Funny how that works. We say “no” and they respond, “we know what’s best for the American people.”  Ever get tired of hearing that phrase?

We have a “Lock Box” but Social Security was raided long ago. Ask the folks in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona how “border security” is working out for them and now the ubiquitous debate over a “debt ceiling” that has, near as I can tell, ALWAYS been raised. Talk about the need for “Term Limits” but only for the President? Seems Congress has authority over us and barely any over themselves.

As we should, we counsel young men in our country, “No means No” and that there are boundaries we must always honor. When someone asks you to stop, you stop. Plain and simple.

Perhaps we need to send our groping politicians to a remedial class, reminding them of what happens when we ultimately reach our last straw.

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So, contrary to the Dinosaur Duopoly, their media ideologues and the near mindless parrots simply regurgitating the party line, a third party can begin, grow and ultimately challenge the establishment.  I believe we are at a unique time in history, a time we should not turn our backs on. A 3rd party can win, Independents can reawaken and retake control. The current shenanigans in Washington are a gift. The legislative leviathan has roused the LARGEST voting block in the United States. 2012 is the tipping point.

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All of a sudden, shocked from slumber by the sounds and shuddering of roadside gravel and debris shooting up under the fenders, the rumble strips edging the driving surface on the right shoulder make it seem as if you’ve blown both passenger side tires at the same time. The driver swerves to the left to avoid the guardrail and fishtails for a few seconds, screeching rubber with each swerve left and then right. You grab the dash board, slam your foot into the floor boards as if your imaginary brake pedal is going to do you a bit of good only to have your seatbelt sense the commotion and lock you rigidly into your seat. Thankfully, you look over at the driver just has he/she is regaining control of your car.

Without missing a beat, you say….”All-righty then, guess it’s time for me to take over.”

Do you remember the old Greyhound commercial? “Go Greyhound and leaving the driving to us” the marketing jingle went. You think, kind of cool. Kick back, relax, let somebody else handle the steering wheel and the stress of the open road. Makes sense. Surrender the pressure, the headaches, the monotony of moving from here to there. Recline in a cushy seat and let someone else take over for you.

As me move into 2012, we are all getting a stark and sudden wakeup call.

You see, a couple of hundred of years ago, as a country we decided to let the politicians do the driving for us. We had happiness to pursue, unalienable rights to exercise, places to be, things to do. Out Constitution set up enumerated powers for our government and the Lex-Luther-want-to-be-politicians so that we could safely surrender the wheel for a bit. Problem is, you and I nodded off a bit longer than we first thought we would and now the bus driver* politicians behind the wheel have damn near driven us off a cliff. (My apologies to real bus drivers.)

You and I are busy living, exploring, cavorting and dreaming. We are thriving at every turn. Only problem, while we’ve been building our futures the political class has been crafting a nightmare. While we’ve spent our time gamboling with our families and friends, the politicians have been gambling with our futures. Dems and GOP’s, turns out, are both lousy drivers and we either retake the wheel or we are going to crash and burn.

Now, the entrenched politicians will continue to urge us “not to worry, we can regain control of the vehicle” as their white-knuckeled grip on the wheel tightens even more. Regardless of the expert, educated opinions of the media faceplates, political parrots and blaring ideologues, not unlike the Kevin Bacon character in Animal House screaming “All is well! All is well” as all Hell was breaking lose, it’s time for Independents to drive again. Should you get your daily dose of Lotus from Fox News or MSNBC, it’s time to reawaken or to paraphrase Milton “Awake, arise or be forever fallen” because we need to get back in the driver’s seat before our politicians jackknife off the bridge up ahead.

We had a nice rest. Perhaps if we retake the wheel for a decade or so we can rid ourselves of substandard political drivers and one day, in the future, hit the passenger seat once again. That day however, is not today.

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This morning while doing some research, quite by accident, I stumbled across a website that housed a collection of animal calls. Clicking the audio buttons, I played a hyena, a cougar, a toucan and a handful of other exotics. It was not until listened to the call of a coyote that my dog, initially asleep at my feet, instantly sprung to all fours and full-attention with the sounds of the wild howling. In that instant any signs of his slumber were erased by the yelping of his distant, wild cousins. I thought back to a book I read in my youth, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. “He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.” Great line, returning to “the womb of Time.” Asleep at my feet, my dog recalled the “deeps of his nature” reawakened by an ancient Canine call.

I wonder what call human beings would re-cognize if they would only listen to “the deeps of (their) nature.” If you could drop a stone into the very bottom of your soul, what noise would echo back to you? Rousseau offered “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Not to be outdone, James Joyce countered, “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight.” Minus the “chains” and “nets” and the drone and din of modern life, what call sits deep in you, temporarily drowned by the static of the 21st Century? If one could escape to their Edin, “the wild uncultivated lands at the edge of civilization”, what natural rumblings would you uncover?

