Liberty Rises

By Chris Salcedo

Chris Salcedo is an incredible storyteller, but the plot of Liberty Rises isn’t just fiction, it’s a frightening look at where progressive ideology could take us. Science-fiction is a great way to explore the issues we face while staying away from the political theatre in D.C. and Chris has hit the mark perfectly with this novel.
-Glenn Beck, #1 bestselling author and founder of TheBlaze

What happens to America if we continue down the road we are on? Liberty Rises explores that horrifying possibility. Jack Vega has given everything to the United States. He’s served in its military with honor, started a successful business, and provided the U.S. with a strategic military advantage that guarantees American dominance. But there’s a problem. In this future, America is no longer governed by men and women of good conscience. Instead, the government has become a mindless police state. The notions of individual liberty and freedom are now foreign. And the government uses its enormous power to squash the human spirit impose collectivist thought and diminished economic and civil freedoms. Ever the optimist, Vega and his family and friends look to the ancient past to rekindle the fire that built the greatest nation in human history. In so doing, they discover a way to keep the light of freedom alive for the entire world. Realizing that dream will be no easy task. Jack must fight the elements, time and the government he once swore to protect.

The reviews are in:

I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed this book! I read roughly 50 to 60 books a year, mostly non-fiction but sometimes I need a break and mix in some fiction. This was by far one of the best fiction books I've read in my life! Sort of an Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged theme mixed with modern day scenarios mixed with science fiction. That combination makes for a truly fun and entertaining read.
-Robert Stifler -

This book should be required reading for every out of touch liberal. It is fiction and we should all hope that the opening chapters remain so. This book would make a really good movie!
-Dorothy Cronin –

Mr. Salcedo did a fine job keeping me entertained in a fun story that, for a time, allowed me to escape the oppression that progressive government is working so diligently to implement. I would encourage the author to consider a sequel.
-Lone Star Girl-

• Language: English
• Publisher: Post Hill Press
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781618689566

Chris Salcedo

Chris Salcedo is a veteran broadcaster, author and a political analyst. The Chris Salcedo Shows can be heard on AM 700 KSEV, Houston and on 820 AM WBAP in Dallas/Fort Worth. You can also watch your "Liberty Loving Latino," on Newsmax at 8 AM to 10 AM Eastern. A graduate of San Diego State University, Salcedo got started in radio in news and traffic. From there he began his career in television doing weather on XETV, San Diego’s Fox 6. He has filled in for the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck, Andrea Tantaros and Roger Hedgecock radio shows.  Salcedo's news experience extends past being one of the few weather men in the nation to do a hard-hitting story on Social Security. He was a news anchor in the 5th largest TV market in the nation at CBS11/TXA 21 in DALLAS/FORT WORTH. He moved to Washington D.C. to take an anchor position on the nationally syndicated America’s Radio News Network. Currently, Salcedo is the executive Director of the Conservative Hispanic Society. And he is the author of Liberty Rises. www.chrissalcedo.com www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/The-Chris-Salcedo-Show

Book preview

Dedication

For my children, I hope the America envisioned in this book never comes to pass.

Thanks to Mrs. Cronin, my 5th grade teacher, for instilling a love of history and America in me at a young age.

Chapter 1

How Did We Get Here?

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Thomas Jefferson

Are you listening, Mr. Vega?

Of course he wasn’t.

If you’ve heard one senator prattle on for ten minutes before even asking a question, you’ve heard them all, Jack thought.

Of course he is, Senator. Mike McConnell responded. Mike was Jack Vega’s attorney, best friend, and general all around fixer-of-situations where Vega’s natural genius failed to comport with the formality of such proceedings.

Jack, this is a committee hearing. Could you at least pay attention to the nice senator? Mike whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Hearing his friend’s urgent tones shocked Jack back into focus and onto the task at hand. Jack took stock of the ornate hearing room. The carved molding and fine art work on display signaled all the prestige and power of the United States Senate. He glanced at the talking heads all seated upon risers above everyone in the chamber. He found it odd how they looked down on those who had been summoned to appear before them. It was a strange layout for a chamber that was supposed to reflect officials who worked for the people. At least it was in Jack’s mind. He couldn’t help but feel that the whole setup was meant to convey just the opposite. There were so many other things he’d rather be doing, so many other things to think about. His company, his work, and when was the last time he and Anne had spent a night at home together, just eating a good meal, enjoying some wine, and doing the things husbands and wives do? Instead here he was in Washington, DC, in front of this sham called the US Senate at this…at this hearing…

This is no hearing, Jack said, standing up.

