“Let’s face it. We live in a command-based system, where we have been programmed since our earliest school years to become followers, not individuals. We have been conditioned to embrace teams, the herd, the masses, popular opinion — and to reject what is different, eccentric, or stands alone. We are so programmed that all it takes for any business or authority to condition our minds to follow or buy something is to simply repeat a statement more than three or four times until we repeat it ourselves and follow it as truth or the best trendiest thing. This is called “programming” — the frequent repetition of words to condition us how to think, what to like or dislike, and who to follow.” ~ The writings of Suzy Kassem
Ever since the rise of radical environmentalism in the late 1960’s, governments and environmentalists have been working diligently to “condition us” to live in high dense urban cities with increasing densities. Their plan was and is to drive the people out of the rural areas and the suburbs and force them into 25-story apartment buildings in concrete jungles. They call it sustainable development and smart growth, a dirty little afterbirth of United Nations Agenda 21 policies hatched at an Earth Summit Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Much has been written about the perils of Agenda 21 and yet its policies are embedded in everything we do. (See “Agenda 21“)
To handle the influx of more people to big cities, more apartments were being built than single-family homes. A single-family home with a big yard was the quintessential American dream, a dream which has now evaporated, except for the very wealthy. (NOTE: We bought our first two-bedroom home in 1964 for $7,500. New homes in our area are now selling for $1,000,000.) Someone along this insane environmental path coined the term, “rack ’em and stack ’em“, to describe cramming more people into smaller and smaller spaces under Agenda 21.
In a recent article we wrote: “This purposeful design was first created in a 1992 United Nations policy paper entitled, Agenda 21. It was then codified into American law by a President Clinton executive order, without a treaty being debated or ratified in Congress as the Constitution requires. This socialist policy now permeates every level of government and is subtly taught in our K-12 public schools and our very liberal colleges. Even the news media and industry have jumped on the Agenda 21 bandwagon. Government sanctifies this policy with soft sounding names like “Social Equity”, “Smart Growth”, “Sustainable Development”, “Endangered Species”, “Conservation Easements”, “Biospheres”, “Wildlife Corridors” and “Wilderness Protection”. One of the motives for all of this propaganda is to drive more people into big cities, where government can more easily control large, dense populations.”
“Big government loves big cities, as they feed off of the occupants’ dependency and big-city voters continue to re-elect the handout providers. But big government doesn’t give one whit about civility. If the population gets more uncivil, government just adds police to bring the people into compliance and increases taxes to pay for it all. In the case of the black ghettos on the south side of Chicago, the authorities mostly just let the inhabitants kill each other.”
“Big cities encourage the growth of corruption. As a result, government gets bigger, more corrupt and more powerful every day. The institutionalized corruption of big cities produce people like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, James Comey and a whole host of Congressmen and Senators. In the end civility, respect, trust, honor, integrity, honesty and freedom lose and corruption and avarice take their place.”
But government wasn’t done with herding us into big cities. They wanted even greater control of the masses. Along came the 2020 Wuhan, China Coronavirus and that was all they needed to squeeze us even more. Government came up with the term “contact tracking” in order to trace the people-contacts that those with the virus had encountered while they were infected with the virus.
States started forming “contact tracking” teams consisting of thousands of government bureaucrats who would fan out across the country side and start questioning people about their contacts with persons who had the virus. Washington State even employed the state National Guard to assist the “contact tracking” teams. The state also required restaurants and other businesses to “log” every customer for “contact tracking” purposes.
These “contact tracking” teams have the alleged power to force people to stay in their homes for 14 days if they had contact with an infected person, or yank them out of their homes and force them into government housing for 14 days. Do Russian gulags or Japanese interment camps come to mind?
Just how many government, unconstitutional injustices will the people take before they say enough is enough?
The American people rolled over in 1913 when the Democrats passed the 16th Amendment that included the formation of the Federal Reserve that is neither federal or a reserve and the Internal Revenue Service, a Gestapo-like government agency.
They looked the other way when FDR (a Democrat) passed the New Deal and Social Security that took America one giant step closer to Socialism. They laid down and played dead when the government confiscated their gold.
They shrugged when President Johnson established the “Great Society” wherein billions of taxpayer dollars poured to the poor, making them “wards of the state” and good little Democrat voters. Did the “Great Society” reduce poverty? No, it increased it, of course. This wasn’t altruism. It was a blatant, hostile and an in-your-face act to maintain perpetual political power in America by buying votes with taxpayer money. They have been very successful.
Americans have tolerated and done nothing while the federal government allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood into America and sucked up jobs, education, health care and welfare money. The illegals are still here, more are coming and they are still sucking up jobs, education, health care and welfare money. The Democrats want to pay stimulus money to illegal aliens, to the tune of billions of dollars, as a reward for breaking our laws. (No! It’s for more votes) Legal American taxpayers get to pony up the billions of dollars. Now that’s fair, isn’t it? This should have caused a revolution.
When President Obama and the Democrats shoved Obama Care down our throats in 2010 there was some moaning and groaning, but nothing came of it. The Democrats won ….. again! Americans just accepted the fact that many lost their doctors and their health care plans and most if not all experienced a huge increase in health care costs. This also should have caused a revolution. It would have a hundred years ago, but Americans have grown soft, coddled and government dependent.
Why is it that Americans have allowed their public schools to be hijacked into institutions of socialist, environmentalism and one-world-order brainwashing and indoctrination? The little Johnny’s and Jenny’s of generations past (and their parents) have become compliant government stooges that toe, without question, the government line.
Now the Democrats want to keep you in house arrest for the Coronavirus in violation of Constitutional rights, when the facts and data don’t warrant house arrest or quarantine. They want to “track” you if you have come in contact with an infected person and lock you up.
Suddenly, because of the virus, governors and mayors decided they had super constitutional powers that exempted them from compliance. Like any good little politicians without honor, they salivated at the prospects of having dictatorial control over the people. They, mostly Democrats, exercised that control with a vengeance.
Americans have allowed the news media to become a promotional agent for the Democrat Party. This isn’t the objective 4th Estate as envisioned by our Founders. It has become a radical institution that parrots the Progressive collectivist ideology, to the detriment of truth, honor and constitutional principles.
Finally, government has gone way too far and the people are revolting in huge numbers all across America by ignoring un-Constitutional executive orders. We say, it’s way past time to do so. The protests and revolt should have happened over 100 years ago as government tightened the screws on American freedom. If the people had voiced their opposition to increasing government control a hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
So folks, we have let government “rack us”, “stack us” and now “track us” while we stand by in mostly docile compliance. This isn’t the America that gave birth to freedom. This isn’t an America that tamed a wilderness. This isn’t the America that freed a billion people in two world wars.
This is an America that is “so programmed that all it takes for any business or authority to condition our minds to follow or buy something is to simply repeat a statement more than three or four times until we repeat it ourselves and follow it as truth or the best trendiest thing.”
Is this the America we want to be? God, we hope not!
May 28, 2020
© 2020 Ron Ewart – All Rights Reserved
~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property issues and author of his weekly column, “In Defense of Rural America“, is the President of the The National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO), a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State and dedicated to restoring, maintaining and defending property rights for urban and rural landowners. Mr. Ewart can be reached for comment at info@narlo.org.
Mr. Ewart has been a continuing contributor to the Kettle Moraine family of publications since May of 2007.