Beginning today, our nation inches closer to Fascism.

Notice anything different today?  Most folks probably won't.  Such is the way with creeping totalitarianism.

What's different today from yesterday?  June 30th, 2010 was the last day it was legal in the United States to ship cigarettes by mail.  Yet another freedom lost...a completely legal adult product is no longer able to be purchased online, by phone, or through a catalog, to be delivered to you in the comfort of your own home.

Why, you might ask?  Here's your answer:  When President Barack Obama signed into law the SCHIP expansion as one of his first acts in office, increasing tobacco taxes by up to 156%, he not only broke his campaign pledge that he would not raise taxes on anyone who made less than $250,000 a year, he also wanted to make sure you didn't have a legal way to avoid paying his tax increase.  Thus, our current Democrat controlled congress went to work writing another bill...and another bill means another law...and another law generally means someone is going to lose another freedom.  Voila!  In March of this year President Obama signed the "Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking" Act.

You see, the Federal Government always thinks that when there is a completely legal way to avoid paying their onerous taxes, say through the mail ordering of cigarettes from a business located on a tax-free Native Reservation, you are somehow depriving our elected "leaders" of money they feel should rightfully be theirs.  So, they must find a way to "close" that "loophole", so you can be gouged just like any other schmuck who walks into any convenience store in your town.

Oh, you can still drive out to any smoke shop on pretty much any Indian Reservation and buy your smokes tax-free.  So far, I guess our Federal government hasn't figured out a way to make that illegal without putting thousands of natives on the warpath.  Rest assured, the money hungry "powers that be" in Washington D.C. are working on it.

In New York State, a new law levying taxes on the walk-in sale of tobacco to non-natives is scheduled to go into effect September 1st.  J.C. Seneca, a Seneca Nation Tribal Councilor, has declared the state law "an act of war". The last time New York threatened to tax tobacco on tribal lands, there were threats of violence, and a state Thruway across tribal lands was closed after it was blocked with burning tires and debris.

According to the Seneca Tribe, the new Federal law banning mail-order cigarette sales which goes into effect today threatens up to 1000 jobs on the Seneca Nation alone.

Thus, another job and freedom killing measure from our Democrat leadership is in the books.   Native American rights are again trampled.   And the citizens of the United States don't even wince.