Excuse me? a rather astonished Senator Woodard exclaimed.

Out of sheer reaction, Mike found himself standing as well. Flashbulbs began flashing, and the camera clicks began to echo throughout the room; those present were waiting for Jack Vega to continue.

It’s an inquisition. This is a forum where people like you try to prove your worth by parading your ideology to berate people like me. I didn’t spend fifteen years serving my nation in the armed forces, and the next ten building one of the most successful companies in the US, only to be rewarded by being brought up here for a hearing investigating our supposed windfall profits, Jack yelled as he began to gather papers and hastily shove them into his briefcase. And I sure as hell do not intend to provide another forum for you and your colleagues to bash another success story in our nation.

The clicks grew louder as Jack turned to leave, a bewildered and disheveled McConnell following close behind.

No one is denying your success, Mr. Vega. It’s felt that your company simply isn’t paying its fair share, Woodard protested.

The statement stopped Jack dead in his tracks. A hush fell over the committee hearing room as bulbs stopped flashing and cameras stopped clicking.

Our company made twenty-two billion dollars last year, Senator. Our state, local, and federal tax burden totaled eight-point-eight billion dollars; nearly fifty cents of every dollar Vega Enterprises earned went to the government. And we still managed to pay a wage that ranks our employees in the top tier in the nation, with health benefits and a fully-funded pension! And then there’s Hope Electric, a major contributor to your and the president’s campaign, Senator. They made billions last year, much of it overseas. They cleared five-billion back here at home and paid no income taxes. Funny, I don’t see their CEO here getting grilled by this committee.

With that, Jack resumed his trek for the exit. The gaggle of reporters busily recorded the event with moving and still pictures, or pens furiously writing.

If you leave these proceedings, we will have no other choice than to find you in contempt of the United States Senate, Mr. Vega, Senator Woodard bellowed.

Fine. I couldn’t be more contemptible than the elected so-called leaders in this room, Jack said as he pushed open the double doors and left the hearing room. The press stopped at the chamber doors and turned to get reaction from the senators.

Okay, that went well, Mike said in an exasperated tone.

"It’s all a show, Mike. We’ve created a successful and profitable business. We employ twenty-thousand people across the United States, and we donated to the wrong political party; that’s why we’re here. I just gave a gift to those senators; they’ll take that footage back home and claim they’re fighting the good fight against the evil rich. They won’t follow through with contempt," Jack said calmly.

Jack, they can still make life very unpleasant for us.

Even more unpleasant than they already do? Jack’s attempt at levity didn’t soothe Mike’s angst in the least. The two made their way down the Capitol steps as Jack noticed how his joke fell flat.

Relax. None of this matters at this point, Jack said.

What the hell are you talking about? It’s the future of the company.

How long have we been friends?

Twenty-five years.

In all that time have you ever known me to take chances that would lead to harm for those I love?

No.

Then trust me. I want you and Mary to come over this weekend. I’ll explain everything.

Where? To your hotel?

No, I’m heading back to San Diego. I haven’t seen Anne in two weeks, and we have a lot of work and planning to do.

Planning for what?

Just plan on staying over for a couple of weeks, unless you like hanging around here in DC.

Hell no! We’ll see ya Saturday.

Taxi! Jack yelled. The cab rolled to a stop, and Jack slid into the back seat. Morrison House, Alexandria, please.

Mike gave Jack their traditional salute as the cab sped away and thought about flagging a cab of his own. But he decided to hoof it back to his hotel in the district instead.

Mike hadn’t served in the military, but often wished he had. He’d studied law instead. He hadn’t gone straight to law school, though. In his youth, Mike took two years to study archeology. The Indiana Jones movies ensured the decision. It was a way, at least in Mike’s mind, of making up for all the adventures he was sure he was missing with Jack. But he soon learned that the movies weren’t a clear reflection of the archeological field. In fact, archeology turned out to be rather boring to Mike. Mike retained the knowledge and a passion for archeology, but his passion was mostly for what he wished archeology would be, not what it was. At least law provided constant stimulation. Laws changed often these days.

