The Name Game

by Kellene Bishop

“A rose by any other name is still a rose.” Isn’t it interesting how our government has camouflaged its selected names of programs and legislation in order to falsely influence the American people as to what these issues really are? You’ve heard of oxy-morons such as “military intelligence” in jest, I’m sure. But when it comes to many of the name games our government plays, there’s nothing funny about it.

1) National Security Letters: The name implies that these are letters which provide or promote security to our nation, when in fact they are used abusively by the FBI, CIA, DOD, and NSA to as a weapon against law-abiding citizens. Additionally there is no limit to the amount or type of information which can be seized via an NSL. And they are now to be complied with without exception. Today, in order for any federal agent (FBI, DOD, or CIA) to write an NSL, they must only comply with the requirement that they claim—not provide any evidence thereof—that the desired records may be related to an ongoing terrorism investigation or intelligence activities. These warrants require the production of “any tangible things” such as books, records, documents, lists, etc, without any consideration given to any reasonable time frames or costs to produce such information. Oh, and by the way, there is NO judicial oversight on the use of these, not even from Congress. As if that’s not enough, whoever receives such a “letter” is legally gagged from telling anyone about them, even if it’s your own attorney who receives it. The attorney can’t even tell YOU that he’s about to turn over all of your files to the FBI. Now how’s that for national security?

2) Federal Reserve: Contrary to what their own website states, as well as that of other government agencies, there is nothing “federal” about the Federal Reserve. They are not a part of the US Government. In fact, in an interview with Alan Greenspan, when asked, “What should be the proper relationship between the chairman of the Federal and the President of the United States?” Greenspan responded, “Well, first of all the Federal Reserve is an independent agency. And that means basically there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take, so long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don’t frankly matter.” While the Federal Reserve behaves as a 4th branch of our government, there is no governing authority over them other than for Congress to rule that we will no longer do business with them. Good luck with that, right? In addition, there is no longer any “reserves” backing the currency issued by the Federal Reserve. We don’t even require them to issue a report that tells us how much currency is in circulation so that we can be sure our money still holds its value. Ultimately, the Federal Reserve name is just as contrived to deceive as was a local computer company in my neck of the woods called “Totally Awesome Computers” (It went bankrupt).

3) Carbon Credits: Wow. This name sounds like the U.S. taxpayers might actually get a credit for something, right? Wrong. These two words combine to become the most threatening level of taxation that our nation has ever seen. As a result of the passage of a “Carbon Credits” program, countless energy companies will be required to pay for the air they use. As a result, they will of course pass these fees on to their consumers. Electricity, gasoline, natural gas, kerosene, coal, and even solar energy just became significantly more expensive. As the result of this “credit” every American household can expect an average of a $3,000 INCREASE to their electric bill every year. That’s just ONE source of energy you use. If I continue to tell you about all of the other ramifications, I’m afraid that there will be a run on the pharmacies for anti-depressants nationwide.

4) The G.I.V.E. Act: Once again, a very deceptive name. The only thing this act gives is unconstitutional orders. While admittedly it’s been scaled down a bit from its first version as HR 1388, (and changed HR and Senate numbers multiple times) it’s still ridiculously named. The original proposal under HR 1388 would REQUIRE citizens of America in a wide range of ages to provide a mandatory period of “service” to their communities in whatever fashion the government deemed necessary. In addition to that, the House of Representatives even added an amendment that stated that while individuals were in the process of providing this “voluntary” service, they were prohibited from engaging in numerous acts of free speech. Yup. That’s a GIVE act, alright. Giving American citizens the ole heave ho, at least.

5) The Patriot Act: This is the mother of all misnamed issues. I’m convinced that our Founding Fathers and all those who sided with them during the Revolutionary War feel that their true title of “Patriot” has been mercilessly molested. There is nothing Patriot or patriotic about this act. It consistently tramples on countless constitutional amendments in the name of protecting our nation from terrorism. Now we are instructed to not even use the word “terrorist” or “enemy combatants” but we’re still stuck with this offensive violation of our rights to free speech. The not-so-Patriot Act has Congress giving his agents permission to listen to our phone calls, read our e-mails, and obtain unlimited amount of personal information about us. The “war on terror,” which gave birth to this heinous beast, has quickly disguised itself as an enemy intrusion on American’s privacy, freedom of movement and thought, individuality and civil liberties. Does that mean that the terrorists have essentially won now?

Ultimately the lesson we all need to learn here is that we cannot afford to be mindless sheep armed with good hearts. We must be more proactive in discovering and educating ourselves with the abundance of truthful information that is available to us. Getting our misinformation from the mass media will be no excuse when we appear before our Creator and attempt to explain to Him how we let something so valuable as freedom disintegrate from our nation. Each and every one of us is endowed with the freedom to choose, thus God’s perfect law will require that each and every one of us be held responsible for what we did with those choices. I believe that an understanding of this responsibility is why our Founding Fathers sacrificed all that they had to give us the rights to freely choose freedom. Indeed, when we’re before the Creator of Truth, we surely won’t be able to play the politicking finger pointing game. The blame will be ours regardless of how the program was masqueraded.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.