Suspect Detained Over “Don’t Tread On Me” Bumper Sticker. Warned By Police Officer

Please Note: The incident below happened in May 2009. I share this story in hopes that you will be more aware of what’s slowly happening to your civil liberties.

A resident of Ball, Louisiana was detained for having a “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper sticker on his vehicle and warned by a police officer about the “subversive” message it sent. The “suspect” was investigated for “extremist” activities.

According to a relative of the unnamed “suspect”, Her brother-in-law was driving home from work when he was stopped by police officers who told him “he had a subversive survivalist bumper sticker on his car.” “They proceeded to keep him there on the side of the road while they checked his record, keeping him standing by the side of the road for 30 over minutes.” Finding no record and no reason to keep him, they warned him to remove the sticker or he may be stopped again and then eventually let him go, she said.

Was this some rogue police officer with his own agenda? Hardly, small town police are being misled by phony left wing ‘reports’.  The report from the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) called, “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”, which cites individuals who have certain bumper stickers on their vehicles as suspect, was delivered to tens of thousands of local law enforcement officers across the nation just weeks before the incident.

The report, which was based on a Missouri State Police Report that described supporters of presidential candidates Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and Chuck Baldwin as ‘militia’-type potential extremists and potential terrorists, is not the first effort of leftist radicals to slander their political opponents as ‘extremists.’ These ‘extremism’ are returning veterans, those who support homeschooling, oppose abortion, and post certain bumper stickers on their vehicles and other factors. The DHS not only issued that report, but also an earlier memo defining dozens of groups ,including tax protesters and others as “threats”.

The company, The Patriot Depot, sells the bumper sticker in question. COF Jay Taylor said ”It’s rather shocking, We’re supposedly have freedom of speech in our country.” Other bumber stickers the company make include sayings such as ”The Audacity of Nope,” “Taxed Enough Already,” “Born Free, Taxed to Death,” “Bring Home Our Troops: Send the Democrats” and “I’ll Keep my Guns and Money, You Keep the ‘Change’.”

“We hope people realize this is serious,” he said. The “Don’t Tread On Me”  flag and the bumper sticker symbolize American patriotism, the need to defend Americans’ rights, and resistance to tyranny’s threats to American liberty. Those threats included – and still include – illegal taxation, profanation of Americans’ rights, and violation of the fundamental principles of American law.

The DHS report defines the “tax resistance movement”  as “groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights. Among their beliefs are that wages are not income, that paying income taxes is voluntary, and that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to levy taxes on income, was not properly ratified.” It states that tax protesters “have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism in an attempt to advance their extremist goals.”

The DHS also analyzes the “threat” level of Internet news websites, for the lexicon defines “alternative media” as “a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.” Perhaps the DHS has forgotten that the United States Of America has a First Ammendment.

America, What Have We Become?

It does not take a partial government crackdown on gun control or your freedom of speech to take away your civil liberties, an economical collapse can do the same. In all things we must prepare if we are to survive, even the things that slowly sneak up on us in the middle of the night. Political tyranny can come upon us as a screaming banshee, or a snake hidden in the grass. Congress has learned that Americans can see a bad law coming a mile away, so they quietly pass the worst of their laws hidden in mounds of paperwork grass.

In the history of mankind, wars and poverty have killed more people than natural disasters, and both are the direct result of tyranny. The more I/we promote liberty, the more we can fend off the need to enact our survival plans. But knowing the times we live in, I also continue to prepare for natural and man-made disasters and I urge you all to do the same. Solar flares, tornadoes and other natural disasters are probably the only thing congress cannot move out of their way.

These are not my ideas. I freely admit that I learned them from others who believed that our liberties are given by God, not governments. Our founding fathers new that governments will only protect these ideals if they consider themselves subject to a law higher than themselves. Unfortunantly they no longer seem to, outside of a rare show of faith that seems more for political purposes than real faith. 

After the great scientism and evolutionary movements that started in the late 180o’s and continues to this day, congress (and the nation as a whole) made a paradigm shift from relying on a higher power for their wisdom and knowledge to what today is simply politicians only responding to political pressures of the moment, with no regard to whether they are right or wrong.  Greed for money and power now overrule God, faith, and liberty. America, what have we become?

