America has long been held up as a bastion of freedom, liberty, and opportunity, where by dint of hard work and industry, a no name can get ahead – and rightly so. An almost unknown name recently won the presidency and could prove to be the common link between the “land of the free” and “home of the enslaved” premise.

The US has deserved its reputation as “land of the free, home of the brave.” People from all over the rest of the globe, especially those living under the thumb of repressive regimes, clamored to come to America, by boat, plane, train, dinghy, foot, or hot air balloon, if necessary. Many came for a “better life,” economically. Some came for idealistic reasons, that enduring human desire to be “free.” They came to be Americans. The politicians, even when misguided in their thinking and policies, did what they thought was best for America. The schools taught American history. Neighbors helped out neighbors. The churches helped out members and strangers alike. There was faith in God and love of country. Then someone or some-ones determined that this version of America needed a “transformation.”

The attitude of those coming to America – shifted. Folks from all over the globe still kept coming, but many of them had no intention of becoming Americans. They had heard about this land, instead of one of milk and honey, of soda and candy. They wanted a piece of the economic action, without all of that tedious “land that I love” fealty, and the “fatigue” of helping to maintain liberty. They heard that under this “transformation,” foreigners could come in, especially illegally, get benefits of food, housing and clothing, courtesy of about half of the population, who worked whatever number of jobs they could get in order to survive and pay their “fair” share of taxes. These taxes were vital in order to support the other half of the population, including some leeches known as politicians, and about half of the world. These newcomers figured “heck, if there are idiots stupid enough to do this for me, why should I bother to “pledge allegiance to the (US) Flag, and the republic for which it stands, “ when my heart is really back “home” in that land from which I fled, but I still love and owe my allegiance”? Smart people.

Meanwhile those working to support all of their “dependents,” including those who are strangers to them, are so busy, not trying to keep up with the Joneses, but trying to remain within shouting distance of the Joneses and other neighbors, by not losing their homes. Many have taken to bunking together. Wait a minute. What is this “losing homes” bit? Aren’t they living the American dream which means you get the house, work out an arrangement with the bank where the bank owns the house for the next thirty years until you get that ownership piece of paper, after paying about twice the original cost of the house? When I still owned a house and was busy pursuing that American dream, I used to jokingly tell friends that I knew that I was supporting a family of at least four, and one of these days, I wanted to meet that family so that I could hear “thanks.” Yep, for many of us home ownership has become a nightmare.

Ah the American dream....where did it go? Things probably started going “south,” when some on Mount Olympus , along with many of us down in the valley, became convinced that God was superfluous in our lives. This “clinging to God” was so passé. How do we even know that there is such a Being, Almighty and Omnipresent? Aren’t we all our own gods? We mentally substituted “in God we trust” on those dollar bills, with “in greed we crave.” If Granny stood between us and those dollars? Well, she was old anyway. She had outlived her usefulness. She is going to be missed – maybe. We shoved God and values aside. God obliged us by not interfering in the commission of our God-given free will to act according to the desires of our hearts.

 Previously “charge” was used as troops set out over a hill, or across a plain to charge the enemy. Our new “charge” was in reference to making purchases using plastic. We charged up those shopping aisles and charged – on the cards! Soon, those charge cards became our enemies. We could not keep up with our own charges, and the lenders assigned exorbitant charges, called fees. Miss one payment and find about $40 added on. Then there were those investments in the stock market, where we the sheep can be sheared by Financial Serial Killers. Is there any relationship between those type of serial malfeasants and those on the political side of things? I am sure that there isn’t, but I do have a curious mind, which always looks for synergy. Thank goodness our government does not have to resort to such chicanery. The US government did get in on the charging deal, by substituting the word “charge,” with “print” (more money).

Ironically, the folks who have remained largely untouched, except of course for the business billionaires who though they may have lost a few million here and there, never even missed the lost money, have been the connected politicians . At least in defense of most of the non-political billionaires, many of them worked for theirs. Being a politician is the best job in the world, unless you operated in Bell, California. Those kids who are learning to be doctors are not thinking outside the corridors of the hospital. It is all well and good to be noble and want to save lives. That is so yesterday. In today’s world, it is about having real power over the lives and death of constituents, especially the power to pass laws that do not apply to you, and where the long arm of the law would be cut off, if anyone tried to bring you to justice! Bell CA is the only exception – so far.

