Sibby Online

From a republic to a mild democracy, from an extreme democracy into a tyranny, the path public education & Obama is taking us

Just another reason why Ellis Washington is my favorite columnist:

Chapter 3 of Dr. Benjamin Wiker's book, "10 Books Every Conservative Must Read," has an excellent treatment of C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man," which is divided into three parts, each representing a chapter: "Men without Chests," "The Way" and "The Abolition of Man." Lewis' subtitle was "How Education Develops Man's Sense of Morality," but Wiker cites an alternative subtitle: "An Inquiry into the Heart of Modern Liberalism."

The thesis of Lewis' work addresses the modern attempt to completely master nature, an effort, Lewis warns, that will end in the subjection of human nature itself to total technological manipulation and exploitation, a tyranny of the minority over the masses of mankind – thus the end of conservatism, the end of liberalism … the abolition of man.

According to Lewis, modern liberalism seeks to "remove all limits to the human will" or, in the words Aristotle used to define "democracy," to liberate man from any natural limits on his desires, allowing everyone "to live as he wants toward whatever end he happens to crave."

Wiker quotes Lewis: "The natural trend in a democracy where everyone aims to live as he wants is for politicians to promise more and more to fulfill the multitude of incompatible desires of the populace. To meet these promises, they print reams of money and borrow in epic proportions. As the system becomes unstable and begins to collapse, the people call for a leader to bring them out of this crisis." This societal crisis inevitably leads to a concentration of more and more power in government, which over time has devolved from a republic to a mild democracy, from an extreme democracy into a tyranny.

Men without Chests

The first section of the book, "Men without Chests," cites "The Green Book," a grammar book by Gaius and Titius, which are pseudonyms for the actual authors. Their premise is rooted in analytical philosophy, liberalism and moral relativism and states "that when we think we're saying something true about reality, we are only describing our own subjective feelings." This extreme relativism amounts to a form of suicide of thought these writers "use to kill the childlike faith in reason, and in doing so, slay what is essentially human, our rationality" – our desire to know.

Lewis answers this relativism by restating that the question is not what feelings someone generally has, or the origins of these feelings, but what feelings he should have.

To put modern liberalism in its proper historical context, Wiker takes us back to the English Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes, like many of his generation, was permanently scarred by the horrors of the political-religious Thirty Years' War (1618-48). Hobbes was the first modern thinker to systematically attack the notion that there is any natural, moral order. He argued that the words "good" and "evil" are merely descriptions of our own individual likes and dislikes. Hobbes was thus the father of modern relativism and modern liberalism. It was Hobbes who first gave us men without chests. Connecting Hobbes to Lewis, Wiker further states:

They cut off the top of man, the part of him that rises above his animal nature, and leave only his animal feelings. In doing so, they obviously hack out the fullness of human nature as Voegelin outlined it, body, soul intellect, spirit, leaving only the feelings of the body as the highest reality. … In pressing for skepticism … they allow for transcendence as long as no one can be either right or wrong about God; hence they allow for a vague Spiritualism as having the status of one more subjective feeling. …

The Way

"The Way" is Part 2 of Lewis' work, which can also be defined as "Natural Law" or traditional morality, or as the Chinese refers to it, the Tao. It defines and supports "the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan and the Jew." Moral standards = natural standards to which we must to obey for our own good.

To counter Gaius and Titius' point that public education must become indoctrination, Lewis stresses that good education denotes moral lessons, and in an earlier age teachers taught students that there was an objective moral order, a transcendent reality, a natural law, if you will, to which students were trained to adhere, a reality that was contained in human nature itself and written into the very foundations of the universe, a reality that we had fallen from but nevertheless must always seek to obey.

The Abolition of Man

In Part 3, "The Abolition of Man," Lewis postulates that "once we regard man as having come about accidentally, that is, by evolution in a godless universe, then human nature itself is taken to be impermanent and hence infinitely malleable." What Voegelin called "Gnosticism," this new liberalism or utopian socialism is achieved by a combination of moral relativism and technical power – "Should we do this?" (which assumes that there is a moral order) is replaced by "How can we do this?" Issues of morality are considered outdated in the evolutionary progress of mankind as demonstrated by his godlike feats of technical power to violate all natural laws, biblical principles and hence moral restraints.

