"I Cry When I Think Back How Things Used To Be" – What Has Happened To The America We Grew Up In?

Earlier today, my attention was directed to a thread on an Internet discussion forum that lamented how much America had changed over the years. I don’t know exactly why, but the posts on that thread really touched me.

Those of us that are old enough to remember what America was like before the Internet grew up in a much simpler time. Yes, we didn’t have all of the luxuries that we take for granted in 2019, but we found joy in the simple things and people were generally much happier. Today, we seemingly have so much going for us, and yet people are lonelier, more disconnected and more depressed than ever before. The suicide rate in the United States is up 34 percent since the year 2000, approximately 40 million American adults have an anxiety disorder, and overdosing on drugs is now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. Clearly our society is not heading in the right direction.

So that probably explains why a thread entitled “I Cry When I Think Back How Things Used To Be” got my attention so much. This is what the author of the thread posted…

I can never go back to my early days growing up on the farm. Had time to enjoy each day, the warm sun the hay in the barn. Even with all the work there was to be done. Eating an apple off the tree, taking a long drink from the cool spring. Working the garden…..What the hell happened.

In just five sentences, this individual captured what so many of us have been feeling.

Of course most of us didn’t grow up on a farm. I certainly didn’t. But without a doubt there are lots of people out there that are saddened by the contrast between what America used to be and what America is today.

Another person that grew up near Boston also shared memories of simpler days…

me too..

only it was just suburbs Boston.

actually, just sitting and talking with neighbors, drinking lemonade in summer as Boston is insanely humid then..

or even more recently, in Wisconsin.. listening to thunderstorms roll in.. the state is so flat you can see these beautiful storms for miles…

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-03/i-cry-when-i-think-back-how-things-used-be-what-has-happened-america-we-grew

GOP senator calls for third-party audit of Twitter's suspension policies

"It is time for Twitter to prove it is truly committed to free speech."

Madden

In response to Twitter's suspension of the pro-life film, "Unplanned," on opening weekend, a Republican senator has called for a third-party investigation of the company's social media policies.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday asking the Silicon Valley executive to have an outside party review how the company decides which content and accounts are removed from the platform.

Full text of the letter was sent out in a news release Wednesday afternoon:

Those who exercise their First Amendment right to advocate for the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, regardless of size or age, are used to biased treatment from big corporations," Hawley writes. "But platform companies like Twitter are supposed to rise above that partisan nonsense."

Twitter suspended the official account for the movie — "Unplanned," which chronicles the life of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who became pro-life after witnessing an abortion firsthand – without notice. The account was later reinstated and garnered more followers than Planned Parenthood's.

The letter adds that Congress has currently given Twitter and other social media companies a "sweetheart deal" when it comes to regulation, granting them immunity from legal ramifications of content posted by third parties, so long as tech companies provide "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse" under section 230 of Title 47 of federal regulations.

"Yet your company has repeatedly abused that privilege," Hawley writes. "You often refuse to allow pro-life organizations to purchase ads because you deem it 'inflammatory' when these groups advocate for the right to life, but you allow those on the other side to advocate for late-term abortion—a practice opposed by more than 80 percent of Americans."

The letter also stresses the importance of such an audit being performed by an external third party because internal "audit would be inherently biased," citing Dorsey's own 2018 admission that the company has a "more left-leaning" bias.

"I am rapidly losing confidence that Twitter is committed to the free speech principles that justify immunity under section 230," the letter says. "It is time for Twitter to prove it is truly committed to free speech: conduct a third-party audit and release the results to the public, in full."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/hawley-twitter-audit-suspension-policy

>>6036398

>I’m Creepy Uncle Joe Biden and I approve this massage.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

this should be on the meme

>>6036419

NOTABLE

Brexit negotiations are a stale tactic to make the vote void.

Sneaky fuckers!

>>6036444

Trips of truth

Silenced!

On January 10, 2008, the Federal District Court in Chicago issued a permanent injunction against Bill Benson on the grounds that by offering information demonstrating that the 16th Amendment was not legally ratified, he was promoting an abusive tax shelter. The Court then refused to look at the government-certified documentary evidence, deciding instead that the facts necessary to prove his statements true were "irrelevant."

