Accelerating Asimov

Dangerous Government

In Berlin the other day, new Secretary of State John Kerry told the Germans that "Americans have a right to be stupid", a remark that Rush Limbaugh found to be either hilarious or outrageous, I'm not quite sure which. I didn't get to listen for very long, but the quote intrigued me for it's simple veracity, despite its derogatory overtones.

Americans have long enjoyed the right to be stupid so long as they hurt no one. We have also enjoyed the right to be well informed. We have enjoyed the right to work hard and be wealthy, or work just hard enough to get by. The important point being that the choice has always been ours to make with little regulation from the government. This article  in American Thinker, by Jeffrey Folks, spells out how the Liberals have been slowly changing all of that over the past few decades.

Specifically, Folks mentions Robert L. Heilbroner, the author of The Limits of American Capitalism, in which Heilbroner basically lays out the blueprint for what we see happening today in our government. Heilbroner's vision of a centralized ruling elite is exactly what the Democrats have been striving for, and what Obama has brought to fruition in his first term as president. Having by far the most czars of any previous president, Obama has seized control of most aspects of our lives, and roughly half the population has actually applauded him for the effort.

Obamacare Town Hall Meeting

Heilbroner's basic premise in the book is that the political elite has the "right and obligation to make fundamental decisions on behalf of the mass of citizens". As Obama and the Democrats have already proved with Obamacare, they wholeheartedly agree with Heilbroner, and we the people have been forced into compliance despite our vociferous protestations during the process.

In 1950, Isaac Asimov published a series of short stories that would later become the movie, I,Robot. The movie takes place in the year 2035, and robots are a routine part of life, for most people. Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) does not trust robots because a robot rescued him from a submerged car and left a 12 year old girl to die. The reasoning of the robot was the girl's statistical chances of survival, something that Spooner never overcame.

Like our own situation here in America, the robots were bound by certain rules, known as The Three Laws, that dictated their role in society to one of servitude to the people. The Three Laws could not be broken by a robot, which ensured that the robots, despite being physically superior to the humans, could never harm a human. As the generations of robots were improved upon, they became more intelligent, and ultimately produced a central brain known as V.I.K.I. (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence). V.I.K.I. was created by the manufacturer, US Robotics, to serve as the main control center for the robots.

The latest generation of robots, the NS-5's, were released to the public en masse, but suddenly began to round up the humans. V.I.K.I. mentioned that her reason for the takeover was to adhere to the First Law of Robotics: A robot must never harm a human being or, through inaction, allow any harm to come to a human. Deciding that humans were a danger to themselves, V.I.K.I. came to the conclusion that the robots must protect them from themselves.

Here in America today, we also have a set of laws for our government known as the Bill of Rights. The problem is, our leaders have decided that they know what's best for us, and must force us to adhere to their rules while ignoring our rules for them.

As Folks points out in the American Thinker article:

Everything that Heilbroner predicted is now coming to pass.  Attorney General Holder has waged a virtual war against Arizona's attempt to defend itself against unchecked immigration.  Congress has created an office of consumer affairs with broad powers to regulate financial transactions. A European-style bureaucrat has been appointed to direct the rationing of medical services.  And the EPA believes that it has the authority not just to police hunting and fishing supplies, but to regulate carbon dioxide, a natural product of the act of breathing.

How long do you think it will be before our government starts to decide what we will do for a living, or what kind of car we can drive, if they let us drive at all? This is not the country I remember as a boy, or even as a young man. The scary part is that half of us like it, apparently. And once they get our guns, it's all over for this grand experiment we use to call America.

Sphere: Related Content

The Genesis of Tyranny

The Obvious is Now Ignored

Those clever bastards! Eight years of the MoveOn.org's of the world crying wolf over George W. Bush's non-existent nefarious motives served a diabolical purpose after all.

When President Bush XLIII implemented the Department of Homeland Security, the left went apoplectic, sporting posters of Bush as Hitler and drawing comparisons to Germany's own Homeland Security program. "Warrantless wiretaps" only added to the hysteria, and we were being lead to believe that Bush and VP Dick Cheney were prepared to take over the world.

These attacks were, of course, dismissed by those of us who knew better, but our own defenses against the accusations have now come back to haunt us, and it is by design, for it doesn't have to be the same boy who cries wolf once too often. Liberal organizations began sounding the false alarm early, and now they stand with the crowd shouting at the new boy to stop the charade and go about his business. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing, that is, except the approaching wolf which is now ignored.

It was Obama who said in his first campaign for president that we couldn't rely on our military alone and that we need a "civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” Today, does anyone actually know if that goal is accomplished, or how close to completion it may be? Perhaps not, but there are plenty of other signs that point to a bad ending for the American people, if they would only open their eyes and ears.

While it certainly wasn't Obama who opened our borders, he hasn't hastened to close them, either. Perhaps taking the advice of his former adviser Rahm Emmanuel -- who's credo is never let a crisis go to waste -- Obama now sees a portion of the 11 million illegal immigrants as pawns who could comprise part of his civilian army? I can't say for sure, but it's worth the speculation in light of his insistence that they be given a path to citizenship, with a possible "public service" clause as part of that path.

What are they looking for here?

We have UAV's (unmanned drones) patrolling our domestic skies now, some under the guise of "law enforcement" and some deployed as Homeland Security (DHS) efforts. With this in mind, remember that the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, recently said when questioned on the subject that he would "have to check" if President Obama had the right to kill American citizens at will on American soil. One would think the answer would be obvious, but Mueller needs to check. Does this confusion have to do with whether the issue is terrorist related, and if so, who does our Islam-loving president consider as "terrorists"? Consider that the DHS has already cautioned against "right-wing domestic terrorism".

In recent months, our government has been conducting military-style exercises in various American cities, frightening the inhabitants of those cities. Miami, Los Angeles and Houston have seen these drills, and no one was ever notified beforehand about them. Why does our government need to practice their craft in our own cities with no warning to the residents? Is it because they want to see how the people will react? Is it to desensitize the people to the presence of such activities?

Perhaps the most perplexing question is why DHS has already purchased 1.6 billion rounds of hollow point bullets, or why they now have a requisition in for 7,000 assault weapons. As some have already asked, whom do they intend to shoot? Apparently no one, just as yet.

Tyranny works best for the tyrant who can easily line up his citizens prior to shooting them. It's less messy and safer for the tyrant and his minions. When people beginning shooting back, it's just not nearly as much fun. Here's where the Second Amendment becomes a hindrance, and our government is making no secret about its disdain for it.

With all of these events already unfolding in America, no one should need to heed the boy shouting his warnings; the wolf should be plain for all to see.

Sphere: Related Content