Progressives and liberal have long realized that to achieve the abolition of man, society must dispense with Natural Law, objective morality, the republic and God. Only then can state power be used by these utopian socialists as a means to transform the world and human nature with it. Enter President Barack Obama, a utopian socialist who frequently and arrogantly proclaims that he will "fundamentally transform America."

In modern political terms, the seminal question the voters should have asked themselves in November 2008 was: Obama wants to fundamentally transform American into what? Now it may be forever too late to prevent the abolition of man; to redeem ourselves away from Obama's soft tyranny and into a republic again.

Why Herseth Sandlin is sensitive about Obama's stimulus

During Saturday's Corn Palace debate between incumbent Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and challenger Kristi Noem, Herseth Sandlin was visibly upset when Noem challenged her on the stimulus package. Here is why:

Recent reports from the Federal Reserve, the Labor Department , and the Commerce Department clearly and demonstratively show that the Obama Administration’s policies have not succeeded – indeed they have failed in ways that are clear and unambiguous.

The Obama administration’s policies and programs are not producing real, long lasting results, and there has been no real growth.

Put another way, an unprecedented degree of federal government spending and intervention vis-à-vis the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package, the $81 billion dollar bailouts of GM and Chrysler, and the enactment of health care and financial regulatory and reform bills have done nothing to stimulate our anemic recovery and have fundamentally failed at creating private sector jobs, or generating economic growth necessary for a sustainable, healthy recovery.

The net result of Obama's failed policies is that consumers are reluctant to spend, entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest, and employers are reluctant to hire to the degree necessary to spur economic growth.

Mitchell superintendent attacks the latest federal spending bill for education

Joe Graves, Mitchell's superintendent of schools, blasts the latest 26 billion spending coming out of DC:

Last spring when Congress began seriously discussing the $26 billion Medicaid/school assistance or bailout bill, every superintendent in the country began receiving excited e-mails from national educational lobbyists asking us to contact our senators and representatives. I actually read the first one and then deleted it. The rest never saw the digital light of day before suffering the same, quicker, fate.

“It’s absurd,” I told myself. With the national debt and annual deficit growing like this summer’s grass, Congress wasn’t about to approve another prohibitively expensive stopgap measure giving schools $10 billion to stop cutting teaching positions which wouldn’t work in any case. Don Quixote wouldn’t tilt at that windmill.

And, of course, I was wrong, not about the idiocy of such legislation but about its chances for success. It passed and the people in Washington who do such things drafted flexible rules for the spending so that it could quickly find its way to the states. Before continuing, in the interests of disclosure, allow me to state upfront that I am not a Keynesian and thus do not believe government can spend an economy out of a recession. Thus, I think the underpinnings of this bill were wrongheaded.

But it isn’t just this that makes this bill a mistake. It includes such other well-understood critiques as:

1. Federal monies come with strings and education will soon be saddled with more inefficient, ineffective and even silly federal rules.

2. Federal dollars come from local sources and spending decisions at the federal level are not only less appropriate than local ones, they also suffer from a portion of the spending stream being diverted from the purpose of the spending into government bureaucracy and overhead.

3. The national debt load that results from such spending will be a long-term drag on the economy and mean less net dollars in the long run as future dollars are used, not for legitimate public purpose, but rather to pay interest on past loans.

There is, however, still one other error made in this legislation that overwhelms pretty much all of this. It won’t work. It won’t have the intended effect.

The point of the $10 billion was to prevent the cutting of teaching positions. Had Congress passed the bill in, say, March and had the money traveled quickly to states and local school districts, schools might have decided they could at least have delayed some cuts until next year. But this bill was passed in August, 4 or 5 months too late for most schools to do much about their cuts. School has begun or will soon do so, schedules are made, all the engines of school logistics are set in motion and the chance these dollars will change much of that is minuscule. Even in those few cases where it does make a difference, these teachers will keep their jobs for one more year and then lose them next spring when all the federal bailout money finally runs out.

