As congress recently passed a cloture vote on the once dead, now resurrected, immigration bill, the citizens of America have effectively been told that we are no longer a concern for our elected leaders. We are being told those whom have broken our laws to enter our country are more important than those of us who hold citizenship, or who have entered our country legally. They have made it abundantly clear that their political ambitions of power are far more important that the ambitions of individual Americans and their sworn duty to protect and defend our physical safety and personal liberty were hollow pledges.

To those of us who have raised our voice in protest during round one, and round two, of this bill, it is now obvious where we stand in the eyes of our so called leaders. Even as many of them have now tucked their tails between their legs and reversed their stand in an attempt to save political favor, the message has already been sent; we are not important. The voice of the people has been heard, but it has been shrugged from the shoulders of our politicians as an insignificant itch.

We are not asking for much. The laws are in place, funding has been approved, and the means by which to accomplish our desires have been met, but action has not been taken. Close the border. That is all. It is a simple request, but it has so far been deemed unimportant. The enormously sad part to the whole problem is that the solutions are already in place. We do not need new laws the laws have already been establish, but our men and women in Washington have refused to fully fund, although the funds have been allocated, or to enforce them. They are essentially refusing to obey the laws they themselves have written.

We are a country of laws; not men, and when those laws cease to have value our identity as a country ceases to exist. You cannot remain a sovereign nation with wide open borders and lawmakers who fail to obey the very laws they create. Can we all decide which laws we feel like following today? Can we really trust the actions of men who have been enclosed in Washington’s circle of power (some for more than 50 years) sealed off from everyday America? Men and Women who have shown time and time again that their own political will trumps the law of the land and the voice of the people?

As the value of our voice and vote continues to be degraded by the very men who took an oath to protect and preserve our rights it is hard not to start believing the conspiratorial prophecies of a New World Order. When do we as citizens finally come to the final conclusion that we are insignificant in their eyes? When we are asked to refer to them as Emperor and Lord?

We are Americans and we are not without compassion, but we are a nation of laws and we strive to apply those laws equally to all people. Being a bureaucrat, or an even an illegal immigrant whose only desire is for a better life for themselves and their family, does not give you a special pass on the laws of your choosing. The rule of law either exists or it doesn’t. If we’ve decided that it doesn’t we might as well lie down and accept our demise. It’s already peeking around the corner as it is.

- Lance Martin

 There is a new slavery in America, or maybe it is an old slavery that’s gained renewed vigor. It’s a slavery perpetuated and supported by our government. It’s a slavery buoyed by a growing ideology that’s consumed nearly 50% of our population. We are enslaved with eyes wide open, in public, and without regard. It’s not a slavery based on race, class, or religion, but it’s slavery none the less.

“Slavery, 1) the state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household.”

It’s hard to read that definition. It’s equally hard to discuss the topic especially when the victims of this evil are so disregarded. The subjects are not only expected to live with their slavery, but also to embrace it as morally right; and many of them do just that. They turn a blind eye to their subjugation. It’s what they have been trained to do. It’s what they have been told is proper. Their servitude and self-sacrifice are the will of a higher power.

There’s not one master; there are many, and as most of their slaves succumb willingly they are none-the-less demonized. They are demonized for their production. They are demonized for their innovation. They are demonized for the capital they provide. They are demonized even as they make possible the very existence of their masters. And as those masters take more and more from their slaves, their slaves are still held as selfish and self-serving.

In a country once fueled by the individual’s dreams of prosperity those same qualities are now seen as unjust. It’s not that innovation, productive genius, and intellectual creativity are unequivocally evil; they are just seen as evil if pursued for personal prosperity. In the eyes of our masters these pursuits should be approached from the side of the common good. They should be free.

In the eyes of our masters, if you are a producer, you are lucky, and you should take high honor in your enslavement. It is not enough that your labor produces the trees in their forest of prosperity, but you should also teach them to climb those trees and give away your fruit.

As an individual you are the smallest minority on earth, and in a country where you were once a valued commodity, and where you were free to pursue the edges of your dreams, you are now a slave. And as your numbers continue to decline, so will the society that depends on your existence. They will continue to take until there is nothing left to take, or until you refuse to give. Even though many of you may also feel self-sacrifice for the common good is the highest moral virtue one can practice, there is no justifiable moral high ground from which they can preach their beliefs of forced self-enslavement.

