Standing By

"You have a gun?? You can't take a gun in there!!"

2012-01-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

I have explained this many times, but it still keeps popping up. Why do I carry a concealed gun? Guns.com has a well written article explaining Why do Concealed Carriers Carry Concealed?. Go check it out. A hat tip to the Gun Blog Black List, a great aggregation of gun bloggers around the world.

A quote:

Don’t believe me? Just ask yourself this, why would anybody go through the three-ring circus of getting a permit, forfeit their fingerprints over to Uncle Sam in the process and then spend the rest of their days becoming an armchair attorney just so they can navigate the labyrinthine system of state-to-state carry laws, if they didn’t have a well-thought out reason for concealed carrying? Just to waste time?

It’s my informed opinion that most folks who carry firearms do not do so because they are looking for altercations or because they’re afraid or exasperated by life, as Obama insinuated when he said people “cling to guns… as a way to explain their frustrations” while on the campaign trail in ‘08. They do so simply because they do not feel safe in 2012 America and no amount of data is going to change that. They know that a violent criminal isn’t going to be convinced to abort his felonious mission because of a bunch of statistics that show the crime rate he’s contributing to is actually going down; instead they take every individual story they hear about these horrible acts of violence seriously.

And no wonder—does it hurt any less to get shot during a downswing in crime? Do you think some eloquently delivered rhetoric about fewer robberies will convince your attacker you don’t have to hand over your wallet to him? Does a plummet in statewide gun crime change the fact a man was murdered down your block? Of course not.

While here in an undisclosed location in the Atlanta metro area, Mrs. PolyKahr wanted to visit the Atlanta Aquarium, having heard how fabulous it was. As we approached the ticket counter, Mrs. PolyKahr said "They won't let you take your gun inside," whereupon her friend blurted out "You have a gun?? You can't take a gun in there!!" I approached the unarmed guard, explained the situation, and was told I would have to leave it in the car. Now, I have become pretty expert at slipping it out of the holster and securing it in the car. North Carolina has a list of places you can't carry that would make any gun grabber's heart swell with pride. But her reaction disturbed me none the less. In all fairness, I could have simply not gone into the aquarium, but didn't want the hassle of hearing Mrs. PolyKahr complaining that I had ruined the day for them.

Yesterday evening, I attempted to engage her friend in "reasoned discourse" on the issue. She said "Well, I don't like guns." "Fair enough," I pointed out, "but I never said you had to have one if you don't like them." I pointed out that concealed carriers are among the most law abiding citizens, exceeding even police officers. I don't think she believed me, but statistics show it to be true. "I just think that if some criminal decides to shoot me, then my time is up," she said. "But what do I do, if I am disarmed because of some policy, and I feel just as surely that it is my duty to defend my life, and that of Mrs. PolyKahr?" I asked. She pointed out that you can't take a gun to a hockey game, as if that non sequitur should settle the matter. I pointed out that I did not attend hockey games, but the principle holds that while I am being disarmed, a criminal would find a way to get a weapon into pretty much any venue he wanted. I pointed out that they didn't check my ankles, so that someone could very well have been carrying in an ankle holster. I also pointed out that the guards were not armed, so they would be very little help in saving her. Eventually, she returned to "Well, I just don't like guns."

Unfortunately, that is the attitude of a typical gun grabber and gun bigot. If she had been brutally honest, she would have blurted "Tough! Because I don't like them, you can't have them!" Also, unfortunately, no amount of evidence is likely to change her mind.

The Message the TEA party is Trying to Send

2012-01-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

I don't have much time today, as I report from an undisclosed location near Atlanta, Georgia. But an article in the American Thinker today caught my eye. The article, by Joseph M Koenig is titled It's Not About Newt. Check it out.

What "Radicalized" Me

2012-01-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

My wife, the lovely Ms. PolyKahr (who married me anyway) sometimes makes the comment that I have changed. I formerly didn't have what she considers "politics" on my mind all the time. I didn't used to listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh all the time. I used to play music on the radio, like "normal" folks. I have to admit to having become "radical" about guns and the Constitution. She asks why that happened?

Arctic Patriot provides an answer in his post Having the Courage to Look in the Mirror. Please read the whole thing, and a hat tip to David Codrea at the blog War on Guns for pointing to it.

I fit the description they paint to a tee (except of course for obtaining explosives.) I speak out on the Internet about abuses of people by the TSA, the police, the EPA, and other government entities. I feel I do not speak out enough. Every day there are stories all over the news of people whose Constitutionally protected rights are violated. Just today we learn that the Federal Government is forcing Catholics to purchase insurance against their religious objections, that Senator Rand Paul was detained by TSA for refusing a pat down, that another citizen, a Navy SEAL team member was arrested in New York City for possessing a 9 mm handgun and ammunition. All of these things violate Constitutionally protected natural rights of citizens. Of course, I have guns and ammunition, and I am a small time "prepper" as well. Does this make me a domestic terrorist? Since when is evaluating risks and taking steps to protect oneself and one's family illegal, or cause for extra scrutiny?

Arctic Patriot seems to be offering the Government an extremely good deal. He asks only that they keep him in Coca Cola while he teaches them to ask, "why?" But if you really want to know why, look in the mirror. Then re-read the Constitution. It should become obvious to you.

The War on Guns: Now for the Bad News...

2012-01-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

The War on Guns: Now for the Bad News...

Go to the link for David Codrea's comments, then go to the Gun Owners of America link and read that. I'll wait. I will have my own comments after you do.

Read it? Good.

The GOA writes:

Well, this past Friday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a setback to gun owners. The issue involved a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s illegal multiple sales regulations. [NSSF v. Jones, Acting Director, BATFE.]

Through those regulations, Obama has demanded, by regulatory fiat, that firearms licensees in four southwestern states report multiple sales of certain long guns to the federal government.

The GOA is absolutely right on both counts. This ruling upholds the violation of both the Constitution and explicit statutory law, and thus exposes the danger we face as gun owners in relying on the Courts as the only line of defense in these matters. The Courts have proven to be fickle on the matter. But then the GOA says we have another line of defense:

But the larger issue is this: Congress can block these regulations by simply cutting off the money to implement them. Last fall, we demanded that the House include such a prohibition in its giant money bill. But congressional leaders ignored the Second Amendment community on this and a variety of other pro-gun issues, including defunding ObamaCare.

Ignoring for a moment that the Republicans have largely been gutless when it comes to denying this regime anything it seemingly wants, here we see the real danger cutting oneself loose from the Constitution: the sacrifice of the rule of law. The President can simply refuse to obey Congress's instructions regarding any funding by issuing a "signing statement." Why not? There are no rules other than what you can get away with. It's the Chicago Way. The Courts are obviously willing to let him get away with anything he wants. And the Congress's hands are not exactly clean either. Even the Republicans, who had a new mandate after the 2010 elections to perform within the strict intent of the Constitution have continually violated that highest of all laws in the land.

I had thought previously that there was a small chance of avoiding the fight to come through political means and at the ballot box. Mea culpa, but I did not believe the lengths the left would go to, to transform the founders country into a fascist hell hole. Unless there is a miracle...Today, I feel like a Spartan at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Molon Labe

I haven't been posting

2012-01-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

No, it is not to protest SOPA, though that piece of legislation should go the way of so many bad ideas. I have been sick for the last two days, and it doesn't appear to be going away soon. As a result, I just have not been able to get up the gumption to read and think. Posting takes a lot of the second item.

I will return to posting when I am feeling better. In the meantime, please enjoy the other blog sites provided here.

Security Theatre

2012-01-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

Kurt Hoffman has a St. Louis Gun Rights examiner piece entitled Honor Martin Luther King by Defeating Racism Inherent to Gun Control,which got me thinking. Check it out. The truth about gun control can be found first in the South, where the white population was afraid of a slave rebellion. After the war, they recognized the fundamental rights of their former slaves, to the point that they actively tried to deny them their rights. Then there was Alan Korwin's piece on Diplomatic Carry. Go check that one out too. Korwin points out that diplomats carry, and have significant body guards around them carrying, despite whatever laws may prevent them from doing so. It is a sort of diplomatic exemption. Korwin's point is that a diplomat's life isn't any more important than that of one of the "commoners."

Yesterday, a co-worker asked me how my weekend went, and we ended up discussing the Raleigh Gun Show put on by Dixie Gun and Knife shows, and the fact that Grass Roots North Carolina had done a land office business signing up new members (not, btw, due to anything I did. We had a new and enthusiastic member there.) He is from South Carolina, and was curious about the concealed carry permit system here in North Carolina. As I was explaining our shall issue system to him, suddenly, another person broke into the discussion to say that they had always been armed. "I would rather sit in jail than be dead," he said. He also pointed out that a concealed carry permit did not permit you to take it to very many places. I did not ask him if he were armed at that moment. Such would be a breach of etiquette among those who go armed. But good to know. Another says that "Hey, it's nobody's business if I am packin' or not." He is from New York, and he is correct. I have never advised anyone to do something illegal, and I did not do so this day either. Everyone needs to evaluate the risks according to their own lights, and act accordingly.

But all this got me to thinking about what is essentially Security Theatre, whether it is the TSA groping people, and finding your tube of toothpaste in your bag, or the Town of Garner posting "No Gun" signs on playgrounds. Crime can happen anywhere, at any time, to anyone, and it tends to happen where you least expect it. Coming out of your office at night, with no one else around, and suddenly there is some thug, and you hope all he wants is your money. Wouldn't you wish you had a gun?

North Carolina doesn't want you to go into a place that charges you a price to go in, like a movie theatre, if you are carrying a gun. They don't want you to attend a parade if you are armed, or to run into a protest. They don't want you to take your family out to Ruby Tuesdays while armed, or to go to a hospital, or a financial institution (notice how broadly some of these things are defined.) All these victim disarmament zones are simply Security Theatre. The State will not guarantee your safety, and will not have anyone there to defend you. They also will not make the people who run these places have security on site to defend you. Instead, they depend on laws and signs to provide an illusion of safety. I know, from talking to a great many people that the illusion works on them, but I doubt it works on the criminal, and I know it doesn't work on the peaceably armed citizen who feels deeply the injustice of the State deciding for him where and when he can carry his self defense. I was in Ohio several years ago, right after the concealed carry law was passed in that State. I had gone to a range to get in a little practice. The range master and I struck up a conversation, and he mentioned that he had carried every day, everywhere he went, for 25 years. He was another who believed it was better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.

Who is Servant to Whom?

2012-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

Nursing student Meredith Graves continues to garner headlines. In a piece on January 8, 2012, Kevin Williamson wrote I am Meredith Graves in the National Review Online. Williamson notes that when he worked in Philadelphia, he had a State issued concealed carry permit, exactly as Meredith Graves from her home in Tennessee, and how easy it was to violate the terms of that permit. If you have ever been to Philadelphia, you will know that Delaware, New Jersey, and New York are all within a quick drive of each other. Williamson relates a particular case in which he was taking friends to see the Liberty Bell. After explaining that it became routine for him to carry his gun whenever he went out:

So routine, in fact, that I sometimes forgot that I was carrying it, until something reminded me. That was the case when I was standing in line to take some visitors to see the Liberty Bell. Like Meredith Graves, I told the security guys that I had a license to carry a gun, that I was in fact carrying one, and asked them what they’d like me to do with it. They were typical government employees, of course, struck dumb by any unexpected turn of events.

Fortunately, he resolved his problem by placing the gun in his brief case, and checking the brief case in with the valet's desk at a nearby hotel. That in itself probably violated some law, but I doubt that Pensylvania will go after Mr. Williamson at this late date.

What I find interesting in most of the reports I read about either the Meredith Graves case, or the myriad of other cases involving otherwise peaceable citizens getting caught with a gun in New York City is that so few mention the outrageousness of someone sitting in jail for, much less being charged, when there was clearly no criminal intent; no mens rea. For peurposes of gun law in this country, a 3 year sentence would turn Graves into a prohibited person. How can a person be "prohibited" without having a criminal intent, much less an actual crime. If she had kept her mouth shut, and kept her weapon concealed, would anyone have been the wiser? It seems as if our masters intend to treat us like they treat school children with a "no tolerance" policy. Williamson again:

Some will object: “You two should have known better. You should have made sure in advance that you were in compliance with the local law at all times.” And there’s something to that. (A Man for All Seasons and all that.) On the other hand, Meredith Graves and I are Americans, and the American government exists at our sufferance, not the other way around, and it sometimes needs to be reminded of that fact, especially when it is acting capriciously and incompetently, which is the rule when it comes to firearms and crime.

I am guilty as charged. But the larger point is, as Williamson indicates, in our society, the citizen is supposed to be sovereign, and the government is supposed to be our servant. When will we begin to act like that is the case?

A New Writing Discovery

2012-01-12T06:16:00.000-08:00

If you are a conservative libertarian and a Constitutionalist, as I am, you may have read some of Rachael Williams articles. But in case you haven't, here are two for you to sample.

The first, found at the American Thinker is entitled In Defense of Libertarians makes the point that...but let her explain it:

When I "came out" as a black conservative, I had to explain ad nauseam how the two were not mutually exclusive. I'm finding myself having to make the same point over and over with regards to libertarianism -- that the most vocal members of a given group do not speak for the whole. There is as much diversity of thought between fellow libertarians as there is in either the Democrat or the Republican Party. While I self-identify as a conservative libertarian, many people react to that label as though I cannot be both simultaneously.

Being a conservative libertarian isn't a contradiction of terms; it's actually a description of me as a whole more than just my political beliefs. I am conservative in my values system, libertarian in the belief that truly constitutional government should be small and have a limited impact on one's life. There's nothing ideologically impure in that.

In order to give Americans the freedom and liberty intended by the Founders, Constitutional government must necessarily be small and limited. Why? Because there is no "collective will." There is, instead a plethora of differing ideas and opinions among 300 million different Americans. To truly govern with the consent of the governed, the Government must get out of the way and allow everyone to live as his own concience dictates. The role of government, particularly at the Federal level should extend only to ensuring that one person's exercise of his rights does not deprive another of his, to provide for national defense, and ensure regular trade among the several States.

A lot of times, the only difference between a conservative and a libertarian is the "why." As a libertarian, I want Roe v. Wade overturned in part because the basis of the judiciary's ruling was in regard to the safety of abortion (which holds no bearing on the constitutionality of it) and also because abortion infringes upon the rights of others in the most obscene of ways: infringing upon their right to life. Many conservatives' argument against abortion is that it is morally abhorrent and a sin against human life and against our Creator. I agree on that, but I don't agree with Perry or Santorum on an all-out federal ban on abortion.

I also agree that to abort a child is murder, unless the life of the mother is endangered by bearing that child. In other words, the mother has a right to self defense. As for the Constitutional merits, let us just say that Roe v. Wade could be the poster case for the idea that the Justices should have to return to the Constitution, rather than precedent each time they decide a case.

The second article appears in an online e-zine called Undoctrination, where Rachael Williams is a staff writer. The article, entitled Expunging the Constitution One Ruling at a Time talks about recent rulings made by the Courts that are erasing rights protected by the 4th and 5th Amendments. This is very dangerous for anyone who comes under the scrutiny of the police. Under these rulings, the police can enter any home on a trumped up excuse, and once in, seize anything they can find to use against a person, and have that "evidence" stand up in Court. Indeed, it has now become so routine that Hollywood uses the device in popular cop shows to keep the pace up, and frankly because Holleywood script writers are often just plain clueless. Now, I admit that is is frustrating when someone who is doing something actually criminal gets off because the police did not go through all the legalities. But today, it is possible that someone could come crashing through your door, possibly announcing themselves, possibly not, with a gun and wearing a mask, put you in handcuffs, look at your bookshelf and notice several books like A Nation of Cowards by Jeff Snyder and Men in Black by Mark Levine, notice that you reload ammunition, see your guns and ammunition supplies, and conclude that you were a terrorist. Under these conditions, you could be detained indefinitely with no right to a lawyer, nor a right to a writ of habeas corpus. This breach of our Constitution is little short from the infamous Gulags of the Soviet Union, or the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

Go and read more from Racheal Williams at Undoctrination.

The Stupid Party Miscalculates Again

2012-01-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting article up at National Review Online entitled Romney's Authenticity Problem. The article makes the point that the "Establishment Republicans" have been pushing Romney as the only one who can beat Obama. But now, they are having second thoughts:

The most persuasive case for Romney has always been that if he’s the nominee, the election will be a referendum on Obama. But that calculation always assumed that rank-and-file Republicans will vote for their nominee in huge numbers no matter what. That may well still be the case, but it feels less guaranteed every day.

We've been trying to tell you for some time. Unless you cough up a true blue, honest to goodness Conservative, a lot of your conservative base is going to sit out the election. The reasons why should be obvious if you think about them. We know we embarrass you. Our insistence on our Second Amendment rights, our professed belief in God and his great gift of grace, Jesus Christ, our sense of being rugged individualists, all seem to strike you as distasteful. We must seem like a bunch of rubes, hicks, and hayseeds crashing your masquerade ball. But ever since 1972, the conservatives have had only one place to go. So we have accepted your abuse, hoping that someday you would see us as a valuable partner in setting the agenda of this great nation. Yet here we are again, with a liberal, possibly progressive, masquerading as a conservative.

Anthony Martin, the Conservative Examiner explains some of our problems with Mr. Romney in a piece entitled Reality Check: Why Romney is the Likely Nominee. Mr. Martin:

But first it is important to understand Romney from a purely traditional conservative point of view. He is no real conservative in the traditional sense but a Republican from the old eastern liberal establishment cabal in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, and Henry Kissinger. This is in stark contrast to Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and modern conservatives such as Jim DeMint.

After explaining that choosing such candidates has usually cost the Republicans the White House, he goes on to point out that:

Conservatives have warned essentially since the last Presidential election that if they choose another nominee from the liberal establishment, it will spell disaster in the general election. But so far, Republicans have not heeded the warning. They are poised yet again to make a major mistake by choosing a candidate in the Rockefeller tradition.

So, why would "The Establishment" do that? I have heard theories that, for instance, what they really want is the Senate. But, even if the House stays Republican, and the Senate goes Republican, the chances of making any significant policy changes are next to nil if the Presidency remains in the hands of Barack Obama. There will be no repeal of ObamaCare as long as Obama is in the White House. If it is not repealed soon, it will never be repealed, and the United States will continue its leftward slide into third world irrelevance. So, again, why?

A conversation led by Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Network the other evening provides the answer. Cavuto had 3 guests on his show to talk about Obama's decline and Romney's rise. Someone mentioned, perhaps Cavuto himself, that as Wall Street has had the opportunity to evaluate Obama from an investment/economic perspective, the financiers have dropped him like a hot potato. They are putting their money on Romney, according to Cavuto, who has significant contact with the movers and shakers among the Wall Street fat cats.

Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying (and I am paraphrasing here) that conservative ideas work every time they are tried. He also says that leftist ideas have failed in every country they have been tried. Don't you think it is time we tried a winning formula for a change?

Finally, More Mainstream People Recognize the Fascist Regime

2012-01-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

For three years I have been saying that Obama is setting up a fascist system, and I have wondered if it might not turn into a fascist dictatorship. In fairness to those who have argued that Obama is transforming the nation into a European Socialist State, there were elements of that too. But to tell the truth, whether it is Communist, Socialist, or Fascist is not really important. All these systems lead to the same place; a place governed on a collective theory that is foreign to American soil.

