Ever Vigilant

Saying Goodbye to Ever Vigilant and Hello to Liberty Sentry

2010-04-02T07:25:00.001-05:00

As of today, EverVigilant.net will no longer be updated. Instead, I would like to introduce my new blog, Liberty Sentry. Its purpose, as it was with this one, is to help safeguard liberty by keeping a watchful eye on government. In order to do that, we must remain actively informed.

My intention is to update Liberty Sentry daily. While you will find the occasional original essay or commentary, the site will mostly feature links to news stories that document the immediate dangers posed to freedom-loving citizens, namely the ever-increasing encroachment on civil liberties and the abuses of power on the part of those who refer to themselves as "public servants."

EV had a good run, but it's time to move on. Please let your friends know about the new blog, and don't forget to update your bookmarks.

John Stossel on Prohibition

2010-03-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Census Propaganda for Kids

2010-03-21T22:26:00.000-05:00

This is Low, Even for the IRS

2010-03-14T08:28:00.002-05:00

From the Sacramento Bee:

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents.

Are the thugs in D.C. really that desperate for cash?

Human Health Care vs. Animal Health Care

2010-02-26T21:15:00.000-06:00

Government Terrorism During Prohibition

2010-02-23T08:42:00.008-06:00

Deborah Blum at Slate.com has the story:

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.

Although mostly forgotten today, the "chemist's war of Prohibition" remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was "our national experiment in extermination."

Read the full article here.

Republican Scott Brown Already Voting Like a Democrat

2010-02-22T22:22:00.005-06:00

From Reuters:

A modest job-creation bill advanced in the U.S. Senate on Monday as the chamber's newest Republican bucked his party and sided with Democrats on a $15 billion package of tax cuts and highway spending.

Republican Scott Brown joined four other Republicans, 55 Democrats and two independents to overcome a procedural hurdle that sets up a final vote later this week.

Brown, in a statement following the vote, said, "I hope my vote today is a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington."

It certainly didn't take long for the new "conservative" hero to show his true colors.

Terrorism Is Not a National Emergency

2010-02-15T07:53:00.004-06:00

Tom Engelhardt of Antiwar.com looks at the threat of terrorist attacks in the U.S. from a different perspective:

In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.

As for airplane fatalities, no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported. In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died. In June, for instance, a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather over the Atlantic, killing 226. Continental Connection Flight 3407, a regional commuter flight, crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., that February killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006. And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York's Hudson River when disaster might have ensued. In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism, though in 2007 two terrorists smashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane tanks into the terminal of Glasgow International Airport. (No one was killed.)

And yet the underwear bomber (which was most likely a false-flag operation anyway) had people panicking about another 9/11. Perhaps we should all try to keep the threat of terrorism in perspective.

A Brief Thought on "Enemy Combatants"

2010-02-05T17:52:00.006-06:00

I don't know about you, but I just don't feel comfortable with a government that imprisons and tortures individuals without due process thinking it can tell me who my enemies are.

Christian Libertarianism

2010-01-30T09:48:00.003-06:00

Bojidar Marinov, who took part in the forming of the Libertarian movement in his native Bulgaria, explains why he could not be a libertarian without Christ:

When a dear friend of mine shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with me, he knew nothing of my intellectual struggles. There was one thing that caught my attention that night when he talked to me about his faith: "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free." And then Jesus adds: "And if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed."

There was the solution to my problem! I was blind to search for an impersonal Truth, an inexorable, merciless entity that holds the universe in an iron grip. And I was blind to search for Freedom that was focused on myself so much that would make the rest of the world irrelevant -- and make me irrelevant in the process. Truth was possible to know only if it was itself a Person; and Freedom was possible to have only if it was itself a Person. That Person couldn't be a mere man -- or I would be in slavery. He must be a god, or rather, God, the Creator of the Universe. And if the Bible was true, then my problems had one reason: I was a stranger to God, and thus I was a stranger to Freedom, Ethics, and Justice. I had to come back to Him, through the redemption He provided in Jesus Christ. Only then I had...everything.

If He was the Creator, He was the Truth. Knowing Him, I would know the Truth. He was Freedom too: He created my very nature and He knew what I should do to be in harmony with my real nature. And He was Justice for He gave me the rules for a just society that has liberty and justice for all. What all the philosophers wanted but couldn't find, He had it, and He was it.

Therefore I couldn't be a libertarian without Christ. I tried, and it was impossible -- philosophically and ethically. It was self-contradictory, it was against the very nature of things, and it was believing in a set of assumptions that had no discernible connection with reality or with each other. Only in Christ I had them all brought together in a coherent whole. And only in Christ did it make sense to be willing to die for your freedom -- without Him death was the ultimate judge of things, and slavery was preferable to facing death. "Give me liberty or give me death" was folly in a world without Christ -- but now it is divine wisdom in Him.

Read the full article here.

Guilty of Not Committing a Crime?

