet lives but your body is no more! Death should not be seen as an unmitigated horror but instead should be viewed as a time of transition from the material plane back to the spiritual plane from which we were created.  In Jeremiah 1:5 we read that: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…"   This passage confirms that our existence predates this material world and that therefore our true self is our soul which is our essence and consequently that our soul is beyond time and space.

Therefore death should not be looked upon as something to fear, or as the great unknown, or as a deep and dark void, or the ending of all life, but rather as a new beginning in our spiritual quest to find our way back to the First Source, which is God.   The regrets of material death are often of a life not examined, of goals not achieved, of mistakes made and not rectified, and for some, a death that is unexpected and comes far too soon.  Too many of us live as if the bell will never toll for us, but in fact, it tolls for all of us.  Our physical body cannot last for eternity, that is not its nature, therefore it behooves us to recognize this earlier as compared to later for we read in Matthew 6:21 that: ”For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  You cannot take your physical body or your earthly treasures into Heaven, but you will take your soul and its growth and knowledge into the spiritual realm for its re-birth.  Ultimately, what you leave here on earth is your legacy that you have pass onto others.

Birth and death, ever together, never to part, you cannot have one without the other.

Taxation is the Power to Destroy

Chief Supreme Court Justice John Marshall stated in 1819 that: “an unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”  Taxation is a power which is so strong, that in theory, if unchecked, will effectively supersede all other rights that you have.  For instance, if in regards to the labor that you create and are compensated for, suddenly a law is passed, allowing the Federal Government to legally confiscate all of your labor produced, what then do you have?   Materially you have nothing and therefore you are in effect "enslaved" to the Government, in which it is their discretion which will determine what you receive in compensation, if anything.  If you own nothing, if everything you labor for is confiscated from you, but in return the Government provides you with free housing, free food, free transportation, and free healthcare, you are no longer a free man, you are in fact now subservient and dependent upon that Government whether justified or not.

Taxation of the general population as a whole is something that should be respected and feared, as George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."  Without some form of taxation, or import duties, or estate tax, or tariffs, or the selling of public lands, the Federal Government has no money to operate on.  However, with these taxes, the Federal Government has the power to take away or confiscate from those that labor and redistribute that said money to parties or organizations that are in-favor, and to punish or to destroy people and parties which are out-of-favor.

The more money and assets that are taken from those that honestly produce them, the more power that is relinquished by those individuals to the Government, than the less freedom, the less mobility, and the less incentive to produce are received in return.  If everything that you produce or that you own is subject to confiscation, why continue to produce or to work at all?  The Government in and of itself, produces nothing, it may compel others to work for it, it may confiscate from others to help sustain itself, but Government is ultimately powerless without the labor or the material assets of others.

 The bigger that Government gets, the more that it has to take in order to sustain itself.  Even worse is a Government that is allowed the luxury of running deficits, in which case, the full taxation or confiscation is put off from today's generation only to be put on tomorrow's generation which has reaped no benefit from it, but will pay the penalty for it. 

America's entire battle for independence was based on the theory that it was not fair for the colonies to be taxed and to not also be represented in Parliament and therefore to have a voice in their own country.  However, in order to effect the collection of taxes, Great Britain increased the presence of their troops and the quartering of its troops in the colonies.  It was therefore the collective pressure of the new unjustified taxes along with the force to collect the taxes that led to the American Revolution.

The power of taxation is the power to destroy, it always has been and it always will be.  If what you labor for is involuntarily taken from you, then you are no longer master of your own self, no longer master of your fate, no longer master of your own liberty, but a tool in the machine of the Government.

Property Taxes are Dangerous

When you are born, you pretty much own yourself, although recent nanny state activities, have wreak havoc on this most fundamental of our rights.  Do you remember the Beatles song, the Taxman, it goes like this:

                If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
                If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
                If you get too cold , I’ll tax the heat,
                If you take a walk , I’ll tax your feet.

Yes, the taxman is something to fear.  You work hard for the money and according to statasticbrain.com, as of 2013, 64.5% of Americans own their own home, but only 29% own their own home free and clear and without any encumbrances (e.g. mortgage).   Still, let's take that higher number of 64.5% that own their own homes and recognize that when you own your home, you are, in theory, the master of your own castle.

However, ownership of your own home does not mean that there aren't still expenses involved and here I'm not referring to the upkeep of your own property but the property taxes that you are compelled by law to pay.  For instance, despite your ownership of your residence, if you fail to pay your property taxes you will be subject eventually to forfeiture of the actual property itself, so paying property taxes is a mandatory expense that must be paid.