However, as the Bell situation and the Tea Party uprising are showing, happy days may not be here for a long time. Both major parties are being shown that “business as usual,” is no longer going to be usual or normal. This article threw down the gauntlet to the RINOs (Republicans in name only) lawmakers. To put this in party symbols, the RINO is like an elephant that wants to act like a donkey. Each animal has its own strengths and weaknesses with its body type built to accommodate its nature. This role change in a different body, is not pretty to watch. The RINO species must be feeling like deer in the headlights. Another gauntlet was tossed down!

The “establishment” as the entrenched legislators are called, did not get the message that “happy days are (not) here again.” According to this article, the established boys and girls are operating within the parameters of “business as usual.” Maybe these parties should come up with a different name to describe their organization of like-minded political animals. They seem to be using the fun meaning of the word “party,” which means a social gathering, as of invited guests at a private home, for conversation, refreshments, entertainment, etc. The political party boys and girls “party” while the rest of us labor and sweat.

I found out that the penchant for spending other people’s (taxpayers’) money is universal. This article gave an update on the recent earthquake in New Zealand, and I was happy to hear that New Zealanders had survived. But, it was the following sentence that really caught my eye.

“Sadly this is nothing to get very excited about, as Bob Parker surely enjoyed overspending rate-payers' money just as much as Anderton would if he got the chance.”

It appears that “we the people” in the US, are in good company, in terms of the affinity of politicians to overspend. Maybe a global motto should be: “If we (taxpayers) make it, they (politicians) will spend it.” I do wonder though, if New Zealand would make this type of "investment." America really has a (financial) death wish. About 44 million Americans were living below the poverty line in 2009, but the government keeps spending. I am assuming that many of those 44 million folks were desperately searching for employment. I know of what I write.

This UN Agency  is warning that the “global employment crisis will stir social unrest.” I wonder what would happen if Santa US can no longer meet its obligations to the UN and to all those countries (some well off), to which it is committed to send “aid.” I am all for assisting neighbor nations, but this aid thing has gotten so out of hand, it is like a mother cow letting other calves suck on her nipples – ahead of her own calves. Will the citizens of the US receive some of the same kind of generosity, if the US sinks into the abyss? Somehow I think that China will arrive to place its name on the White House, the Capitol Building, Disneyland and all of Las Vegas, as it collects a significant return on its investments. Then is when that UN agency will see “social unrest!”

In the meantime, and until “social unrest” time, our drunken government continues to spend. In order to justify this spending, hearings are held to support the various positions. Citizens, actually important citizens, are sometimes invited to testify. We were recently treated to one such hearing. This Yahoo News report filled us in:

“The union launched its "Take Our Jobs" campaign to back up its claim that few Americans would do the work of farm laborers, the vast majority of whom are in the U.S. illegally. Only seven people accepted the jobs, the union said.

“At the close of the hearing, Colbert dropped his TV persona and turned serious, saying he was using his celebrity to bring attention to farm labor because "these seem to be the least of my brothers."

I would quip about a “dog and pony show,” but those two animals are fine animals, and the comparison would be denigrating – to them. If Mr. Colbert wants to show concern about “the least of (his) brothers,” he might try reading this letter addressed to him, by Althea Shaw, the aunt of Jamiel Shaw. An alleged illegal alien, one of the “brothers” of Mr. Colbert, allegedly reduced Jamiel to the dirt in which Mr. Colbert went “slumming.”

So the politicians have been on a spending binge, and the economy has benefited, right? Not according to this author. Mr. Taleb begs to differ that the stimulus stimulated the economy. As a matter of fact, he feels that the stimulus “weakened the country’s economy.” His contention is that “total debt is higher than it was in 2008 and unemployment is worse.” VP Biden must be really delirious that summer is over, and he does not have to run around selling the mirage of “recovery summer!” He could always blame the high unemployment numbers on “global warming.” I offer my humble apologies for using the incorrect designation for the mythical man-directed warming of the earth. I should have used the new politically correct term of “Global weather disruption.”

