Posts Tagged → bad
Passover & Easter messages of Freedom
Freedom has been the goal of human beings forever.
Freedom to be your own unique self as God created you, freedom to think your own thoughts, freedom to travel where you wish, freedom to worship God in your own way, freedom to speak your mind without fear of reprisal or punishment, freedom to pursue the work you like, freedom to read the books you want and etc.
And yet, despite all of the deepest yearnings humans have had for individual and communal freedom for tens of thousands of years, freedom has nonetheless been really tough to achieve or gain for any meaningful amount of time. Here in America, the concept of freedom as Americans know it today was achieved on the frontier, where European settlers, run-away and freed blacks, and American Indians lived in a sometimes mostly peaceful communal free-for-all, and most of the time in an ebb-and-flow of painful tumult and settlement. It was on the American frontier that Europeans finally broke the chains of feudal serfdom, because they were finally out of the reach of feudal overlords.
They lived as they wanted to live.
Along the American east coast British and Dutch militaries enforced iron laws that funneled money, goods, and loyalty to far distant monarchs in Europe. But within the American interior, what we call the frontier, a new kind of human was developing. European ideals of hard work and self sacrifice blended with American Indian ideas of self-reliance and communal reliance, free of overbearing overlords imposing their own selfish demands. And what resulted was pure freedom, now enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
While early in our nation’s history the American Indians were still largely nomadic, or at least seasonal travelers across wide landscapes, the European Americans brought a focus on permanent settlement. They also brought values and hopes from the Torah (Old Testament) and the Gospel (New Testament), what today we accurately describe as a uniquely synthesized Judeo-Christian ethic for daily life and expectations from our government.
Both Judaism and Christianity celebrate freedom, and in this week of Passover (tonight) and Easter (coming Sunday), and in this American time of great peril for individual freedom, it is important to note how both these faiths mark freedom and value it as the highest form of human expression.
Why is American freedom in great peril? Because bad people who crave control and dominion over everyone and everything have seized control of the American government. Like the early Americans did in their battle with Britain, we must think of these bad people as the Pharoahs in the story of Exodus, and think of the American citizen – you and me – as the ancient Israelites, escaping harsh bondage.
These bad people constantly demand that We, The People behave one way, while they conspicuously behave the opposite. They wear their double standard hypocrisy like a badge of honor. To them, it demonstrates their authoritarian power over everyone else, their ability to behave contrary to the way they demand everyone else behave. Behaving publicly in a hypocritical manner is a demonstration of their power over everyone else. I know this is sick and anti-democratic, but the Left is completely drunk on power and is anti-democratic. They think they know what is best for everyone, and that we must all live according to their supposedly brilliant ideas (that have already failed in so many other places like the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, Cuba etc), so no freedom for us regular “little people.”
With the holiday of Passover, Judaism teaches about the centrality of physical freedom. Freedom from slavery, freedom from political overlords who control everything we eat, think, say, and do. While Jews always celebrate Passover, there are many Christians who also observe a “Last Supper” tonight among friends and family.
With the holiday of Easter, Christians celebrate the concept of spiritual freedom; freedom from earthly limits and earthly/ physical chains. One of the first steps any authoritarian government does is to break the link between humans and one another and between humans and God. The state must become God for the state to become all-powerful, and so spiritual freedom is a powerful antidote to evil people running government badly.
Both of these separate celebrations this week, Passover and Easter, are critical to Americans and to any human being anywhere who wants to remain free or attain freedom. America has a unique blend of individual freedom and individual opportunity that no other country has. It is why everyone in the world wants to move to America.
But if we Americans are going to hold onto the Constitutional Republic that so many men have died to create and hold onto, then we must make public our celebration of freedom and our demand for freedom. We must embolden one another and embrace one another and stand side by side with one another, because right now We, The People are facing a truly tyrannical and evil government that seeks to take away the freedom that we all have. All of it. Forever.
Only standing all together can we withstand their attack on us.
Freedom. Celebrate it, mark it, identify it, value it, cherish it, and never ever relinquish it. Whatever freedom the government people can take away from you they will never ever give back to you.
Happy Passover and Happy Easter freedom to all of my fellow Americans. Celebrate freedom as you will, but celebrate it by God and never ever stand down.
Un-Citizen Kane. Time to go
Nothing is tougher to accept than a corrupt public official, and the higher the office the harder it is to accept. So it is with Kathleen Kane, PA’s Attorney General.
Now the Philly Inquirer has published a significant investigative report on AG Kathleen Kane and her constant intercessions on behalf of known, convicted, and or suspected crooks from the moment she took office.
The first one the public learned about was Kane’s shielding of ultra corrupt politicians from the Philadelphia area. Philly DA Seth Williams took issue with Kane’s dropping of cases against the bad guys, and he battled her for control of the cases. Williams resurrected the charges and successfully implemented his n her job: People paid big fines, went to jail etc.
Now it turns out that Kane has been using her position to drop or stop investigations right and left across the Pennsylvania landscape. Again, these cases were against wealthy, politically connected people. Her staff at the AG’s office strongly disagreed with her. Some left their careers there because of Kane’s ….questionable….decisions.