The next question is how are property taxes assessed?  This does vary from state-to-state, in which some states have property taxes that are well under 1% of the value of the residence, such as Louisiana (mainly because of the $75,000 homestead exemption) and then there are states such as New Jersey with property tax rates of nearly 2%.  Before you look at these numbers and simply conclude that this is just the cost of doing business you would be wise to recognize that property taxes are not static.  On the good side, property taxes can be re-assessed and go down as they did for most property owners after the housing crash of 2008.  On the other hand, in most states, property taxes have historically gone up for re-assessments based on perceived market value of your home on a year by year basis.

Now all of the above assumes that the formula that creates the property tax bill year after year will remain the same.  That is to say, the property value, which often consists of the land value, the structure value, exemptions, millage rate, and perhaps other miscellaneous items depending on your county, will be consistent.  But in fact, there is no guarantee that that will be the case for future events.  Because property taxes are utilized for schools, roads, fire departments, police, public employees, pensions, and the like, they are the essential source of county revenue and the county commissioners have the power to change the millage rate and formula for assessing property taxes.  Consequently, a rapid and unexpected increase in property taxes in your community would have the dual negative effect of lowering your property value and increasing your property expenses. 

Property taxes are dangerous because it is not you that have control of that expense, but bureaucrats who may find it expedient to tax you beyond your limit.  Additionally, think of it in another way, when you buy a television, it is yours, there aren't any more additional taxes, but this is not the case with your home.  You own it, but do you really own it?

Only God Can Judge Me

From time-to-time you see bumper stickers on cars and tattoos on people with the saying "Only God Can Judge Me".  The popularity of this saying is inspired by the Bible, people's own lives, but also from the fact that prominent rappers such as Master P and Tupac have used it as their album title and as an album song, respectively.  Famous personalities such as Tupac and Zlatan Ibrahimovic also have that particular saying tattooed onto their body.  It's a fairly popular tattoo, but it does make me wonder, why?

First off, the tattoo itself comes across initially as being fairly defensive.  It is like the tattoo is put there to compensate for your own inadequacies and possibly questionable decisions you have already made in your life.  I mean, it isn't the type of tattoo that you're going to get when you are first born as some sort of warning sign to the world, but rather a tattoo that you will probably get after a particular difficult period in your life or a tragic event.  It's your way of creating distance between you and your erstwhile critics and requesting that those that are prone to judge you, should leave you alone.

The Bible is full of verses that reflect or speak or admonish us about judging and God's Judgment, such as Matthew 7:1-3: "Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

Also there is Luke 6:37: "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged…"   Additionally we have John 7:24: "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."  Within the Bible, there are numerous verses about judging and judgment but never is there the actual statement that "Only God Can Judge Me". 

Further, while the tattoo seems to say what it says:  "Only God Can Judge Me"; it also appears to invoke God as your personal protector and defender, but it doesn't go about it quite in the right way.  First off, the statement is setup wrong, although it states: "Only God Can Judge Me", the fact of the matter is just about anyone can judge you, rightly or wrongly, because the word "can", means "to be able", and that ability pretty much rests with everyone.  For instance, I "can" judge you, silently or not, wrongly or not, and you can't stop me from judging you.  However, if the statement said "Only God May Judge Me", you are stating that only God has your expressed permission to judge you, and anyone else that judges you is out of order and irrelevant.  That is a more powerful statement and hence more meaningful.  It is somewhat akin to saying "all hands off, my life is between me and my God".

But in the end, when it really does come to your actual judgment day, it won't even be God judging you.  While some may greet this news with a great smile on their face or some with confusion, the actual judgment of you will be done by yourself.  However, this judgment will be done without equivocation, without excuse, without error, but just with Truth.  You will face yourself, the real you, the whole you, and nothing but you, and within that facedown correct judgment will be rendered. 

IP Address

You are either an unusual person, very poor, or very old, if you aren't utilizing the internet.  The internet, however, is a road that is well monitored.  For instance, your Internet Protocol (IP) Address is assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and not by yourself.  The fact that your ISP (such as Comcast, Verizon, AT&T) provides you with your IP address means with a certainty that they know your name and your address.  So if you are under the mistaken impression that surfing the net is something that you do with no outside agencies being cognizant of what sites you go to and what things you download, you are sadly mistaken.   Even if most of your internet surfing is done in the confines of your own home and your own network, the actual surfing is more akin to you traveling down a public road with your stops, your conversations,  and your activities duly noted, probably in vivid detail.  For some people this isn't a problem, isn't even an issue, but for many people this is more than a little creepy, it just seems wrong.

