Despite how far down the nanny state/socialist road the U.S. has traveled since the 1930s, is there any doubt that if President Barack Obama had seized Americans’ bank accounts, with or without authorization by Congress and/or the Supreme Court, shots would once again be heard around the world?
None here.
But Europe ain’t America:
Cyprus reached a last-ditch deal with international lenders on a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) rescue plan to avoid economic meltdown, agreeing to close down its second-largest bank and inflict heavy losses on big depositors.
The agreement came hours before a deadline to avert a collapse of the banking system in fraught negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades and heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Without a deal, Cyprus’s banking system would have collapsed and the country could have become the first to crash out of the European single currency.Backed by euro zone finance ministers, the plan will spare the Mediterranean island a financial catastrophe by winding down the largely state-owned Popular Bank of Cyprus, also known as Laiki, and shifting deposits below 100,000 euros to the Bank of Cyprus to create a “good bank”.
Deposits above 100,000 euros in both banks, which are not guaranteed under EU law, will be frozen and used to resolve Laiki’s debts and recapitalize Bank of Cyprus, the island’s biggest, through a deposit/equity conversion.
It was unclear if banks would reopen for business on Tuesday, but an announcement, if any, was anticipated to be accompanied by restrictions on capital movements to prevent a run on banks.
Cyprus government spokesman Christos Stylianides said: “We averted a disorderly bankruptcy which would have led to an exit of Cyprus from the euro zone with unforeseeable consequences.”
Asked about the level of losses on uninsured depositors in Bank of Cyprus, he told state radio: “The assessment is that it will be under or around 30 percent.”
But is America becoming Europe?
As Shakespeare famously said, “There is a tide in the affairs of American men.” Sometimes, one man with courage can make a majority, but after a lobster enters a pot of lukewarm water and bathes awhile it doesn’t notice incremental increases in temperature and the inevitable boiling point before served up with butter.
This is why our Founding Fathers began the American Revolution to protect the fruits of their labor after Sugar and Stamp Acts, but before absolute confiscation of their private property.
In Cyprus, shrugs. No tea on ships being thrown overboard into the Mediterranean there.
Yet, while our federal government hasn’t yet resorted to brazen takings of savings accounts at your local bank, they did (Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and their respective Congresses) use TARP to bail out their Big Bank pals lest our financial system collapse (or so we were told). President Obama won re-election claiming that he “saved us from the abyss” with actions worse than anything King George III did to the colonists, even if FDIC remained intact.
Yes, we now have taxation (and regulation) WITH representation now. Yes, even faceless bureaucrats that kill the coal industry, affordable health care and insurance, and restrict oil drilling, are appointed and overseen by those presidents and representatives we elect.
But theft is still theft, even if Chief Executives and Legislators, with the approval of five lawyers in black robes, refuse to call it theft under the contract made with We the People, i.e. the U.S. Constitution.
Yes, we had a tea partier-inspired GOP mid-term election landslide in 2010. But unlike the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party in the 18th Century, the aftermath of our 20th Century version seems only to be that the elected thieves were issued smaller, but just as effective weapons with which to rob us.
Don’t scoff at Cyprus, Speaker Boehner, unless you are ready to use the power you have in one-half of one-third of the federal government (as you so describe) to, at least, defund Obamacare with risk of a government shutdown.
Our Founding Fathers risked being hanged for treason. Couldn’t elected Republicans at least risk losing the political power they refuse to use and be sentenced to life in Ohio and other points not D.C.? One would hope.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