And even this is probably too rosy a scenario. What could also happen is the state governments, as South Dakota has done, accept the money and apply it to the state aid they are already giving the schools, since they are in deficit, meaning virtually no immediate impact on the schools.

Oddly enough, in this world resembling more an Escher painting than one from the School of Realism, what the state has done makes pretty good sense. The Feds pour borrowed money on the states. If the states don’t accept that money, it is just redistributed to other states and thus the Feds can’t even be partially dissuaded from their profligate ways.

So the state accepts the dollars and has at least two choices: channel the funds immediately to the schools or use them to reduce the state deficit. Given the fact that it is August, most schools would simply use the dollars to reduce their own current deficits. In either case, the purpose of the bill — not cutting teaching positions — is unattained.

Are you ready to fight for religious liberty for South Dakotans?

Here is an editorial I wrote for yesterday's Mitchell Daily Republic:

I want to thank Bob Duffett for his well-researched guest editorial regarding the mosque controversy. But I have to take issue with his conclusion “that America is still the home of the brave and religiously free.”

Duffett mentioned Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists that points to the “wall of separation between church and state” that was built by the First Amendment. And Duffett correctly quoted the First Amendment’s beginning as saying, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof.” Note that the restriction was on “Congress,” and that there are two components, the “Establishment Clause” and the “Free Exercise Clause.” Keep that in mind as I bring forward the Baptist’s deep concerns that are lost in today’s discussion of religious liberty.

Duffett was also correct in saying that, “[b]oth Jefferson and Madison rejected the English pattern of a tax-supported state church…” I would like to add that Madison was on Virginia’s Committee of Religion who was drafting Virginia’s Bill of Rights shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There we find the details behind the Baptist’s concerns.

The committee received a petition from Prince Edward County that states “you would pull down all Church establishments [and] abolish every Tax upon Conscience and private judgment.” According to Michael Farris, in his book “From Tyndale to Madison,” the Baptists of Prince William County “requested full liberty to worship without interruption, freedom from religious taxes so they might be able to support their own ministers only…” They also referred to Madison’s Declaration of Rights that included, “by taxation, their property hath been wrested from them and given to those from whom they receive no equivalent…”

So even though the Baptists were allowed free exercise, they did not have total religious liberty because they paid a tax to the state that supported the Church of England exclusively. That was why the First Amendment needed the Establishment clause in order to ensure religious liberty. America was intended to be inclusive for all, and not exclusive to one.

In America today, we all pay an education tax that funds state supported public education. For those who disagree with the humanist religious doctrines that preach Darwin’s evolution theory as established fact, and reject the Christian creationism, we can educate our children at home and in private schools. So, like the colonial Baptists, we do have “free exercise,” but because our tax dollars do not follow the parent’s choice of education, we lack religious liberty because our property is “wrested” from us and used by the state to establish the religion of humanism in the state supported schools. This is not just and is clearly unconstitutional as it violates a core requirement of religious liberty. State supported education should not be exclusive to one religion, but instead inclusive for all religions.

The more recent Supreme Court definition of religion includes non-theistic religions when they rule on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, but exclude nontheistic religion when they rule on the Establishment Clause. This inconsistent application of the First Amendment is how the courts have removed religious liberty in America today.

And further, since the First Amendment restricts “Congress,” the federal government should not stop the building of the mosque at Ground Zero, but the state of New York could. Unfortunately the modern day version of the Supreme Court has violated the 10th Amendment by using the 14th Amendment to incorrectly apply the First Amendment restrictions to state legislatures, including South Dakota’s. America is far from enjoying religious liberty today, as states’ rights have been compromised.

I will fight tooth and nail to restore religious liberty in South Dakota. I have a threeyear plan to do just that. I invite Bob Duffett, the president of a private Christian college, to join in that fight, along with all liberty loving citizens of Davison and Aurora counties. Let us do more than just give lip service to religious liberty.