Last week Kane lost a case at the PA Supreme Court, which allowed a special prosecutor to continue investigating Kane for her obviously corrupt and illegal behavior on OTHER issues.
In the totality, Kane is surrounded by her own bad judgment, bad decisions, illegal decisions, stupid decisions, corruption, really, over which she will now be charged, in addition to lots of petty politics like hiring her own sister into the AG’s office.
It is time for this catastrophe of a human being to do us taxpayers a favor, and resign. Save her and us from even more shame and pain and public expenditure to follow through on the obvious need for justice. Kane is corrupt. Please leave public life, Un-Citizen Kane.
Despite digital technology advances, actual humans are necessary
Digital technology is amazing, no doubt about it.
Yes, it enables all kinds of speed in research and communications.
But the internet has also inspired a “digital wall” response to basic inquiries that used to be handled by people answering phones. You cannot just pick up a phone and ask someone a question, any longer. Instead, you must navigate a maze of circular questions and answers and phone tree options, long before you get to hit the star key or number one and talk to a person.
eBay is the prime example of the digital wall. You cannot get real customer service at eBay. eBay’s digital artificial intelligence is supposed to satisfactorily respond to all customer issues, but it doesn’t. It is a failure.
One online commenter says “It is easier to talk with the Pope than to actually speak with a person at eBay,” a sad but true fact that I myself have learned the hard way.
Here in Pennsylvania, the Tom Ridge Revolution for responsive government is looong over.
Remember how back in the 1990s, Governor Tom Ridge opened up Pennsylvania state government with a crowbar and a box of dynamite, and got the scurrying inhabitants of the many faceless concrete government buildings in downtown Harrisburg to actually view taxpayers as “customers”?
Maybe you don’t recall that time, but it was refreshing. Suddenly, state workers at most agencies were required to actually answer the calls of the taxpayers they serve, and to act professionally, and to help resolve problems.
PennDOT was at that time a notoriously labyrinthine experience, kind of like the Vatican, one might guess, in that if a taxpayer was fortunate enough to find an IN door, they might spend a day shambling down shuttered halls with closed doors with jargon printed on them, searching yet more for the answer to their government-inspired problem.
The workers there at that time could not have cared less for serving the public, and no one took any initiative to make them serve the public, until the Ridge Administration arrived.
Then, PennDOT was required to post phone numbers, email addresses, have customer service representatives on call, so that no citizen had to waste their time trying to make sense of the bureaucratic maze while to trying to meet some official mandate.
After all, if the government is going to require something, then the government absolutely must provide the means to achieve that.
Well, now PennDOT is back to its bad old ways. The foolish young punks running the disastrous Corbett Administration into the ground at Mach 4 wouldn’t know a damned thing about customer service or taxpayers, for that matter. PennDOT has been allowed to crawl back under a heavy cloak of secrecy and impenetrable darkness. Go ahead, call PennDOT. Try to reach a human being through their main portal:
“Call 1-800-932-4600 (from within PA) or 717-412-5300 (from out of state). You can also send an email through our Driver and Vehicle Services Customer Call Center, or write to the following address:
Riverfront Office Center (Driver and Vehicle Services)
1101 South Front Street
Harrisburg, PA 17104-2516
1-800-932-4600”
Oh, you will hear a human voice, which right off the bat asks you that if you want to continue in English, “Press One.” Imagine my surprise when I just held the line, did not press one, and was shuttled off into yet another maze of foreign languages, as if just wanting to encounter my own government in our native language was something we should have to ask for.
Anyhow, the phone options in English are another maze of options and circular loops. One answer gives the locations of service centers, but saves providing you with the hours for each one until the very end, as if you might actually recall which service center was “one,” “two,” or “three.”
This is the very essence of Bad Government.
Government absolutely must be responsive, open, transparent, or it is illegitimate. If it cannot serve its citizens and taxpayers, then government has failed. Once government has failed, it cannot hold citizens to a higher standard.
Governor-elect Tom Wolf faces a Republican legislature, which is not likely to go along with his tax-and-spend approach to government.
Well, here is an opportunity that is guaranteed to make Wolf a hero among all citizens: Force government to open up again; get our taxpayer-funded bureaucrats to be responsive, or get out. No more digital walls for the people who pay the bills.
And maybe Wolf can talk to the owners of eBay, and persuade them to provide real customer service, too.
Huffington Post: No democracy for you!
A Huffington Post headline reads “Congress Inaction Prompts Obama to Act Alone.”
American civics class 101 teaches citizens that the executive branch cannot act alone, not really. If Congress is inactive, the president can only enforce laws that are on the books. He cannot create new laws. That would be dictatorial.
Ah-hah. There’s the point. Obama fans LOVE his dictatorship. Unashamedly.
Just remind us of that love when we have a new president from the other party, surrounded by angry citizens demanding retroactive corrections to the Obama years. You’ll learn to love it then, friends.