When surfing the internet, you are far better off recognizing that all the websites that you visit, your emails, your Facebook account, your tweets, are subject to the Government or its monitoring agencies being able to decode them, to intercept them, to monitor them, and to record them, and all of this to be tracked back to yourself or to your family or your network.  Any expectation of privacy and confidentiality that you believe that you have is probably mistaken.   Also, if you are under the misimpression that perhaps you are protected from all of this because your internet activity is being accomplished through a private, non-government company, you will find that most all privately or publicly-held corporations will willingly give up your information to proper Government agenciesnot because they so much want to "rat you out" but because they are under heavy bureaucratic regulations and have a vested interest in maintaining their business model, and consequently their excuse to you is simply one of them being compelled to obey a court or a superior order.

While there are plenty of things that you as a consumer can do to encrypt your data, I believe this is missing the main point, which is why are we allowing Government agencies to monitor and snoop on private citizens without probable cause to begin with.  That is to say, allowing some Government agency to monitor anybody 24/7 and there certainly is a good chance that that person is in violation of some law, whether obscure or not.  Additionally, we have been taught that it isn't nice to eavesdrop or to try to listen to private conversations that we are not privy too. 

The internet is a wonderful source of information, of ease of communication, of entertainment, and the like, but it leaves a visible trail of our activity, our words, and our actions for those that are meant to be in service to us, but for all practical purposes behave as our masters.

Intoxication

Defining intoxication is somewhat akin to the definition of pornography, "I know it when I see it".  Although, through an analysis of the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) one can obtain a reliable reading of the BAC of a selected individual, and from there induce their degree of intoxication, that number in and of itself is in most cases not proof-positive of actual intoxication.  I am not here discussing arbitrary legal definitions of intoxication by percentage of BAC, which can change from year-to-year, state-to-state, and country-to-country, but actual intoxication.

We can say with a certainty that someone with a BAC of .00% is not intoxicated, that they are in fact, sober; whereas someone with a BAC of .40% is in real danger of actual death or could in fact, be dead.  Somewhere between these two numbers, there lies an individual that is intoxicated.  But even then, it's not that easy.  For instance, two people of the same sex and of the same weight, drinking the same type of drinks and having the same percentage of BAC will not behave exactly the same way.  Alcohol affects people in different ways, because people are different, process alcoholic drinks differently, their bodies are also different, and invariably therefore have different outcomes.  That is not to say, that alcohol doesn't impair you, it can and it does, but that particular impairment will differ from individual to individual even with the same BAC, even, in fact, the same individual with the same BAC but on a different day.

Additionally, those that are alcoholic and that have been alcoholics for a long period of time have built up tolerance levels to the alcohol that they consume.  Consequently, even with a BAC at .10%, a true alcoholic may not be impaired at all despite the so-called objective evidence that seems plain as day.  This therefore points out an obvious fallacy in strictly relying on BAC levels to determine intoxication; they can and will be in error. 

A meaningful definition of intoxication is "the person’s speech, balance, coordination or behavior is noticeably affected".  This affection is because alcohol is ultimately a depressant and consequently alcohol slows down your central nervous system, decreases activity in your prefrontal cortex, which then impairs and impacts your coordination and your ability to make good judgments.

Another problem with alcohol and intoxication is the fact that alcohol is not immediately felt in your body and your brain.  That is it to say, the recognition that you have drunk too much alcohol, far too quickly, may be something that you are not cognizant of, until significantly after the fact.  In other words, that it's not just the quantity of drinks consumed, nor just the amount of time spent having those drinks, but critically, the amount of time spent and quantity consumed, when you first start drinking on a particular day that can intoxicate you.  That is why binge drinking in all of its myriad forms, is the most dangerous type of drinking and the most toxic.

BAC levels that exceed the legal standard of alcohol intoxication are in most cases, a presumption of intoxication, but not proof-positive of intoxication.   Real intoxication is far more nuanced than this, not nearly so cut and dry, except in those cases in which a person clearly cannot balance themselves or can't construct a coherent sentence. 

Frozen assets

Picture yourself as a very successful human being; you have the nice house, the nice car, and a slew of assets.  You don't have the need for physical gold or silver and the amount of cash that you carry on a given day is minimal.  The bulk of your assets are held in a couple of brokerage accounts and you don't have any foreign bank accounts and have never considered having one.  Life is good. 

