This is a rough draft. I'm still working on it, but I just wanted to open it up to some peer review, because I'm not strong in a lot of these subjects. These are just quick overviews. If you have any useful factoids, or corrections or suggestions or anything I'd appreciate it.
Welcome to America: You’ve been lied to
http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/M-638_red.pdfOn the website of the United State Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) is a document titled, "Learn About the United States: Quick Civics Lessons for the Naturalization Test." It is intended to prepare immigrants to answer 100 civics questions, 10 of which will be on the actual test, 6 of which must be answered correctly to pass. Native born Americans undergo 14 years of indoctrination, so to bring immigrants up to speed the government subjects them to a simplified, highly propagandized version of American history. As a result, many immigrants enter American society with a false sense of utopianism only to be disappointed by the rude awakening of actual life in America.
As a public service, this will serve a guide to the top ten lies that appear in this document.
1) The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants.Anti-immigrant sentiment goes all the way back in US history. Benjamin Franklin wrote that German immigrants were too stupid to learn English, and that their "swarthy complexion" would dilute "the pure white people" who settled colonial Pennsylvania. Anti-Catholic rhetoric also goes back to the colonial period, but it reached its peak in the 1840s when huge numbers of Irish immigrants were accused of dual loyalty to the Pope, and conspiratorial ambitions to spread medieval theocracy. Chinese, Italian and Polish immigrants were all opposed by American labor unions who feared losing jobs and lower wages from the flood of low skilled workers in the labor market. Every immigrant population that has come to America has been met with fear and hate from a segment of the population.
2) The United States signed treaties with American Indian tribes to move them to reservations.While technically true in some cases, this ignores a long and violent history of persecution and genocide against the Native Americans. Policies of "Indian Removal" began almost the moment Columbus set foot in the New World including mass hangings, intentional infection with small pox, and the deliberate destruction of flora and fauna used for food. The systematic extermination of buffalo resulted in wide scale starvation. The Removal Act of 1830 forced the relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans Westward, often resulting in long death marches. Reservations were created by the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851. Tribes were scattered from their ancestral lands and concentrated into small parcels of land. Children were taken from their families, stripped of their way of life and forced into manual labor. Clergy were stationed on reservations to teach Christianity. Even by conservative estimates, the Native American population has been reduced 95% from what it was prior to European contact.
3) The Constitution is the "supreme law of the land." Federal powers are restricted to those described in the Constitution.Recently, when asked about the Constitutionality of Obama's healthcare bill Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn told Judge Andrew Napolitano, "most of what we do in Washington is not authorized by the Constitution." A brief moment of honesty. The fact is most of the laws on the books do not stand up to Constitutional rigor and there is no golden age of Constitutionally limited government in our past. The federal government is, and has always been, exactly as large as it can get away with being. George Bush started a war without a formal declaration. Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Japanese internment camps. Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Reserve. Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. John Adams made it a crime to criticize government officials. As Lysander Spooner put it, the Constitution has either authorized tyranny, or has been powerless to prevent it.
4) The Civil War was fought to abolish slavery.Most Northerners did not oppose slavery, and many Southerners favored staying in the Union because slavery was Constitutionally protected, while the volatility of a new Confederacy made it unclear whether slavery would continue. Lincoln was a political novice whose campaign was bankrolled by Northern industrialists. They aimed to hike taxes on the South to subsidize industry in the North. Southern states felt bullied by the Northern majority but did not engage in open rebellion. They withdrew democratically. The rallying call in the North was to not to "free the slaves" but to "preserve the Union" and Lincoln reassured slaveholders that he would continue to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in Confederate states. It did not free the slaves in the North. Lincoln described it as a "war measure." It allowed free slaves to join the Union Army, giving the North the manpower to win the war. The 13th Amendment, which abolished chattel slavery, was supported by a majority of the Southern states. Every other country in the New World ended slavery without a civil war, with the exception of the Haitian Revolution, which was a slave revolt, not a civil war.