Still, there was a whole part of Jack’s life that Mike didn’t share. They kept in touch through family vacations and the holidays. But their full reunion hadn’t happened until Jack retired as a Navy commander and started his business in Texas. Jack always had a knack for turning life experiences into gold. Mike always knew how to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. The two were the perfect pair, yin and yang. Where one was deficient, the other excelled. And they managed to build one of the more successful multinational corporations in the world. Jack was a natural leader, though he never really looked at himself as such. Mike, too, had his vision to contribute. He was a part owner in Vega Enterprises. He had a 33 percent share. He could have been a full partner, but an abundance of caution and a mass of student loans prevented him from jumping all-in ten years ago. You’d never know he wasn’t a full partner though, at least as far as Jack was concerned. Jack never viewed him as anything less than an equal.

They had been stalling this trip to DC for months. Mike had no idea why Jack had asked him to employ every legal maneuver in the book to forestall this judgment day. And then Jack went missing for two weeks, no voicemail, email, or text. Jack returned in time for the bad news that the senate wouldn’t take I’m busy’ for an answer anymore. Vega Enterprises, along with other successful companies, had been the subject of the last presidential election.

One political party pledged to soak successful companies for every last dollar to fund an ever-growing roster of costly, inefficient, and ineffectual government programs. The other side called for a robust business atmosphere that would produce growth, jobs, innovation, and opportunity. It turned out that a majority of the American populace had calculated it was better to tax away money from the productive in society. They opted instead for taking the scraps from the big government table, rather than working to earn a living themselves. It was an ugly campaign that Mike believed showed the worst side of America. It also marked the beginning of a decline in America, not seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment skyrocketed. The only growth that occurred happened in government. With that growth came the inefficiency and expense that always results from such largesse. The United States faced its greatest debt in history. One political party used that debt—debt of their own creation—to bludgeon the successful entrepreneurs and call for increased taxation. Those who resisted were branded greedy and un-American. Some tried to hold on by trimming their work forces and struggling to remain in business. Companies tried to make do with the manpower they had left, in essence, doing more with less. But unemployment continued to grow. And people remained out of work longer and longer, so the calls for government to do something grew louder and louder. Weasely politicians, valuing their own comfort and power, used the ire of the people to demand money from those who had it. Many businesses fled the country, taking their jobs and innovation with them, that is until President Dunham and his allies in Congress passed a law prohibiting American companies from leaving the US. The law’s passage didn’t make a difference to Vega Enterprises.

Jack refused to leave the US. He viewed it as part of his responsibility to provide a livelihood for as many people as he could. He weathered the first round of government assaults, then the next, and the next. He had to cut back each time. He took every firing personally. He knew every one of the three thousand people he had to let go. He kept their names and contact information and vowed that once things got better, they’d be rehired. But things never got better. Government only got bigger and more controlling. Vega and the other strong companies that were left standing had big targets painted on their backs. Now, the government was coming for them. Mike recalled during one hearing how a congresswoman actually declared that an oil company should be seized by the government, and another vowed to use the power of government to tax a bank out of existence. Mike remembered how Jack just about hit the ceiling when he heard that one.

These politicians think we, as entrepreneurs, are here to fund their crazy ideas and their political campaigns. These people don’t have the brains God gave a soda biscuit. They can’t make it in the business world so they become politicians so they can leach off of our success; no brains required, he yelled in a board meeting one day. I didn’t spend all that time in the military trying to defend our freedoms only to lose them to some self-serving politician.

Mike recalled how Americans’ freedoms were disappearing one by one. Little by little, the rights of the individual were being replaced by collectivism under an, alleged, all-knowing and benevolent government. Mike wouldn’t have believed if he weren’t living it.

Mike finally made it back to his hotel. He walked into the lobby and made his way over to the elevator. He pressed the up button and began to wait.

Quite a performance your boss just gave, a smug voice said.

Mike turned and exhaled in disgust when he saw Dick Turner, the head of the largest federation of unions in the United States, walking toward him. He was sharply dressed, hair perfectly coiffed, and he reeked of some hideous cologne that Mike thought he must have bathed in before dressing.

If he keeps that up, we’re not going to have a problem unionizing that operation of yours, Turner sneered. Looking at all the windfall profits you fat cats are making, Congress will use that as ammo to put in protections so that you can’t make all your money off the backs of the American worker.

The employees at Vega make twice as much as any other company in the industry. They get generous benefits packages and retirement, Mike countered. Cut the crap, Turner. There are no cameras around. It’s never about the worker with you union bosses, and you know it. It’s all about assessing dues so you can get your cronies elected to Congress, or keep the sell-outs you already have under your thumb.