However, one day you try to access your brokerage account to make a transfer and to access funds and instead you find that your account appears to be compromised.  Right then, you begin to feel a tightening in your chest, but you soldier on, assuming that your account has perhaps been hacked but instead upon logging into your account further you read a strange message saying that: "By order of the United States Department of Justice the assets of this account have been seized and a restraining order on this account has been issued".  Quickly, you verify the calendar date and you notice that it is indeed not April fool's day and with sweaty palms you dial up your frozen brokerage account and talk to your contact there.  It's difficult for you to even speak because your throat is so dry but upon getting your brokerage representative on the phone you are able to stammer out what appears to be the impossible that is happening to you.  After being placed on an endless hold and then transferred to one department after another, some man with a halting voice indicates that your account has indeed been seized, that you no longer have the rights to the account and therefore your log-in and password information have been secured.  Within a minute, you are forcefully locked out of your brokerage account, repeated attempts to even log-into your account are denied and you give up.  You then try all of your other brokerage and bank accounts and are unsuccessful in all of them in getting into your account.

You are grateful that you still have an internet connection and you waste no time in finding the best attorney that handles these types of asset forfeitures.  You are no longer nervous, or halting; you are instead hyper-focused because you realize that your life as you know it is on the line.  Good attorneys are always busy but you press the urgency of the matter and within an hour you get a phone call back from your attorney.   He states that the Government has the right to freeze your assets upon probable cause from a grand jury and further that in the case of United States v. Monsanto, your assets may be frozen when the Government presents probable cause to a Judge that in all likelihood, that if convicted, the assets or property that you currently own would be subject to forfeiture.   

Your attorney patiently explains to you that therefore the very monies that you need in order to build a proper defense are not currently available to you, but he promises to investigate further.  Additionally, he indicates that no doubt an indictment is in the process of being issued against you but because of the inefficiencies and bloat of government agencies, the coordination of these activities can be thrown off.

You slump into your easy-chair, befuddled and confused.  You haven't committed any crime, and even if you had, isn't this America, in which you are innocent until proven guilty!?  Isn't there a thing called due process?  If the government takes everything away from you, how is it possible for you to mount a successful defense?  Is this going to be a modern-day version of Kafka's "The Trial"?

Civil and criminal forfeiture are becoming more and more common in the United States, most people aren’t concerned about it, perhaps even support it, but this type of immense power can easily be abused.  When everything that you have is taken away from you, you are at the mercy of the Government and its' objectives.  Even with assets, facts, and the wherewithal to fight the Government it's never a fair fight; take away one of those supporting legs and the fight is all but over.

Electricity

Modern life is full of conveniences that we take for granted, such as electricity.  In my community, little flash outages of just a few seconds seem to occur a little too frequently but they are really a very small inconvenience and just essentially mean the resetting of clocks and before I got my surge/battery backup protector on my computer desktop, a loss of some computer information.  However, from time-to-time there is an actually outage of perhaps up to twelve hours.  Again, that is mainly an inconvenience, and I usually step out of my house to verify that all of the houses in my neighborhood have a power outage as opposed to immediately running to my circuit box which is in the basement.  They say that misery loves company and when it comes to power outages if it's street-wide you kind of are relaxed about it, but if it's just you and it's not your circuit box, then that's a real expensive problem!

Without electricity in your home, you no longer have lights, heat, air-conditioning, fans, internet, cable, or the ability to use any electronic device that uses electricity directly (such as your oven).  Basically the only devices that you will still be able to use are your portable devices that are currently charged.  Whether you are able to use your cell phone or not depends a lot on how much traffic is being generated to your cell tower, whether that tower has electricity and if not, how much batteries backup the cell tower has.  Unfortunately, when we most need to use our cell phones such as in a real emergency, this is the time when they so often fail us.  Consequently, this is a very valid reason to have an actual working house phone, in which a power outage in most every circumstance will not affect its needful operation.

Although power outages can occur for many reasons they are typically more frequent during extreme weather conditions, either the weather is too cold and the ice, for instance, has taken down necessary power lines, or it is too hot and the power grid is over-burdened.  From my perspective, I prefer a power outage during cold weather, mainly because that means perishables will last longer, but more importantly with enough blankets you can sleep in cold weather but in hot weather, without air-conditioning or fans, you can't sleep; and quite frankly one way to persevere during a power outage is to simply go to sleep and hope for better news when you awaken.

For those that are in very poor health, or with little infants, an electricity outage has much more significant consequences.  If your good health depends upon using devices that connect to electricity your health becomes imperiled without electricity.  Additionally, if you are dependent upon city water or well water for your daily needs this water may become compromised or unavailable to you.  The lack of electricity and our taking for granted the reliable availability of electricity is something that we really don't appreciate until it is gone.  Some people are more prepared than others, they have supplies setup for an emergency, and they also have available a portable power generator for just these types of situations.  The rest of us are perhaps too complacent or foolish to prepare for improbable events that have life-changing consequences, perhaps we shouldn't be.