In all fairness, George Bush set some of the precedents that, in the hands of a man like Obama, became weapons used against ordinary Americans. I had forgotten that Naomi Wolff had tried to make the case that Bush was setting us up to live in a fascist dictatorship earlier. However, I was reminded of it by an article in the American Thinker entitled Obama's Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps by Timothy Birdnow. Particularly with the Patriot Act, Wolff had some reason to feel unease. The provisions in that act, if turned on Americans, denied our Constitutionally protected rights. Also, the TSA was a creation of the Bush administration, and it has only grown more thuggish since its establishment.

Birdnow only hits the highlights. If the full list of lawless infringements of the rights of Americans committed by this regime were cataloged, the article would have become a book. This regime, has engaged in crony capitalism, elimination of the rule of laws, and tearing up the Constitution to a degree never before seen. The property of Americans has been stolen from them to enrich "friends of Barack." More comes to light every day. His "signing statement" for the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act indicate that Obama no longer sees a need to follow Congressional directives, even though he signs them. If Obama sees no reason to follow Congressional directives, it is a sure bet that the agencies of the Executive Branch, like the EPA, no longer see a need to follow them either.

Then there are the blatant lies, told right to your face, that both he and you know are lies. Most politicians will tell you what you want to hear, if they can convince themselves that such a spin serves some higher purpose. I don't believe that most politicians overtly and intentionally lie. They may spin the truth sometimes, but not intentionally lie. But this administration lies all the time. They lie to Congress about the deals they make, they lie to the people in speeches. Glenn Beck had a piece on GBTV the other day, with the author of the book How Do You Kill 11 Million People, Andy Andrews. The answer is you lie to them. If you lie often enough, and big enough, and with enough sincerity, you can get them to cooperate in their own murders.

The NDAA is one of the scariest Acts passed to date. That it was supported by those supposedly on our side makes it even more of a betrayal. True conservatives should know that there is no such thing as a "collective will" that can be expressed by one man. True conservatives, those we used to call liberals before liberals became leftists, try to persuade, but in the end, huge swaths of life are not touched by government, not because they don't want to, but because to touch them means a loss of a governing majority, and a loss of legitimacy. The Left, on the other hand, does believe in this "collective will." They believe it so fervently, that they go to extraordinary lengths when the theory is shown to be false. They create in their minds the notion of "false consciousness" that blind "the masses" who must be led by a "vanguard" to true consciousness of the collective will. But they recognize too that some can not be "educated." They have a solution for that, too.

Jeff Knox Makes a Christmas Wish. Santa Gives Him Coal Instead

2012-01-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

Jeff Knox has a good article over at World Net Daily entitled All I Wanted for Christmas: Fewer Stupid Gun Laws that points out the enormous annual costs of gun control. Hat tip to David Codrea of the War on Guns for pointing me to the article.

Knox firsts points out the personal costs of gun control:

In order to take advantage of the great deal from my friends in Prescott, I had to either drive up there or call and have the gun shipped to a dealer closer to my home in the Phoenix area. Driving up to Prescott takes over 2 hours each way and would burn close to $50 worth of gas. Having the gun shipped down to a local dealer would add a $22 shipping charge plus a $35 transfer fee from my local dealer. Either way, I would have to fill out paperwork and get approved through the NICS “instant” background check system.

My sister, who lives in Prescott, could have gone down to J&G and picked up the gun for me, except that’s illegal. If she were buying the gun for me as a gift, that would be OK, but if she were to buy it on my behalf or with the intention of selling it to me, that would be considered a “straw purchase” and she could face 5 years and $50,000 in penalties.

But that's not all. If you wish to carry your gun legally, you must also get a Concealed Handgun License. In some States, that can be as much as $100 dollars every five years, plus training requirements. Altogether, it can cost you quite a bit to exercise your right to keep and bear arms. Remember too that a lot of gun control laws grew out of the war on so-called "Saturday Night Specials," those cheap guns supposedly used by poor people to defend themselves against those who would prey on them. We may now have a higher quality class of firearms, but at what price?

But there is another message which could get lost in Mr. Knox's article:

There were some 16 million NICS checks conducted in 2011 at a direct cost of more than a billion dollars. That billion dollars comes out of your paycheck, and the value received for it is highly questionable. There has never been a single study indicating that the background check system has reduced violent crime. Still, a NICS check is required every time I buy a gun from a dealer. It doesn’t matter how many guns I already own or how many I have recently purchased. Each time I wish to add to my collection, I am placed under suspicion and investigated anew. Couldn’t those billions have been used to fund proven, effective crime-fighting programs or to keep serious criminals behind bars longer?

One of the principles under girding our legal system is that we are innocent until the State proves us guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We often take that for granted, but there are many places where you are automatically guilty until you prove yourself innocent. But our system is supposed to assume we are innocent. The background check turns that principle on its head. Now you are guilty until the State satisfies itself that there is no evidence of your guilt. Further, by imposing a background check before you purchase your gun, the State is creating a prior restraint. Imagine if I had to get permission from the State prior to publishing this blog. Do you think they would let me? Do you think most of the articles that are linked to in the blog would have been published. "Shall not be infringed" means that no prior restraint should be placed on the keeping and bearing of arms.

Of course, I can hear you now saying "but we don't want criminals to have guns! What's to keep the criminal from just going in and buying a gun from Walmart, if we didn't have this background check?" My answer is that criminals don't get their guns through legal means. They steal them, of purchase them through the black market. Criminals don't get a background check, only the law abiding individual submits to it. So, what is the real purpose? Who is inconvenienced by it?

The answer to these questions becomes obvious with a little thought. By some counts, there are 20,000 gun laws on the books at the Federal, State, and local level. Nobody can be aware of all of them, much less observe them all. Because of background checks, concealed carry laws, and a stunning array of other laws that you might not know about until you break one, most people no longer carry a gun as a matter of routine. That is, of course, the purpose of all those laws.

The Perfect Murder

2012-01-04T07:49:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with our Pastor, in which he mentioned that he was personally against the death penalty. He pointed out that the death penalty did not serve as a deterrent, therefore it should be dropped. I admit that I had not given a whole lot of thought to it, but I felt it should be available as a prosecutorial option, rarely used to be sure, but an option. If we acknowledge that man has free will; that man is in fact a moral agent, then we have to allow the death penalty for the taking of a life. The criminal who decides to kill another had a choice. He was not forced to kill, a gun was not held to his head. And clearly, the law does not sanction killing other people. He could have avoided committing the crime. I am aware of the studies that claim to show that the death penalty is not a deterrent to committing murder. But if the same methods were used for other crimes, I doubt they would show that the penalty for robbery deters robberies either. Thus we would have no penalties for any crime. I don't know about you, gentle reader, but I am not ready to face the Hobbesian world that would result.

My thinking about the death penalty took a slightly different turn today when I read an article in the American Thinker entitled Crime Without Punishment by Lester Jackson. Jackson presents the practical side of eliminating the death penalty, and it is not pretty.

Out of thin air, a right has been officially and surreptitiously created exclusively for select previously convictedmurderers: the right to commit, cost-free, further violence, and even further murders. When judges, legislators, and governors make capital punishment impossible in willful defiance of great public support, they liberate those already serving life sentences to fearlessly perpetrate as many additional vicious crimes as they can because they face no greater penalty.

This sounds ominous, but aren't these guys already in prison? How can they commit more murders? Jackson tells us in gory detail:

A recent vivid illustration occurred when a lone Oregon elected officeholder joined elected officeholders from other states (e.g., New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, and potentially Connecticut) in defying the public. (Last July, the Supreme Court fell one vote short of saving a brutal murderer based on a never-enacted law proposed by a solitary legislator.) On November 22, Gov. John Kitzhaber declared a death penalty "moratorium" during his term in office, expressly barring Gary Haugen's scheduled December 6 execution for a barbarous slaughter while serving a life sentence. In 1981, Haugen raped Mary Archer and beat her to death with repeated blows from his fist, a hammer, and a baseball bat. In 2003, together with another inmate, Haugen murdered a third inmate, David Polin, by stabbing him 84 times and crushing his skull. After humbly seeking expert consultation with "mostly myself," Kitzhaber found all this insufficient to warrant execution.

Or this:

In 1981, while serving multiple life sentences for multiple murders, Lemuel Smith beat, strangled, bit off the nipples of, and murdered Donna Payant, a 31-year-old prison guard and mother of three, finally throwing her body into the garbage to be compacted. (This was not the first time he sank his teeth into his murder victim's nipples.) A 4-3 majority of the New York State Court of Appeals used this case to foist their unpopular moral values upon an unwilling public by declaring unconstitutional the state's death penalty law. Despite legal window dressing which the minority found specious, Smith himself left no doubt that, at bottom, the bare majority valued his life, but not the lives of the guard or Smith's previous torture-murder victims, to say nothing of possible future ones.

What is driving this seems to be yet another Leftist "do-gooder" idea that somehow we may be executing huge numbers of innocent people. Cases like the case of 57 year old Michael Morton who spent 25 years in prison, but was exonerated due to DNA evidence lend credibility to the argument. And one has to applaud the work of people such as the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence (NCCAI) who are looking into, and finding, people wrongly convicted of crimes and freeing them. At the same time, they should be going after overly zealous prosecutors who may have stepped over the line in their efforts to make a conviction. The defense should always be given more latitude than the prosecutor, and any exculpatory evidence should be turned over to the defense. Prosecutors should always be trying to find the truth, and not merely try to get convictions.

While the work of the NCCAI is important, what is the actual percentage of people convicted of a capital crime are actually innocent? Do our courts actually convict a large percentage of innocent people, while we know that they let many dangerous and violent people go free?

Frankly, I suspect it is part of the Leftists plan to create as much chaos and havoc in society as they can. Removing the death penalty, and at the same time advocating for a system that lets repeat offenders back out to commit more crimes undermines peoples confidence in the law. A panicked public will not always make the best decisions, allowing a politician to come riding to the rescue and offer to "fix" it for them.

A Potentially Productive Citizen Rots in a New York Jail

2012-01-03T07:31:00.000-08:00

The New York Post has an article calling for a more common sense approach to New York's gun laws when tourists are involved. The article, entitled Common Sense on Guns makes a point that when so many states now have shall issue concealed carry laws, people who have no criminal intent (mens rea) are likely to show up carrying guns for self defense from time to time. That being the case, perhaps New Yorkers should stop panicking and throwing the book at them, as they appear to be doing to Tennessee medical school student Meredith Graves. Graves visited the 9/11 memorial over the holidays, noticed the gun free zone sign at the entrance, and asked a security officer where she could check her gun. Graves is a permit holder in Tennessee. The security guard promptly called police who arrested her.

I feel sympathy for Ms. Graves, I really do. New York City gun laws are irredeemably unjust, and as these fine criminal defense attorneys explain, they don't even obey Federal law that protects travelers merely transiting through their airports. New Yorkers seem to take their gun control very seriously, and ignorance of their laws does not let you off the hook.

Fortunately, there are ways to find out about the laws of any state you may be traveling through. Your first stop should be Handgun Laws US. The keeping of this information is done by volunteers, but the information for my state, North Carolina, seems up to date. Looking at NYC, we see that New York City does not honor any other state permit, including New York State without a NYC endorsement. Then, there are the Attorney Generals of the various states. I have to admit that the New York State Attorney General's web site doesn't seem to mention guns anywhere, but that might just be a clue.

New York's gun control law is called the the Sullivan Act, named after a notorious Irish mobster, New York State Senator, and influence peddler in the corrupt Democrat machine known as Tammany Hall. Around the time of its passage, in 1911, the Italian mafiosi were taking over from the Jewish and Irish mobs. The Italians would shoot first, and ask questions later, if at all. So, to disarm them, Sullivan got his law passed. It didn't work, of course. The criminal element, the Irish and Jewish mobs and the mafiosi, ignored the law. The people who were disarmed were the peaceable citizens. The sordid history of laws like the Sullivan Act, or of laws that sought the disarmament of the black community in the South should cause considerable soul searching for anyone advocating for more of these laws. Gun control laws don't end violence, they merely embolden the criminals among us. And they catch people like Meredith Graves, who wasn't going to shoot anybody.

Update: National Review Online had an opinion piece by Robert VerBruggen. VerBruggans opinion is that Graves should rot in prison. NRO is a New York City publication. What fascinated me, though, were the comments, many of them well argued. Jeff Knox even makes an appearance. Go and take a look.

Liberty and Virtue, Rights and Responsibities

2012-01-02T04:39:00.000-08:00

Two excellent think pieces from the American Thinker today are both on the relationship between freedom and liberty on the one hand, and the need to exercise virtue on the other. Liberty without virtue becomes in short order licentiousness. Licentiousness leads inevitably to authoritarian regimes to impose at least the outward appearance of virtue. Stated another way, our rights have corresponding responsibilities.

The first is an article entitled Timshel, America by Cindy Simpson. Simpson points out that the English translations of the Bible have translated Genesis 4:7 wrongly. The English translation of the verb "timshel" has been "shall" which would indicate that God ordered Cain to overcome his sinful thoughts. But the actual Hebrew text is that Cain "may" overcome his sinful thoughts, or he may not. It is up to Cain.

In point of fact, it is up to each of us, every day. We have free will, as God indicates in this passage. But to exercise our liberty, we must learn to govern ourselves. Indeed, that used to be the main point in raising children; to take barbarians who display all the attributes of a sociopath, and train them up to govern themselves in civil society. Simpson:

Dr. Patrick Deneen, in his presentation "Community AND Liberty OR Individualism AND Statism" for the I.S.I. conference on "The Language of Liberty," explained that in earlier times, liberty was considered "the cultivated ability to exercise self-governance, to limit ourselves in accordance with our nature and the natural world. The various practices by which we exercise self-limitation and self-governance is comprehensively called virtue...the inability or unwillingness to exercise virtue was tantamount to the absence of liberty...Thus, for the ancients, law was not an unnatural imposition of humanity's natural freedom; rather, law (ideally, a self-imposed law) was the necessary and enabling condition for liberty."

The breakdown in the system of virtues which had previously obtained began in the early part of the 20th century. The "flapper" was an open and visible sign of that breakdown. While certainly most of the supposed flappers were merely trying to look like the in-crowd, the in-crowd youth became more licentious, using drugs and having casual sex out of wedlock. The great depression put an end to the age of the flapper. It was the hippie generation that truly overturned the old virtues that they considered outmoded. Too bad they had not studied a little more history. Any time that it is perceived that the people can not, or will not exercise virtue on their own, then the State is eventually called upon to impose these virtues by force, and of course the State is all to happy to oblige. But by imposing virtues by force, the State takes away the very essence being virtuous, and infantilizes the population. Simpson again:

While our personal New Year's resolutions are still fresh on our minds, another kind of resolve for "We the People" must also be contemplated: the vital need to halt the loss of individual freedom -- an eroding movement that has gained in momentum and threatens to ultimately transform our nation into a tyranny that commands of its people, "do thou." We must strive to assert the responsibility found in "thou mayest."

The second article at the American Thinker, on the same theme, is America: The Living Portrait of Dorian Gray by John Griffing. After going through a litany of liberties lost, and Constitutionally protected rights ignored, Griffing writes this:

At the root of all these changes is not merely one political deviant, or even some organized conspiracy to overthrow freedom and decency in America. It is the collective abandonment of God and associated moral virtue by a once-God-fearing people.

He goes on to sound the alarm, not unlike an Old Testament Prophet:

More recently, a gang of about fifty teenage girls is reported to have camped outside a classmate's home with guns and knives, shouting death threats at the intended victim. Two police who intervened were beaten within inches of their lives by this lawless teenage mob. Teenagers no longer fit the Americana Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello mold.

Few can deny that a substantial shift in community instincts has occurred. Remember when the injury of a fellow citizen would bring the help of others, and maybe the police? Now it brings phone-cameras and crowds of entertained observers. Something is terribly wrong in America.

Yes, something is terribly wrong in America. What is wrong is that we no longer value or practice traditional virtues. Please understand that true religious faith is not required to practice virtue, but it does help if more people trust in Divine Providence. How else can we hope to change a generation of people who seem to have embarked on a nihilistic path without a firm reliance on God.

Freedom itself is the result of a nation with laws. And nations with laws are the product of cultures grounded in religious morality. The two items are inseparable. Legal boundaries are based on moral boundaries. For example, why is it wrong to kill if there is no God, or alternatively, no universal source of morality?

In the same way, what is done in private cannot be separated from what is done in public. At some point, worlds collide, and lawlessness is unleashed. Warped minds in private will always yield warped behavior in public. This claim is substantiated in numerous psychological studies.

We are often at pains to assert our natural rights, but those rights have corresponding responsibilities. Our right to bear arms presupposes that we will not use those arms to murder our fellow man. The right to a free press presupposes that we will not commit libel. Once we no longer recognize our responsibilities, our rights disappear as well.

Winston Salem Journal Gets It Wrong on Guns in Parks

2012-01-01T05:55:00.000-08:00

"Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always "against" things, never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so... " Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing October 27, 1964.

The Winston Salem Journal is at it again, compounding ignorance with an anti-gun agenda to create an editorial more notable for lies and half truths than for useful information. The first thing the Journal should do is its own research. You see, concealed carriers are actually 5 times LESS likely to shoot somebody than the average person in North Carolina. Indeed, as the NYT inadvertently proved, people with concealed carry permits are far more responsible than the average person when it comes to murder, violent crimes, or drunk driving. That is not to say that those who have a permit to carry are perfect but it does point to this group being far safer than the norm. If I had a group of concealed carry permit holders around me, I would feel pretty safe. Go and check out The Truth About Guns website for all the facts.

Next, the editorialists seem to take a great leap of logic off the page and into the great blue sky with this closing statement:

On this page, we recently praised the Winston-Salem City Council for exempting most city parks from the new state law allowing those with concealed-carry permits to strap on their handguns in public parks. We support the Second Amendment, but it has to be applied with common sense.

We realize that there are plenty of responsible permit holders out there, but most have never had to fire at a human being in the midst of an emotional situation. And while troublemakers may be relatively few, the damage and tragedy they can inflict is large. Expanding concealed-gun rules is not worth the danger to the rest of us — and to our children.

Now the great leap occurs here because they assume, apparently that if concealed carry permit holders did not have guns, nobody would. Right? How else to explain the thinking going on here. It is rather like the You Tube Video seen here. But if dissuading people who mean to do you harm was so easy, I doubt guns would have been invented in the first place. So which would you rather have when your children are playing on the teeter-totter and some bad guy tries to abduct them: a cell phone, or a cell phone and a gun. It has become cliche, but when seconds count, the police are minutes away. And if there is you, with your gun, and someone else has a gun too, chances are your bad guy is going to run away.

The editorialists close with a typical tag line that conjures up the notion of "for the children." It has become so well worn that it should be a trademarked term. In any case, two can play at that. I take my grand children to the park when it is nice out. Mrs. PolyKahr is convinced that sending the kids to the park helps to wear them down when it comes time to go to bed. I am not so sure, but that's a story for another day. Having been permitted to carry, believe me I want that advantage if someone tries to abduct my grand kids. You take a fat old out of shape fart like me facing a fit 20 year old armed with at least a knife, possibly a gun? Hell, yes I want to equalize the odds if I can.

But there is moral argument to be made in favor of the idea that the peaceful armed citizen should be allowed to carry anywhere he chooses. The State, be it the city or the county, ultimately can not prevent someone who means harm to others from carrying pretty much anywhere that person chooses, short of setting up an oppressive police state. Perhaps this is what the Winston Salem Journal wants, but it is not what we have now. Laws on the books only allow prosecution after the peaceful armed citizen is dead, and signs only warn that the bad guy is about to incur another charge. That being the case, the defense of our lives, and the lives of our young, depend on us alone. Shouldn't we then be able to make our own determination about where and when we are going to carry a weapon? Why should I let others, who will not be there if the gravest extreme should rear its ugly head, make those decisions for me.

