Rasmussen Reports: “The notion that governments derive their only just authority from the consent of the governed is a foundational principle of the American experiment. However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 23% of voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-two percent (62%) say it does not, and 15% are not sure.”
National Review: “One must wonder what kind of society we have become. In the dismaying-but-not-surprising category of news stories recently, this one in the July 2 New York Times got my attention. It describes how the Obama administration is killing off the summer-internship programs, many of them unpaid, that are so popular with high-school seniors and college students.”
“In 1994, nearly two-thirds of U.S.-born teenagers were in the summer labor force; by 2007 it was less than half. . . . Between 1994 and 2007, in occupations where teenage employment declined the most, immigrants made significant job gains”
John Stossel’s uses examples to make the point that we are losing our freedom. “Something’s happened to America, and it isn’t good. It’s become easier to get into trouble. We’ve become a nation of a million rules. Not the kind of bottom-up rules that people generate through voluntary associations. Those are fine. I mean imposed, top-down rules formed in the brains of meddling bureaucrats who think they know better than we how to manage our lives.” Here are some of his examples:
San Francisco Chronicle: “Sell a guinea pig, go to jail. That’s the law under consideration by San Francisco’s Commission of Animal Control and Welfare. If the commission approves the ordinance at its meeting tonight, San Francisco could soon have what is believed to be the country’s first ban on the sale of all pets except fish.”
San Francisco Chronicle: “Coca-Cola is out, and soy milk is now part of San Francisco’s official city policy. Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property,”