What would you hear?

With all the time I’ve spent in Nature, in all the extremes in temperature and terrain, I can tell you that Mother Nature has but a few rules and laws. Gravity, Thermodynamics, a couple that deal with the weather and a rule or two about the ultimate survival of the smartest, strongest, fastest and luckiest. Mother Nature, in all her wilderness, is not a micro-manager or a control freak nor is she a nanny or a nursemaid. With all she is capable of, she most certainly is not a legislative leviathan. She is however,  a Libertarian.

If we could travel back in the “womb of Time” we would find our inner-voice, the wild, unalienable still, small voice sparking our very soul is a Libertarian whisper.

Plumbing the depths of who you are, tapping into your primordial, prior to all the ornamentation you hoist and carry today, trapped beneath the commonplace and habitual you currently choose to shoulder, what would you hear?

Our “call of the wild” is Liberty.

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This new breed of gang is quite crafty. Not unlike a boa constrictor that tightens its grip and hold at every turn, the statist gangs use political correctness, gerrymandering, countless laws, statutes, rules and regulations (always sold as “good for you” measures) and police power to enforce their reign. Talk about “gang related legislation.” Under the promise of protection, they require unflinching loyalty from their members, whose initiations begin with cash contributions and the life long pledge to parrot the party line. Low level sheep and parrots help maintain their totalitarian order on the corners by flashing their elephant and donkey signs while spreading their political graffiti to mark their territory. Their runners in the main stream media keep the messages moving between gang members and their far flung membership. Once thought to be a “big city problem” these gangs are creeping our to all corners of our country.

The Lieutenants of these gangs, I call them the Capitol Hill-Hugger gang, keep info, influence and money flowing into the farthest reaches of their nepotistic empires. They seldom stop their battles, except those few bi-partisan times when they do join forces in a malicious and calculated effort to smack down young rivals and upstarts. They’ll doing anything they can to keep lesser gangs and the general independent public from gaining too much power and control over their turfs, spraying a hail of bureaucracy in place of bullets in their drive by shootings. None of us are safe from the crossfire, none of us outside the reach of the pit bulls of political dogma.

As for the drugs they distribute? The most powerful controlled substances known to humankind…Power and Political influence. Forget cocaine, heroin, PCP or the like, these gangs do whatever they can to push their illicit products and pander to the habits of their junkies; dominance and influence to the lobbyists, sheep and parrots that fall prey to the deepest of addictions.

I bring this up for only one reason. These gangs are killing our country! Though their violence is a bit more undercover, the bleeding of it’s victims internal, it’s violence plain and simple.

It’s time for patriots to replace parrots.

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Except, apparently in our need for government, where some of us never outgrow reaching for the nipple. Sensing this childish need for a nursemaid, politicians swoop in offering their breast-milk-du-jour. Only too ready to suckle our puerile infantilism, the government rides to our rescue, building a reminiscent nursery to calm our fears.  In this modern day Trojan Horse, the promise of comfort and security simply hides the seeds of tyranny and the abolition of our unalienable rights.

What of the rest of us, few though we may be? What of those mature souls that welcome the “vertigo of freedom” and all the uncertainty that Liberty entails? What of those intrepid individuals that cut the cord long ago and today gladly “ride the whirlwind” knowing “the valley of the Shadow of Death” holds nothing on them? What of those Independents who are not too afraid to be free?

Our current political debate pits the coddled against the courageous, the umbilicals against the unflinching, those that want more government protections against those that can do with much less shielding. Soon it will all come down to each of us answering a very simple question, “Am I too afraid to be free?”

For whatever it is worth to you, our Founders and the framers of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution didn’t think you were.

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No one organization has cornered the market on Political Rodeo Clowns (PRC’s), they work for elephants and donkeys, Liberals and Conservatives alike, instantly jumping to protect their candidates from the raging bull of public opinion. Running interference so their guy or girl doesn’t catch a set of horns in the butt, they spin round and round, screaming out at the taunted bovine, hoping their boss can keep from being stomped into the dirt. You see the more high profile clowns in the media or some of their lesser known want-to-be’s trolling about Facebook and Twitter, speaking out like they have an 1/8 ounce of brain power, blathering about topics of which they are clearly effected by the kool-aid.

Difference this time around? Most of us are tired of being ridden and prodded by career politicians. They’ve been on our backs long enough and we are coming for them. The PRC’s are only going to be able to hold us off so long.

* My apologies to the brave and talented souls of the Professional Bull Riding Tour. It is not my intent to disparage you or your obvious talents by comparing you to these hacks.