The Republican Establishment Speaks

2011-12-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Jonah Goldberg's articles since the mid 1990s, when I discovered him at National Review Online, along with his couch, which seemed to star in some of his pieces as a character in its own right. Goldberg has matured into a father, husband, and a thoughtful conservative voice. So the article appearing at Townhall.com today entitled Conservative Establishment Divided Against Itself somewhat surprised me. Goldberg has become a part of the "Republican Establishment." Goldberg claims that he has not moved from the principles he so eloquently spoke about a decade and a half ago, but rather it is we, the conservative base, who has moved further to the right.

Long pause, staring out the window of the office overlooking the PolyKahr estates....

He is correct. I cannot speak for everyone else, but I can relate my own journey to come to this point in my life. I suspect others have followed similar pathways that have led them to a place close to mine. Conservatism, in the mind of Goldberg, is not an ideology. There are no unifying principles to Goldbergs conservatism except that the conservative is the one standing athwart history yelling "stop." The conservative says "think about the unintended consequences," or "think how this could be used by your worst enemy." Unfortunately, the Left usually thinks it has thought of the unintended consequences. Also, unfortunately, the conservatives have been too polite to use what the Left has given us against them.

You can see the problem with this state of affairs already. The Left constantly frames the issues we are all talking about. Slowly they marshal their forces until it appears they have the majority opinion. The conservative press makes arguments against the proposal, but since these are often based on tradition, religion, and the nature of man, all things the Left rejects, the arguments are dismissed out of hand. Out of desperation, the conservative offers up a "compromise" which is less destructive, but in fact the Left has just won yet again. We conservatives find ourselves in the ridiculous position of trying to defend programs that before we were against. It is disconcerting to see so called "conservative" politicians trying to figure out how to save Social Security and Medicare, for example. Today the Left starts out as if what is has always been, and keeps pushing the nation ever leftward. For example, taking the gun control scheme currently in place, they run around asking why we in the gun rights community can't compromise on "reasonable, common sense" gun control. But if the truth be actually told, most of the 20,000 laws currently on the books are illegal and unconstitutional, and should be stricken.

Then I thought of the word, "conservative." A "conservative" conserves. But what is it he is trying to conserve? In Europe, conservatives try to conserve the monarchy. For the most part they have failed miserably. In America, conservatives have been trying to maintain the gains made in the Revolution and subsequent writing of the Constitution. Being a Constitutionalist solves many of the problems we have had with the Leftward movement of our national politics over time. The Constitution offers a set of fixed principles, that none the less can be changed if enough of us can be convinced to change it. If it were adhered to by everybody, most of our nation's problems would be manageable.

Not to be thwarted by anything so minor as a dusty 200 year old document written by men who couldn't possibly survive in today's fast paced hustle and bustle world, the Left has turned the Constitution into a "living, breathing" document that can be bent, folded, stapled and mutilated as needed to sanction the latest most up to date fad. PETA is suing to grant some killer whales human rights. How avant guarde! How very Left, the idea that rights are granted by men. How stupid. Yet unless we assert some fixed principle why this is a stupid idea, it too will become the law of the land.

So, I come, at last, to where I am. The Constitution meant what it said when it said it, and it means the same things today that it meant when it was written. The original intent of the Constitution can be researched and understood, and this is the method that should be used. By these standards, a huge number of subsidies, entitlements, transfer payments, and laws should be stricken from the books. Does that sound radical to you Mr. Goldberg? Maybe it is, but I can look myself in the mirror each day knowing that I can argue from principle, rather that just saying to the Left "slow down." We need to have rock solid and unchanging principles if we are ever to turn back the current slide into fascism and a police state.

I, the Journalist

2011-12-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The emphasis in the above is mine.

The freedom of the press spoken about above is the freedom to publish, be it "news," opinions, stories, advertisements, open letters to the editor, or anything else that someone else might wish to read. The content was prepared by authors, called variously reporters, correspondents, copy writers, or more generally journalists. A journal is any daily account of events, whether those accounts be financial, a record of what you did with your time, a record of your travels on a day by day basis, or just your opinions about how events affect you. In my career with the Navy, I used a product from Franklin Covey to record my daily plan, as well as how that plan turned out. I did not publish it however. But, an interesting time can be had by exploring The National Diary Archive. A diary is another name for a journal.

Now, "blog" is short for "web log." A log is yet another name for a journal. Sailors kept logs of their travels with positions, weather, cargo, personnel, and anything else that might interest the owner of the vessel at a later time. So, if a blog is a journal, and publishing on the web is a form of publishing, then I am a journalist. I have thought of myself as a journalist ever since I started writing this blog.

What got me thinking about it today was an article at The American Thinker entitled Who is the 'Free Press' in the First Amendment? by Dan Smyth. In the article, Smyth makes the point that it is not journalists, per se, but rather the technology of the printing press that is protected. Smith makes liberal use of an article published by Eugene Volokh (blog: The Volokh Conspiracy) to back up his claim. The "press" therefore was not intended to denote an industry, a class of mandarins with special esoteric knowledge, or the "Fourth Estate," but rather to give anyone who has the means of publishing his content the ability to do so without prior restraint.

All of this seems straight forward enough. But, you would be wrong. Apparently, in a case involving liable, one Judge Marco Hernandez has declared that since one Chrystal Cox, the blogger involved, did not attend Journalism school, and since she doesn't have a boss, in the form of an editor looking over her shoulders, nor is she an "authorized journalist" from an established media company, she is not a journalist. Never underestimate the ignorance that comes out of the mouth of highly educated Judges. Of course, if Judge Hernandez had pondered on the history of journalism just a little bit, he would have discovered that most of the great journalists learned their craft through something called "on the job training," not going to elite Journalism Schools. Our early journalists were often a hard bitten, sometimes hard drinking lot with up close and personal experience with the human condition. Couple that with a healthy sense of irony and a particularly interesting turn of phrase and you have your instant journalist. Indeed, having lived a life worth writing about used to be seen as a plus in a journalist's resume.

I can not speak to the issue in the Chrystal Cox case of whether she committed liable or not, nor can I speak to the Oregon Shield Law, but I can say that I, and others like me, are indeed journalists. I don't make a dime from doing this, and my circulation is relatively small, but I am a journalist none the less.

A Missed Christmas Gift

2011-12-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas was quite busy for me. The grand kids were anxious to open their presents, so I didn't spend much time on the reading list. As a result, I missed a great gift of my own, this powerful Rumination from Francis Porretto of Eternity Road.

I have had similar discussions with various people. Indeed, the question "How could a loving god allow children to suffer so?" is a familiar refrain. My answer is usually briefer than Mr. Porretto's, and suffers by comparison. Go and read the whole thing, as it is worth it to anyone who contemplates the Great Questions of the Universe. But a quote may get your juices flowing:

The heart of the thing is the nature of free will under the veil of Time. We are temporal creatures. Alone among the living species, we experience the passage of time, in which we sequence the events of our lives and concoct theories about why this happened instead of that. Because our wills are free, we are capable of taking many paths forward from any point in time and circumstance. The scope of our decision making is limited only by our nature.

Our nature is defined by the laws of the universe that gave rise to us. God decreed those laws and made them self-enforcing. But they don't constrain our wills. We are free to choose what ends we will pursue: pleasure or pain; profit or loss; stasis or dynamism; good or evil. Freedom of the will is God's original gift to Mankind: the one that distinguishes us from all the lower orders...and perhaps from some of the higher ones, as well.

He goes on to point out that if you think about God, as opposed to relating to him, you are not thinking big enough. The fact of God's omniscience and our free will can only be understood by acknowledging that God stand outside of time and space. Thus God must know how we will use the great gift he has given us, and yet it is up to us to choose. We alone can not alleviate all the evil in the world, but wouldn't it be great if more of us worked harder at it? Choose wisely,

And may God bless and keep you, Francis Porretto.

More Evidence Against the Global Warming Scare

2011-12-27T06:48:00.000-08:00

Speaking of indoctrinating children in the cult of Goofball Wormening, The Daily Bayonet has Everything you ever needed to know about man-made global warming in one sentence and a graph.

This was the question I asked all those years ago, and never got an answer:

If the earth was warmer during prehistoric periods, and no one was about driving SUVs, what caused the warming then?

The obvious answer was the Sun. But if the Sun caused the earth to warm then, couldn't the Sun be causing the earth to warm now? Shouldn't the possibility be at least contemplated?

Mustn't ask these questions. It is not PC.

Back to the Future

2011-12-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

Education of our children, and in my case, grand children, is a topic that is often devoid of any common sense. Proposals to improve things are usually offered that involve more money spent on "technology" and the latest fads. As pointed out by today's featured article, the way we learn has not changed in the entire history of man, and we already know how to do it. Yesterday's American Thinker an article that reminded me of the movie title "Back To the Future." The title of the piece A World Without Schoolteachers is an interesting read, and I recommend it to you, gentle reader.

The thesis of the article is that the new Kindle and Nook book reading devices will have a revolutionary effect on the way children are educated. By bringing so much material into the hands of even the lower middle class student, it is entirely possible that we will return to the old way of teaching children, with better results than we are achieving now. Children will finally be home schooled, with access to tutors and the whole of the Library of Congress:

Tutoring has always been the preferred model. That is after all how the very rich educated their children. Second-best, and not-so-second-best at that, were the small schools where the second tier of society, the well-off not-so-rich, pooled their resources in some public location and shared tutors. (Which is why the British, as in Eton and Harrow, still call exclusive private schools "public" schools.) And of course, the elite universities did their best to maintain the tutoring model of education. Did their best, that is, to steer clear of classroom instruction...

In fact, even the simplest tutoring approach often works magic. Years ago, a twelve-year-old foster child arrived in our home essentially unable to read after six or seven years of classroom "special" education. To the point where he didn't even know how to use a dictionary. Our oldest son, a prolific writer, happened to be visiting us at the time, saw the problem, and came up with a fix. He handed the boy the newspaper he read each morning, told him to sit on his bed, read it aloud, and circle every word he couldn't pronounce or didn't know the meaning of. Then, later, the two of them went over the circled words together. The first day, every fourth or fifth word was circled, but it wasn't very long before the number of circles began to decrease, and something clicked in the boy's mind. "Hey," he seemed to say to himself, "this is not such a mystery. I can get this reading and writing thing working on my own." And he went on to other material. Then, when he was ready to begin high school, the state and local school district sent a team to evaluate him in order to design a classroom program that met his "special needs." Only there wasn't any, because they were shocked to discover that he tested at or above -- and in a couple of subjects, far above -- his grade level.

Now, imagine a child who can already read, and can already use a dictionary:

And that's all it takes. Hand out the reading assignment, be available, or have someone else available to examine the essay they write and perhaps send them back to the same material book for another go or two on the same subject. Because tutoring doesn't teach a discrete body of knowledge as much as it does a skill we don't hear much about anymore: scholarship. Not simply memorizing some facts about a subject, but examining it from one perspective and then another until you develop a detailed, three-dimensional view of the subject. It's your month to learn about the Revolutionary War? Read a biography of Washington one day, then in the next Paine or Jefferson, Madison and Adams. Intersperse these books with a personal account of a common soldier, a slave, a parson of the time. Sample some fiction which portrays the period -- Drums Along the Mohawk, for example. Some of the short and breezy economic looks about the period like The Timber Economy of New England. Maybe read the newspapers of the time.

I have been reluctant to get a Kindle or a Nook, in part because we have a pretty extensive library right here at home. But there are a lot of books I just can not afford, and space here at the PolyKahr estate is quite limited. Perhaps I need to look into getting one of these things and trying it out. The thought that my grand daughter is being indoctrinated that man made global warming is a fact bothers me. Now, whether she eventually comes to the conclusion that man is causing global warming doesn't bother me. Rather, it is that she is being given only one side of the argument, and doesn't have a chance to hear the other side. That is the difference between indoctrination and education. One teach you to believe certain things, the other teaches you to think. Believe me, this world needs more thinkers.

What Courage Looks Like

2011-12-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

Please go check out a new blog called Liberated Now. Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugs pointed me to this site. It is a very powerful read, though to date there are only 3 postings. It is the story of a person born Muslim who discovers that Islam is a hoax, and that the Koran preaches hatred and murder.

We in America talk frequently of a culture war on Christianity. Every year at this time, Nativity scenes seemingly become the targets of atheists and ACLU lawyers who want to take them down to prevent one of these thin skinned atheists from being offended. Christmas trees become holiday trees, and many store clerks wish you "Happy Holidays" instead of saying "Merry Christmas." But all of that is small potatoes, not worth getting excited about. The trees are a hangover from pagan holidays celebrating the winter solstice, and while I think Nativity scenes should be allowed to be displayed, so far the courts have only prevented them on public property. To be sure, we need to push back often, and hard, but none of us are going to lose our lives, or even be put in prison over these things.

On the other hand, our converted Muslim friend faces death if anyone around him finds out. This is serious, and yet he has done it anyway. If you want to know what courage looks like, go to the site and read.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T03:33:00.000-08:00

"For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" Luke 2:11.

As the Savior, Jesus frees us from the evil that man had brought into the world. Being now free, he expects us to use our freedom to free others. Let us ponder on this, and see if we can not make everday a Christmas in the coming year.

May God bless and keep each of you,

PolyKahr

Another Reason to End the EPA

2011-12-22T06:35:00.000-08:00

Funny how articles on a topic seem to run in batches. Apropos of yesterday's post, Way Up North has a link to Borepatch's article on the Climategate 2.0 email dump. Go read the whole thing, including the embedded links.

Does Gringrich's and Romney's embrace of "man made global warming" make sense now? Unfortunately, there is no way to know who all may be involved. Some of the politicians may be running under the radar, while one may make a good guess about others. The EPA has been in the thick of it though, since before the original Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, with AlGore leading the charge in Kyoto. Bush took a neutral position on the issue, so I don't think he was directly involved. But the Massachusetts vs. EPA (2007) case "forcing" the EPA to regulate green house gases happened on his watch. The point is, who can be trusted to do the right thing by the American people?

I recommend we all pray about who we should vote for in the coming elections.

The EPA Needs to Go

2011-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long preferred totalitarian approaches to its functions, instead of taking market based approaches that encourage people to see doing the "right thing" as being in their own self interests. The EPA simply doesn't believe in the free market, or that doing things for selfish reasons can be moral in any sense of the word. After pondering this strange dilemma for a long time, I came to the conclusion that this problem stems from the fact that many environmentalists are communists, and "green" is the new way to impose a drag on the United States so it doesn't out compete Communist countries. The most recent manifestation of the wretched attack of the EPA on the American economy can be seen in the EPA's Unconscionable War on Fracking over at the American Thinker by Jeffrey Folks.

A quote of a few paragraphs will give you a flavor of the article:

But it's not just that the EPA has a habit of releasing incomplete reports based on inadequate research. Those draft reports are not just incomplete. It seems that they contain scientific errors and apparent fabrications that raise serious doubts about the ability of the agency to do its job. The Pavillion fracking case is a good example.

While charging the drillers in question with contaminating groundwater, the EPA suppressed information in a manner that would compel any court of law to dismiss the case and issue a serious reprimand, if not bring charges of contempt, against the prosecution. Surely, the EPA was aware, or should have been aware, of the fact that well water in Pavillion has been "contaminated" with polluting chemicals for half a century. This natural "pollution" is not the consequence of fracking, as the EPA charges, but of natural contamination.

Not only did the EPA report suppress this evidence -- evidence that argues strongly against contamination on the part of drilling company -- but it failed to address further scientific evidence that would rule out contamination. Not only were Pavillion's water wells already polluted decades before drilling began, but the pollution that the EPA says entered the system from drilling involved chemicals never used in fracking. (They are, however, used in the construction of water wells of the kind that might be found in Pavillion, not in oil and gas wells.) And yet the EPA persisted with its charges, knowing that the very chemical it discovered in well water could not have entered the wells in the manner suggested.

When the Constitution, and the rule of law, is ignored, or openly flouted, it is hard not to conclude that we are no longer living in the United States, but in a tyrannical country located in the place of what used to be the United States. That this has gone on for decades, under both Republican and Democrat administrations, and has only gotten worse tells me that both parties are to blame.

The EPA has been involved in chicanery and skulduggery since its inception in 1970 under (Republican) President Richard Nixon. The first "victory" of the environmental movement under William Ruckelshaus was the virtual banning of DDT. While I admit that the use of DDT was too frequent, and it was used in too many situations, it none the less is true that before DDT, malaria was endemic in the United States. By the end of WWII, it was virtually eradicated from CONUS. However, one of the most notorious cases involves the Hooker Chemical Company and the Love Canal. Reason Magazine did an expose in 1981 in Love Canal: The Truth Seeps Out by Eric Zuesse. It is a long article, but an instructive read on the way the EPA operates. In this case, they used public ignorance, due in part to misreporting by the MSM, to try to lay the blame at the feet of Hooker Chemical. But Hooker took extraordinary measures to bury their wastes in a landfill that far exceeded the state of the art, and to warn the Board of Education that the property was unsuitable for any use other than a park. Indeed, it was the City of Niagara Falls itself, who penetrated the clay cell walls while building a sewer and precipitated the release of the chemical wastes that led to people being evacuated from their homes. None of that mattered to EPA. In their way of looking at the world, Hooker Chemical was to blame for making chemicals that have made every body's lives better, and worse, making a profit doing so.

Folks concludes his article:

When federal agencies begin to wield power in an unconstitutional manner, depriving citizens and corporations of property in the most callous manner imaginable, one of our fundamental liberties has been lost. It is time for the EPA to be not only reined in, but eliminated, and for whatever legitimate functions it has to be handed over to more responsible departments of government at the state level.

When an agency begins to attack private citizens with no regard for the law, there is no limit to the damage that can result. Today it may "only" be the property of oil and gas companies that are at stake. Tomorrow it will be not just the property, but the life and liberty of all Americans. If the extralegal activity of federal agencies like the EPA is not curtailed, all Americans will soon be at risk of imprisonment at the whim of any one of the president's czars. That is the attitude toward law that exists in a totalitarian state, not in a democracy.

Breaking up the EPA would be a great start for a new President and Congress. Will they have the guts to do it?

The Shroud of Turin Likely Authentic

2011-12-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

I am taking a break today from the all bad news all the time format that this blog has become to report something interesting. The Huffington Puffington Post is reporting that the Shroud of Turin is likely authentic according to a team of scientists based on their most recent findings. Go and read.

As a Christian, I don't really know how I feel about the Shroud. On the one hand, if it is indeed the Shroud that Jesus wore when he was buried, and the image was somehow burned into the cloth at the moment of his rising, I am awed again by the power of God to perform such miracles. On the other hand, if the the Shroud is not the cloth worn by Jesus when he was buried, and the image, presumably of someone else, was made by still unexplained means, there remain the Gospels and the Letters. One either has faith, or one does not.

I saw a piece, I think it was on the History channel, but I could be wrong, where Peter M. Schumacher was demonstrating his discovery of a thee dimensional image in the cloth, and his supposition that it was because the shroud was wrapped around the body. Schumacher's paper can be found here at www.shroud.com. Interestingly, what we see today is a flat image that was once three dimensional. When that is taken into account, one can see the actual image of the person buried in the Shroud. But again, the question of just who was buried in the Shroud remains a matter of faith. You either believe it was Jesus, or you don't.

So here is the great mystery. If knowing that the Shroud is special, different, and likely the result of a great miracle helps you believe and strengthens your faith, then that is a good thing. But even if the Shroud is eventually shown not to be the cloth Jesus was buried in, that doesn't falsify the Gospels or the Letters. In the end, you must have faith to believe. There will never be enough positive proof if you do not. It has been so for 2011 years.