2010-01-23T16:19:00.000-06:00

It used to be that in order for a crime to have been committed one person had to willfully violate another person's right to life, liberty, or property. In other words, harm had to have been intended as well as inflicted.

Today, however, a crime is merely an action that violates any one or more of the countless arbitrary rules and regulations implemented by the state, regardless of whether or not the action in question actually brings harm to anyone. This was seen most recently in the case of Daryl Fleck, a Crookston man whose drunken driving conviction was upheld by the Minnesota State Supreme Court.

(Read the full article here.)

Your Children Are Property of the State

2010-01-16T09:45:00.003-06:00

You may think you have the right to raise your children as you see fit, but you don't. Your children are property of the state, as this recent story demonstrates:

A Montgomery County couple has been arrested on child endangerment charges for failing to register their children with the school district as they were home-schooled, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said Monday.

Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, both of the town of Glen, never registered their four children or their home-schooling curriculum with the local school district, said the Sheriff's Office.

The Superintendent of the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District, Richard Hoffman, confirmed the four children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, had not been registered with the school district for the last seven years.

"From what I can gather, it sounds like there was education going on, so I don't know if they really slipped through the cracks," Hoffman said, "[but] they didn't fulfill their legal responsibility to file with the school district to be home-schooled."

Just business as usual in this once-free nation.

The problem with compulsory education laws, like most laws in this country, is that they force otherwise law-abiding citizens into the position of having to take action in order to prevent themselves from becoming criminals. There was once a time when it had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that one intended harm when committing a particular act. Today, that isn't good enough.

Those in government love such laws because they no longer have to prove motive. The mere act itself is criminal. The end result is that you are considered a criminal if you do not first seek the state's permission for what was once accepted as a God-given right.

Going Along to Get Along

2010-01-11T07:00:00.002-06:00

Ever wonder why people continue to vote for the same incompetent fools year after year? This may help explain...

We Don't Need No Education

2009-12-30T06:34:00.004-06:00

Just when you think public schools couldn't dumb things down any more than they already have, you run across a story like this:

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

If you wanted more proof that the main purpose of the public school system is to indoctrinate rather than educate, there it is.

Gearing Up for the Next Invasion

2009-12-29T06:40:00.000-06:00

Connecting the dots really isn't all that difficult if you just pay attention:

Blog Commenters Blast the TSA

2009-12-28T20:09:00.003-06:00

Following the thwarted "terrorist attack" on an international Northwest Airlines flight, DHS head thug Janet Napolitano issued the following statement:

I am grateful to the passengers and crew aboard Northwest Flight 253 who reacted quickly and heroically to an incident that could have had tragic results. The Department of Homeland Security immediately put additional screening measures into place - for all domestic and international flights - to ensure the continued safety of the traveling public. We are also working closely with federal, state and local law enforcement on additional security measures, as well as our international partners on enhanced security at airports and on flights.

The American people should continue their planned holiday travel and, as always, be observant and aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior or activity to law enforcement officials.

Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in.

Proposed policy changes included keeping passengers in their seats for the last hour of an international flight, not allowing them to hold anything in their laps, and turning off all in-flight entertainment.

In light of those idiotic restrictions, the Transportation "Security" Administration began to get some interesting feedback on its blog. Here's a small sampling:

It's hardly "unpredictable" when airlines announce lockdowns during the last hour of flight into the US. If this is truly the TSA/DHS recommendation as claimed, then whats the difference between the last 30, 60, or 90 minutes of a flight? Does it matter, or is this another knee-jerk reaction to some idiot to show that "something" is being done, just like the whole shoe fiasco...?

* * * * *

ALL your layers of security failed yet again.

So what is the response of the TSA - to add even more confusion to the process with the hope that with any kind of plain dumb luck, you'll be able to flummox another idiot terrorist wannabe?

* * * * *

I am an American Citizen with absolutely no crime history or affiliation with anything illegal. I've been traveling world wide for over 40 years. *I* am on a watch list. Where is Umar's name on this list? What's wrong with this picture?

* * * * *

I think in failing this individual will have a greater impact on air travel than he would have had he succeeded.

Also re: the new "1 hour before landing, now sit quietly in your seats children" rule. Why does this only apply to international flights? If this is not just more theater it should apply to domestic flights also. Care to comment on that?

* * * * *

With as annoying as it is getting to fly, soon the only passengers will be terrorists.

I really can't wait for high speed trains.

It's nice to know others out there recognize airline "security" for the scam that it is.

Still Think America Isn't an Empire?

2009-12-21T08:17:00.001-06:00

There is no end to the expansion of the welfare/warfare state. It reaches into virtually every aspect of American life.

Thou Shalt Not Question the Climate Change Cult

2009-12-11T16:40:00.002-06:00

Journalist Phelim McAleer finds out the hard way.

More details here.

The Real Goal of the Climate Change Cult: Depopulation

2009-12-10T21:08:00.003-06:00

Diane Francis hates people, as do most of those who belong to the idiotic ranks of the climate change cult. She writes:

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently of one million births every four days.

