BIG BROTHER - AN ATTITUDE - AN ENEMY OF LIBERTY

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ COMPARING OREGON AND OKLAHOMA
++ BIG BROTHER - AN ATTITUDE - AN ENEMY OF LIBERTY


++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, June 8th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker this
week will be Oklahoma’s senior U.S. Representative Frank Lucas.
Congressman Lucas is the first Oklahoman to be the Chairman of the
Powerful House Agriculture Committee. This will be our first time to
have Congressman Lucas. He currently represents the geographically
largest House District in the State of Oklahoma. During his town hall
meetings he is always good to take questions and I expect he will do
the same at OCPAC. I am very concerned about our involvement in Libya
as well as concerned that Republicans haven’t got the message as yet
about cutting spending. As an example, this past week they started
work on next year’s budget by passing legislation to fund the budget
for homeland defense. The 40 billion passed is only a 1 billion cut
from last year’s funding. Besides funding FEMA which will probably
soon shell out money to subsidize the installation of storm shelters
or safe rooms (an unconstitutional expenditure for the bankrupt
federal government) there are also millions of dollars for grants to
LOCAL fire and police departments. The later are certainly proper
functions of local governments, but not the federal government. While
James Lankford represents Oklahoma county, Frank Lucas represents the
neighboring counties of Logan and Canadian as well as points North and
West of those counties. Don’t miss this important meeting.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* THURSDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - The Oklahoma Second Amendment
organization (OK2A) will have their Tulsa area monthly meeting this
Thursday evening 7:00 p.m. at the Bass Pro Shop, 101 Bass Pro Drive in
Broken Arrow. The topic of discussion will be disaster preparedness.
There are many different types of disasters for which to be prepared.

* THURSDAY EVENING - EDMOND AREA - American Majority will conduct
another candidate training seminar, 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Edmond
library, 10 South Blvd. If you have ever considered running for office
or helping a friend to do so, this will be important training.
Reservations are not required but a head count would be helpful.
Please call Seth at (405) 639-8896 for more information.

++ COMPARING OREGON AND OKLAHOMA

I just wanted to share a few thoughts about my recent trip to Oregon.
The Southeastern part of Oregon looks a great deal like parts of the
Texas panhandle, but much of the rest of the state is lush with
greenery, mountains, rivers and waterfalls. I believe Oregon’s
populations is a few hundred thousand more than Oklahoma, though the
land mass is about the same.

While there, Oregon’s unemployment rate just dropped below 10% which
is a little above the national average and about twice the rate for
Oklahoma. Tourism is a huge business, but agriculture and the lumber
business face an ever increasing degree of difficulty with so many
animal rights and greenies exerting influence on the state government.
A major problem is that Oregon has no sales taxes, thus they must get
their government revenues from property and state income taxes. By
taxing the production side of the economy, rather than the consumption
side of the economy, it puts businesses at a disadvantage in the
production of goods when competing both nationally as well as
internationally.

As a point of interest, Oregon is the only state I know of the has a
law to PROHIBIT citizens from pumping their own gas when they go to
fill up their car or truck. I doubt the lawmakers believe the citizens
of Oregon are too stupid to know how to fill their own vehicles, but
rather see such a law as a means to employee more people. Of course
when you make laws to create unnecessary jobs (make work jobs) you
again raise costs and lower productivity. Fuel was 30 cents a gallon
more expensive than Oklahoma. Not all of that increased cost is
because of the labor involved, as I would guess the state fuel fee
(tax) is probably higher than the 17 cents per gallon we pay in
Oklahoma.

Oregon also has a state minimum wage law which at about $8.65 per
hour, is a dollar or more higher than the national average. What kind
of effect does that have on the citizens? While in New Mexico and
Kansas we stopped at a Dairy Queen and I had a mushroom and swiss
burger at $3.35 in each place. However, the same burger cost $4.35 at
a Dairy Queen in Oregon. That higher minimum wage requirement causes
any thing produced or any service effected by employees paid a minimum
wage to cost more and thus raises the cost of living and the cost of
products produced there. That is bad for the economy, increases
unemployment and again causes Oregon businesses to be less competitive
on a national and international basis.

Another area of concern is zoning. Every square inch of Oregon is
zoned except land which is owned by the State or Federal governments.
This is an excessive amount of fascism which really robs people’s
liberty. As an example, when our niece and husband were first married
they wanted to purchase a mobile home and move it on to my brother and
sister in law’s 80 acre farm. However, it was not zoned for multi-
family uses so they were denied. Where was the farm? Five miles
outside of a small town of 600 people and 30 miles from Klamath Falls,
a city about the same size of Enid. The farm was on the side of a
mountain on a seldom traveled road, but not zoned for multi-family
dwellings?