Merry Christmas!

Update: Meanwhile it appears that Frankincense may be endangered according to a report at USA Today. Frankincense was one of the three gifts of the Magi to the child Jesus. The tree, from which frankincense is harvested grows in small pockets, and the tree doesn't reproduce itself prolifically.

Back in the USSR

2011-12-18T05:08:00.000-08:00

I tend to think of myself as a realist. I see trends, and follow those trends to their logical conclusions. Then I look at what societal and cultural circumstances might limit those trends. I read news stories, probably too many, and I follow blogs, again probably too many. I also talk to people and try to find out what they are thinking. Now, Mrs. PolyKahr thinks I am pessimistic. Certainly if one looks at trends today, one sees no end to, what for me and many of those I talk to, the bad news. Our rights are being taken by governments at all levels, while our responsibilities and legal liabilities only grow. Witness We have crossed the Rubicon by Eric Peters over at Lew Rockwell. Does Peters sound a little paranoid? Well, maybe, but then after witnessing what has happened over the last two decades, I can't help being just a little paranoid.

For example, a friend the other day happened to mention a hypothetical to try out on me. (Now remember, this was sprung on me, and it is not a complete analysis.) My friend wondered whether he could keep his gun on his person in a flight from Raleigh to Charlotte where he was to purchase a car for the return trip. He would, he pointed out, have no baggage to carry since he intended to return that day. He would not be going to another State so his North Carolina permit would be good for the entire trip. I pointed out that in any case, the State authority that owns the Raleigh-Durham airport doesn't permit guns anywhere on the grounds of the airport. Beside that, the Federal Government has carved out little Federal Reservations at each airport where, we are told without any apparent irony, we don't have any Constitutionally protected rights. At that point, another friend who had been listening pointed out that in the old days we used to carry guns on the plane and nobody thought anything about it. In a mere 40 years we have gone from carrying on planes with no paperwork, to having enough regulation to at least cause you a little bit of concern. Now, the responsibility to know at all times where one's gun is has not been relieved for any of us that carry. If our gun is used in a crime, we will surely be questioned at the least, and may face prosecution. But the best way to know where one's gun is, is to have it secured in a holster on the hip. Government has made that impossible.

While self defense is a fundamental right that has been pared away over time, we have been losing our rights to property, and our liberty a slice at a time for decades. In most urban areas today, a tree can not cut down on your own property without a permit. Do you actually own that tree, or does the government? You must pay taxes on any income you earn for working. So who owns the fruits of your labor, you or the government? The debate the regime is waging right now over how much of his income a wealthy individual should pay would indicate that the government assumes it does. And if the government owns the product of our labor, it must think it owns us too.

A piece at the American Thinker today, entitled We Need Not Repeat 1776, by Deane Waldman paints a picture that seems to be too pollyannaish about our prospects, at least to the realist in me. Waldman makes essentially the same point in his article that I made in the previous post that the Founders gave us a way to hold a bloodless revolution whenever our government did not meet our needs. What he didn't point out is how the will of the majority of the people is being subverted at every turn by collectivists in an effort to get some new voters.

One of the most infamous attempts to disenfranchise large numbers of North Carolina voters comes in the form of the NAACP and the NC Democrat Party suing the leaders of the House and Senate to overturn the new voting districts, which resulted from the 2010 census and the election of a Republican controlled Legislature. What they hope to do is get a court to invalidate the results of the 2010 election. And instead of throwing these rascals out on their ear, it appears that the court is entertaining the case!

I can't help but feel like I have been taken Back in the USSR. Merry Christmas all!

Update: Over at the American Thinker today is The Hitman Cometh: America to be a 'War Zone' touching on similar topics. It is a good read.

Don't Like the Outcome of Elections-Get New Voters

2011-12-15T05:17:00.000-08:00

For years now, I have heard that there is some poor schmuck out there somewhere who is a legitimate citizen, but who can not show valid photo identification of himself. Should this person be denied the right to vote just because (fill in the emotional tag line here)? I ask who that person is? The only response is a vague reference to even more vaguely oppressed minorities. Whoever this person is, he doesn't drive so no need for a driver's license. Obviously he doesn't travel to foreign countries, at least not legally, so no need for a passport. But, since you are asked to identify yourself at seemingly ever turn, what is so hard about going down to your local DMV and getting a free identification card with a photo? Who can't manage that? Show me the individual, and then let's talk.

Ray Hartwell has a great piece on the issue over at Pajamas Media entitled Plain and Simple, the DNC Wants Voter Fraud. Mr. Hartwell:

And so, when I think about the DNC’s concern about the implications of voter ID laws “for real people,” I have to wonder if their concern isn’t really more about people who are not “real” – i.e., the dead and imaginary voters who have turned out for decades now in Chicago and other Democratic strongholds across the country.

Certainly the activities of ACORN and its allies in 2008, which are being cranked up again for 2012, belie any DNC profession of concern about the integrity of elections. The same can be said for the Department of Justice’s refusal to take action to clean up voter rolls – they will not force local authorities to comply with federal voting laws by removing dead people and others who are ineligible from the rolls.

When I read articles like this from Hot Air, I have to think that Hartwell is right. The Democrat politicians want voter fraud. There can be no other explanation for the lame excuse making taking place in Wisconsin. The next conclusion is also pretty clear: they, more than Republicans, believe they benefit when people take the admonition to "vote early, vote often" quite literally. To the degree that it happens, and they get away with it, what does that say about the legitimacy of the laws the politicians are making? The legitimacy of our form of government is that the people's representatives make the laws under which we live. What if that weren't true?

Recall that the Democrats passed ObamaCare on a party line vote and against the will of the majority of the people in this country. Recall that polls indicate that that majority has only grown in the years since that vote. Yet the Democrats felt invulnerable enough to thumb their noses at the voters and go ahead with this horrible monstrosity. They weren't falling on their swords for the good of the Republic, but hoping to steal yet more liberty from the American people They felt little fear that the people would rise up. Why is that?

The Founders gave the American people a way to hold a bloodless revolution every two years. The Constitution provides a framework to carry out the words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...

Voter fraud essentially disenfranchises the legitimate majority of voters by deciding for them which politician shall represent them in the making of laws. It is, I believe, for that reason that the Democrats did not fear the voters over ObamaCare. They have in essence, gotten rid of their legitimate voters and have instead gotten new voters, ones to their liking, and they are loathe to give them up.

Sharia is coming, Sharia is coming!

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

What is it with Leftist and Islamists? Pamela Geller reports on a Shameful State Department Initiative over at the American Thinker. Go and read.

She is right in every particular. The "religion of peace" is not a religion at all, but a brutal political system. It is notoriously intolerant, yet asks for tolerance. It is incompatible with personal liberty and freedom.

Pamela doesn't mention this, but the same government that has been waging a misguided war on Christianity under the idea that the establishment clause forbids all references to God and Jesus, somehow justifies cozying up to Islam? Does that mean they don't see it as a religion either?

Georgia Going for Constitutional Carry

2011-12-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

The War on Guns: Georgia Gun Owners going for ‘Constitutional carry’

Go and read at the War on Guns. It is about time. I have accepted having a concealed handgun license as an intermediate step. But frankly, from my perspective, no one should have to obtain a license to either purchase a gun, or to bear it. The move to "shall issue" has had a salutary effect on the argument, however, by demonstrating that concealed carriers are a law abiding bunch who don't go around killing people because they looked at them the wrong way. There has been no blood in the streets, or wild west shootouts. But many people hesitate to obtain these licenses for a number of reasons: fears of what a future government may do, fears of being outed in the press. Some want to have the privilege because they have been threatened before, but fear the process for obtaining a license would alert the other party to where to find them. I understand.

A right can not be licensed. You don't require a license to publish a blog, for example, no matter how much you dislike what is said. To do so renders speaking out a privilege, not a right. You can not require a fee to exercise your right to vote. Books can not be banned, no matter how disreputable the content of the book. Then why may the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment be licensed and taxed?

It has been argued that the solution for people who speak reprehensible ideas is more free speech. Don't censor these guys, the free speech advocates say, instead encourage others to offer their reasons why it is reprehensible, and let the public decide. Public opinion will do more to stop such ideas than censoring them. I agree. But then, why doesn't the same hold true for Second Amendment rights. John Lott has argued, and no one to date has made a valid counter argument, that more guns equals fewer crimes. Everyone who can should bear arms freely, so that criminals will not know at any time who is carrying a gun and prepared to use it. This is not vigilante justice, but stopping the crime right there when it happens. If an armed society is a polite society, think how much more civil our society would be if more of us were armed.

The Herald Gets it Wrong

2011-12-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

A recent editorial in the Johnston County Herald contained an editorial that touched on something that I had some personal experience with. The Town of Garner recently reacted to the new State law allowing concealed carry in public parks by defining "recreational area" fairly tightly.

The Town of Garner, like a lot of towns, views itself as a "right thinking place, where progressive values of the people prevail." I determined this from watching them, rather than from anything actually said. As such, they had designated public parks as places where you couldn't bring a concealed handgun. Never mind that all sorts of other potentially lethal items such as baseball bats, crow bars, knives, and so forth could be brought to the parks, and in some cases were required to be there. I speak of baseball bats. On December 1, 2011, the new Castle Doctrine went into effect. Among the things provided in the law was that cities could no longer designate public parks as no gun zones. It was clear at the meeting of the Town Council that they didn't want to do this. None the less, they also did not want to finance a losing lawsuit from the group Grass Roots North Carolina, a group to which I belong.

Overall, the editorial is not terribly anti-gun, and I would normally pass it without comment, but there are huge flaws in the reasoning. A quote from the editorial:

As for those who think that law-abiding folks ought to be able to carry a gun wherever they want, we're sympathetic. At the same time, we sympathize with moms and dads who might be uncomfortable at the sight of someone packing a handgun on the playground. We sympathize too with referees who don't want to confront parents with pistols, and no one wants an athlete or spectator to get caught in the crossfire of an exchange of gunfire.

The first thing to note is that moms and dads wouldn't see these guns. They are called "concealed" for a reason-you can't see them. I am always amazed when this argument is trotted out. It is trotted out for instance as a reason to keep concealed carry out of bars. After noting that it is illegal for someone to drink while carrying concealed (which is where they go first) the anti-gunners will rejoinder with "but what if some drunk sees your gun, takes it from you, and shoots up the place." Of course, no one will see it, because it is concealed.

The piece goes on to note that criminals, by definition, don't obey laws. The editors hope thereby to divert the most powerful arrow in our quiver. But look at what they have done! They have just assumed that moms, dads, referees, athletes and spectators can all rest assured knowing that no one has a gun on the premises. Except they don't know any such thing. Instead, these people are lulled by an illusion of safety. Any security these people feel is created by some security theatre staged by the city. But if putting up signs could prevent violence, the this little skit on You Tube would be true, along with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

During the meeting with the Garner Town Council, we mentioned the case of Anna McCall who fended off a man trying to kidnap her three year old son will playing at a playground. Anna McCall's story was fortunately a happy one. One wonders if the next time it happens in Garner, will the parent be quite so lucky?

December 7, 1941...a day that will live in infamy...

2011-12-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Mike Vanderboegh is a keen student of history. He is also a great story teller. So, go and read a little bit about World War II that you may not have known, or that you may have forgotten at Sipsey Street Irregulars.

The TSA: Stealing your Rights and Liberties Every Day

2011-12-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't done anything on the TSA (Testicle Squeezing Agency) lately. It is not for a lack of things they do that are worth writing about. In fact, they seen to do something outrageous ever single day. But, in the interests of keeping from going insane, let's take a look at just one little outrage, over at the American Thinker entitled TSA Stops Dangerous Looking Purse. The American Thinker piece links to a video news report from Jacksonville Florida News 4 station. The purse does indeed have a design of a handgun on it. Oh my!

For a number of years now, I have been suspicious that my trusty 1911 might just be going out at night while I am sleeping, and holding up people. Guns do that, you know. They just go off whenever there is a fender bender. So, of course, little plastic replica guns probably go off all the time too.

I can believe that there is indeed, somewhere in the thousands of pages of Federal Regulations, a regulation that prohibits replica firearms inside airport "security" perimeters. Probably the original intent was to keep someone from carrying a realistic replica into the airport, waving it around, and getting shot. I get it. But looking at her purse, it is pretty clear that this is not such a replica, and it is pretty clear that it is also not a weapon.

But, all of this begs the question, are we really any safer? The government now violates the rights of every American who steps on a plane. After all, we don't have to fly, they say. Flying is a choice, a "privilege." You could drive a car. But of course, you can see the slippery slope. When they start setting up roadblocks on the highway, will they then say say that you don't have to drive, you could walk? This is nonsense.

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Note that the Amendment, like most of the Constitution, is pretty clearly written. A non lawyer can understand what it says. Note that it doesn't say anything about "privileges" that the government may rescind at will. Notice too that before a search begins, a Warrant must be issued, usually signed by a Judge, stating that they have probable cause, and that a specific person is to be searched, and specific things seized. Searching everyone, or even random searches of people in general, is not allowed, unless they have a reason to search a person, and have obtained a Warrant.

The government has no business placing itself into the middle of a private transaction. You purchase a ticket from the airline which entitles you to fly on their planes from point A to point B. If the airline wishes to perform a security check, they are entitled to do so. After all, it is their airplane and their business they are potentially risking. If passengers feel that the airline is not doing enough, those passengers are free to take a competing airline instead. The government does not need to get involved in this process. The airline could offer to run background checks on people as a courtesy, and have them pre-screened before they get to the airport, for instance. Such background checks would be perfectly legal as a condition of traveling using that airline. Otherwise, travelers would face airline security at the airport. All of this would be legal. What is not legal, no matter what the Supreme Court may have said, is allowing the government to search everyone who comes to the airport on the grounds that someone, somewhere, might be a terrorist.

I remember as a kid that we could go right out to the airplane to greet a passenger who had just arrived. Having come to a strange city and a strange airport, it was considered a courtesy to greet them and guide them to awaiting ground transportation. Will we ever be able to recover any of our lost liberties?

Banning Assault Pools and Pillows

2011-11-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

Ammoland has a very good summary of child fatality statistics in an article entitled More Children Killed by Pillows than by Firearms. According to the article, in 2010, only 65 children (those aged 14 and under) were killed by firearms. That same year, 1,210 were killed by suffocation, and 739 were killed by drowning. Should we ban assault pillows and assault pools?

Every few years, the gun grabbers bring up the idea that thousands of "children" are killed every year in drive by shootings, and from finding their parent's gun and shooting themselves or others. I hate to be harsh, but the far greater number of these "children" are ages 15 through sometimes as old as 20, who are involved in criminal gangs, selling drugs, running prostitution and guns. I feel genuinely sorry for the mothers who come on television and sob that their boy was a good boy, but the facts usually say otherwise. By the age of 18, many have a long record of crimes.

Please make a copy of the chart included with the article. The next time someone starts yammering on about the number of children killed with a firearm, pull out the chart.

Was Ted Stevens Really Guilty?

2011-11-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

I carry no water for former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. But, this is interesting: according to USA Today, Inquiry Finds Misconduct by Prosecutors in Ted Stevens case. Such misconduct was also present in, among other cases, the Olafson case. What I find remarkable is that no prosecution of the prosecutors is recommended because the judge didn't issue a "clear and unequivocal" order that they "follow the law."

Huh?

Now it is necessary to state that the proceedings will follow the law, otherwise you don't know under what set of rules the prosecution may be conducted? Really? As officers of the court, aren't they supposed to automatically follow the law, or be disbarred?

As I said before, I carry no water for Stevens, but he should have been tried under the rule of law, giving him the full benefit of the doubt. Exculpatory evidence should have been revealed to him. The purpose of prosecuting people is not to find them guilty and send them to jail, but to find justice, or as close as we can get in this world. Sometimes that means jail, sometimes that means letting a bad guy go free. Was Stevens guilty? We will never know because of these prosecutors shenanigans.

Only a 40% Chance the Supreme Court will Rule Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

2011-11-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

In Trade is a predictions market, that lets people bid on predictions of the outcomes of real world events. The markets give probablilities of future events happening, for example, Barack Obama being elected President in 2012. People either buy "yes" shares or "no" shares. Obviously, chance that an event will happen is reflected in the price of the shares, which range from $0 to $10. For instance, if the price of the share is $7.00 dollars, the event is predicted to have a 70% chance of happening. As of this writing, the odds of Barack Obama winning the election is 52% The odds of Romney running against him is 70%.

All of this is very interesting, but it seems a little bit like betting on whether or not the Cubs will in the World Series next year. Strangely, though, In Trade has a pretty good record of predicting the outcome of events correctly. So, it was diappointing to see that trading is going on for a prediction "The U. S. Supreme Court to rule individual mandate unconstitutional before 31 December 2012" and that the odds of this event are only 40%. If the Supreme Court can torture the language enough to find this horrible law "Constitutional" then we are well and truly done as a nation.

The individual mandate in ObamaCare relies on the dubious notion that the Commerce Clause grants to Congress near universal authority to regulate any activity it wants on the grounds that it has a tangential effect on interstate commerce. (It also relies on a clause, known only to Representative John Conyers, called the "Good and Plenty" clause, but I digress.) This was not the original meaning of the Commerce clause. Remember that the States are sovereign. So, one State, Ohio for example, could enact a "Buy Ohio" law that made it illegal to sell anything made or grown in another State if that product was also made or grown in Ohio. Or, the States could have erected tariffs against products from out of State. Congress could therefore regulate how commerce was to be conducted among the several States. They were given authority to create a framework for trade and commerce internal to the United States that enhanced the general welfare. Then, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Court began taking a more expansive view of the Commerce Clause, notoriously ruling in Wickard vs. Filburn that even grain that a farmer raised on his own property, and which never left his farm, none the less affected interstate commerce. With this view of the Commerce clause powers of Congress, it is hard to see that any activity could not be regulated. It was put very well at the Volokh Conspiracy:

For example, not everyone eats broccoli. But everyone does participate in the market for food. Therefore, a mandate requiring everyone to purchase and eat broccoli would be permissible under the federal government’s logic, as would any other purchase requirement. As the Eleventh Circuit puts it, “the government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life.” Whatever we do, we are always implicitly making decisions not to purchase some product or other, and those choices all have economic effects.

There is a bright spot in all this however, the Court has begun trimming the sails of Congress just a bit. In 1995, in Lopez the courts began ruling that some things simply do not meet the test of interstate commerce.

Only a 40% Chance the Supreme Court will Rule Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

2011-11-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

For example, not everyone eats broccoli. But everyone does participate in the market for food. Therefore, a mandate requiring everyone to purchase and eat broccoli would be permissible under the federal government’s logic, as would any other purchase requirement. As the Eleventh Circuit puts it, “the government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life.” Whatever we do, we are always implicitly making decisions not to purchase some product or other, and those choices all have economic effects.

Obedience to God May Mean Disobedience to Government

2011-11-15T05:17:00.000-08:00

Anthony Martin has an excellent post today at the Martin Christian Ministries entitled Obedience to God May Mean Disobedience to Government. Go read. This is truly important.

H.R. 822 Revisited

2011-11-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote about H.R. 822, the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act here. I was decidedly underwhelmed by this bill, feeling that it would never receive the support of both houses of Congress and the President. Several other articles have appeared about H.R. 822 at Keep and Bear Arms. The first of these appeared in the Washington Times under the bipartisan byline of Heath Schuler and Cliff Stearns, both Congressional Representatives, entitled The Nation Needs Right to Carry Reciprocity on Friday, November 11, 2011. They write:

H.R. 822 would allow any person with a valid state-issued concealed-firearm carrying permit or license to carry a concealed weapon in any other state. It would not create a federal licensing system but merely would require states to honor one another’s carry permits, just as states recognize one another’s driver’s licenses. Concealed-carry permit holders would have to obey the concealed-weapon laws of the state they enter, just as drivers must obey speed limits and basic safety laws of whichever state they are driving in, regardless of where they are from.