Steven “Sibby” Sibson is a Mitchell resident who writes a political blog.

The problem is that GDP counts government spending as economic growth

Vox Day explains that there can be no double-dip recession, since there was no recovery in the first place:

Self-serving economists in the financial media always like to pretend after the fact that no one can reasonably foresee economic catastrophe on the horizon. But the reality is that it is usually quite obvious if you know what to look for. For example, the seeds of the financial crisis of September 2008 were already apparent to practically everyone who was paying attention in March of that year. In like manner, it has been clear from the start that if the two financial stimulus plans of 2008 and 2009 were not successful in kick-starting the American economy, it would finally have to be admitted that the country is locked in a severe state of economic contraction that is most accurately described as a depression.

First of all, it is important to understand that there is no recovery. This will surprise those who make the mistake of taking the media at its word because the Business Cycle Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research has resolutely declined to declare an end to the 2008-2009 recession to this day. This is why all the recent talk about a "double-dip" recession is absurd. It is so absurd that anyone who now uses the term in an unironic manner should not be taken seriously as an economic commentator.

The only reason that there was even an illusion of a recovery is due to the use of GDP as a proxy for economic growth. The problem is that GDP counts government spending as economic growth, so therefore the stimulus plans have added around $1 trillion in statistical growth. Now, federal numbers never add up when one government report (in this case the budget) is compared to another one (the BEA's GDP), otherwise the U.S. economy would have enjoyed 7 percent growth on the basis of the stimulus packages alone. Even if we accept the BEA's lesser number of 2.4 percent growth in the second quarter of 2010, though, it is clear that the economy will be seen as contracting even by the government measures once the stimulus money runs out. And despite its best efforts, Washington will soon learn that paying bureaucrats to shuffle paper and harass the citizenry does not generate economic growth.

Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade. Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Religion was the handmaiden of freedom, not its adversary

Star Parker is saddened that America has lost Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that includes Christian truths:

Today, we commonly view freedom as exclusively in the arena of politics, separate and apart from – for some the antithesis of – religion.

Reading Dr. King's words, we can appreciate that for him religion was the handmaiden of freedom, not its adversary.

King said that his dream was "deeply rooted in the American dream," and he quoted Isaiah, saying "… the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. …"

"This will be a day when all of God's children," he said, "will sing with new meaning, 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.' …"

It is reported that when King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, it was suggested to him that he drop the "Christian" label, for fear that it might alienate northern liberals. He refused.

By one report, King said at one point, "In all too many northern communities a sort of quasi-liberalism prevails, so bent on seeing all sides that it fails to become dedicated to any side."

The moral relativism that concerned Dr. King then has come to define civil rights today and has widely captured popular perceptions among Americans about what freedom means.

The sense of freedom as the pursuit of godly ideals has given way to a sense that freedom is about meaninglessness and acceptance and legitimization of all possibilities. The idea that the need for freedom flows from humility that no single man can grasp truth in its totality has given way to a conviction that there is no truth at all.

Just listen to the dialogue in the Ground Zero mosque controversy. For liberals, there is only one American ideal that is relevant – religious freedom. Their love affair with openness as an end in itself dismisses any possibility that Islam, as widely understood and practiced by its own adherents, may promote values in conflict with ours.

It's little wonder that the public is so confused about the religious affiliation and values of our president.

One day he will plead for the rights of women to abort their children, or for legitimization of all imaginable lifestyles, and the next day he'll plead for acceptance of a religion in which people are still stoned for this very same behavior.

The same Pew survey reporting that 43 percent of Americans "don't know" President Obama's religion reports that only 26 percent see the Democratic Party he leads as "friendly" to religion.

When the party in power and its leader, our president, see redemption in government programs and politics, it's no wonder Americans are confused.

At the heart of the turmoil in our country today is a struggle to grasp again what freedom really means, and the place in this struggle for traditional, moral truths that we all accept.