What has America come to when the government we created to protect our rights can accuse us of lying and then prohibit us from presenting a defense in a court of law?

https://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/

>>6036491

==HOW SOME STATES DID NOT LEGALLY

RATIFY THE 16TH AMENDMENT==

Bill Benson's findings, published in "The Law That Never Was," make a convincing case that the 16th amendment was not legally ratified and that Secretary of State Philander Knox was not merely in error, but committed fraud when he declared it ratified in February 1913. What follows is a summary of some of the major findings for many of the states, showing that their ratifications were not legal and should not have been counted.

The 16th amendment had been sent out in 1909 to the state governors for ratification by the state legislatures after having been passed by Congress. There were 48 states at that time, and three-fourths, or 36, of them were required to give their approval in order for it to be ratified. The process took almost the whole term of the Taft administration, from 1909 to 1913.

Knox had received responses from 42 states when he declared the 16th amendment ratified on February 25, 1913, just a few days before leaving office to make way for the administration of Woodrow Wilson. Knox acknowledged that four of those states (Utah, Conn, R.I. and N.H.) had rejected it, and he counted 38 states as having approved it. We will now examine some of the key evidence Bill Benson found regarding the approval of the amendment in many of those states.

In Kentucky, the legislature acted on the amendment without even having received it from the governor (the governor of each state was to transmit the proposed amendment to the state legislature). The version of the amendment that the Kentucky legislature made up and acted upon omitted the words "on income" from the text, so they weren't even voting on an income tax! When they straightened that out (with the help of the governor), the Kentucky senate rejected the amendment. Yet Philander Knox counted Kentucky as approving it!

In Oklahoma, the legislature changed the wording of the amendment so that its meaning was virtually the opposite of what was intended by Congress, and this was the version they sent back to Knox. Yet Knox counted Oklahoma as approving it, despite a memo from his chief legal counsel, Reuben Clark, that states were not allowed to change it in any way.

Attorneys who have studied the subject have agreed that Kentucky and Oklahoma should not have been counted as approvals by Philander Knox, and, moreover, if any state could be shown to have violated its own state constitution or laws in its approval process, then that state's approval would have to be thrown out. That gets us past the "presumptive conclusion" argument, which says that the actions of an executive official cannot be judged by a court, and admits that Knox could be wrong.

If we subtract Kentucky and Oklahoma from the 38 approvals above, the count of valid approvals falls to 36, the exact number needed for ratification. If any more states can be shown to have had invalid approvals, the 16th amendment must be regarded as null and void.

The state constitution of Tennessee prohibited the state legislature from acting on any proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution sent by Congress until after the next election of state legislators. The intent, of course, is to give the proposed amendment a chance to become an issue in the state legislative elections so that the people can have a voice in determining the outcome. It also provides a cooling off period to reduce the tendency to approve an idea just because it happens to be the moment's trend. You've probably already guessed that the Tennessee legislature did not hold off on voting for the amendment until after the next election, and you'd be right - they didn't; hence, they acted upon it illegally before they were authorized to do so. They also violated their own state constitution by failing to read the resolution on three different days as prescribed by Article II, Section 18. These state constitutional violations make their approval of the amendment null and void. Their approval is and was invalid, and it brings the number of approving states down to 35, one less than required for ratification.

https://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm

America: Freedom to Fascism (FL)

DOJ Probe: Violence, Sexual Abuse Occur in Alabama Prisons on ‘Regular Basis'

The Justice Department released a detailed report on Wednesday, revealing that men in Alabama prisons are exposed to horrific violence and sexual abuse "on a regular basis," which gives reasonable cause to believe that prisoners' Constitutional rights are being violated.

Officials are arguing that the conditions in the state's prisons likely violate the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Federal investigators first began looking into the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) in October 2016, focusing their attention on whether or not prisoners there are protected from physical and sexual abuse at the hands of other prisoners, if prisoners are protected from use of excessive force and sexual abuse by correctional officers and if the ADOC provides prisoners with "sanitary, secure, and safe living conditions."

Throughout the more than two-year-long investigation, officials conducted visits to Alabama prisons in Donaldson, Bibb, Draper and Holman, among others. Approximately 55 ADOC staff members, including wardens, deputy wardens, captains, medical staff, mental health staff and maintenance managers, were interviewed, as were 270 prisoners.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201904041073807489-violence-sexual-abuse-alabama-prisons-regular-basis-doj-investigation/

Alabama Prison Report by DOJ

https://www.scribd.com/document/404271019/Alabama-Prison-Report-by-DOJ#from_embed