For once, Congress would be fulfilling a Constitutional role, enforcing, among other things, the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution, as well as strengthening the Second Amendment. As a concealed carry license holder, I appreciate the simplicity of this requirement. It might have prevented this man from being arrested in New Jersey and serving 7 years for possession of guns he owned legally. Then again, if you are carrying hollow points in your defensive weapon, as many of us do, you might just go to jail anyway. Or this from the Blaze. New Jersey is a State that has concealed carry provisions, but not for ordinary "citizens" who must face armed criminals with their bare hands and hope for the best.

The Seattle Gun Rights Examiner has an article entitled Showdown Looming on National Right to Carry again on Friday.

That is, the right to keep and bear arms applies to all citizens in all states equally, and this right is a civil right that crosses all state borders and city limits. This – at least in theory – means that all law-abiding citizens who choose to go armed have that right within the borders of the United States, subject to local regulations, which change from state to state. Therein may lay a dilemma, but reasonably intelligent gun owners should be able to understand the basics about where firearms are prohibited and where they are allowed.

I agree. Unfortunately, however, some States feel that their role is to tell their subjects how they may defend themselves, rather than let citizens decide such things for themselves. If this passes, I see New Jersey laws becoming even more draconian as a counter to it. These collectivist bastards will not give up power easily.

Update: The Gun Owners of America has some important information that you should read.

The War on Guns: ‘Conservative’ case for Mitt Romney no case at all

2011-11-13T07:15:00.000-08:00

The War on Guns: ‘Conservative’ case for Mitt Romney no case at all

Go read the post, and the link to the post, which takes you to David Codrea's National Gun Rights Examiner page. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Read it? Good.

Just in case the "Republican establishment" is reading this post, let me be clear. I will not vote for Romney. It doesn't matter if that means Obama gets a second term. I am tired of holding my nose to vote for the lesser of two evils. Enough. David is right, let the "establishment" hold their collective noses for a change.

Of course, David is correct, that Romney has a terrible record on guns. If a gun control bill reached his desk, do you think he'd sign it? No matter what he says now, once elected he will probably go with his natural inclinations. Romney seems to be another one who thinks because he doesn't "need" an "evil black rifle," nobody else does either. Of course, the Second Amendment spells out a right, not a need. He also has a terrible record on health care, signing in to law in Massachusetts RomneyCare, which was the basis for ObamaCare. He hasn't repudiated it, even though it has done none of what was promised. Now, I realize that it is Constitutional at the State level, while it is not Constitutional at the Federal level. But even if it is Constitutional at the State level, there remains the fact that it is a massive collectivisation of Americans that seeks to enslave others to provide for a few who can not, or will not provide for themselves. And I know he promises now to repeal ObamaCare. But how anxious do you think a President Romney will be to repeal ObamaCare if it comes to his desk? Frankly, I just don't trust him to keep his word. We've seen this before with candidates from both sides of the aisle, so there is plenty of precedent. For instance, remember that candidate Bush promised to veto campaign finance reform, but President Bush signed it.

Then there is his plan to handle the economy: a 59 point plan. Really? I like some of his ideas, like requiring Congress to approve major regulations before they take effect. But what about small ones, like the ATF imposing reporting requirements on dealers who sell more than 5 long guns to the same buyer in a week along the Southwestern border. What about making Congress actually write those regulations, rather than delegate the job to the executive branch. Indeed, there is so much that the Government is doing now that is Unconstitutional, and therefore illegal. What will he do about those things? But then, Romney, protestations aside, is not a conservative, much less a Constitutionalists. Of course, he can not simply abolish agencies like Education and Energy, as woeful as those agencies are, but he could put it before Congress. But I don't see him doing that either.

A vote for Romney is a vote for more big government, and more deficit spending. We need less, not more.

Getting All Lathered Up Over Nothing

2011-11-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

So, according to Opposing Views, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts will not vote for H. R. 822, the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. Yawn. This is hardly news. Frankly, I don't get lathered up over bills like this anymore.

But I should explain.

I used to get worked up over such things. Thinking logically, I couldn't see the difference between a gun permit and a driver's license. Different States have varying requirements for obtaining a driver's license, but once I have it, I can drive in any State of the union I want. The same can not be said of my Concealed Handgun Permit. While North Carolina has extensive reciprocity with other States, I can not carry in all of them. Both cars and guns can be used to kill, and thus require their owners to use them responsibly. Approximately 12,000 people are killed as a result of gun homicides. In that same year, 2004, there were 38,444 fatal car crashes. It seems like there should be more emphasis on drivers than on gun owners. Others, apparently, do not see things the same way.

Look, this bill has very little chance of actually being passed and signed into law. Even if it is passed by the House, it is likely dead on arrival in the Senate. Indeed, what the bill is designed to do is allow normally anti-gun Congresscritters to burnish their street cred with the NRA ahead of an election that is sure to upset some Congresscritters' apple cart. Jeff Knox has a great piece on the issue over at World News Daily. Jeff Knox:

What will probably have the greatest impact on whether the "full faith and credit" concealed weapons permit bill (H.R. 822) gets voted out of the House is its prognosis in the Senate. If Harry Reid and Senate Democrats make it clear to their House colleagues that the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate, the House will consider it a freebie and pass it in a heartbeat. If, on the other hand, Reid and company suggest that locking up the bill would be difficult and politically inconvenient, there will be much more resistance to passage in the House – from Democrats and Republicans.

It is unfortunate that for once the Congress would be performing a Constitutional act by passing this bill. But there is real danger as well. As soon as the House finds itself back in Democrat control, perhaps with the next election (after all, the Republicans haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so far) the bill would then be used as a basis to add all kinds of restrictions on guns nationally. And we have seen how little the Democrats care for our opinion with the passage of Obamacare. So, in many ways, I think I would rather let the issue rest where it is.

Meanwhile, we'll be pushing for Restraunt carry here in NC. We've come so close twice before.

Bill Engvall Should Stick to Comedy

2011-11-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

David Codrea, writing as the National Gun Rights Examiner, takes Comedian Bill Engvall to task for statements made about the Second Amendment on Bill Maher's show. You can find it at Bill Engvall Owes Gun Owners and Apology. Kurt Hoffman, writing as the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner has this to say:

Comedian Bill Engvall then disagreed--to an extent--saying he could not support giving up protection of the right to hunt and to defend one's family, but said, "I don't think there's any reason for a person like myself to own an AK-47." Maher interjected, "Can we have just one gun?" on the theory, perhaps, that the First Amendment protects the right to publish just one article. Meanwhile, Engvall offered to meet Wagner halfway, and ban guns on which, "You can just pull the trigger, and 60 bullets fire out." The oppressive laws on machine guns are apparently not oppressive enough for Engvall.

Of course, Engvall is a celebrity comedian, who can probably afford armed security wherever he makes a public appearance. Now, I like Bill Engvall's comedy routines. He makes you laugh without resorting to fowl language and overt sexuality. But Engvall is terribly ignorant about the reasons why the Framers included the Second Amendment. First, Engvall feels that he doesn't "need" an AK-47. That is fine and dandy, but what Bill Engvall needs or doesn't need hardly defines what the other 300 millions of Americans may "need." The Framers wisely left that open to each person to decide. Frankly, having studied the biographies of a few of the Founding Fathers, I would be very wary about second guessing these erudite students of history. Just sayin'. Now, it happens that I don't "need" an AK-47 either, having no place to practice with the weapon. But I know plenty of people who do feel a "need," and I wouldn't second guess these people. On the other hand, I am currently looking for a good pump action shot gun in 12 ga. Others may not feel the same. Thus the gun market provides guns for every purpose imaginable for just that reason.

Second, the Bill of Rights is notably not a Bill of "Needs." Under the Second Amendment, one does not have to demonstrate a need for particular weapon in order to keep and bear it. I would note that while Engvall apparently hunts with traditional bolt or lever action guns, many people are now taking their "evil black rifles" afield to hunt with. In the Eastern part of the country, there is little need for a long distance rifle because the forests are so thick, one can usually only see no more than 100 yards, perfect for an AR-15 platform weapon.

Katie Pavlich has some interesting points at Townhall.com. Pavlich points out that in every case throughout history, tyrants have always disarmed the people first, to gain control of them. She cites the Nazi use of the gun registration lists to confiscate the weapons Jews prior to launching Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. It is a lesson worth remembering.

In 2012, the Cry needs to be Repeal!

2011-11-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

The number of Federal crimes is estimated to be 4,450 according to a Heritage Foundation report Revisiting the Explosive Growth of Federal Crimes. This number has been growing by 56.6 per year at least since 1980. And of course, this doesn't even begin to count the causes of Federal civil action against individuals and companies for various environmental and other actions resulting in fines. For instance, there is the case of the Dollarhites at BigGovernment.com. Dollarhite is being threatened with a $4 million fine for selling more than $500 dollars worth of rabbits. The follow up to the story can be found here. But this is not an isolated incident. This happens thousands of people across the country almost daily, most of them under the radar. Ayn Rand had it right in her book Atlas Shrugged: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." We are probably at that point.

As a Christian, I know the Ten Commandments. I understand that I break one or more of these commandments daily. In a perfect world, I would love the Lord with all my heart, and sole, and mind, and thus be able to keep every one of the other nine, but this is not a perfect world. But throwing myself on the mercy of my God is a different matter than depending on the kind mercies of a random policeman, or a Federal Agent, not to mention Federal Prosecutors, Judges, and juries. Any time someone wants to go after an individual, they can usually find something for which to hang them. If not for the actual crime itself, then they can use your varying statements to law enforcement over a long investigation as proof that you lied, itself a crime.

I have long called for the repeal of laws now on the books. So, it was with some comfort that I see others now calling for repeal of laws. 500magnum writing in Gunleaders blog that it is time for gun rights activists to begin asking politicians which Unconstitutional gun laws they are willing to repeal. I think it is a good idea. But why stop there? There are so many laws, rules and regulations that are either out and out Unconstitutional, or of dubious Constitutionality, that whole Federal departments could be eliminated, saving millions, or billions of dollars. Further, the Courts do us a grave disservice by presuming that the any law passed by the Congress, and signed by the President is Constitutional on its face. With all the shenanigans that go on today in Congress, such a presumption is wholly unwarranted.

Many people think that Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading, itself a vague law that should put fear into anyone who regularly trades in the stock of industries that they well understand. In fact, as Tibor Machan notes the charges of insider trading were dismissed. In fact, Martha Stewart was convicted of lying to Federal Agents, obstruction and conspiracy. But one has to wonder what it was she was guilty of obstructing, or what crime the conspiracy was guilty of committing, absent the actual crime? Martha Stewart's case was a reminder to the world that if the Federal government wants to get you, it will.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Speaks the Truth

2011-11-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

It is a rare occurrence these days to hear a Sheriff utter the truth in such a plain fashion. For doing so, I understand the Sheriff Wright is taking some flak as a result of remarks he made during a news conference to the effect that women should walk in pairs, and get and carry a handgun. A discussion of Sheriff Wright's remarks can be found at Opposing Views and at WYFF Channel 4.

Sheriff Wright is absolutely correct in everything he is saying here, even if what he says is not "politically correct." What the critics of Sheriff Wright do not apparently understand is the difference between vigilante justice, and self defence. If a woman is able to stop a rape herself because she carries a gun, or if someone with a carry permit is able to stop a rape, that is legitimate defence of self, or of others. The police can not be everywhere all the time, and when they do stop a crime, it is usually their good fortune to be at the right place at the right time. The unfortunate fact is that the police usually come to the scene after the crime has been committed, document the evidence, and find the perpetrator. Only someone with a gun can possibly hope to stop the criminal in his tracks at the point where he commits his crime. Sheriff Wright was just acknowledging these facts.

Also, keep in mind that when the criminal chooses to break the law (and it is a choice) he takes the risk that someone may well try to stop him. He can only hope that the person who does try to stop him will not kill him in the process. But that's a risk he takes of his own accord. Still, we know that criminals do evaluate the risks they are taking, and Sheriff Wright is correct that if more people carried guns routinely, there would be less of this type of crime.

Vigilante justice, on the other hand, occurs when someone decides to seek revenge after the crime has been committed, either because there is no system of justice, of because justice has failed. While our courts continue to work, the vigilante is as much an outlaw as the perpetrator he pursues. But, in a state of nature, or in a state of lawlessness, vigilante justice is the only kind there is. Indeed, many criminals engage in vigilante justice because the kind of business they pursue is outside the law, and they can not rely on the police or courts for justice.

Some years ago, during the Bush administration, men gave up some of their time to go to our Southern border and observe illegals coming across from Mexico. These men were called "vigilantes" by the liberal press and the President. But they were not. Much as a neighborhood watch, which observes and reports to authorities, so were these men acting to observe and report to Customs and Immigration. President Bush did a great disservice to these men in calling them "vigilantes."

Finally, I would note for the North Carolina legislature, that this woman's rape occurred in a park. You can cry all day long about the danger to "the children" from having guns around them, but which is more traumatizing to kids: to have their mother assaulted and raped in front of them, or to have concealed handguns around them protecting them? I know from personal experience that my grand kids never even notice the concealed gun on my hip. They just aren't paying attention, which is why we have to.

Criminal Gang Run Amok While the Press is Blind

2011-10-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Please go and read the article in Townhall.com entitled ATF Ignored Death Threats, Tried to Frame Whistleblower Agent to Cover Up Corruption by Katie Pavlich. A hat tip, and a big "thank you" to David Hardy of the blog Of Arms and the Law. I'll have some comments when you are done. Take your time, and just digest what has been done to both Jay Dobyns, and to Vince Cefalu et al.

Done? Good.

Look, this is what happens any time a government, whether Federal, State, or local, seeks to enforce the law by breaking it. Even with the best of intentions, eventually the government itself becomes just another criminal gang. Criminals do not, by definition, obey laws, and operate without rules. But we expect our government, on the other hand, to scrupulously obey the laws it has made, and follow due process in all matters. If the government's hands are not clean, it begs the question by what right does it sit in judgement of everyone else? Presumably, the government makes laws that advantage itself, so if they can not live within the law, who can?

Everyone should be outraged by the criminal behavior written about in the above article. While it may temporarily advantage one political party or another, everyone should want to get to the bottom of it, for it is surely a bipartisan issue. Attempts by the press to ignore this story because "their man" is currently in the White House only show up the biases of the press, but do not serve readers interests. What is displayed here, is the thugocracy in action, and everyone should recognize that sooner or later, the thugocracy will come after everybody, supporter and opponent alike. It always happens that way; read your history. If the press refuses to speak up now, there will be nobody to speak for the press when its turn comes. Its only hope it to make this an epic scandal. Remember that 200 Mexicans, and at least 18 Americans were killed. KILLED. Dead as a result of what these criminals did.

As for the citizen disarmament gang, do you really trust the government with a monopoly of power? If so, why? What has the government done to earn your trust?

Important News You Won't Hear from the MSM

2011-10-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

A great little piece from John Lott over at Fox News. Lott says the "Media silence is deafening about important gun news." And what news, you say? It is the lowering of the murder rates in the City of Chicago, that's what news.

But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn't rise after the bans were eliminated -- they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.

Once again gun rights advocates have been proven correct. Will the Violence Policy Center be listening?

Fast and Furious now coming fast and furious

2011-10-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

I had thought to do a Gunwalker update today, to bring my generous readers up to speed on a rapidly moving story, but Mike Vanderboegh beat me to it in a post at Sipsey Street Irregulars. The big news, of course, is the Subpoena issued by Rep. Darryl Issa Monday for a staggering array of documents from the Attorney General, and his top staff. Meanwhile, Mike V. and David Codrea report that Obama apparently knew that Eric Holder knew nothing about Fast and Furious before Holder knew he knew nothing about Fast and Furious...I think. Go check out the National Gun Rights Examiner. In fact, go check it out every day.

Stories about Fast and Furious have appeared on CBS, with Sharyl Attkison, on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Judge Napolitano. Some of the stories have gotten some of the details wrong, but in the main have gotten the overall story correct. My own completely unscientific polling on the scandal suggests that at least a dim awareness of the story is getting out to most of the people, though the proportions of it have not yet hit the general population. So let's review shall we? The ATF let an estimated 2000 guns "walk" into Mexico and into the hands of Mexican criminal gangs. Some of these weapons were purchased using taxpayer funds. As a result of this callous plan to let them go and to see where they turned up, two Federal Agents were killed, 200 Mexican civilians were killed, and an estimated 18 U. S. civilians were killed. It now appears that the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security and the State Department may be involved. For instance, there are indications that the FBI may have allowed a prohibited person to purchase weapons by manipulating the NISC database. The Government is thereby disobeying its own laws in order, we are told, to enforce the law. How does that work?

A few stories have popped up citing a Bush era plan, similar to Fast and Furious, to let straw buyers purchase weapons, which were then outfitted with RFID tags. The ATF had planes overhead following the weapons as they made their way to the border. The RFID tags were poorly placed, often limiting the range of the tags, and the gun runners would wait until the planes had to return for fuel, and then dash across the border. The embarrassed ATF lost track of the guns. 500 weapons were involved, and the ATF shut it down pretty quickly when they were unable to keep track of the guns. Lesson, supposedly, learned. Along comes the Obama administration, with an even bigger plan to let guns walk. More, they didn't even try to track the guns, just see where they turned up. So why are these stories popping up now? Well, it has to do with Lefty thinking, which is often childlike. Remember as a kid, when you wanted to do something, and your mother said no? Often you would cite another child who was allowed to do it. In your mind, at the time, that should have ended the argument. But you mother came out with something like "And if (name of child) jumped over a cliff, would you do it?" Of course you wouldn't, but the point is that because others may or may not have gotten away with something does not excuse you. But Leftys, being rather childlike, will say "But Bush...." It wasn't the same, but even if Bush "got away with it" doesn't excuse this administration.

Multiple laws, both domestic and international were broken. As a result, people were killed. Those who broke the law, or sanctioned breaking the law, should be punished. If our elected officials are not subject to the laws they make for the rest of us, then the United States can no longer be said to be a representative republic. Instead, it will have become a dictatorship.

Update: CBS is reporting that we can add grenades to the things being smuggled across the border. Now, to be clear, grenades are not something a U. S. citizen may buy or posses. The fallacy that gun shows are a flea market for buying military hardware is myth kept alive by the gun grabbers for political points. But if you want to see for yourself, go to a gun show. There's no secret handshake, and everyone is invited. Ask around about machine guns, or grenades, grenade launchers, or what have you. Go ahead.

OWS Just Gets Better and Better

2011-10-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to do another piece on the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) crowd, because I believe it is a disgusting temper tantrum put on by children who don't have to gumption to get a degree in mathematics, physics, chemistry, or engineering. They didn't have the gumption to go to trade school and become a machinist, a carpenter, a brick layer, or one of thousands of jobs that need doing. No, instead we have a bunch of kids who major in some sort of "studies" like transgendered studies, womyn studies, or black studies, or, well, pick an irrelevant topic. Or they go to film school. How many film school graduates do we need? Hasn't anyone noticed that the most successful films were done before there were film schools? Has anyone noticed that today the movies consist of a lot of remakes of older classic films? I refer to such wastes of time and money as getting a degree in basket weaving.

