The Two-Party System and the National Security Police State: Dissolve the Department of Homeland Security

From S. Paul Forrest at Activist Post, on "America's Misconception of Freedom":

America was founded in an attempt to escape the oppression of not only religious expression, but also the misrepresentation from a monarchist system that cared only for the proliferation and interests of the elite class.  After 250 years, we have found ourselves in the same position as those who left Europe for these shores so long ago: oppressed by a system that only wants to serve itself before the citizens that support it.  They say history repeats itself, and nowhere is this more evident than in the case of modern America’s politicians, putting their corporate puppet masters and damaging agenda of faux patriotism before the needs of the people. . . .

To understand our freedom, or lack thereof, it is important to recognize what type of political system exists within our social structure into which we put our faith each election period.  This country is currently run and controlled by a two-party system that determines for us, the “free” voters, who we can vote for.  The choice of candidates is determined by the parties themselves as the proper representatives of their interests, rather than the interests of the American people . . .

The limited choice of representation has fostered a governmental system of insular thinking and the gradual erosion of our own national freedoms.  The two-party system, with its inbred philosophy of elitism, has been taking our freedom from us bit by bit with innumerable laws and initiatives to foster control.  The decay of our Constitutional freedom has been exacerbated by such legislative initiatives as the Patriot Act and its associated nullification of habeas corpus, while labeling some citizens concerned with the direction of our government as dissidents. . . . . any dissonance or suspicion of anti-patriotism is answered by restraint pending conviction.  Guilt before proof of innocence has become the mantra of modern justice in the evolving decay of the American political system.  [Emphases added.]

Read the rest.  With regard to Forrest's latter point, one might consider the Department of Homeland Security's actions in unilaterally expropriating and shutting down upwards of 70 websites without even paying lip service to the notion of due process.  From OS News:

The US has started seizing the domain names of various websites through ICANN - not because owners of these sites were convicted of anything, but merely because complaints have been filed against them. Anyone want to take a guess how long it will be before the US government blocks WikiLeaks? Update: The blocks function outside of the US too. In other words, the US is forcing its views upon the rest of the world once again.

The current seizures of domains did not even use the recently passed censorship law. The seizures come from the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and cover about 70 websites relating to potential copyright infringement and counterfeit goods, among which is Torrent-Finder.com, a mere torrent search engine which does not host or even link to torrents; it displays content hosted elsewhere through embedded iframes.

"My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the owner of Torrent-Finder explained TorrentFreak, “I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy I noticed the DNS had changed. Godaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN."

This is equivalent to having your house seized for pointing out to someone you can buy weed in the college district.  

Actually these actions are even more egregious than this account suggests.  The "censorship law" referred to above was not in fact "passed" into law, rather the bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has not yet been put to a vote in the upper chamber.  The internet censorship bill is S.3804, better known as COICA, and represents a clear and distinct threat to the freedom of speech online.  Follow the link to a post from October for background information on COICA.  Obviously, however, the DHS and ICE believe they already have the authority to shut down websites they find suspicious without even COICA to back them up.  This is just one more example of the outrages perpetrated by DHS on a daily basis.  It is time to dissolve the Department of Homeland Security and take real steps to reign in the Democrat-Republican national security police state.