Community Service is Involuntary Servitude

There are three basic types of involuntary community service, there is community service which must be actively performed in order to graduate high school, for instance; there is community service that is compulsory when convicted of certain crimes, such as a DUI; and there is community service which a defendant is sentenced to do at the discretion of the judge.  Let us take each one of these in turn and discuss them.

The Bethlehem Area School District requires that their high school students complete sixty hours of community service in order to graduate and to receive a diploma.   This requirement was adjudicated and upheld by the Courts as to not be in violation of either the 1st Amendment, and somewhat surprisingly not in violation of the 13th Amendment which states: " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…"   I'm not a lawyer, nor do I consider myself an expert of the law, but common sense, itself, dictates that not being able to receive your diploma when you have achieved all the attributes to receive a diploma, except for involuntary servitude, is a specific punishment, in which you have not been duly convicted of anything.  What I'm not arguing is the merits of performing voluntary community service, which may be quite commendable, but the compulsion to do so in order to receive your diploma.  This compulsory community service is wrong, it may be well-intentioned, but it could also be easily amended to providing for those who perform this community service voluntarily a certificate and the accolades for doing so, as opposed to making it a condition to receive a diploma for attending a public school.

The second type of compulsory community service is being duly convicted of a crime, such as a DUI which is often a misdemeanor, and then having mandated per a court of law that within that conviction there is also a minimum compulsory community service, such as forty hours for having committed the crime.  Our 6th Amendment gives us the right to counsel, so for those that can afford an attorney, we can hire one.  However, for indigent or ignorant defendants, you may be legally entitled to a court-appointed attorney but doing so may entail filling out paperwork, disclosing income in which you may end up having to pay some amount of money for the court-appointed attorney, and petitioning the court for said attorney.  You may find yourself, therefore, without an attorney and duly convicted of said crime and forced to perform community service as part of your sentencing.   The crux of the matter really comes down to the fact that the court sentences you to community service because it recognizes that to the general public excessive jail time for misdemeanor DUI convictions is unpalatable but somehow community service isn't.

The third type of compulsory community service is when the sentencing terms are left to the discretion of the judge and as part of the sentence the judge imposes community service upon the convicted defendant.  The issue here is that the defendant should have the option to refuse community service as a punishment, as long as he is also cognizant of the alternative punishment(s) that will take its place for having done so.  The decision to reject community service should be left to the defendant, who may or may not find involuntary servitude to be acceptable as opposed to a different punishment.

Involuntary servitude is not the American way, it's an abomination, and yet another example of how the State imposesunjustifiably its will against the people.

America and the Rise of Japan

America dropped not one but two atomic bombs on Japan which entailed massive Japanese casualties.  Additionally, in our low-altitude incendiary raids of Tokyo, wired.com stated: "Sixty-three percent of Tokyo’s commercial area, and 18 percent of its industry, was destroyed. An estimated 267,000 buildings burned to the ground."  At the end of World War II, Japan, was a defeated and humbled nation, yet who would have predicted that by 1978, Japan as a nation, an island state of approximately 115 million peoples and with limited natural resources, would have become the second biggest economy in the world a status it maintained all the way up until 2010 when it was finally surpassed by China, a nation with a much greater land mass and a ten-fold quantity of peoples.

At the end of World War II, the United States effected several changes that were beneficial to Japan in the ensuing years.  Women in Japan were granted universal suffrage, war reparations were first suspended and then forgiven, the Japanese military was dismantled and demilitarized, a favorable exchange rate between the yen and the dollar was established, favorable trade conditions were setup between Japan and the United States and most notably in the Korean war, massive exports were produced by Japan to help support that war effort. 

Japan was also very successful in taking the technology that was previously developed during World War II for military ends and converting that knowhow and expertise into producing commercial goods that were successfully exported throughout the world, such as automobiles, steel, semiconductors, televisions and other hi-tech devices.   During this time of transition, Japan moved from a society that had a large agricultural component to one that was dedicated to providing and exporting finished goods at competitive pricing throughout the world.

After the defeat of Japan in World War II, Japan was an occupied territory, in which General MacArthur was essentially in command of the American occupation.  General MacArthur was successful in such a way that although the Americans ran a tight ship and had a firm hand within Japan it worked without any real protest from the Japanese. MacArthur also help established the Romanization system in which Japanese script characters were replaced with Roman script letters which consequently made the translation of Japanese words easier to comprehend and assimilate for Americans. In return, during the occupation, the Japanese were for the most part given free rein to develop their own version of democracy, to create free trade unions, and to implement land reform.