Mark Steyn, writing at the National Review Online has a piece, American Autumn written in his usual pithy style with all the irony and sarcasm he is noted for when commenting on the cultural scene. Mark Steyn:

Who was Steve Jobs? Well, he was a guy who founded a corporation and spent his life as a corporate executive manufacturing corporate products. So he wouldn’t have endeared himself to the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, even though, underneath the patchouli and lentils, most of them are abundantly accessorized with iPhones and iPads and iPods loaded with iTunes, if only for when the drum circle goes for a bathroom break.

The above is a somewhat obvious point, although the fact that it’s not obvious even to protesters with an industrial-strength lack of self-awareness is a big part of the problem. But it goes beyond that: If you don’t like to think of Jobs as a corporate exec (and a famously demanding one at that), think of him as a guy who went to work, and worked hard. There’s no appetite for that among those “occupying” Zuccotti Park. In the old days, the tribunes of the masses demanded an honest wage for honest work. Today, the tribunes of America’s leisured varsity class demand a world that puts “people before profits.” If the specifics of their “program” are somewhat contradictory, the general vibe is consistent: They wish to enjoy an advanced Western lifestyle without earning an advanced Western living. The pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world, they appear to regard life as an unending vacation whose bill never comes due.

The problem is that too many people see nothing wrong with mooching off the "system," indeed, demanding more. But the "system" consists of you and me. If you take, it necessarily comes out of my pocket. That is theft, pure and simple. Oh, and by the way, I include corporate welfare and subsides in my condemnation. The "too big to fail" banks and auto companies, the Solyndras, Big Oil, the sugar growers, the corn growers, and on, and on, and on. What is wrong with America is not "the corporations" per se, but the fact that governments have insisted on picking winners and losers. Nobody needs to pick a winner in the case of iPad; the market picks it for you. To the degree that some bankers have committed crimes, I believe some of them should be serving time. But I also believe there are a few Congressmen who also should be serving time with them. Just sayin'.

Now, it appears that at least some of the protesters at OWS maybe paid to protest by a political party. Ms. Pelosi, call your office...

Update: Francis Porretto, over at Eternity Road has more on the evil being paraded before the American public at The Writing on the Wall. Porretto paints a picture of the United States once again returning to a pre-industrial age. Romantics think that such a way of life would be peachy. In reality, it would be quite horrific. In the pre-industrial period, and indeed right up to the closing years of the 19th Century, most children did not live to the age of three. Those that survived that long could look forward to a hard scrabble life in which most people were used up by age 35. Girls as young as 10-12 had babies (because they if they didn't, they probably wouldn't live long enough to raise them), and huge numbers of women died in child birth. Boys of 15 years a age were already working and had little time for an education. Just think of Afghanistan, only worse. To give you a standard by which to measure, consider that today, the poorest American lives a materially better life than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson did. Now consider what it will be like if these cretins have their way.

Poor Little Rich Kids at the Occupy Wall Street Rally

2011-10-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

A Dana Summers Cartoon says it all.

I have been watching, with a jaundiced eye, the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, while watching the Gunwalker scandal and the other news with the one eye that is good. I remember the similar protests, or "sit-ins," or whatever they were variously called in the 1960s. I remember the so-called "Rap sessions" where students sat around in a circle sharing their ignorance with each other, and feeling smug that they were getting a better education that way. What a waste of their parents' money! But that's the point. A lot of these kids are relatively well off, or even rich, and are spending money they didn't earn on a lark. They will have great memories when they are old, and who knows, some may find love and marry.

As today, so it was in the 1960s, that people did not spontaneously arise and become a mob. Every instance of protest was invariably led by professional agitators behind the scenes. Of course Occupy Wall Street is no different. And the demands produced by the protesters of Occupy Wall Street are meant to give our students something to make them feel like they are really doing something. What pikers! For instance, look at the lousy minimum wage demand. If a minimum wage actually worked, then why not demand $100 per hour minimum? Or how about this: Uncle Benny over at the Fed could print up $100,000...no, $200,000 and send it out to each of us! Then we'd all be rich, eh...eh? Yeah, that's the ticket! But of course the organizers know that the higher they make the minimum wage, the more people will be shut out of the job market. If the minimum wage were $100 per hour, then anyone not producing a net $250 per hour, with benefits included, would not be hired. Similarly, if Keynesianism actually worked, then sending out $100, 000 to everybody would be a great idea. But everybody in Washington knows what a disaster that would be. If they know that, then they also know that they have been lying to everybody for decades.

Daniels Greenfield, of the blog Sultan Knish had a particularly pointed take on the Occupy Wall Street protesters the other day in a piece entitled Days of Rage, Hours of Opportunism. Go read the whole thing. It is instructive.

The last time I passed the Days of Rage protesters in downtown Manhattan, amid their litter of expensive camping equipment, iPhone chargers, mobile hotspots and handwritten cardboard signs, they reminded me of people who walk up to you in bars pretending that they just discovered a new brand of beer they want to share with you. Those people are plants, so are the people with torn cardboard signs surrounded by a few thousand dollars of equipment.

There are people who have reason to be enraged at Wall Street, but they rarely show up at rallies. They are too busy working a second job in their seventies or sitting outside a factory that was shipped off to China. And the people who do show up at rallies invariably have nothing to do with Wall Street and are financed by billionaires who made their money, directly or indirectly, in the stock market.

These people call themselves the "vanguard." You won't find actual out of work "working people" at the rally. Instead, what you have is rich young people who have convinced themselves that they are the voice for the poor and downtrodden. If only the "working people" could shake themselves out of their "false consciousnesses" and realize their true power. Our intrepid vanguard of course needs to raise peoples awareness. Such are the pipe dreams of people who have never had to figure out where the next meal is coming from, whether to buy shoes for the kids or pay the mortgage, never had to eat beans and rice, or rice and beans. These soft hands have never actually handled a wrench or a screw driver, and wouldn't know a bolt from a nut.

What Occupy Wall Street and similar staged events around the country are intended to do is allow Obama to declare martial law and suspend elections, because otherwise the President and his party are going to have another pounding at the polls come November 2012. The unions who support this administration have seen the handwriting on the wall when they tried to recall those Wisconsin legislators. Now they have to get really dirty. So far, the protests have been relatively peaceful, but I can't help but believe that they have worse planned. Looking at Gunwalker, it is also clear that this administration has no compunction about killing people for the cause. So keep a jaundiced eye on the protests that are no doubt coming your way soon.

The Evil that Men Do

2011-10-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

Fellow North Carolina blogger Randy Dye has more on the outrage perpetrated by Governor Bev Perdue this last week over at Randy's Right. In turn, Randy points to a Canada Free Press article entitled "Warning: The Threat of Suspended Elections is Real" in which the author makes the same point that I did, namely that Perdue put up a trial balloon for the Administration. Randy has a segment from the Rush Limbaugh show that claims that if the election were held today, Obama would lose in a landslide.

I had a brief time to talk to an elderly gentleman Friday, to see what he thought. He is a retired practicing attorney, so has some familiarity with the Constitution. His first thoughts were that it was impossible. But I pointed out that if you had an administration that did not care about the law, that might even be considered lawless, was it really inconceivable? He pondered that a while, then said that he didn't like that our politics had become so polarized that both sides see the other as evil. I asked if he believed Obama was a socialist? He agreed that Obama was a Marxist of some stripe, but said the theory behind socialism was not evil. I pointed out that in the twentieth century Marxists of various stripes had killed an estimated 100 million of their own people. Wasn't that evil? We both agreed that Socialist theory ignored human nature, and that was its fatal flaw. I pointed out that even if the theory is not in and of itself evil, that those who lust for power over all eventually rise to the top in these countries, and great evil is done in Socialism's name. We ended up agreeing that this will be the case until Christ comes again.

Judi McLeod, in her Canada Free Press article, makes a point that unless patriots act now to stop the administration by all legal means, the President will likely ensure his re-election by suspending elections. I had a post on 25 October 2008 in which I highlighted Laura Hollis' article in Townhall.com that outlined the very situation we are now facing. A catastrophe is conjured up, doesn't matter what as long as it can get the people panicked, and so for the good of the nation, the President is suspending elections. But what do we do to stop it? First of all, this is not the time to hand the administration a ready made emergency, although that is exactly what the Left is trying to accomplish with things like it's Days of Rage. But you can be prepared. Have your food and water stored. Have ammunition for defense of yourself and family, and your neighbors. If you can afford it, have some of your cash in the form of gold or silver in small enough denominations to be readily tradeable should our economy turn in that direction. Unplug as much as you can. If you have a law degree, consider joining with others to find a way to harass the administration in the courts. There may be other things we can do. But, as Mike Vanderboegh has said, "No Fort Sumter's."

May God bring us safely through the mess we have created.

NC Governor Perdue Shames Us All

2011-09-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

I sure am glad our Governor, Bev Perdue, was joking when she made her remarks to the Cary Rotary Club the other day, as reported in the Raleigh Views and Disturber. Ms. Perdue called for the suspension of Congressional Elections, just this once mind you, so that Congressmen wouldn't have to worry their little heads about getting re-elected, and then maybe they could honestly go about the business of ignoring their constituents wishes. Sipsey Street Irregulars is a good place to start. Fellow NC Blogger Randy's Right has more. Or, if you can stomach it, here is Think Progress's take.

You will remember that our President, several months ago, at a La Raza rally, mentioned that unnamed people had urged him to take dictatorial powers, and that he was tempted. The Virginian has the story. Now, I don't for a minute believe that Ms. Perdue was joking. A Governor doesn't joke about ignoring the Constitution in front of a group of constituents, even if she might joke about it among her staff. And I don't believe for a minute that the members and guests of the Cary Rotary Club took Ms. Perdue's comments as a joke either. Some of them were no doubt appalled. Coming on the heals of the Sleasly administration, this embarrassment to North Carolina must be replaced with someone who has at least an ounce or two of integrity. But Ms. Perdue doesn't appear to have any real motive for wanting to suspend Congressional elections. So, what was she up to?

Ms. Perdue is yet another Progressive, running as a Democrat. There are many conservative Democrats in North Carolina. I meet them all the time, and they and I have much in common. But to a man, or woman, their politicians have all been taken over by the Pod People and are governing as Progressives. Progressive, if you recall, is another name for Communists, Socialist, or Fascist, and sometimes Liberal. Now, I can't prove this, but what I believe is that Ms. Perdue is carrying water for the Obama administration. They are testing just how much of a fuss we might put up about this.

So, let's discuss that shall we? The most likely scenario for taking dictatorial powers is a massive economic event, which the administration has done everything in its power to exacerbate all along. Of course the looters would riot since they would no longer have their "free stuff" taken from the productive. Union thugs would work to get people riled up and would in all likelihood initiate the violence as agents provocateur did at Kent State University. Police at the local and State levels would be overwhelmed. I am sure the MSM already has the editorials and opinion pieces written to call for a decisive Federal response. Say the Congress gives him such powers. The fact is that a substantial portion of the Republican leadership is as "Progressive" as the that of the Democrat leadership. Our now President for life, would in turn use those powers to declare martial law and suspend Congressional elections. Now the fight to keep our government accountable turns to the courts, where some are probably going to find, in the emanations of penumbras, or behind the walls of the Courthouse, or...well who cares where they find it, certainly they don't...that the declaration, and suspension are, surprise, Constitutional. Now it goes to the Supreme Court where I can already count 4 votes in favor, and 4 votes for the original meaning of the Constitution. So, it will come down to one man...ONE MAN...Mr. Justice Kennedy, to decide the fate of the nation. Let us hope he did not eat a plate of bad oysters the night before.

If Mr. Justice Kennedy decides the case for giving the President extraordinary powers is more powerful than the Constitution, then, as Mike Vanderboegh has said, we all get to vote one more time. I pray the President knows the dangerous game he is playing, and the horrible consequences of it. Americans will not stand still for this. Meanwhile, that wretched Governor Perdue shames everyone living here. She should be impeached.

May the Lord yet deliver us.

Speaking with a Liberal, if you must

2011-09-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a co-worker over lunch about how much better cars are today than in the 1960s. For instance, I remember that in the 1960s, living in the snow belt, it was not uncommon to see a 5 year old car with rusted fenders flapping in the breeze as it tooled down the road. Today, with greatly improved paints and corrosion protection, that is a rare sight, even for unprotected cars in the rust belt. My co-worker mentioned that cars also last longer. In the 1960s, a car was pretty much used up by about 100,000 miles. Today, it is not uncommon for a car to last 200,000, or even 300,000 miles. The conversation shifted to fuel economy. He mentioned that the 15 passenger van he was driving got 16 miles per gallon (mpg). I mentioned that in the 1960s, 16 mpg would have been a good mileage for a 5 passenger sedan. He said it was even worse than that-between 8 and 10 mpg. Turns out he was right. The average fuel economy was apparently 13 mpg.

About that time, the resident Leftist in the group asked if I thought the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) fuel standards might have had anything to do with forcing car companies to raise gas mileage. There followed this exchange, paraphrased because I can't remember well enough to quote:

Me: "Well, I think market forces should have been tried instead."

Him (frowning): "Market forces! How would that work?"

Me: "Consumers would have demanded higher mileage as gas prices rose."

Him: "Aw, that's just ridiculous. There is no hammer to force companies to build higher fuel mileage vehicles!"

Me: "True, but it works in other areas of our lives." Realizing that again, he was looking to pick a fight, and this being work after all, I tired to close the conversation peacefuI and said, "but we will never know. The government chose to regulate, and thus foreclosed any market based solution that might have come about. What might have developed never did, and we have instead a more powerful EPA."

It occurred to me later that if I could show that average mileages were trending upward in the years before the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards took effect, that would add weight to my contention. I know, for example, that in 1975, I traded in my Plymouth Fury for a new, 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit, a horrible mistake, but one driven by increasing gasoline prices. The closest I have come to finding an answer is a 2006 article from Freeman magazine by Michael Heberling entitled Government Mandated Fuel Efficiency Standards. While somewhat dated, it is a pretty good overview of the CAFE and the unintended consequences of its passage. The article says that indeed, the average mileage of automobiles during that period was getting higher, in no small measure, because of purchases of foreign made vehicles. But at the same time, there were several experiments in producing an American made car that got good mileage, such as the Corvair.

Francis Porretto spoke about a similar incident he had with a liberal here.

Now, I truly don't know whether or not market based solutions would have worked or not. But as I said at the time, it has often worked in the past, and I think leaving it up to each individual, it would in time have found a balance between fuel economy and the other factors in selection of a car. The price of gasoline is only a small factor in purchasing an automobile. Other factors include size of your family, or the need to haul stuff, the image one wants to convey, the price one can afford, and so on. By letting individuals make their own decisions, everyone would be happier with the choices and government would be smaller by at least the amount required to administer the CAFE. Of course, this situation would not have made our betters happy, since no doubt some Americans would have made the "wrong" choices.

On the other hand, I was stunned by the utter surety of my co-worker that regulation was the only way. Regulation has had unintended consequences that have not been good for Americans. The family station wagon has been replaced by the SUV and the minivan. The SUV, being built on a truck frame, has looser CAFE requirements than the station wagon had, which is built on an automobile frame. Many green types decry the SUV, but they have only themselves to blame. The Japanese auto giants gained a foothold in the American market as a result of imposition of CAFE, and have exploited that foothold for everything it is worth (and I don't dismiss the mistakes that the Big 3 made along the way either.)

Now, imagine the government imposed a one size fits all healthcare solution...oh, wait.

The Road to Hell is a Compromise

2011-09-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

I once had a young man, who obviously had not been through the war on guns, and who had heard only one side of the story, ask me why we couldn't just compromise on a few "reasonable" restrictions on guns. My first thought was to simply laugh in his face, but I thought better of it. I then went through the long effort to restrict our rights, and showed how it was we, not those who wished to control guns, who had compromised all along. Now, we were standing our ground. Not one inch more. As Jesse Helms said, "Compromise, hell! If freedom is right, and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as a roll of roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?"

But it is not only on gun control that we have compromised. Most of us in the gun rights movement are not the single issue voters we are made out to be. We don't just want our Second Amendment rights, we want them all. Most of us also have jobs and responsibilities such that it is impossible to keep up with the thousands of ways every day that governments at the local, State and Federal levels violate not only the Constitution, but their own statues. Guns, thus, are a convenient short hand, for how a politician thinks about guns will almost always indicate how he will think about the rest of the Constitution. Make no mistake, every politician, and every judge knows the real purposes of the Second Amendment. Hint: it ain't about hunting.

So, it was good to read in the American Thinker the other day a piece by Jay Huag entitled Why Liberals Love Compromise. It explains how the Left has used the claim that we on the right do not compromise, to slowly frame the debate ever more leftward. They offer a proposal that is somewhat left of the status quo, and then invite us to "compromise." We lose every time. Today, we have Republican candidates for President talking about saving Social Security, an Unconstitutional law, and a Leftist ponzi scheme that threatens to drive us all bankrupt. Most times, the Left poses some change to the status quo. Suddenly, the debate is framed in such a way that those who are defending the status quo are...well...defensive. I understand why this is, even if I don't understand how so many can be taken in so consistently. It has been said that a lie will go around the world while the truth is pulling its boots on. It is, first of all, often an emotional issue, or it is made to seem so. In the case of gun control, innocent victims are sometimes gunned down in horrific crimes. The Virginia Tech massacre is a prime example. We feel empathy for these people, and wish we could do something. The Left often plays on these emotions while offering up its favored solution. Meanwhile it takes time, effort, and money to marshal the facts to counter the lie. Even so, the lie will often have become such common wisdom that a sizable number of the public will believe it. Thus, gun control is thought by many to control crime, when the opposite is true. In John Lotts formulation more guns, less crime.

So, what do we do to pull the culture back towards a Constitutional understanding of the proper role of government? Mr. Huag's view:

Part of the reason liberalism has appeared so inevitable is that "compromise" has replaced "reform" as the game that is played. What I say is this: stop playing their game and start playing ours. Conservative reform is what America needs. Their game has bankrupted the country, ruined our schools, hamstrung our economy, and confused our foreign policy. Their game failed in the '70s and is failing again now. We conservatives cannot win until we change it at every level of government, local, state and federal.

Part of reforming is to stand our ground. No compromise. Never. Why should people "treat freedom as a roll of bologna to be bartered one slice at a time?" Yes the Leftists will wail and scream. They will protest, and perhaps get violent. But we have the guns, remember. Let them. It is no different than when your child throws a tantrum, and it is for their good as well as our own. We must take back the school boards, take back the churches, take back the city councils, take back the State houses. In short, we must march through the institutions. It will be a generational fight, but freedom and liberty are at stake. We must win.

If the recent debt ceiling deal did not teach anything else, it should have taught everyone on our side that there is no compromising with the Left.

Taking a Good Look at Ron Paul

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg makes several excellent points, points that are quite libertarian, today in his article at Townhall.com entitled Tyranny of the Typical. Since Mr. Goldberg says it much more elegantly than I can, instead of making a hash of things let me just quote a couple of graphs. However, to set up the first quote, Goldberg is at pains to describe Murray Rothbard's "bias of the status quo." He does so by introducing a story that Mr. Rothbard had told in his Libertarian Manifesto called the "Fable of the Shoes.":

It's worth keeping this fable in mind as the reaction to last week's CNN-Tea Party Express debate hardens into popular myth. Moderator Wolf Blitzer had asked Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) what should happen if a man refuses to get health insurance and then has a medical crisis. Paul -- a disciple of Rothbard -- explained that freedom is about taking risks. "But, congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?"