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I have an idea. Well, sort of an idea. It’s more of a political action plan really. What say we reinstate the draft next year, with a few tweaks? I say we use it to summon “public servants” to active duty. A conscription, not for combat troops but for everyday citizens to answer the call to government service. Not to wage war but to work the aisles and offices of Washington, DC. Not unlike jury duty, what say we “draft” regular folks to run for elected public office. No more professional politicians seeking life long terms, no more Lex Luthor proteges.

One day the phones rings, you answer and the voice on the other end says, “Mr. (or Mrs.) XYZ, you have been called up to active duty in your Nation’s Capital. You are one of two citizens running for President of the United States.” or “Mrs. (or Mr.) ABC, you’ve been picked in the ‘legislative lottery.’ We’re recruiting you to run for the Senate or the House of Representatives.” Or “We’re notifying you that you are next to run for Congress. It’s your turn to work on Capitol Hill.” You don’t announce your candidacy, you simply accept the call.

Be truthful. Do all the “experts” of late, political and economic, deserve to be treated as the saviors of our country? With all of their combined “experience” are we truly any better off than say, 50 or 100 years ago? Are we not currently the byproduct of all of our alleged governmental experts? Expertise? What a joke.

Honestly, most that aspire to public office are uniquely unqualified to hold that office.

If the patriotic members of the current political class are so moved to public service, so deeply called to defened the Constitution, let them now trade their marble halls for humvees, their podiums for places in a battle formation. Let them trade their suits for boots. Truth be told, I’ve met 100′s of politicians over the years and not many of them have the courage of a soldier.

Let the draft be for citizens, not as soldiers but as statesmen, not as warriors but as the new round that We the People send, on our behalf, to Washington.

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What has happened to us? Our country was built on grit, passion and individualism. Nowadays, a collective, puerile infantilism has nearly taken over. A majority of us “act out” like juveniles throwing temper-tantrums when we don’t get our way. Our nanny state nursemaids, the scheming politicians are all too eager to usurp the role of a consoling parent rather than a public servant. Pandering to the loudest bleating within their constituency, our elected officials do whatever they can to assuage those pubescent pleas.

Easy to see the path of these crafty EGO’s (elected government officials). They want to stay in office, receiving all the power, perks and prestige. So they do nearly whatever it takes to oil the squeaky chairs with laws, regulations and statutes designed not to serve the public but to soothe the “boo-boos” of wailing voters.

“Oh, don’t cry little one. I’ll kiss it and make it all better.” I can’t think of a single politician whose lips I want on me.

But what has happened to us? We as citizens seem to suspended in a juvenile state of dependence, suffocating in a mindset of looking to a pseudo Mommy and Daddy to protect and nurture us. Not every ailment requires political action. Not every issue needs government intervention. Our Constitution grants our government enumerated powers. Our infantile citizenry is seldom satiated.

“Oh, we don’t like this or that so we need a law.” “We hate this, so let’s get our elected  panty waits to pass legislation.” “Why shouldn’t we get out way? Can’t we have a rule against that?”

For those of us convinced that the government can cure all problems, as opposed to getting out of our way , it’s time to wake up, take off the training wheels and water-wings, put down your pacifiers and realize your neediness is killing our country. While you’re busy crying in your milk, some citizens would like to get on with “Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.” Citizens don’t crawl, crying to their government every time they don’t get their way…codependents do.

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By Brian Brawdy

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” according to the Declaration of Independence.

1. Life….if you are here reading these words, you’ve been given Life.

2. Liberty….the optimal and natural state of affairs or “operating system” for Human Beings, free from most interference while you are on this planet.

3. Pursuit of Happiness…YOU must pursue it in your own way, on your own terms, setting and achieving you own self-dictated goals while securing your personal happiness.

The Declaration of Independence does not state…Life, Liberty and Happiness….the “pursuit” is the gem in the paragraph.

“Leaning forward” types misread the document by suggesting that happiness in a noun, a “thing” the “collective” should be given, they have a right to it. The rest of us realize that the pursuit of happiness is a self-imposed verb, something to be achieved, not accepted. It’s an action, not a handout. Some among us don’t care much for the word “pursuit.” Want to piss off a Progressive? Remind them that We the People have a “right” to pursue nearly anything we want. What we do not have is the right to expect someone else to pursue happiness for us and then extort a portion of it from them.

In fairness, Dems do it. The GOP does it. It’s done for individuals and corporations alike and it is contrary to nature itself and the very spirit of our founding. When our Constitution gave the Congress the power to provide for the “general welfare” it did so expecting future legislators to provide and secure a truly level playing field where one and all can pursue their own happiness.

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