[T]he Berkeley City Council, which voted 6-3 Tuesday night to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines...And it officially encouraged the women's peace group Code Pink to impede the work of the Marines in the city by protesting in front of the station.

In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.

"I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here, and they should leave," said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates after votes were cast.

Code Pink on Wednesday started circulating petitions to...make it more difficult to open military recruiting offices near homes, parks, schools, churches libraries or health clinics. The group needs 5,000 signatures to make the ballot.

[N]ot everyone is happy with the work of Code Pink...

"My husband's business is right upstairs, and this (protesting) is bordering on harassment," Dori Schmidt told the council. "I hope this stops."

An employee of a nearby business...said Wednesday the elderly Code Pink protesters are aggressive, take up parking spaces, block the sidewalk with their yoga moves, smoke in the doorways, and are noisy.

"There's a line between protesting and harassing, and that concerns me," Wozniak said. "It looks like we are showing favoritism. We have to respect the other side, and not abuse their rights. This is not good policy."

link

Government-endorsed harassment. Not really new if you think smoking laws and the hate campaigns. But Berkeley has one of those no smoking near entrances laws. I guess they hate the Marines worse than smokers...for the moment.

Very interesting.

This brings to mind the other post on the board where the President and Vice-President have been pronounced criminals in a community in Vermont.

Neo-communism has used federal authority for years as its path of least resistance, and now they seem to be flipping the whole thing around and using communities and, probably soon, whole states.

If you put the states and the federal government in complete ideological opposition, boy, you've got a real mess on your hands.

I can draw a complete line of reasoning here, but it would run quite long. So I'll just put it this way.

When I try to trace the problems we face today back 230 years, and cross and recross that path, I find that the path leads directly to the visible crack in the foundation of the Founders.

They created a free country with a balance of powers and emphasis on individual rights and equality, but had to completely sidestep the elephant in the room in the interest of not instantly tearing apart what they'd just created.

They allowed slavery.

States Rights. The Tenth Amendment. The Civil War. The Civil Rights Act. The Sixties.

Neo-communism is a clever beast. Right when it's got the Federal Government in it's pocket, it starts taking a hard line and monopolozing the States, from the borders and river outlets moving inland, nonetheless.

I know I overuse this graphic, but look again, folks. This is the 2004 Electoral Map by County.



Water and borders aren't just ways in, they're ways out.

Now, before you think I'm heading down looney road, I'll say only this, because I'm probably already pushing the limits in terms of most reader's interest. This is NOT A CONSPIRACY. Rather, it is an emergent, network effect creating a recognizable pattern. These patterns, I think, are formed by what are called "memeplexes" and I believe they are created by a natural phenomena known as "emergence". I'll let you do your own Googling, rather than belabor the details.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

quote:

This is NOT A CONSPIRACY. Rather, it is an emergent, network effect creating a recognizable pattern.

..................
Perhaps world wide.

Consider the UK,totally water-locked and with a very nasty smoking ban.

Don’t treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives. Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements.

Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's “responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restrictions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. [A belief founded on pseudoscience that the natural diversity of sizes, health problems and aging are determined by compliance with ‘responsible’ or ‘good’ behavior.]

The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies.

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/01/national-medical-welfare.html

quote:

Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's “responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restrictions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. [A belief founded on pseudoscience that the natural diversity of sizes, health problems and aging are determined by compliance with ‘responsible’ or ‘good’ behavior.]

I can't see this happening here in the US to the same degree - thanks to the fact that we have a private health insurance system. Its true that some health insurance companies want to charge smokers and the overweight higher premiums, which I would rather have, even if its wrong, than being denied treatment. All bets are off though if we have universal Hillarycare or if someone decides that Medicare should no longer cover smokers.

"Water and borders aren't just ways in, they're ways out."

What do you mean by "ways out", Winston?