Japan could not be the country that it is today if it wasn't for their defeated peoples of World War II, willingly embracing the new system, the new rules, the new government, and devoting their energies and work-ethic to becoming successful for themselves and for their country.  Rather than being resentful or even hateful to their occupiers, the Japanese went about their business which ultimately ended in them becoming the second largest economic giant in the world. 

While we may take the Japanese success for granted, today, we shouldn't.   Despite different cultures, different religions, different racial characteristics, different histories, the United States and Japan were successful together and this continues until the present day.   

The 11th Hour

I just love American idioms and I also love learning about their origin.  The "11th hour" of today, refers to coming to a deal at the last moment, when almost all hope of coming to a successful deal appears to have vanished, but alas it hasn't!  It can also refer to accomplishing something at the very last instant, such as what a procrastinator might do, or being up against the wall in a "do or die" moment.

The origin of this phrase refers back to Matthew: 20.  In which it is stated: "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive."  And further: "And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny."  And finally we have: " But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?  Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen."

First a little background on the hours as described in this passage.  In the United States we are use to the daylight being longer in the summertime and consequently the daylight being shorter in the wintertime,  because with our modern clocks we divide time into equal hours of equal length throughout the year.  In Roman times, there were also twelve hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, but the amount of physical time of those hours would vary depending upon the season, so the 11th hour in Jesus' time really did refer to the absolute last hour of daylight.

A first reading of this Bible passage brings to many readers a feeling of injustice, after all, the initial laborers had to labor all day in the sun and heat of the day, whereas the latecomers had not had to deal with that burden, nor the length of the time in the vineyard, yet each laborer received exactly the same payment.  This seems wrong, but is it?  The householder has not broken his agreement with the initial laborers, they were paid exactly what they had contracted for, so the complaint becomes one of "I did more and they did less for the same compensation."  But isn't that envy at its worse or possibly regret that you were the early bird? 

A further interpretation is to take the above passage as an allegory in which the householder is God, and the laborers are me and you.  Our laboring in God's vineyard and his invitation for us to labor there is a call for us to come to him and join him in our salvation.  Looking at it this way, we should rejoice if we were amongst the first that went into the vineyard for that means we not only listened to but we also obeyed the word of God.  For those, that came later, they too rejoiced for having being saved up and till the 11th hour.  For we must be mindful to remember we can only truly be saved when we are still within the daylight or "light" of God's presence and not in the darkness of denial or abandonment. The payment for all of us laborers should be the same, which is paradise for all.  There is not a lesser paradise for latecomers, former sinners; it is all the same salvation.  That is our precious payment.  That is the grace of our all merciful God. 

Unsecured Debt

There are two basic forms of debt in this world, unsecured and secured debt.  Your preference when creating debt is for unsecured debt, because unsecured debt basically means that the creditor is relying upon your good faith to pay the monies owed back, whereas with secured debt the creditor will not hesitate in "securing" their debt back from you, by seizing or re-obtaining their collateral such as an automobile or home through implementing the terms and conditions of the contract which you executed with them.  Consequently, this means that with a car loan, that "your" car can be re-possessed when you are in material default of your terms and conditions with your lender without notice to yourself.  Simply stated, it is a misnomer to believe that you "own" a vehicle or a home if you have a car note or mortgage payment, you will only own these items when you have the proper deed or title to them and that is accomplished only when they have been paid in full.

Credit cards were once given out to a select few, but in recent years, credit cards have become available to virtually everyone, even students, with no demonstrable income.   Credit cards are the prime example of unsecured debt; the cards are issued to recipients as unsecured loans, in which the credit card issuers believe that they will receive in return at least a monthly minimum payment from their recipients.  However, for various reasons, there are a significant amount of credit card users who are unable to make their payments on time, or to pay even the minimum, due to loss of job, a combination of too much debt and too little income, health problems, irresponsibility, or other reasons. 

On the surface, because the debt is unsecured, it appears that the consumer is ahead of the curve, after all they still have the material goods, or the memories of delightful dinners or nightclub experiences, and the creditor cannot legally collect or re-possess any of the items purchased by the credit card user.  However, unfortunately, that is just the short-term viewpoint.  The end result of failing to live up to your credit card obligations will often result in a damaged credit score which leads to higher insurance rates, higher loan rates, and in some cases reduced employment opportunities because the potential employer when seeing a low credit score marks it against you as someone that is in lacking in maturity, discipline, or decision-making.

