Maddi Gillel
On a fairly regular basis, we hear the phrase “we’re losing our freedoms.” Do we understand what that means? Do our eyes glaze over? Do we ask ourselves ‘okay, so what do we do about it’? Let me give you just a few examples of what’s going on right now in our country. I can see a pattern. I’m sure some of you do, too.
The co-founder and CEO of Mozilla-Brendan Eich- donated $1000.00 to Proposition 8 in California a few years ago. The LGBT mafia went after him and he lost his job.
There’s a battle that has been waged for 20 years with the Bundy family and the forest service. The Bundys have been grazing their cattle on public land for several generations and claim it is actually county land. The BLM claims that the desert tortoise will be harmed by the cattle. There are some details that one may think, with righteous indignation, “Well, what right have the Bundys . . .?” Remember, this is how they work. They start on the fringes of situations where there might be some gray areas on both sides, but they slowly and surely move into the black/white areas where they are definitely taking away law-abiding citizens’ freedoms.
I mentioned in another article about the family (Andy and Katie Johnson) who built a pond on their land. The pond was fed by a stream on their land. He has ducks, geese, fish, water for his horses and a place for his 3 children to play. The property owner says he followed the state rules for a stock pond when he built it in 2012 and has an April 4-dated letter from the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office to prove it.
“Said permit is in good standing and is entitled to be exercised exactly as permitted,” the state agency letter to Johnson said.
The BLM accused him of breaking federal violations and are charging him $75,000.00 A DAY in fines. He is a welder by trade. No one can pay that. But it’s a win/win for the federal government because they either receive that money, OR they confiscate the land.
In my home town, my cousin (Dan Bond) has several horses on his property. It’s a rural area so this is typical. Someone, ‘anonymously’, reported that the horses were starving and neglected. The county removed 5 of his 9 horses. There was no sign of undernourishment, or neglect (2 horses were 33 and 26 years old so maybe they didn’t look like spring horses). He had to go before a judge and was fined and ordered to spend a month in jail.
Andy and Ceil Barrie in Colorado, bought some land 2 years ago with an old cabin on it that they use for recreation for their family. The BLM told them they can’t use the snow coach to get to their cabin- which must be used when it snows- because it will harm the native plants. The BLM are going to seize it under eminent domain because the BLM wants the land for ‘open spaces’ reasons.
Justina Pelletier – 15 – from Connecticut has a disease which was being handled well. She was able to function as a normal teenager. She followed one of her specialists to a Boston Hospital for a check up, was seen by a first year resident instead, told she was somatizing (Imagining it) and was turned over to the psychiatric ward. Her parents can see her 1 hour a week. She’s in a wheelchair now because she isn’t being treated with the medicine that was working. She has now, after 15 months in ‘captivity’, been turned over to the CHILD PROTECTION AGENCY and will be placed in foster care.
So what is to be done? In my cousins’ case, around 500 signatures have been collected in his favor and it is in the newspaper which will shed even more light on it. We need to support and help one another, write letters, protest, picket, etc.
Ask yourself if any of these experiences would disrupt your family. Property rights are paramount under our constitution. That is the framework for family. Free speech is guaranteed to us in the constitution. Donations to causes we believe in should not be threatened and used against us to the detriment of our jobs, homes, and religion.
The above cases are being used as an intimidation tactic so others will cower and capitulate rather than stand up for themselves. The use of SWAT teams is part of a troubling national trend. Peter Kraska, in a Cato Institute report, estimates that SWAT teams now make 40,000 raids on citizens each year. (The Departments of Education, Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wild Life and EPA, to name a few, all have SWAT-style teams) Paramilitary raids by out-of-control federal agencies against ordinary citizens, who may not have violated any law, are a growing threat to our safety – and freedoms.