Some of these little things add up and make a beautiful place that
would normally be a great place to live and prosper, a little more
difficult to succeed. On a bright note. I was able to attend and speak
at the weekly tea party meeting in Klamath Falls. They had about 75 in
attendance and they meet every Tuesday. I was very well received and
they cleaned me out of the bag of books and DVDs I took on the trip.
They seemed like solid patriots and are currently going through the
5000 year leap, studying the 28 principles necessary for liberty. They
had successfully elected their candidate for a county commissioner
seat, a gentleman who was already familiar with the book THE LAW by
Frederick Bastiat and the Davy Crockett story titled, NOT YOUR’S TO
GIVE.

++ BIG BROTHER - AN ATTITUDE - AN ENEMY OF LIBERTY

A week ago Sunday, State Representatives Richard Morrissette (D-South
OKC) and Colby Swartz (R-Yukon) were doing their dog and pony show on
Channel 9, usually before most people have to leave for church. With
the recent death and destruction done by the tornados, the question
was asked if government should require citizens to install storm
shelters or safe rooms?

Thankfully, Colby Swartz said it should not be a requirement, but the
big mouth Morrissette, saw it differently. He was all for such
requirements and pointed back to how many lives have been saved as a
result of government requiring people to wear seat belts.

No doubt in my mind that lives have been saved as a result of people
wearing seat belts in vehicles, or helmets when riding motorcycles.
However, the real question is, do we want government acting like our
big brother and requiring such? If government can determine what is
good for us and what is not and then use it’s power of the sword to
require certain behaviors from us, where does it stop? Who knows, as
it is an attitude, a mind set that government should get out of its
proper roll of protecting one person from the harmful actions of
others to the roll of protecting us from ourselves.

If people accept the attitude that it is ok for government to make
laws on behavior other than clearly moral issues such as prostitution,
drugs and etc, then you have government telling us what activities are
good and what is bad, what to eat and how much to eat and the list can
go on and on. Next might be a prohibition on rodeo activities, skate
boarding, hang gliding, snow skiing and other sports that have a high
degree of danger.

Recently law enforcement agencies announced through an article in the
paper that there would be an all out push over the Memorial day
weekend to ticket people who weren’t wearing their seat belts. The
article indicated Oklahomans now have a higher compliance with seat
belt laws than the national average, but that wasn’t good enough. The
article included an interview with Governor Fallin, who extolled the
virtues of our ranking, but then went on to say we’ve got more to do
on this issue. How sad to see a Republican, pushing for more big
brother compliance with such laws.

How did we get to this place with seat belt laws and who was pushing
for such? None other than the federal government. At some point in
time (probably in the 70s) the federal government MANDATED auto makers
install seat belts in autos, then eventually trucks. Then in the early
80’s the federal government declared that if 75 percent of the states
were to pass mandatory seat belt laws, they would not mandate auto
makers having to install air bags in autos. Oklahoma quickly complied
with the mandate for autos only, folks in pick-ups didn’t have to wear
seat belts and there was no fine for people in cars not wearing them.
It was also not a primary offence, meaning law enforcement could not
stop you for not wearing a seat belt. It was only to be a secondary
offence.
Other states quickly complied with the feds and the goal of over 75
percent of the states was quickly reached. Of course that didn’t
matter to the feds as they soon mandated autos be equipped with air
bags. 1995 was the last year pickups were made before air bags were
mandated in them.

In 1990 Oklahoma expanded its mandatory seat belt laws to also include
pickups and trucks. Next came a $20 fine and then eventually the law
was changed for non-compliance to become a primary offence, meaning
you could be stopped for not wearing a seat belt.

Please DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND ME, this is not a debate about whether or
not a person is safer wearing seat belts or riding a motorcycle with a
helmet, THEY ARE. The debate is about government forcing us to do so.
If you believe that is ok, then you believe in fascism and you believe
in stateism. When our founding father pledged their fortunes, the
lives and their sacred honor, to throw off the shackles of England,
they didn’t do so to eventually see our government become much more
oppressive than England. They sacrificed all they had for LIBERTY.

We should respect that and not develop an attitude that big brother
can make laws to protect us from ourselves. If not, get your pocket
books out, for you will soon be forced to install storm shelters in
your homes and places of business, and next will be sprinkler systems
in your homes and the list will go on and on from there because there
will always be some bureaucrat sitting around trying to think of new
ways to make people safer from themselves.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com