First, why is the extremely liberal CNN moderating our first televised debate with a leftist moderator? Fox News has much higher ratings than CNN, and we could certainly find a neutral, if not friendly moderator. Brit Hume would be a good moderator, and would ask the kind of questions we really wanted to know the answer to, without the "gotcha." I am concerned that once again the media, and the Republican "establishment," whoever they are, are going to select our standard bearer. Dr. Paul is already being dismissed as not electable, and we haven't even held our first primary! It is in no small measure to the kind of questioning he got at the hands of Wolf Blitzer. Dr. Paul's message is not easily reduced to sound bites, so this style of debate does not show him well.

I will make a confession here. I got to see Ron Paul in October of 2007 at the Gun Rights Policy Conference held across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the only candidate then running, from either party, that bothered to show up. While his message was the same as it is now, I was turned off by the cult of personality that his supporters affected. Most of them were young people, kids to me at my age. Of course, they had no real experience, but they had tons of energy and enthusiasm. I have since reread Washington's farewell address. I have reread Eisenhower's warnings about the military-industrial complex. I have been working my way through Glenn Beck's Original Argument. And I have lived with as close to a fascist dictatorship as I care to get. In short, I am a convert to small "L" libertarianism, thanks in no small part to my friend, Francis Porretto.

Frankly, Dr. Paul's message is as close to the original ideas propounded by the founders as anyone today running for President. His foreign policy, often dismissed as "kooky" would be met with general approval all around. The founders' view was that we should trade with all countries, but be absolutely neutral in their affairs. To that end, we should have a strong military, especially a strong Navy, to defend our neutrality. But, we should back out of all entangling alliances. We should get out of the hundreds of places where our troops are now stationed such as Korea, Japan, Germany, and who knows where else. America's greatness is not that she can overwhelm any other force on the planet. That role, if it was ever thrust upon us, is no longer needed. America's greatness is in the freedom and liberty she provides to her citizens. We should be a shining city on the hill, an example to others, and a rebuke to petty tyrants and dictators everywhere.

Second, there is an unspoken assumption built into Blitzer's question "... are you saying that society should just let him die?" That assumption is that our stricken man does not in fact own his own life, that society has at least a partial ownership of him, and therefore it is up to society to see that he gets the proper care, or dies, based on its interests at the time. That is the whole, unspoken truth behind ObamaCare. It is a foreign idea that has insinuated itself in our culture that says we can not do for ourselves. But we did for 141 years.

Paul calmly replied that he's not in favor of letting the man die. A physician who practiced before Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, Paul noted that hospitals were never in the practice of turning away patients in need. "We've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves," he observed. "Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it."

Just so.

If our republic is to survive, we must change ourselves, and our neighbors. Health care is not a "right," desirable as it may be. It is a good. Someone has to go to some expense to provide it. Socializing the provision of any good, be it health care or shoes, creates moral risks and unintended consequences. The unintended consequences include a scarcity of providers, and the eventual rationing of care because prices have been taken off the table. When that happens, one wonders which situation Blitzer would find moral: Letting the man die, due to his own decisions, or denying him the care he has been forced to pay for, thus letting him to die because government can not deliver on its promises?

Update: Steve McCann has an excellent summary of the steps the Obama regime has taken to bring us fully under a Fascist government over at the American Thinker today. The article is entitled Obama's Fascist Economy. It may be a good idea to keep this one close to hand when discussing the situation we find ourselves in with friends and neighbors.

Restaurant Turns Back on TSA at Lunch Counter

2011-09-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

A while back I had a post about the TSA called Dominate. Intimidate. Control in which I advocated humiliating and embarrassing TSA agents as a way of changing policy. Of course you should only do this when they are away from work. Now I read that a Seattle area restaurant refuses to serve TSA agents here.

Good.

If I lived anywhere near Seattle I would eat lunch at this place every day to support him. He has the right idea. TSA agents should shunned like the Jewish collaborators who collected taxes for Rome were shunned. They should be humiliated as the French collaborators with the Nazis were humiliated. Our government has, in some ways, become a foreign invader using home grown collaborators to carry out their agendas. But those agendas trample all over our rights, and take away from the citizen the responsibilities that should be his. Get mad citizens, and begin to resist. Here you have a blue print for how to resist.

Postmodernism and the Democratic Party

2011-09-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

I was in the middle of a discussion with a Leftist on the Constitution when the conversation turned to, apropos of nothing at all, Scooter Libby and whether or not he should have been convicted. I was flabbergasted, as the Scooter Libby affair, and Valerie Plame had no place in the discussion. But understanding the connection between Leftists and Postmodernists helps to explain why my erstwhile debating partner pulled this particular rhetorical trick at that juncture of the debate: I was winning. But what is postmodernism, and one of its offshoots, deconstructionism? For that you could do worse than to read the American Thinker today as Paul Jacobson gives the layman a quick overview of The Postmodern Party.

I will just quote this one passage, and then let you, dear reader, ponder the entire article by clicking above:

It would be hard to find a more perfect example of the fashionably foolish nonsense of postmodernist "deconstruction" and other putative postmodernist "thinking" than the utterly bogus, deceitful model of constitutional interpretation, so worshiped by "critical legal theory" proponents and their deluded Democrat janissaries, that says the U. S. Constitution is somehow a "living, breathing document." Read: the Constitution is a wax nose to be pummeled into any shape radical-left Democrats desire at the moment to advance their tyranny. Who says we can't know what the founders meant when they wrote the Constitution? Those patriots were some of the most prolific writers in human history. Yes, there was some disagreement among them but vastly more agreement; otherwise, they wouldn't have bequeathed us our Constitution. Every one of them would surely be scandalized to learn that some citizens today imagine they know better than the founders themselves what they, the founders, meant.

The "living Constitution" theory is like playing a game that asks "What would James Madison and the other founders say if they were alive today?" But the answers to such a question say more about the one answering than they do about the Founders. Jacobson is correct that to find out what they intended, all one has to do is read what they wrote. Unlike sifting through an archaeological dig of an illiterate civilization, these men wrote much material for posterity explaining what they meant. But the founders also recognized that they were mortal men, prone to all of the failings that have plagued man from the start. So they also gave us a way to amend the Constitution should we see the need. That process, though difficult, has been successfully accomplished on twenty seven occasions, so it is not impossible. But Leftists, in their rush to create their own version of hell on earth can't be bothered with going through the hoops needed to get an amendment passed. Instead, they employ the notions of deconstructionism to make the Constitution say whatever the latest Leftist fad says it should say.

Postmodernism needs to be rooted out of our culture and our politics. It is a childish way of thinking where something is so because the child wishes it to be so. It is an adolescent chafing at the hard rules of reality. But those hard rules, rightly understood and practiced, actually permit a great degree of freedom. Conversely, when one has no rules, one finds only tyranny. Postmodernism is the lazy man's approach to all problems, and we must find it within to return to rigorous thinking about reality as it is, if our country is to be saved.

Ten Years Later, Have We Learned Anything?

2011-09-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

I remember September 11, 2001 as clearly as the day John Kennedy was killed. I was at the Navy Yard, across the Anacostia River and the Potomac River from the Pentagon that day, as I was every work day. It was a Tuesday, and one of the first days that the humidity was low, the sky was blue and cloudless. I will not include a lot of the details. Mine was just a small part of a big event, and others played a more pivotal role. I have recounted the tale a number of times to folks who were either in Washington or New York. Then there is the self sacrifice of the heroes on Flight 93 who stormed to cockpit and forced the plane into the ground rather than let it hit another target in Washington. Pray for these men and women, and remember them always.

I remember M------, one of the women working in the Analyst division came around the corner and said that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers, and I could see it on live television down in the Milcon department. I ran down there, and as I watched, a second plane hit the tower. I remember saying to the person next to me that we were at war. I imagine a lot of Navy Officers were thinking the same thing.

The Navy Yard went into immediate lock down. All was confusion, as we did not know if other planes might be targeting the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon, or even the Navy Yard. I heard about the plane that hit the Pentagon an hour later, and went up on the parking deck to look at the black cloud. I had friends in the Pentagon, but there was no word, because the cell phones did not work, and the land lines were overloaded. Mrs. PolyKahr was unable to reach me, so feared the worst. She would not find out if I happened to be at the Pentagon when the plane hit it until 7:00 pm that night. There were a lot of questions, and very few answers that day. Who did this and why would not be answered for several days.

In the ensuing years, I have talked to many people who remember 9/11. I even have talked with a contractor who was in the Twin Towers when they were hit. He and his crew got out, because he is a proactive guy. Others were not so lucky.

Of all the remembrances I have read this morning, the one that makes the most sense to me is Francis Porretto's over at Eternity Road entitled Ten Years After. Porretto sets us straight on just who it is that is at war with us, and the need to understand. There is evil in the world, and those who do evil will kill us unless we fight back. There is no reason to be bashful, here. Christ's admonition to turn the other cheek was not a call for pacifism in the face of death. But let Porretto's elegant words say what I can not:

We are at war with Islam, and have been since Iranian "students" stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, took 52 Americans hostage, and kept them for 444 days.

Don't bother to argue with me about this. Either we are or we aren't. If we aren't, the evidence for the proposition demands a better explanation than any I've heard. Worse, there's no objective evidence that we aren't, and no Islamic apologist has dared to present any.

But we're not fighting that war. We're acting, in large measure, as if some other force were responsible for the crimes and atrocities committed in Islam's name. We're acting, in other words, as if Islam and Muslims generally are the victims rather than the cause and the perpetrators.

Just so. There are no "moderate Muslims," and if someone says they are such, you can't really trust that to be true. The practice of Taqiyya means that they will never reveal their true beliefs and motives to you, an infidel, and may even deny their faith. So you have the Christian martyrs who refused to deny their faith, and the muslims who do it as a legal practice. You may have Muslims living among us who claim to be Christian as a matter of Taqiyya. This is evil. I place this on the same level as the Marxists who hide behind other names like Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Liberal, and now Progressive.

More Porretto:

Yes, it's a Christian's part to hate the sin but forgive the sinner and pray for his repentance. But it's a free man's part to fight the evildoer with all his power -- especially when at the end of the contest, one of you will be dead, and the other free to go on as he's done.

We are at war with Islam. We've been at war with Islam for forty-one years. Let's get serious about it.

***

Yes, I'm trying to influence your opinion. Yes, I want you to analyze and respond to events as I do. Yes, yes, yes.

Does that invalidate my argument, or any aspect thereof?

Try reading this concise report on Muslims' behavior in Western countries to which they've been admitted. Try rationalizing its evidence against any other conclusion than that Islam is an aggressive program of totalitarian conquest of the world, with a few theological trimmings as protective coloration.

Try imagining how "tolerance" for such a creed could eventuate any other way than in mass slaughter of the "tolerant" and the subjugation of the survivors.

Never forget

Update: I read this Monday morning from Crime, Guns, and Videotape Airline Hijacking with a Difference. The bloghost relates the story of a hijacking that ended with the hijacker shot, but not killed. If Americans could still carry guns on planes, we would probably have ended the scourge of hijacking years ago. There are all kinds of scenarios where it may not make sense to shoot a hijacker. For instance, where a team of such hijackers took over a flight, and could each watch the others back. But a single hijacker would be at a severe disadvantage against a plane full of people, some of whom were likely armed. Even a team would still not want to face a possible shooting from an unpredictable member of the public. Their aim is to terrorize, not go immediately to get their 72 virgins. For that, becoming a suicide bomber is the best way.

A Conservative Look at Immigration

2011-09-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

I read an article today in the UK Telegraph by Tim Stanley entitled Mexican Death Cult is fueling America's Anti-Immigration Backlash: This is about Crime, not Race. Of course, Stanley is writing for an audience in the UK, that doesn't truly understand American conservatism. Even so, I have generally liked Stanley's writing. But this time, I think he misses the mark just a little bit.

First of all, illegal immigration is itself a crime. That's why it is called "illegal." One hates to state the obvious, but sometimes it is necessary for clarity. The moment these people crossed the border, they committed a crime, no matter what else they may do. Often, they also trespass on private property. If all they do is leave a mess for the owner to clean up, he can count himself lucky. People have had property destroyed, and have been murdered on their own property by illegal aliens. Now, if these people wanted to go about the process of coming here legally, simply to work, the State Department has programs to give temporary workers status as legal aliens. Such a status gives these people the full protection of our laws, a valuable thing to have in a foreign country. The State Department would also screen for criminal behavior and possible diseases, which is valuable to us. Stanley got that part right, it is about crime, not about race. What's more, they can obtain a drivers license legally, buy property, and most other things a citizen can do. Why don't they go that route? One suspects it is a certain disdain for law, which in their country of origin is a terrible joke that varies from place to place depending on who you ask.

Second, the claim is made frequently by Leftists, and the open borders Libertarians, that these "undocumented workers" are just here for a better life. They will do the jobs Americans won't do. I heard Bob Beckel repeat this lie just the other night on Fox News The Five. Of course, it is not true that Americans won't do some things, but rather that Americans won't do them for the price employers are willing to pay. Americans would do many of these jobs for the right price. Beckel says that nobody wants to hang wall board, for example. But I have a nephew who would jump at the chance. Hanging wallboard pays good money. But the Mexicans have largely taken over the work, and he finds himself aced out of the market. Americans built this country, and did all the dirty jobs that come along with building something great. Now, employers, for competitive advantage, want to use illegal Mexican labor to keep wages low. I remember years ago having a conversation with a Leftist about the topic, when the Leftist blurted that he did not want to pay $10 for a head of lettuce. Therefore the selfish...pr..er...person, was willing to keep a bunch of illegal aliens down on the plantation to pick his lettuce. I said I doubted that lettuce would ever get to $10 per head. Something else would inevitably be done to reduce costs. Perhaps a mechanical lettuce picker would be invented. And, right on time, so it has. But orders for the mechanical picker are not coming in. Why would that be?

Which brings us to the third item, the exploitation of these people because we can. Because they are not legal, and therefore have no status here, they take the wages offered, which are admittedly better than Mexico. This is very close to slavery. People should not be treated like this in this country. It does nothing but breed resentment that their children, because of their own choices by the way, can not advance and take their place in society. But that raises yet another problem: assimilation.

In past waves of immigration, it was typical that the parents often remained in enclaves where they knew everyone, and everyone spoke the same language. But their children learned English. By the second generation, these recent immigrants had become fully assimilated into the American way of life. For many, they retained some of their own traditions, usually associated with holiday celebration, but they had adopted the American traditions as their own. But because of a stubborn belief that all cultures are equal, there is no incentive for the illegal Spanish speaking immigrants to assimilate, or to learn English.

I think a few examples will suffice to show that multiculturalism and nonjudgementalism are loony moombattery and utter hogwash. First example: is a cannibalistic tribe in the jungles of South America equal to a republic founded on the principles that each individual has a right to life, liberty, and property? Really, you can say that? OK, then: Does a tribal culture that believes in treating women as property, and in beheading apostates and hanging homosexuals equal to a society in which women have rights and property rights, and in which homosexuality is tolerated, even if not accepted as the best lifestyle? How about this, would you rather live in a society that officially offers free healthcare, free education, and a host of other "free" stuff, but delivers on none of them (and prevents you from doing it yourself) or a society that says you can have anything you can pay for, and where even their poor people have automobiles, television sets, air conditioning, and are often rather plump. I will tell you that if you ask the average legal immigrant, they will without hesitation say that the latter culture in each of the examples is heads and shoulders superior to the ones they left behind.

As a conservative, I demand that anyone entering our country must first and foremost respect our laws. America is a nation based not on blood and soil, but on a Great Idea. That Great Idea is that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and property, and that no man is above the law. Anyone who wishes to share in that Great Idea, and is willing to do what it takes to get here legally is welcome. I understand that the process has become onerous and expensive, and I think we need reforms to change that. However, having been tricked once before into supporting amnesty with the promise of border enforcement, and never getting the border enforcement, I am now unwilling to be tricked again. If the Leftists truly believe what they say about America being a nation of immigrants, then they would be insisting on assimilation too. We can not be a nation, if we speak many languages, and have differing customs and traditions. The only way we can be a nation is by assimilation, and if the immigrants do not believe America is the superior culture, they don't have to come here.

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

2011-09-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Sultan Knish, AKA Daniel Greenfield, has a piece on his website entitled 5 Biggest Lies about Liberalism. I wish I could have said it as well. After I read it, I was sorry I did not see it before, when it ran a year ago. One could take issue with which lies of the left are are top five, but certainly multiculturalism, feminism, being friends of the poor, being pro-peace, and being patriotic are in the top ten. I would add that the Left claims the mantle of science and rationality, while being irrational and fanatical.

On multiculturalism, Greenfield writes:

Multiculturalism is really only class warfare disguised as opposition to bigotry. Take away all the historical revisionism about the Democratic party's ugly civil rights history and the empty slogans about diversity, and what you have left is naked political opportunism. The Democratic party trafficked in racism when it suited them (and still does) and dons the halo of tolerance when it suits them now. The left was equally at home working both sides of the street, and the views of great socialists from Jack London to Karl Marx on race, differed little from those of the Nazi party.

and on feminism, he writes:

Like multiculturalism, owning the feminist brand has been convenient. And it was easy enough to manage once feminism became a wholly owned product of academia, funded by liberal groups like the Ford Foundation. This brand of feminism has as much to do with equal rights for women, as African Studies have to do with equal rights for African-Americans. They're basically little more than ways to repackage the agenda politics of the far left in identity colors. That way socialism can be dressed up as a civil rights agenda, and opposition to it becomes racism or sexism.

In exposing what the Left is really about with their multiculti, feminazi hatred of everything and everyone, their historical revisionism, their constant and pathological lies about their true motives, and their real goals, one would think that a open minded reader would at least begin to question just what their leaders have in mind. Recently, Senate Majority Leader Reid allowed a bit of truth spill out, buried in amongst the lies, that let us have a glimpse of what they were really trying to do. Harry Reid excoriated the Republicans for holding up the the FAA extension over a provision to cut subsidies to 13 small airports, when in fact it was the Democrats who wanted to add provisions to unionize flight attendants. In doing so, Reid had to know that most of the news media would back him up, or bury the true issue deep in the story. Even if John Boehner objects, his message will never get out. To make matters worse, the particular flight attendants they wanted to unionize, Delta, had voted not to be represented by a union. But the union can't seem to take "no" for an answer. So, who are the Democrats representing: the flight attendants or the union bosses? The union bosses may believe that Delta employees don't really know what's good for them, but should that be the concern of the Democrats? Indeed, should that be the concern of Government at all?

The Left has consistently lied about Anthropogenic Global Warming (Goofball Wormening). They have everywhere claimed that the "science is settled," which then absolves them from debating the topic. But as any real scientist knows, the science is never settled. New findings must always be tested by proving or falsifying predictions made from the new theory. But whenever the so called "climate models" have been tested on a past climate, they have been found inaccurate. Satellite data has been routinely ignored because it didn't show a warming trend. Even land based temperatures have not shown any warming for 10 years. But the Left uses its strangle hold on the media to keep these messages under wraps. Timothy Birdnow has an article entitled Warmists Strike Back at the American Thinker which discusses the active role the climate "scientists" took in ensuring that skeptics would not have a forum to present their counter findings. What he presents is a consistent series of lies, misdirections, and energy put into discrediting their critics that defies belief. A sane person would have to ask himself why, when they could see the raw data, and working behind the curtains they had to know the tricks, would they have kept up the facade so long?

Then there are the lies being told about Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry. According to these liars, Perry and Bachmann would initiate a Christian Theocracy in the United States. Of course, especially in Bachmann's case, this line of reasoning ignores the the first 100 years of American history. If the Constitution permitted a theocracy, it would have already occurred. But the Founders did not intend to establish a religion, instead allowing each to worship as he pleased. Indeed, this freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment. But, to take these liars at their word, which mandate would a Bachmann Presidency be required to uphold? On the one hand, there is the mandate from her alleged god to force all people to bow down to Jesus, and on the other, God witnesses that she will uphold the Constitution? In point of fact, this is all much ado about nothing, as pointed out by David French at National Review Online here. We are all dominionists now.