Everyone, from economists to graphic artists, is weighing in on the president’s performance in this financial “global weather, er financial disruption.” The  hope poster designer has now decided that the president is not the “delivery device” in practice or in his presidency. Although the designer’s loyalty remains, the hope poster, bereft of hope, will no longer be the graphic of choice for 2012. I can vouch that the president was the “delivery device” for at least one young man who needed a shirt that read “One term,” with that same graphic nicely providing the decoration for the word “One.” That is an accomplishment that maybe we all can believe in, and cling to, when we get tired of clinging to God and our guns. Speaking of “G and g,” talk show host Dennis Miller recently quipped that the president, in the face of his plummeting poll numbers, reached out and is “clinging to God and guns.” I did notice that the word “Jesus,” kept conveniently cropping up in recent presidential speeches. Hopefully God is impressed.

As the president was busy rediscovering the power of “God and guns,” the opposition party came out with its own Pledge. The article stated:

His opponents in Congress, the president said, are not offering a prescription for a better future. "It's an echo of a disastrous decade we can't afford to relive."

I agree with the president. We cannot afford to relive the decade which ended with him being ushered into power, piloting that “hope-n-change” train, stopping to throw a few people under a bus that was conveniently passing by, and piloting the nation straight over an economic cliff. No wonder those economic advisors are jumping onto the train tracks to get off of that train!

While the president and the opposition are tussling over pledges, this article should give them pause. It is questioning if the US is losing its brain power advantage. How could it not? Kids are stuffed into overcrowded classrooms with about a hundred languages being spoken because of the influx of the new type of immigrant. The days when the brightest of other countries came here, are over. Some brightest and best do still come to take advantage of the education at the university level and then take their newfound knowledge back to their home countries. The following paragraph is sobering.

“American students continue to perform poorly in math and science compared to their counterparts abroad, the report claims. Though the United States is still a leader in innovation and produces a disproportionate share of the world's wealth, other countries such as China are investing heavily in research and education and, according to the new report, threatening America's competitiveness.”

Even Americans are losing that vaunted optimism and fearing that the US is no longer the world’s top economy, according to this Rasmussen poll. Duh...what can one expect when Americans are assaulted on all fronts, especially from their own government? Their fears are not totally unjustified. $13.5 trillion in national debt, a deficit of $1.4 trillion, $814 billion spent on stimulating an economy that remains firmly un-stimulated, except for the usual suspects, who keep miraculously benefitting.

The news gets worse. Now we have a writer questioning if the US Constitution has had its day. She summarizes her article by deducing:

“In the meantime, the US Constitution and the way US politics functions are looking somewhat frayed around the edges. President Obama's inexperience may have made his first 18 months more difficult than they might have been, but his country's outdated institutions made things much, much worse.”

I have a news flash for her. Those “outdated institutions” work well when there is a “Constitution-knowing and obeying, country-loving, non-partying” American in charge! And – though she seems to suggest the usual, “why won’t America become more like Europe,” unless the American people are totally overthrown, America as Europe, isn’t going to happen. Europe is in the process of trying to be less like Europe because of the failure of many of its “newly dated institutions!”

So are we still the “land of the free,” or have we been herded into “enclaves of the enslaved”? I know that I still feel free, to a certain extent. I don’t have the state police breaking down the door and seizing my “weapon of choice,” my keyboard. But, when I see episode after episode of “politicians (and bureaucrats) gone wild,” I am fearful. If anyone had told me that the federal government would be in the business of taking over private automobile companies, financial companies, health care, and “turning in” a sister state, Arizona, to the tender mercies of the UN, I would have advised them to lay off the booze. Now, I don’t see why I should not be gravely concerned, and see those enclaves in the immediate future.

But, this article about Daniel Hannan , provides some solace. Mr. Hannan is the British version of CNBC’s Rick Santelli, the “father” of the Tea Party movement. Mr. Hannan “called out” then British PM Gordon Brown in 2009. Mr. Brown is now in retirement. Mr. Santelli “woke up” the American people. Millions responded. “A less free America is everybody’s problem”? It certainly is. Mr. Hannan is warning us in this article, not to follow Europe. Will we listen?

It is comforting to know that smart folks who are not American, realize that America should be preserved and not “transformed” by any political Dr. Frankenstein. America being considered as the “last bastion of liberty,” is not an overstatement. We who were born in liberty, and those who fled repression, we who truly love America, will not allow these United States to be caged. We may have lost the fire and resolve of John Paul Jones “I have not yet begun to fight,” but we are rediscovering it. “We the (ordinary) people,” are fighting the ruling class (politicians and their sycophants, including some in the press), and winning. Lady Liberty is going to continue to be proud and confident that she ended up in the right country! God bless America, “land that we love!”