Obama's rotten fruit

Dave Welch provides a Christian based analysis of Obama's policies:

Neither I, you nor anyone is in complete position to be the judge of whether Obama has received Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, the starting point for the identity of "Christian." That is the business of God our Father Who knows the difference between Christians In Name Only and "devout Christians."

We are, however, commanded to be fruit inspectors, with our directions as follows:

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.

– John 7:15-20, NASB

If Obama's politics reflect his faith, his fruit is rotten by the very standards of the faith he professes.

Does a "devout" or "committed" Christian reflect the following values?

• The most radically pro-abortion record of any U.S. senator or president in our history
• The most radical pro-sexual deviancy record of any president in his policy and appointments
• Intimate knowledge of and participation in Islamic worship practices
• Lies and deception used as tools to further his agenda
• Embracement of Marxist economic and political practices

No. Furthermore, pastors like Hunter and Caldwell who serve as spiritual lapdogs to Obama are even more culpable for giving him cover. They are much like the clergy of Hitlerian Germany and the "Positive Christianity" that represented complete acquiescence to and control by the Nazi state.

Both Parties grow government

Been saying for a while now that both political parties want to grow government. Their only fight is over whose special interests get a bigger cut of the growth. Walter E. Williams also understands that truth:

Democratic control of the White House, House of Representatives and the Senate has produced an unprecedented level of political brazenness and contempt for the limitations placed on the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. As such, it has raised a level of constitutional interest and anger against Washington's interference in our lives that has been dormant for far too long.

Part of this heightened interest and anger is seen in the strength of the tea-party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen receive when they return to their districts and at town-hall meetings. According to the most recent Gallup poll, only 20 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, but that's up from a March 2010 low of 16 percent.

The smart money suggests that there will be a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. The question is, what can liberty-minded Americans expect from a Republican majority? Maybe a good starting point for an answer might be to examine how Republicans have handled their majority in the past.

Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's term of office saw massive increases in federal spending. When Johnson was elected into office in 1964, federal spending was $118 billion. When he left office in 1968, federal spending was $178 billion, a 66 percent increase. Worse than the massive increase in federal spending, his administration and Democratically controlled Congress saddled us with two programs that have helped fuel today's fiscal disaster – Medicare and Medicaid.

The 1994 elections gave Republican control of both the House and Senate. They held a majority for a decade. The 2000 election of George W. Bush as president gave Republicans what the Democrats have now, total control of the legislative and executive branches of government. When Bush came to office, federal spending was $1.788 trillion. When he left office, federal spending was $2.982 trillion. That's a 60 percent increase in federal spending, closely matching the profligacy of Lyndon Johnson's presidency.

During the Republican control, the nation was saddled with massive federal interference in education through No Child Left Behind. Prescription drug handouts became a part of the Republican-controlled Congress' legacy. And it was during this interval that Congress accelerated its interference, assisted by the Federal Reserve Bank, in the housing market in the name of homeownership that produced much of the financial meltdown the nation suffered in 2008.

During the last two years, Democrats have amassed unprecedented growth of federal government power in the forms of bailouts, corporate takeovers, favors to their political allies and nationalization of our health-care system. My question is, how likely is it for Republicans to behave differently if they gain control? Their past behavior doesn't make one confident that they will behave much differently, but I could be wrong.

If Republicans win the House of Representatives, there are measures they should take in their first month of office, and that is to undo most of what the Democratically controlled Congress has done. If they don't win a veto-proof Senate, they can't undo Obamacare, but the House alone can refuse to fund any part of it. There are numerous blocking tactics that a Republican-controlled House can take against those hell-bent on trampling on our Constitution. The question is whether they will have guts and principle to do it. After all, many Americans, including those who are Republicans, have a stake in big-government control, special privileges and handouts.

Ultimately, we Americans must act to ensure that our liberty does not depend on personalities in Washington. Our founders tried to do that with our Constitution. Thomas Jefferson offered us a solution when he said, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then."

The new feminist gestapo

Phyllis Schlafly:

The vehicle for this latest pandering to the feminist left is the International Violence Against Women Act, called I-VAWA (S.2982 and H.R.4594). The lead sponsors are Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer.