However, it does get worse, credit card issuers can attempt to get a court judgment against you, which will allow them to assert their rights to collect their debt.   Many consumers ignore their court summons to their regret and are thereby subject in most cases to a court judgment against them.  Not appearing in court and not defending yourself is a critical consumer misjudgment.  Creditors that apply for court judgments are counting on two things; the first is that you won't appear and that they will therefore win, the second is that you will appear and that a settlementwill be agreed to (perhapsat 50% of what is owed)  which will be then be legally binding between both parties with specific payment terms.   There is, however, a third possibility, even if the facts appear to be against you, often the creditor has information that is missing or is in conflict with your own records of your statements, payments, fees, notes, and penalties.  It behooves you to dispute those discrepancies and to state so in front of a judge.  No judge, in good standing, will rule against you, but will instead postpone the hearing or transfer it to a higher or different court.  This postponement may be enough for the creditor to lose heart in pursuing you and your debts.  Creditors and debt collectors look for easy targets that will wilt when subject to a court of law. 

You shouldn't wilt, and you should recognize that most, if not all, unsecured debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, and in most cases that bankruptcy will erase any unsecured judgments against you.  While bankruptcy should never be your first option, it is the trump card that bears witnessing to, because in bankruptcy the creditors of unsecured debt will receive in almost all cases, nothing.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

I don't even know the Sheriff's name in my own community and I can only list one other Sheriff's name in the entire country and probably that is because of some sort of notoriety.  I don't live in Arizona, I really don't understand why anyone does, all that dry heat and it's not Las Vegas, I mean, what's the point.  Anyway, I digress, the one sheriff that I hear about time and time again is Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, which contains Arizona's largest city which is Phoenix.  Although, it has been a couple generations since Barry Goldwater, Arizona's favorite son, ran as the Presidential candidate in 1964, the Republican power still controls most of the reins of Maricopa County.  It that wasn't the case, Arpaio, a Republican would not be the six-time elected Sheriff.

At age 81, Arpaio appears to be the type of man who wants to leave this world with his proverbial boots on.  Arpaio isn't someone that is easily intimidated, he has his power, he is happy with that power, and he will fight you hard to maintain that power and make you regret fighting him should you do so.  Arpaio is not the type of man who goes down quietly, fights dirty, enjoys the limelight, and embraces the stigma of being considered a xenophobe and a demagogue.   Arpaio portrays himself as being "America's toughest Sheriff", tough on crime, tough on criminals, true to the American flag, supports his fellow officers, and that plays well with the conservative core that supports him.  Of course, essentially, he is a man that believes in a police state with himself being the sole determinant of what he judges as being right or wrong.

Sheriff Arpaio is a case in point as to why we should have term limits for elected public servants.  The longer a man like Arpaio is in office, the more power, the more beholden the other players must be to him.  Arpaio has been accused again and again of racial profiling specifically against Latinos and a recent Federal Judge's ruling affirms that Arpaio's policies violated the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.  As for the inmates that Sheriff Arpaio is so tough on, this too has been found by a Federal Judge to be a violation of their Constitutional rights.

A fundamental way that Arpaio has maintained his power is to have a grand jury constantly indict Board of Supervisor's members that do not conform with his megalomania or don't properly support Arpaio's law-enforcement ambitions or goals.  Arpaio is built from the mold of those that feel that they are above the law,  and Arpaio uses the law as his own personal bully pulpit, under the guise of upholding the law that he is do disdainful of when applied to himself and his and his cohorts' actions.  Those that support Sheriff Arpaio most vociferously are those that are in no danger of being harassed by Arpaio and consequently have nothing to fear from him or his actions.  To them, Arpaio is like their own personal guard dog, but in reality Arpaio is a thief.  He steals from the public virtue, he steals from our Christian values, he steals from the American dream, and he locks down the Golden Door.

The Hypocrisy of being Pro-Abortion and Anti-Smoking

Life is full of plenty of hypocrisies that have glaring holes in them; I'm going to concentrate on one of the most blatant examples of pure hypocrisy which is those that are adamant supporters of a woman's right to chose and at the same time hold a viewpoint which is vehemently anti-tobacco.  Those positions are not consistent to each other and the implication of this has disturbing consequences.

Per current American law, a legally-aged woman is the sole determinant of whether she desires to have an abortion or not, subject to certain State laws.  Currently, it is estimated that around 90% of all abortions are performed within the first trimester, in which a trimester is defined as the first twelve weeks after gestation, even though it's general accepted that at eight weeks the embryo has become a fetus.  Being what that may, the abortion laws are clearly written in a way that it is the woman that controls the decisions about her body in regards to the embryo or the fetus that she carries within.   It is the woman that is the master of her own body, enough so, that she has the legal right to terminate a potential and viable life within her own uterus.  This means as a consequence that the embryo or fetus that she carries within her has no rights, subject to certain States' restrictions. 