5) The federal government has the power to print moneyThe US Treasury does not print money. In 1913 the monopoly power to print money was granted to the Federal Reserve which was devised by a group of international bankers, not by Congress. The name itself is a fraud. The Federal Reserve is not federal. It's a cartel of private banks no more federal than Federal Express. The Federal Reserve is also not a reserve. There is no gold. There is no silver. They print a baseless paper note. Its only value is derived from public confidence in the stability of its purchasing power... which is declining. In reality a dollar is not a measure of value, but a measure of the National debt owed to the Federal Reserve. It is a central bank, which was bitterly opposed by the drafters of the Constitution. The founders recognized the importance of honest currency. Article I, Section 10 states, "No State shall... make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts."
6) President Roosevelt's "New Deal" rescued America from the Great Depression.The New Deal is cheered by policy makers to this day, but economists now argue that it actually prolonged the Great Depression, and disproportionately hurt the poor. The upper class insiders actually profited immensely by loading up on debt during the boom of the 1920s, anticipating the crash, and then paying off their loans after inflation had devalued the currency. Meanwhile federal taxes tripled, primarily excise taxes levied on everyday things like chewing gum, soft drinks, phone service, and electricity. The financial burden of the New Deal programs fell disproportionately on the lower class that they purported to help. While a few jobs were created by direct spending, a greater number of jobs were destroyed by excessive taxing. Further, the majority of the spending did not go to the poorest of the poor, who were already overwhelmingly Democratic voters, but instead went to swing states, trying to buy political support for Roosevelt's reelection.
7) The "rule of law" means that our leaders must obey the law. No person is above the law.When George Bush's daughter was charged with underage drinking the comment from the White House was that they wanted to keep it a family matter. Yet, a less connected child would likely serve jail time. The Obama administration is full of tax cheats. Dick Cheney shoots a hunting buddy in the face and nothing happens. Al Gore is accused or sexually assaulting a masseuse and nothing happens. Soldiers torture. Police speed and park illegally. Well connected bankers rip off the tax payer for billions. Justice is for sale. The "rule of law" is a nice idea for fairy tales but in reality laws are written by men, interpreted by men, implemented by men, and broken by men. There is no way to escape the rule of men... corrupt, flawed, power hungry men.
The economic system of the United States is Capitalism.The economy may have been something resembling capitalism at one time, but it's not anymore. Capitalism is essentially a system of private property rights where goods are voluntarily exchanged in a free market. In the American system licenses, permits, patents and regulations are all coercive elements that hinder the free exchange of goods. Some call it a "mixed economy" meaning it contains elements of both a free market and a centrally planned economy. A more accurate term would be "corporatism." Big corporations cartelize to pool influence and collude with the government to monopolize industries and legislate competition out of the market. A corporation is a legal fiction. A file drawer someplace, regarded by the state as a legal entity distinct from its members. They enjoy a special relationship with the state in which members enjoy "limited liability" which means they are not fully accountable for the damages caused by their decisions. That is the very definition of fascism, the material success of capitalism colluded with the legal immunity of statism.
9) The President commands the armed forces, but only Congress has the power to declare war.Congress has not declared war since 1941 when America entered WWII. The Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Iraq War and now the ongoing War on Terror have all been undeclared unconstitutional wars. The framers of the Constitution denied the President the power to declare war to prevent the formation of a standing army which they understood would be detrimental to American liberty. In fact, Article I, Section 8 limits war funding to no longer than two years. Today we have exactly what the framers feared, and the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against. Basically it works like this. Huge corporations get lucrative government contracts to produce military equipment. If there is no war, there is no need for those contracts, so they have huge lobbying budgets to make sure we are in perpetual conflict. Congress is then put in the impossible position of "representing" people who are against the war, while taking huge sums of money from the corporations that support it. So they are more than happy to abdicate their responsibility to the President.
10) The government works for the people. In the United States the authority to govern comes from the consent of the people, who are the highest power.The Declaration of Independence states that, "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." A recent Rasmussen poll of voters nationwide found that 61% said they don't believe the government has the necessary consent described in the Declaration of Independence. 70% believed that government and corporations collude in ways that hurt the people. Obama told the Military Times editorial board that, "what essentially sets a nation-state apart (from the private sector), is a monopoly on violence." The power of the government doesn't come from the consent of the governed, it comes from the barrel of the gun. It comes from the militarization of police, and the largest military in human history. Think you're the highest power? Just try not paying your taxes.