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

– Thomas Jefferson

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

– Thomas Paine

10 Reasons to Become More Self-Sufficient

Becoming more self sufficient isn’t all about raising chickens, or getting up at 4:00AM. It’s about consuming smarter and producing for your own daily needs. And that might mean you choose to raise chickens and get up at 4:00AM, but it doesn’t mean you have to. If you need any convincing simply read below.

10 Reasons to Become Self-Sufficient

1. Increasing health and wellness – Alot of the “organic” items you see in the grocery store have been falsely labeled. Add to that a large precentage of  brands that claim to be “GMO-free” are NOT and you really don’t know what you’re eating anymore. GMO food lacks the nutritional value of what can grow yourself. GMO mega-corporation, Monsanto, has a sordid history of lies, corruption, and has downright been plain evil in every sense of the word. They continuously trampled on our trust, showing through their actions that they would rather make a few more dollars than help save millions (billions?) of starving people on this planet (some right here in the United States). Growing food for yourself makes you healthier and takes companies like Monsanto out of your loop.
2. Working for yourself – Lets face it, being someone elses paid slave sucks. Working hours are increasing, pay is decreasing (thank you inflation), and corporate executives are taking bigger bonuses than ever. The middle class is turning into the poor class as the executives in charge are the only ones that can afford to retire. This is leading to a prevailing disgust, as people are being forced to admit that they are living lives of near slaves to their next paycheck, their boss, and their debt. Even for those not working in corporations, working for someone else is (VERY) rarely as satisfying as creating and working for something where every minute you spend is yours alone.
3. Having more free time – Life on a farm has been portrayed arduous sun up sun down drudgery where you collapse at the end of the day. This picture mostly comes from the 50′s, the 1850′s! This is not the case anymore. As technology has changed everything else, so as it changed farming and homesteading. Sure, the setup of any farm or homestead is often time-consuming and laborious, but new technologies and new skills of manufacturing food via permaculture and aquaponics are offering low-cost start up and minimal maintenance. You can easily live on 15 acres of land nearly 100% self sustained, with only 1 of those acres actually needing what most consider “farm work”. Some people even do it on 1/4 of an acre, total! 
4. Generating food and energy - Our coal and oil-soaked way of life could run out rather soon. While the time we have left varies from study to study from 30 years to 100, nearly every scientists in the world agrees that the next generation or two will see the end of oil and a return to life as it was post-oil (and gas, and fertilizer, and plastic, and everything else petroleum based). By using solar and wind power you can wean yourself from the energy grid.
5. Hedging against inflation – Have you noticed the price of gold lately? What about groceries? Even Wal-Mart and Costco are raising their prices. The current increases are sign of hyperinflation and there is no signs of change in the foreseeable future. People might have a choice whether or not to buy stocks or gold, but we must eat. Coming corn and grain shortages could make the problem much worse.
6. Freedom from market manipulation - Capatilism is a great economical system, and it’s what makes America great. The problem arises when traders and banking institutions begin controlling the vast majority of the system as they do now. The debacle of the private Federal Reserve Bank is just the icing on the cake to a previous decade full of Ponzi-type schemes. Now, the institutionalized looting of retirement money is being planned.
7. Building family strength –  In these trying times, it is your family that can offer the best support. 60-hour work weeks and grabbing fast food meals on the go take us away from our loves ones, mentally and physically. With no time to interact with our immediate family, it is no wonder why many people report feeling disconnected and unloved.
8. Becoming a producer, not a consumer – This is the best way to reduce your cost of living and increase your self-sufficiency. In the past 30 years we have seen corporations race to find the lowest cost production overseas  despite desperate people here in America desperate for jobs. Every single one of us has exploited the Third World to clothe, feed, and entertain us and at the same time we are supporting middle-class job being taken from Americans (ever shop at wal-mart? buy a pair of tennis shoes? buy ANYTHING made in china?). The further we walk away from this lifestyle the more we will be rewarded, that is a truth you can hang your hat on.
9. Restoring balance – It seems like everything in our socity is on the edge about to tip over. The systems we have in place to check these balanaces has long fell into corruption and dissarray. We have to take it upon ourselves to restore these balances. We may not be able to keep everyone from falling over the edge, but we can protect ourselves by stepping away from the “cliff” and taking on a more self-sustained lifestyle.
10. Acquiring an appreciation for life - Creating a garden, working hard to select the best for harvest, and prepared food for your family that you have grown yourself is one of the great joys in life. While a window garden can give you a tiny piece of this world, you can not truely appreicate it until you step outside and transform a small part of your backyard into a beautiful garden.