The bill broadly defines violence against women to include nonviolent "psychological harm," "intimidation at work" and "psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the government of the country in which the victim is a resident." Naturally, lots of taxpayers' money will be needed for so awesome a task, so the bill authorizes $1 billion over five years.

The global reach of this new czar's activities opens the door for Obama's feminist constituency to dictate to other countries. The bill calls for a "comprehensive, five-year international strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls internationally" and to set up "gender-integrated, comprehensive and holistic" plans in 20 countries.

This new feminist gestapo will support the "development and enforcement of civil and criminal legal and judicial sanctions, protections, trainings and capacity." And there's more: The bill authorizes U.S. money to be spent to develop "programs affecting social norms, community attitudes, and male and female participation in violence and response to victims."

The feminist movement in the United States has never been only about changing laws alleged to be discriminatory. Feminists yearn to dictate norms and attitudes, too.

I-VAWA will provide "legal services for women," but not for men. According to the practice of our domestic Violence Against Women Act, which has been functioning in the United States since 1994, "legal services" are not just legal defense but also aggressive legal troublemaking, such as getting a restraining order to kick the husband out of the house.

One important section of I-VAWA assures that the feminist left controls the flow of taxpayer money. Section 112 provides for grants to "Women's Nongovernmental Organizations and Community-Based Organizations."

It's a no-brainer to predict what kinds of "organizations" will be eligible for those grants. You can be sure that non-feminist organizations will not be on any approved list of grantees.

I-VAWA requires the State Department to "prepare a public report on best practices for preventing and addressing violence against women and girls internationally." The feminist left has always been skillful and experienced in preventing grant money ever to go to any group or individual who might unearth scientific or statistical evidence contrary to feminist ideology.

Feminist orthodoxy teaches that there are no innate differences between males and females, with one exception. Men are naturally batterers and women are naturally victims.

Sibson family portray corporate Industrial capitalists using government to take away land rights

The picture is from CNN:

My previous postpoints to radical environmentalists who seek to use the force of government to take away private land rights. Now my brother is featured in a CNN report that details how industrial capitalists use the force of government to take away private land rights:

For three decades, Mike and Sue Sibson expected the normal ups and downs that come with working a South Dakota farm and raising two kids. But when circumstances forced the Sibsons to let an oil pipeline bisect their property in 2009, it darkened their view of the American dream.

"I don't feel as free as I used to be," says Mike Sibson. "I don't trust anybody anymore."

In 2006, oil pipeline operators knocked on the Sibsons' door and began talks aimed at burying a 1.25-mile long, 30-inch wide steel pipeline four feet under the middle of their Miner County farm. The Sibsons said they didn't want it, but the pipeline operator, TransCanada, claimed eminent domain. That left the Sibsons and many of the neighbors with little choice but to allow construction.

Although TransCanada paid the Sibsons an undisclosed sum in a sealed settlement to use the land, "It's really not about the money," said Mike Sibson. "It's actually about how they can come in and take your land and do whatever the heck they want with it."

Ever since, the Sibsons say they've worried about leaks from the underground river of crude flowing about a quarter mile from their farmhouse. The pipeline, say company officials, is outfitted with a constantly monitored safety system featuring state-of-the-art technology and an emergency response plan.

"We raise cattle on grass," said Sue Sibson. "Our livelihood is that grass out there, and if that gets ruined, we're out of business."

Some experts fear two issues that were blamed for the Gulf tragedy -- spotty government oversight and emergency response -- could result in a disastrous spill somewhere along America's approximately 170,000 miles of oil pipelines.

In May and then again in June, TransCanada reported small oil leaks at two pumping stations near the Sibson farm -- one less than two miles up the pipeline. Mike Sibson complains that TransCanada should have alerted his family about the incidents. "I might be the first one to spot a leak because I can't depend on them to get the job done."

"No sense in alarming them," said TransCanada Vice President Robert Jones. "There was no concern with regard to the environment or public safety with these very, very small, isolated incidents."