The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict. ...

... For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pasture land into desert as is now the case or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.

The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.

This is beyond idiotic. It's entering the realm of the criminally insane.

Ms. Francis, is there any chance you and your cohorts would lead the way in reducing the world's population? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Tax-Feeders Get a Pay Raise

2009-12-09T13:26:00.003-06:00

Unemployment is in the double digits, and yet Washington goes ahead and gives those already living off their fellow citizens a pay raise.

Blueprint for a Police State

2009-12-08T09:48:00.003-06:00

Considering that the Rand Corporation receives the bulk of its funding from federal, state, and local government agencies, it should really come as no surprise to read something like this:

Establishing security is the sine qua non of stability operations, since it is a prerequisite for reconstruction and development. Security requires a mix of military and police forces to deal with a range of threats from insurgents to criminal organizations. This research examines the creation of a high-end police force, which the authors call a Stability Police Force (SPF). The study considers what size force is necessary, how responsive it needs to be, where in the government it might be located, what capabilities it should have, how it could be staffed, and its cost. This monograph also considers several options for locating this force within the U.S. government, including the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in the Department of State, and the U.S. Army's Military Police. The authors conclude that an SPF containing 6,000 people -- created in the U.S. Marshals Service and staffed by a "hybrid option," in which SPF members are federal police officers seconded to federal, state, and local police agencies when not deployed -- would be the most effective of the options considered. The SPF would be able to deploy in 30 days. The cost for this option would be $637.3 million annually, in FY2007 dollars.

You can read the entire publication in PDF format here.

Yet Another Problem in Our Schools

2009-12-05T10:20:00.004-06:00

Here's reason number 5,723 to keep your kids out of the local government-run indoctrination center:

It's a disturbing game with devastating consequences, and a new WTHR survey suggests it is rampant in Indiana schools.

"Ball tapping" is the act of intentionally hitting or kicking a male in the genitals. Earlier this month, an Eyewitness News investigation showed the game has become commonplace in some area schools, resulting in serious injuries for students.

As part of the investigation, WTHR also conducted a statewide survey of school nurses. The results are in, and they show the problem of ball tapping is more common and widespread than many school officials had realized.

Full story and video here.

Child Porn in Our Schools

2009-12-04T20:42:00.006-06:00

Yes, your kids could be exposed to child and gay porn at school. But it's OK, because it's all in the name of "tolerance":

Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings was the founder, and for many years, Executive Director of an organization called the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN started essentially as Jennings' personal project and grew to become the culmination of his life's work. And he was chosen by President Obama to be the nation's Safe Schools Czar primarily because he had founded and led GLSEN.

GLSEN's stated mission is to empower gay youth in the schools and to stop harassment by other students. It encourages the formation of Gay Student Alliances and condemns the use of hateful words. GLSEN also strives to influence the educational curriculum to include materials which the group believes will increase tolerance of gay students and decrease bullying. To that end, GLSEN maintains a recommended reading list of books that it claims "furthers our mission to ensure safe schools for all students." In other words, these are the books that GLSEN's directors think all kids should be reading: gay kids should read them to raise their self-esteem, and straight kids should read them in order to become more aware and tolerant and stop bullying gay kids. Through GLSEN's online ordering system, called "GLSEN BookLink," featured prominently on their Web site, teachers can buy the books to use as required classroom assignments, or students can buy them to read on their own.

Read more about it here. (WARNING: very sickening, explicit content)

Schools or Prisons?

2009-12-03T12:23:00.002-06:00

From the web site:

Blame for problems with schooling in America is often assigned to insufficient funding or the inherent failings of today’s kids. In rare cases, parents, teachers, and administrators are also implicated. However, all efforts to improve the quality of education are doomed to fail if the system itself is not examined and understood to be the most significant impediment. After over six years in the making, THE WAR ON KIDS reveals that the problems with public education ultimately stem from the institution itself. Astonishingly all efforts at reform consistently avoid even considering this to be a possibility and the future for children and American democracy are at stake.

In 95 minutes, THE WAR ON KIDS exposes the many ways the public school system has failed children and our future by robbing students of all freedoms due largely to irrational fears. Children are subjected to endure prison-like security, arbitrary punishments, and pharmacological abuse through the forced prescription of dangerous drugs. Even with these measures, schools not only fail to educate students, but the drive to teach has become secondary to the need to control children.

Can we please start calling public schools what they are: government-run indoctrinations centers?

Rewarding Incompetence

2009-12-02T12:50:00.002-06:00

Topping Foreign Policy magazine's list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers: Ben Bernanke, chairman of the criminal counterfeiting syndicate know as the Federal Reserve, "for staving off a new Great Depression."

I love how David Kramer of LewRockwell.com put it: "Saying that Ben Bernanke prevented the collapse of the U.S. economy is like saying O.J. Simpson prevented Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman from dying of cancer."