In regards to smoking, in general it's legal to smoke at age eighteen, although there are exceptions to this rule, with the most notable exception being in NYC in which the smoking age was recently raised to 21.  There are in addition, quite a few restrictions associated with smoking which varies from state-to-state or county to county, or community to community, such as: prohibition of smoking in public places, such as bars, restaurants, and some public housing; prohibition at work, and even prohibition in public outdoor places.  

The ostensibly primary reason that a woman is allowed to abort a fetus legally is that it is her choice, it is her body, yet that abortion will terminate with prejudice a potential human life.  A person, who smokes, however, may or may not harm their own physical body by smoking, depending on numerous factors, yet the restrictions on smoking are increasing, it appears, day by day.

In fact, those that are pro-abortion and anti-smoking are also quite restrictive on most other things.  They are for carbon emissions restrictions, mandatory health insurance, re-distribution of income, stricter health standards, and always and forever more restrictive laws, more restrictive regulations, and more restrictive penalties for those that do not conform to their specific form of thinking.

The truth of the matter is that those who are pro-abortion and anti-smoking, are pro-abortion because they do not want "those other people" to have children; their feeling is that there is enough poor, unintelligent and morally inept people already, that it is therefore their higher duty to see that those misguided people don't add to our collective misery by accidently procreating while in reality all they really wanted to do was just have some sex.  As for smoking, well, that is something that is so uncouth, so dirty, smelly, and disgusting, that it shouldn't be permitted at all, or if permitted, should be well hidden from the public.

Those that are pro-abortion and anti-smoking are in fact, promoting their own sick utopian society.  In that society, everyone will know their place, and everything will be controlled just so. 

Everett Dirksen -- Civil Rights Hero

In this year of the 50th Anniversary of the historic Civil Rights Bill that passed in 1964, there are many people that deserve our credit and praise for the passage of this important landmark bill in which its passage mandated that voting rights were liberalized and applied equally, desegregation was banished, and equal rights were provided to all.   While this was not the end of discrimination in the United States, this legislation helped to build a solid foundation to enable the disenfranchised to be established on a more equal footing now and into the future and this battle continues onto this day.

While one most give a great deal of credit to President Johnson who signed the legislation and as former Senate Majority Leader had the connections, the persona, and the power to persuade recalcitrant Senators to cast their votes for the Civil Rights Bill, LBJ was not the man of the hour.  That man instead was none other than Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Senator Minority Leader. 

In 1964, the Civil Rights Bill passed the House on February 10, 1964, and was then submitted to the Senate in which when the bill was submitted, the "Southern Bloc" began their effective filibuster, and unless the Senate was to come up with a 2/3rd majority to force cloture on the filibuster, then the Civil Rights Bill would be stuck in the Senate and therefore not come up for vote and consequently it would fail.   From 1927 to 1963, cloture had been attempted on eleven filibusters and each and every time it had failed.  During the time of this filibuster, Senator Dirksen began a collaboration with Senate Majority Whip Humphrey, Senate Majority Leader Mansfield, Senate Minority Whip Kuchel, and Attorney General Kennedy to make modifications that would allow Dirksen to convince fellow Northern Republicans to support the Civil Rights Bill without substantially weakening it or changing the bill in such a way that the House would no longer support it.   In addition to that collaboration, Dirksen's further responsibility was to convince his Northern Republican cohorts that their true interests laid in supporting the party of Lincoln, of emancipation, of the freedom of all men, in conformance with our great moral principles, and to not forge an alliance with the Southern Democratic party against these civil rights and thereby to join hands with the Southern extremists and the remnants of a nation once divided and at civil war.

 On June 10, 1964, Dirksen made his speech to the Senate in defense of the cloture and the civil rights bill in which he invoked Victor Hugo that: "stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come."  Further he went on to say: "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here."  Dirksen referenced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and he discussed also the sacrifices in blood, sweat, and tears of our Black American brethren in wars fought on behalf of America.  He also referenced Lincoln, Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and Gettysburg.  Later that day, cloture was passed in the Senate and the filibuster was over.  On June 19, 1964, the Senate bill passed by a 73-27 Senate vote in which 27 out of the 33 Republican Senators voted in the affirmative, a higher percentage than the Democratic vote of 44 out of 67.  Of the 21 Southern Senate Democrats, only 1 voted for the Civil Rights Bill, Yarborough of Texas, with the end result being that the infamous "Southern Bloc" had been vanquished.

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, and said this: "We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights…. But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And the law I will sign tonight forbids it."