Post by Origanalist on Jul 4, 2014 11:42:17 GMT -8
THE DOLLAR VIGILANTE BLOG
[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-In-Chief, Jeff Berwick]
This Dependence Day, people who live in the geographic region known as the US will celebrate by drinking foreign beer like Budweiser, and many will make empty, slurred gestures in reference towards "their nation's" imaginary core values, like freedom and liberty with little to no understanding of the concepts and their historical contexts. They believe they are free, which of course means they are hopelessly enslaved.
According to a new international poll, 79% of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, which actually was a major decrease from 91% in 2006, according to a Gallup survey. According to Christian Science Monitor:
"That 12-point drop pushes the United States from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh."
Yes, you read that correctly. Americans feel about as free as people in Rwanda and a place called Nagorno-Karabakh which I had never even heard of until this moment. But if Nagorno-Karabakhians feel as free as Americans I probably don't want to go there anyway. 10 nations fell as dramatically as the US did in terms of a citizenry's satisfaction with their level of freedom. They were Egypt, Greece, Italy, Venezuela, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Romania, Yemen, Pakistan, and Spain.
Again, to emphasize, American tax slaves fell in terms of their feeling of freedom at the same level as those in Venezuela (where lines for toilet paper is an all day event) and Yemen.
“I think this decline is interesting in terms of perception,” says Jon Clifton, a master of understatement and managing director of the Gallup World Poll. “Certainly the previous numbers make sense in terms of our classic self-perception. The recent numbers do not.”
It seems the largest wealth confiscation in history (the 2008 bankster bailout), the largest tax increase in US history (Obamacare) and a hasty plunge into a total surveillance and police state - on record - has gotten to some Americans...
This only continues the trends the Dollar Vigilante covered last week:
"Confidence in the US government is at an all-time low, and not only among foreigners. Americans' confidence in Congress and other key US governmental institutions has fallen to lows, as seven percent of Americans say they hold "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from former low, 2013's 10%. In 1972 confidence reached 42%."
According to yet another poll by Gallup the number of Americans who believe there to be "widespread corruption" in the US has jumped from 59 percent in 2006 to 79 percent in 2013.
And, more Americans are fleeing the "land of the free" each quarter, with record citizens renouncing US citizenship. Maybe even the fact that Edward Snowden defected to the former Soviet Union has weighed on people's minds.
Or perhaps it has something to do with the countless scandals which have rocked the American public and turned US politics into Hollywood's biggest competitor for gut-wrenching tragedy and slapstick comedy. The stench from the cesspool that is the District of Criminals (DC) has leaked out into the countryside. Importantly, "Americans are coming to view their government as an obstacle, rather than an enabler."
“Americans not only feel that the US government is performing poorly, as demonstrated by record-low congressional approval ratings, but they also report that the US government itself as one of the biggest problem facing the country today,” the report concludes.
On this Fourth of July you can bet that the US government will also be the largest threat to the freedom and liberty of individuals. .08 DUIs will result in the caging and robbery of innocent individuals. A plant that is accepted by the dominant culture (50% of Americans have smoked marijuana) is still illegal in many states, and many people are sitting in cages for their entire lives for getting caught with this plant. Many more will join them in the world's largest prison rape and work camps today. After all, it is just another No Refusal Day. Just another day in a long line of Maximum Enforcement Days in the Land of the Free... Happy Hellidays!
continued at ....http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/7/4/happy-no-refusal-day-2014.html#6427
[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-In-Chief, Jeff Berwick]
This Dependence Day, people who live in the geographic region known as the US will celebrate by drinking foreign beer like Budweiser, and many will make empty, slurred gestures in reference towards "their nation's" imaginary core values, like freedom and liberty with little to no understanding of the concepts and their historical contexts. They believe they are free, which of course means they are hopelessly enslaved.
According to a new international poll, 79% of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, which actually was a major decrease from 91% in 2006, according to a Gallup survey. According to Christian Science Monitor:
"That 12-point drop pushes the United States from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh."
Yes, you read that correctly. Americans feel about as free as people in Rwanda and a place called Nagorno-Karabakh which I had never even heard of until this moment. But if Nagorno-Karabakhians feel as free as Americans I probably don't want to go there anyway. 10 nations fell as dramatically as the US did in terms of a citizenry's satisfaction with their level of freedom. They were Egypt, Greece, Italy, Venezuela, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Romania, Yemen, Pakistan, and Spain.
Again, to emphasize, American tax slaves fell in terms of their feeling of freedom at the same level as those in Venezuela (where lines for toilet paper is an all day event) and Yemen.
“I think this decline is interesting in terms of perception,” says Jon Clifton, a master of understatement and managing director of the Gallup World Poll. “Certainly the previous numbers make sense in terms of our classic self-perception. The recent numbers do not.”
It seems the largest wealth confiscation in history (the 2008 bankster bailout), the largest tax increase in US history (Obamacare) and a hasty plunge into a total surveillance and police state - on record - has gotten to some Americans...
This only continues the trends the Dollar Vigilante covered last week:
"Confidence in the US government is at an all-time low, and not only among foreigners. Americans' confidence in Congress and other key US governmental institutions has fallen to lows, as seven percent of Americans say they hold "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from former low, 2013's 10%. In 1972 confidence reached 42%."
According to yet another poll by Gallup the number of Americans who believe there to be "widespread corruption" in the US has jumped from 59 percent in 2006 to 79 percent in 2013.
And, more Americans are fleeing the "land of the free" each quarter, with record citizens renouncing US citizenship. Maybe even the fact that Edward Snowden defected to the former Soviet Union has weighed on people's minds.
Or perhaps it has something to do with the countless scandals which have rocked the American public and turned US politics into Hollywood's biggest competitor for gut-wrenching tragedy and slapstick comedy. The stench from the cesspool that is the District of Criminals (DC) has leaked out into the countryside. Importantly, "Americans are coming to view their government as an obstacle, rather than an enabler."
“Americans not only feel that the US government is performing poorly, as demonstrated by record-low congressional approval ratings, but they also report that the US government itself as one of the biggest problem facing the country today,” the report concludes.
On this Fourth of July you can bet that the US government will also be the largest threat to the freedom and liberty of individuals. .08 DUIs will result in the caging and robbery of innocent individuals. A plant that is accepted by the dominant culture (50% of Americans have smoked marijuana) is still illegal in many states, and many people are sitting in cages for their entire lives for getting caught with this plant. Many more will join them in the world's largest prison rape and work camps today. After all, it is just another No Refusal Day. Just another day in a long line of Maximum Enforcement Days in the Land of the Free... Happy Hellidays!
continued at ....http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/7/4/happy-no-refusal-day-2014.html#6427