It never hurts to have elected officials who value the American worker.

"All they value is the campaign cash you throw their way. Tell me, Dick, isn’t it enough that people like us are forced to fund our own political opposition through public employee unions? Now you want to force it on us in the private sector too?"

We’ve got the public behind us, Mike. People, now more than ever, are tired of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. So they’re going to vote for those who can deliver.

You mean they’ll vote for someone who promises to give them something that someone else earned.

Whatever way you look at it, you’re on the losing side. Tell Jack to come to his senses. Let our union into Vega, and I’m sure certain lawmakers can be persuaded to move on to other business.

I’ll make sure and let him know.

The elevator doors opened.

It was an older hotel that still employed elevator operators, and one of the nicest establishments in DC. Mike loved staying here because the hotel harkened back to a simpler time but was still elegant and charming.

Fourth floor, please, Mike said.

Penthouse, Turner commanded.

The two rode up in silence until they reached the fourth floor. The doors parted and Mike stepped through.

Take care, McConnell, Turner sneered with a self-satisfied grin.

As the doors began to shut Mike said, "Ya know, nothing says, man of the people, like an Italian suit and a penthouse suite."

Mike watched the grin disappear from Turner’s face as the elevator doors closed.

Chapter 2

The Good Ol’ Days

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations

become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of

masters."

Benjamin Franklin

Jack tried to get comfortable. Even though the first class cabin was roomy and had comfortable seats, it was still an airplane. He put his book down in the empty seat next to him and glanced back toward the coach section. The plane was half full.

Hell, who can afford to fly anymore? he thought. It was the same way back in terminal ‘A’ at Reagan International. Sparsely-populated escalators and boarded-up vendors were the sights that greeted flyers these days. It seemed the TSA agents outnumbered the flying public. No matter how bad it got, government workers seemed to always have jobs, even if it was just sitting around and doing nothing. Jack recalled flying through Reagan airport on many occasions. Now, it was a shadow of its former self. But a little over a decade earlier the hustle and bustle were a daily and expected feature. It was commonplace at most airports in the United States. But those were different times. He sighed and began reading again. His book contained this quote by Thomas Jefferson:

"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions."

The book had been a gift from his beloved Anne on the occasion of his fortieth birthday. These books were all the rage in America. They were collections of quotes from America’s founders and great leaders of the past. This book was part of a five-book series called, In Search of America. The publisher bound them in fine leather and they were engraved on the cover with gold lettering. The compilers of these quotes arranged them by section to speak on certain topics. This book had been dedicated to the US Constitution.

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

-Patrick Henry

Jack smiled when he was reminded of just how well his wife knew him. He could afford to buy anything he wanted. They’d been well-off for over a decade. But somehow she knew the right gift for him. He’d been eyeing the series before it had been released. Jack had made up his mind that he was going to buy it. He never mentioned it to Anne, but she bought it first. She just had a knack for knowing the kinds of things that stirred his heart. Jack wasn’t surprised that the books were instant bestsellers. With the current state of government, Americans were hungry for principled leadership, even if they had to read about it in a book. It must have brought comfort to many to know there were once great leaders in America. At least Jack was comforted by that thought. Somehow, Anne probably knew that he would be. She was truly his soul mate.

"Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us."

-Ronald Reagan

He saved his flight time for pleasure reading. Most of the time Jack had his head stuck in technical manuals, engineering resources, and journals. Engineering came naturally to him. Degrees in physics, electrical engineering, and computer science earned Jack a lot of time in the Navy’s Research and Applied Sciences Division. It was research he’d started in the US Navy that led to the first breakthrough that put Vega Industries on the map. When Jack got out of the Navy he knew the Pentagon was looking for a way to keep all US ocean craft invisible to enemy sonar and other forms of detection. Jack did them one better. He invented a synthetic polymer coating that was able to bend light. In essence he created the technology that allowed US ships to ‘cloak’, making them invisible to radar and invisible to the naked eye. The applications were incredible, and the US government was buying. Jack was an overnight success.

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

-John Adams

Before his little falling-out with Congress, Jack had been trying to adapt the technology to cloak smaller units, like individual craft and people, but there was a snag, a pretty huge snag. The power requirements for the cloak were enormous. To date, Jack had been unable to find anything that could generate that type of power