And oddly enough, environmental extremists, like Cory Heidelberger who promote the governmental taking away of private land rights for their cause, argue for those rights to further their agenda that is in opposition to the use of oil and gas:

The Gulf disaster and then Michigan's 800,000-gallon pipeline oil spillin July has put the pipeline industry under a microscope and placed more pressure on TransCanada during a critical time.

The Calgary-based company is seeking U.S. permission to build a new oil pipeline stretching from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast more than 1,600 miles to the south.

The project is billed as an "energy security" project aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on Mideast crude. Environmental groups have mounted a campaign against the project, which TransCanada has named Keystone XL.

But there is a real environmental reason to why the Keystone pipeline project poses an even worse risk than the gulf oil incident:

Oil pumped through Keystone XL would come from Canada's fuel-rich sand, which produces what the Natural Resources Defense Council calls "some of the dirtiest, most destructive oil on the face of the Earth." They say processing the fuel involves strip mining valuable forests and burning it yields more pollution than other kinds of oil.

The Environmental Protection Agency is recommending that the State Department, which will ultimately approve or deny the project, assess the implications of committing to a "relatively high carbon source of oil."

Also, the NRDC warns that the pipeline would threaten one of America's largest underground sources of fresh water, the 175,000-square-mile High Plains Aquifer. It provides water to 1.9 million people and irrigation for thousands of square miles of farmland throughout eight states.

"If there was to be a spill that would contaminate that aquifer, we would be looking at a disaster in terms of livelihoods and ecosystems of the magnitude of the Gulf oil spill," said the NRDC's Susan Casey-Lefkowitz.

The aquifer runs under portions of Nebraska's geologically unique grassy dunes known as Sand Hills, where many bird species rest during migration.

"I would worry about an oil spill in the Sand Hills more than any other area I can think of," said John Gates, an Oxford-trained professor of hydrology at the University of Nebraska.

"The ground is sandy and steep. In a worst-case scenario, oil could easily move from the surface through the sand to the aquifer."

TransCanada is very confident, said Jones, that its safety systems will protect the region's natural resources from the flow of oil.

"We have measures in both design and operations to ensure protection of the aquifer," he said.

Much of the technology protecting the pipeline would be centered at TransCanada's Calgary communications hub, using satellites and land-based backup communication lines to remotely monitor pipeline valves and pumping stations for possible spills, said Jones.

Every five seconds, remote sensors along the pipeline will transmit data via the satellite and land lines measuring conditions inside the pipe, including pressure, temperature and oil-flow speed. Computers are programmed to automatically shut down the pipeline when the data indicates trouble. The system is manned 24/7/365 by operators who can view the entire pipeline network or a single valve or pipe, Jones said.

"The time in which we can isolate those valves from this control center takes about three minutes," Jones said. "Then immediately the operation control center dispatches emergency response personnel to the scene."

Typically a first responder would confirm the spill and assesses whether local emergency officials should secure the scene for public safety, said Jones. The oil is then isolated, cleaned up and any affected soil is remediated. Officials also notify regulators, per federal safety mandates.

But problems with newer pipelines might not pose the largest concern among industry leaders. A bigger threat may be aging pipelines.

Certainly endangering the water we drink is a big risk.

And the "aging of pipelines" points to the a big problem with the government forcing landowners to grant "perpetual" easements. Because they are permanent, future landowners will be stuck with the risk of environmental disaster to their property. And that risk will significantly reduce the resale value of properties that contain pipelines. The report states that the settlement amount to my brother is not known to the public, but the question remains...does it compensate for the loss of value for the entire area of land that can be impacted by the potential hazard? Even as Mike's brother, I was not allowed to be told the answer to that question due to the court settlement agreement. But based on his continued outrage, I can only assume what the answer to that question is.

But the point remains that special interests that support both political parties use the government to take away private land rights. The people need to wake up and stop fighting between ourselves as Democrats versus Republicans. The real fight should be individual liberty versus collectivism fostered by big government.