The Burnman Experience
24Apr/102

Protecting our children’s Liberty

I was born in raised in Mass­a­chu­setts, not far from where the first shot of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion was fired.  I grew up learn­ing about the colo­nial times, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War, Lib­erty, Free­dom, and Patri­o­tism.  Now, look­ing back over my life, I real­ize that I’ve taken Lib­erty for granted.  I sup­pose many of us have, being that it has never been so seri­ously threat­ened before.  When you’ve had it so good for so long, you get used to how things are. You expect things to stay the way they’ve always been.

The real wake-up call came when I started think­ing about what my chil­dren could grow up believ­ing Patri­o­tism to be.  It occurred to me that they may grow up believ­ing that it is the respon­si­bil­ity of the indi­vid­ual to sup­port the needs of the col­lec­tive.  That the pur­pose of the per­son is to con­tribute to the peo­ple.  That one must be care­ful what they think or say, because dis­agree­ing with the col­lec­tive is unpa­tri­otic.  So now I find myself explain­ing what Lib­erty and Patri­o­tism are to my chil­dren, hope­fully fend­ing off unwhole­some left­ist influ­ences from ensnar­ing my chil­dren.  It is a never end­ing strug­gle, left­ist ide­ol­ogy has infil­trated Main­stream Media as well as the pub­lic edu­ca­tion system.

What comes next, how­ever, is what I worry about the most.  Edu­cat­ing my chil­dren about Lib­erty, Patri­o­tism, and the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence may pro­tect them from falling into the leftist’s ide­o­log­i­cal traps.  But what of the leg­isla­tive assault on their cur­rent, and poten­tial, way of life?  Oba­maCare, Amnesty for Ille­gals, Finan­cial Reform, Edu­ca­tion Reform, and the over­all expan­sion of gov­ern­ment and the taxes required to sus­tain it?  Much of Pres­i­dent Obama’s agenda threat­ens the way of life I grew up to expect, and what my chil­dren deserve!

28Mar/102

Outspoken Peaceful Protest is Terrorism

The title of this arti­cle will likely inspire all sorts of feel­ings in all sorts of peo­ple.  It cer­tainly does with me.  I dis­agree with the sen­ti­ment, but it seemed fit­ting since I believe it is exactly what you will be hear­ing in the rel­a­tively near future.  At least if the pro­posed bill H.R. 2159 passes.

Never heard of H.R. 2159?  It is the “Deny­ing Firearms and Explo­sives to Dan­ger­ous Ter­ror­ists Act of 2009.”  The bill would allow the United States Attor­ney Gen­eral to dis­al­low ter­ror­ists from pur­chas­ing, pos­sess­ing, trans­port­ing, or sell­ing firearms.  While this may not sound like a bad deal at first glance, when you start to think about the impli­ca­tions, it gets a bit dicey.

15Mar/100

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The Unan­i­mous Dec­la­ra­tion of the Thir­teen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes nec­es­sary for one peo­ple to dis­solve the polit­i­cal bonds which have con­nected them with another, and to assume among the pow­ers of the earth, the sep­a­rate and equal sta­tion to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God enti­tle them, a decent respect to the opin­ions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Declaration of Independence
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre­ated equal, that they are endowed by their Cre­ator with cer­tain unalien­able rights, that among these are life, lib­erty and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness. That to secure these rights, gov­ern­ments are insti­tuted among men, deriv­ing their just pow­ers from the con­sent of the gov­erned. That when­ever any form of gov­ern­ment becomes destruc­tive to these ends, it is the right of the peo­ple to alter or to abol­ish it, and to insti­tute new gov­ern­ment, lay­ing its foun­da­tion on such prin­ci­ples and orga­niz­ing its pow­ers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and hap­pi­ness. Pru­dence, indeed, will dic­tate that gov­ern­ments long estab­lished should not be changed for light and tran­sient causes; and accord­ingly all expe­ri­ence hath shown that mankind are more dis­posed to suf­fer, while evils are suf­fer­able, than to right them­selves by abol­ish­ing the forms to which they are accus­tomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa­tions, pur­su­ing invari­ably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despo­tism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such gov­ern­ment, and to pro­vide new guards for their future secu­rity. –Such has been the patient suf­fer­ance of these colonies; and such is now the neces­sity which con­strains them to alter their for­mer sys­tems of gov­ern­ment. The his­tory of the present King of Great Britain is a his­tory of repeated injuries and usurpa­tions, all hav­ing in direct object the estab­lish­ment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be sub­mit­ted to a can­did world.

21Feb/100

The Napkin Prophecy

Have you ever had one of those moments where an idea hits you at the strangest of moments?  This hap­pened to me recently when my fam­ily and I were enjoy­ing break­fast at one of our favorite break­fast eater­ies.  When our food arrived at the table I asked the wait­ress for extra nap­kins, and it hit me.

Does ask­ing the server for more nap­kins increase the chance that you will need them?  Or is it sim­ply being pre­pared in the event that they are needed?  At what point does pre­cau­tion become self-fulfilling prophecy?

At first, I dis­missed the idea as the silly ram­blings of a man who hasn’t had his cof­fee yet, but it stuck with me.  I began to won­der if hav­ing a safety net would increase the like­li­hood of risky behav­ior or care­less­ness rather than sim­ply pro­vide a level of pro­tec­tion.  Does the safety net make the trapeze artist more bold, more care­less?  Does the seat-belt or airbag act as enablers to the lead foot?  What about gov­ern­ment spend­ing and the lack of accountability?

21Feb/102

Is the Fair Tax Act a fair tax act?

Have you ever heard of the Fair Tax Act?  It is a pro­posed bill which would (with par­al­lel leg­is­la­tion) repeal the 16th Amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the United States of Amer­ica, abol­ish­ing the IRS and fed­eral income tax, replac­ing the sys­tem with a national sales tax.  I am still read­ing up on the Fair Tax Act and the orga­ni­za­tion behind the move­ment, so it would be irre­spon­si­ble for me to offer an opin­ion about either at this time.  At first glance, how­ever, it seems like an inter­est­ing idea that deserves some attention.

17Feb/101

Childhood obesity? What about starving children?

Michelle Obama recently launched a new cam­paign to fight child­hood obe­sity and I can’t help but feel frus­trated, angry, and a lit­tle disgusted.

Yes, I know that child­hood obe­sity is a seri­ous issue which faces the youth of Amer­ica, but there is a far more seri­ous issue which needs to be addressed NOW.  There are mil­lions of peo­ple in the United States who do not have enough food.  In 2008 the USDA reported that 17 mil­lion chil­dren lived in house­holds where food was scarce, 1.1 mil­lion of them starv­ing.  Add the adults into the mix, and we’re talk­ing 49 mil­lion peo­ple strug­gling for food.  If you con­sider that the pop­u­la­tion of the United States in 2008 was just over 300 mil­lion peo­ple, that means approx­i­mately 16.3% of all Amer­i­cans strug­gled for food in 2008.

Dur­ing Bar­rack Obama’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, he pledged to elim­i­nate hunger among chil­dren by 2015.  What is being done to bring about the end to child­hood hunger in Amer­ica?  So far, the answer has been to throw more money at exist­ing pro­grams (which are not work­ing) and wait for the econ­omy to recover.