There’s a huge difference between giving and sacrifice. Giving makes you feel good, while sacrifice does not. Giving is a personal choice based on abundance, while sacrifice forces you to give when you do not have enough. Giving is saying, “I have an abundance of shirts, please take one and be warm”, while sacrifice is saying, “Please take my shirt and be warm while I am cold”, or in the case of America, “I must give you my shirt because it is the law. I must give you my shirt because I have earned it and you have not. I must give you my shirt because my prosperity is the result of happenstance.”

A society ceases to achieve when it successfully establishes prosperity as mere luck, hard work as menial, productive genius as inherited, and a life of wealth and ease as entitled birthright. As we enslave and slaughter our individuals more masters are born squeezing each drop of the individuals’ blood from their whips as they follow the other lemmings blindly over the cliff.

- Lance Martin

 The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We hear this little snippet of wisdom all the time and according to a recent article in the New York Times, “Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows” by David Cay Johnston, the disparity in income between rich and poor is the worst it has been since 1929. Mr. Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, writes almost specifically about Taxes. Now call me crazy, but as someone with an economics degree myself, I find it hard to accept financial truths from someone who spent six years in college studying economics but failed to earn a degree (according to wikipedia.com).

In order to be fair, since this was this first of Mr. Johnston’s articles I’ve read, I did go back and read several more of his pieces. The central theme in most of his work centers around the usual class warfare debate; the rich people are bilking the rest of us and they are doing it by cheating. Now before I commence to break down the fallacies in this logic I will point out that he and I agree on one very important thing; our tax code is broken and needs to be replaced, but that is where the line is drawn.

Almost every article I have read concerning income disparity in America seems to focus on one single cause for the perceived problem; rich people are lying cheating manipulators that take advantage of us lowly working class people. They make the assumption that if someone is rich they must have acquired that wealth by unsavory means, but when you boil the argument down to the simplest layer you will almost always find wealth envy at the core.

Don’t be shocked, it’s O.K., all of us are guilty of participating in the wealth envy game. We see someone in a nice car and think, what does he have that I don’t? What makes him so special? Spoiled rich kid! Etc. Etc. We all do it; it is human nature, but how many of us follow up these evil creeping thoughts with something more positive? Something like; I wonder how they made their money? What can I do to be more successful?

The simple truth behind the income disparity in America, or anywhere else in the world that embraces a capitalistic society, is that the successful (rich) people continue to make choices and decisions that generate more success, while the unsuccessful (poor) people continue to make decisions that lead to failure. I know; the truth hurts, but it doesn’t stop it from being the truth.

There will always be an income disparity in America as long as we remain somewhat economically free. There will always be someone with more stuff than you, but no one, with the exception of government, is stopping any of us from attaining the same success as the other guy. You can choose to embrace success, you can choose to remain in the status quo, or you can choose to be a failure, but it is your choice. The sooner all of us realize that the evil rich people, and the huge corporations we like to demonize, are the very things that drive our economy, provide jobs for the people, and bring forth innovation that increases the comfort of our lives, the better off we will be.

So while there certainly are evil rich people, there are also evil middle-class people and evil poor people. Evil is not class specific. If we can get past the wealth envy maybe we can spend our time dealing with the real reasons for the expanding disparity; government regulation, enormous entitlement, income redistribution, and political interference in the free-market system. These are the weapons slowly killing the middle-class. A bulk majority of the tax burden currently falls on the middle income sector and the wealthy pay the remaining. The bottom 50% of income earners in America, those who make less than $30,000 per year, pay only 3% of the total income tax burden. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who is getting the shaft here; Hint: It’s not the “poor” people.

In their quest for an American socialist utopia, class warfare artists like Mr. Johnston will continue to blame everyone but the true culprits, and those of us in the real world better wake up. As our dreams continue to become more difficult to attain, and we are handed layer on layer of burden as we battle to achieve success, they are already 97% of the way to completing their goal. Soon they will have lifted the entire weight of the tax burden on the whole of their voting populous, and those of us who have chosen a life of substance will be forced to work even more overtime to ensure their healthcare, childcare, housing, 35-hour work week, tropical vacation, and brand new car.

- Lance Martin