Paul Kengor has a piece at the American Thinker entitled The Democrats Invincible Ignorance. Dr. Kengor paints a bleak picture of trying to convince people with facts and statistics that they can go and look up for themselves. Kengor writes:

I've only recently come to realize the nature of the hurdle this country faces in trying to turn around a stalled economy and horrendous deficit. Here it is: liberal Democrat politicians have completely convinced huge numbers of their followers that our economic/fiscal mess is the result of two principal demons: 1) "the rich," and 2) the Tea Party. The former, of course, has been a longtime liberal scapegoat; the latter is a new one.
...
I've realized this painfully only in the last few weeks as a result of several commentaries I've done (USA Today, FoxNews, among others), viewed by a large portion of Americans from across the political spectrum. In these commentaries, I tried to stick to statistics and facts. I naïvely thought my approach would be convincing. It was not.

Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on him not understanding it!" And here, at last is the reason...the lesson. When people have lost all moral understanding, and when lying, cheating, propaganda, even murder, become acceptable means to an end, and that end is a payday in terms of money and power, then this is what you get. The shriveled, ugly heart of the Left.

This will be the most ruthless campaign season that I can remember. I hope you are up to it, because I don't see the Republicans helping us much. Indeed, the Republicans just want to take us there slower.

Nobody Really Knows How Life Came to Be-And Don't Let Them Tell You Otherwise

2011-09-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter argues against a straw man today, and...surprise!...wins the debate. Her latest column can be seen at her website entitled Liberals View of Darwin Unable to Evolve. The truth is that Darwinian evolution has largely been discredited years ago. There are many evolution theories out there now, one of which, intelligent design, is compelling. Of course, to believe in intelligent design requires a belief in a designer. But Coulter is right to point out that a lot of these theories seem to start of with the notion that there is no God, hence, how else to explain life on earth? While nobody wants to say it, the real question everybody has floating in the backs of their minds, is what is our purpose in being here?

I know this will sound like I have been taken over by the post modern pod people, or perhaps turned into a stepford husband, but the truth is that all knowledge, everything we "know" and think we "know" in this life is provisional. When we express something as a scientific certainty, it is merely that we have not yet had an instance where the "certainty" has been falsified. For example, I am unaware of any occurrence where the "law" of gravity has failed in the realm of Newtonian physics, but that doesn't mean that tomorrow when I drop an apple, that it will not go up. But it is viewed in Newtonian physics as a "law" because everywhere we know of it acts the same way, and has never failed to act that way.  Now take the several theories explaining how life came to be on earth, and more particularly, how we came to be. You can run an experiment right now to test the law of gravity. But you can not run an experiment to test the supposed theories of evolution. You can collect evidence, and attempt to interpret that evidence. But such interpretation of evidence is not science. Indeed, it partakes more of a court of law than of science. We can never "know" with certainty that all the evidence has been collected. We also can not know for a certainty that the evidence may not  be plausibly interpreted in more than one way. Nobody was there at the instant, so we have no witnesses. In a court, such a possibility would be called reasonable doubt. I would also point out that even if a thousand PhDs from accredited universities believed in the secular view of evolution, and only one believed in the religious view-what is called a "consensus"-if that one turns out to be correct, does the "consensus" really matter? Of course, in a court, where evidence is weighed, it does. But if evolutionists wish to claim their study as a science, then no, it does not. The only test in science is can the theory explain the phenomenon under consideration, and can the theory be falsified. All it takes is that one lone dissenter.

Interestingly, what I have read of intelligent design seems compelling to me. Of course there is the paucity of intermediate steps in the fossil record, but that is explained by the fact that the chances of preserving a creature as a fossil are very small. More interesting is the mathematics. She mentions that the number of mutations that are preserved because either they are beneficial, or at least not harmful is again, astronomically small. But then you find that in some cases a number of mutations have to occur at the same time, all being beneficial to the organism, to have the species as it now exists. Think of the number of adaptations that have to occur simultaneously to have an eye for example that actually confers some special advantage over the other organisms. Any one of the random mutations by itself confers no benefit, so might well have died out. The chances of that happening randomly are vanishingly small. You can say, "well, the odds are small, but it had to happen that way," but did it? Or take our own brains. To be the top predators on this planet, we hardly needed all the power our brains have. Perhaps numbering ability might be useful, but abstract mathematics? As I type this, I am using a devise that attempts to simulate my brain, a computer. Did we really need that much brain power? Or, enough brain power to contemplate the existence of our Creator? Given broadly two different theories, both of which seem plausible, I as a honest juror would have to admit to reasonable doubts about the secular view of evolution.

When a person comes to believe that theories are in fact Truth, they no longer are scientists, hunting for the truth, but have become religionists proselytizing to everyone they meet. They are the very opposite of the open minded inquiring mind.  So stop acting so sophisticated, you Leftists. You turn out to be more closed minded than Perry or Bachman.

Update, 4 September 2011: Michael Bargo, Jr has an article today touching on the topic of my post entitled What Darwin Said about God. It is a good read, and I highly recommend it. In fact, I had read the Origin of Species perhaps 40 years ago, but do not remember a lot of it. At the time, as I recall, I was taking high school biology, and had only the dimmest sense of the scientific method. The system of natural selection seemed reasonable to me then, and still does today. Interestingly, intelligent design does not negate the theory of "natural" selection, if one understands that all of nature is God's. Indeed, natural selection is an integral part. Intelligent design merely proposes that God has acted in nature to bring about His desires. If you believe in a God, the rest is not so implausible. If you don't, you should at least admit the possibility. Knowing what we don't know is the beginning of understanding.

May the God of Creation bless and keep you all this holiday weekend.

Two quickies and a Long One

2011-08-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Several quick reads of interest. I recommend you go read them all.

First up, Michelle Malkin has a piece over at Townhall.com entitled Screw Up, Move Up, Cover Up: The Fast and Furious Edition. If you have been following Sipsey Street Irregulars and the War on Guns, Notes from the resistance, you know all of this. Melson has been removed as the head of the ATF, and a number of Fast and Furious perpetrators have been given what appear to be promotions. The news here is that Michelle Malkin writes for a more general audience of conservatives and TEA partiers, who may not follow the gun blogs. The word is seeping out.

Also today, AWR Hawkins has a piece, again at Townhall.com entitled Barack Obama: Above the Law or just Lawless? Several people have warned that this President is blatantly, and deliberately lawless. I would note that there are several other things Hawkins has left out. None the less, for a general audience who may not always be aware, to have it appear in a forum like Townhall is very helpful in getting the word out.

Finally, Jeffrey Toobin of the NY Times has a piece in the New Yorker on Clarence Thomas entitled Partners. Ok, so this one is not a quick read, but go read it anyway. It gives voice to what I have always thought, that far from being stupid, as is often supposed by the Left, Thomas is an intellectual giant and leader of the conservatives on the Court. I have not always agreed with Thomas's rulings, but I find his rulings compelling. His writing shares with the best literature the ability at once to say a great deal in simple prose. So, why is Toobin letting everyone know now that Thomas has been quietly building a case against government over reach, and for an original understanding of the Constitution? I think because he is alerting his Leftist readers that somehow or another, Thomas will have to be forced to recuse himself when ObamaCare comes before the court.

Is Perry Establishment, or TEA Party Favorite

2011-08-31T04:01:00.000-07:00

The American Thinker had an article yesterday, that hints at "the troubles" coming our way, but posits a fairly optimistic outcome for Elections 2012. The title of the article is What Liberals Fear More than Obama Losing, by Geoffrey P. Hunt, whose opening paragraph held much promise:

The left are now wringing their hands fearing their agenda is overripe, blaming everyone else for their own spoiled pickling. While Obama's sinking prospects for re-election are disquieting, the real source of liberals' despair is their sudden, unexpected realization that the progressive agenda is dead in its tracks and will likely be in full retreat after 2012.

Good so far, but then it devolves into puff piece for Rick Perry. I say puff piece because everyone knows campaign rhetoric is designed more to rally the base than to actually indicate what a candidate would really do if elected.

The tipping point provoking the libs' worst nightmare was contained in Rick Perry's speech announcing his candidacy to be the Republican nominee for president. Perry proclaimed his mission was not to make government more accountable, effective, or efficient -- that's standard issue bromide from populist reformers. No, Perry was bold enough, and as his critics will assert reckless, to suggest government should be irrelevant -- his words "as inconsequential to your lives as possible."

Frankly, I don't like being railroaded into selecting someone before I can take the measure of the man (or woman, because these days a lot of women are showing more gumption than the men), and this is feeling like 2000 all over again. That year, George Bush announced, and seeming took a victory lap before being nominated by acclimation. His talk of being a "compassionate conservative" had heads scratching all over. You see, those of us who call ourselves conservative think of ourselves as truly compassionate. We want to teach all men to fish, whereas the phony compassion of liberalism just wants to give people a fish and let it go. True compassion however, takes more time and effort, and requires a change in the other persons heart, so I can understand liberals disdain for it. In any case, we just thought it was a marketing ploy, and a clever one at that. Shrewd, Mr. Rove, very shrewd. But it turned out that "compassionate conservatism" was actually code for "more of the same liberalism." What kept us voting for Bush was the thought of AlGore, of John Kerry (he served in Vietnam) was so off putting, that we held our collective nose and voted for him anyway.

In any case, since he is in the race, let's have a look at Rick Perry. His official campaign website is here. The things Rick Perry is saying here mostly seem to be things that I can live with. Perry vows to repeal ObamaCare, cut spending, and cut taxes. What I don't see is that he would get rid of any departments, no matter how Unconstitutional those departments may be. For example, the Department of Education gives out billions for things that are not even on the Congress's to-do list. Then there are departments like DHS. DHS, in Obama's hands threatens to become a secret police force. We don't (or didn't) have those sorts of things in America. And what about repealing the unPatriot Act? What about eliminating thousands of regulations that stifle business and job creation every day? No mention of any of that.

On the other side, if Jeff Greenfield's scare mongering is any indication, I could live with Top 10 Things Governor Rick Perry Doesn't Want You to Know About Him. Of course, that is just some red meat thrown at the left, so I discount a lot of what I read there. But if what a lot of the MSM is saying and writing about him may not be true, they have definitely telegraphed that this guy is both electable, and has truly conservative ideas. They are afraid of Rick Perry, which elevates him in my eyes.

What about Rick Perry's record on guns? You can tell a lot about a politician's position on other issues by his position on guns. Perry apparently has a concealed carry license, but then reputedly so do Senators Boxer and Schumer. That doesn't mean they are all for you having a gun. Keep in mind the liberals ability to simultaneously hold two opposing points of view. Rick Perry opposed the recent efforts of the ATF to illegally grab more power by making the four Southwestern States report multiple sales of long guns to the Fed. Good. He has reportedly stated that if a person has a concealed carry license, he should be allowed to carry pretty much anywhere. Not bad. Licensing concealed carry is a good first step (as the Left always says.) In the generational culture war to keep our guns and bear them, we eventually want Constitutional carry everywhere.

In today's American Thinker, J. Robert Smith has an article which says that Romney plans to scare seniors about Social Security and Medicare. But Perry's plans, as I understand them now, seem quite modest. If we had done them back in 2004, we might not have had the current recession, or it might not have been as bad as it has been.

The primary election season is designed to put the candidates in the fire, and see if they survive. It needs to be as spread out as possible. As voters, we need the time to ask questions, and get answers, assuming the candidate doesn't simply lie to the nation. If Perry scares the Dems, that is just fine. If he scares the so called Repub establishment, that is good too. The debt ceiling fiasco shows that the establishment Republicans are not listening to the voters either. Perhaps a Perry candidacy is the two by four we need to smack them up beside the head.

Going Nowhere Fast

2011-08-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason that defies pinning down, the Left in this country seems to be in love with the idea of high speed rail. They don't love it enough to ride it themselves, mind you, but it seems to feed their sense of noblesse oblige. They often cavil on about the poor and minorities, two groups of human shields behind which the Left often retreats. But in this year of our Lord 2011, it is the rare individual who has need of a car, but can not get at least temporary use of one. Most times either a neighbor, friend, or family member has a car and will take them wherever they need to go. Then there are the Watermelons (green on the outside, red in the middle) who don't own a car in order to save Gaia from the ravages of people driving gas guzzling cars. But these types are often rather affluent and can afford to rent for the occasional trips. Enterprise Rental even advertises that they will come and pick you up! Perhaps it is simply the love affair limosine liberals have with everything European, and high speed trains are memories they all have of their youths spent traveling the continent. Whatever it is, they are willing to spend huge amounts of other people's money on rail systems that don't make sense to anyone not caught up in the religion that has become of "environmentalism."

So, it was with some amusement that I read in the American Thinker today an article by Kirk W. Kelson on California's attempt to prop up the high speed rail movement in an article entitled I Already Own a Bullet Train. Kelson writes that California wants to build a bullet train to run between Frseno and Buttonwillow, two destinations one can imagine having a huge demand that is unmet by traditional transportation alternatives. To give you a taste for Mr. Kelson's writing style, a quote or two:

If you're of a mind someday to whisk conveniently between Fresno and Buttonwillow -- and, hey, who doesn't daydream about that? -- California will have you covered. Traveling 220 miles per hour (mph), you'll get from "nowhere" to "nowhere" in a brisk 30 minutes.

You're right: "nowhere" is a harsh way to describe two hardworking towns in a valley better known as the "Food Basket of the World." But I'm just quoting one-time representative, former California State Assemblyman Rusty Areais, who snivels that "'[n]owhere' will never share the relative prosperity of this state until we do something about its relative isolation" (audio). According to Rusty, racing through "nowhere" at 220 mph will finally put "nowhere" on the map. Don't blink denizens of Merced. "Your" "share" of California's "prosperity" just whizzed by.

Of course, Mr. Kelson owns a Jaguire, which is capable of speeds far in excess of the limits usually placed on highway driving. All that is needed is a willingness to face the consequences. But in his snarky way, Kelson has a point: namely that for the amount of funds expended on high speed rail lines that go from nowhere to nowhere, and which often require a car to drive you to your actual destination, building another lane of highway may be the answer.

Consider a Reason Magazine article from 2009 entitled Oberstar Misleads on Light Rail by Robert Poole. Poole finds that for construction costs alone a typical freeway costs $40-60 million per mile. A huge amount, to be certain. But rail costs an average of $124 million per mile. When you consider that the highway will carry 150,000 people per day versus the rail, which carries only 25,000, you realize that it is not even close. Based on the above, any transportation engineer would opt for highways. But there is more. The costs to operate the rail system is a constant drain, and if passengers do not show up as expected, the fixed costs will eat the system up. Highways, on the other hand, represent sunk costs to be sure, but there is no need to continue accruing costs to use it. There is also the fact that the highway, once built, can carry not only passenger, but trucks and commercial vehicles as well. In other words, a highway is a more versatile tool for transportation than is high speed rail.

Perhaps these are some of the reasons the State of Florida opted out of the Administration's offer of $2 billion of federal grant money to build a high speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando. In a NY Times article on February 16th, Governor Rick Scott rejected federal funds because:

Mr. Scott said at a news conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday that cost overruns related to the Tampa-to-Orlando line could leave Florida taxpayers stuck with a $3 billion tab. Further, he said that if the state deemed the project too costly after having started construction, it would be required to return the $2.4 billion to the federal government. He also said he believed that estimates of riders and revenue for the rail line were too optimistic, and that state taxpayers would have been left to pay for subsidies to keep the line running because it would be unable to pay for itself.

Look, I like trains. Trains have a certain romance about them that evokes an era of luxury with sleeping cars, and restaurant cars that served exotic gourmet dishes to pampered patrons. The names of famous trains live on in songs and fiction. But, as Mrs. PolyKahr found out recently, that era is gone. Now, a grumpy conductor takes your ticket, and you are lucky to get a rather poor meal cafeteria style served by people who definitely thinks they are doing you a favor. You get better fair from a microwave meal at home. Or, for that matter, from any of the road side restaurants that dot our freeways.

Of course, it wouldn't be this way if a company could make money by providing luxury services to passengers willing to pay the costs. But nobody is. The last privately owned passenger trains died out in the 1950s. I remember riding on one of the last runs of the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown line as a small child, with my mother. Now passenger trains are all subsidized. The employees see patrons of these lines not as the source of their jobs, but as bothersome customers that they are required to serve. The actual source of their jobs is from government handouts, and they would have those jobs whether anyone rode the train or not. But therein lies the nut in the shell-if a company could make money providing passenger trains, it would be providing them. The fact that they can not should be a cautionary signal to lovers of high speed rail, who have a fiduciary responsibility to spend the taxpayers money wisely.

This and That

2011-08-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

I am still here, despite Hurricane Irene. As it turned out, the Category 4 storm that blew out of the Bahamas hit the coast of North Carolina at 7:30 am today as a Category 1. We here in Raleigh have had rain and wind most of the day, but it is less than I have often experienced from mere thunderstorms. Mrs. PolyKahr and I took the grandkids to a birthday party today, tempting fate it would seem. But they had a wonderful time, and we met a few new people that we liked. So, all worked out well.

The grandmother of the little girl having the party is from Brazil. We talked for a while, and she mentioned that a lot of Brazilians who came for the economic opportunity are going back because there are jobs to be had in Brazil. I am of two minds on this: First, if the only reason they came is for a job, and the incomparable worth of American Citizenship (Brazilians come here legally by and large) is so worthless, then it is just as well they go. Secondly, I am literally embarrased that Brazil would be seen as a better place to be than the United States. The United States is the only land that could have produced the countless Thomas Edisons and Henry Fords who did not start off rich, but grew rich because they produced a product that others wanted to buy. How sad. Instead of celebrating these people, and holding them out as great examples, our current crop of politicians makes veritable criminals of those who produce, while writing the rules to favor Wall Street banksters and hedge fund managers.

Changing topics, I noticed in my blog stats, that I had a number of readers from Isreal. Welcome. I normally have readers from all over the United States, brought here by the Liberty Sphere and Eternity Road. To both Anthony Martin and Francis Porretto, thankyou. Both blogs are great reads. As for those Isreal readers, I would hope you would comment from time to time to let me know what you find of interest. I stand with Isreal in this very dangerous time we all face together.

Changing again, the Goofball Wormening hoax continues to go off the rails, with CERN announcing that cosmic rays are at least responsible for half of the warming experieced during the twentieth century. You can read about it at the American Thinker here. I have always thought that there was something wrong with the theory, even before I knew much about it. If CO2 is the cause of Goofball Wormening, then how to explain the huge variation seen in the earths climate over geological time? For most of that time, man wasn't even around, let alone driving around in SUVs. How can that be explained? Of course, the warmistas never even tried. Perhaps it is a moronic question, but it still deserves to be answered. But to answer it would lead the "scientists" necessarily to posit that goofball wormening might, just might, be caused by something else. That something else turns out to be solar activity.

Thats all for now.

An Open Letter to a Friend

2011-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Mickey,

I much appreciated the opportunity to work with you Monday. You are a good colleague and friend and I enjoy chatting with you whenever possible. Mickey, you have a good heart, with good conservative instincts, and you are generally aware, something I can not say about a lot of people. You listen to Glenn Beck and to Rush Limbaugh. Here are some other sources you may not have been aware of, that tell you some of the unlawful and Unconstitutional things Obama is doing under the radar. The MSM certainly won't point these things out, and even Fox News doesn't get into this stuff in great detail. So, as a start, check out Gulag Bound. Also check out the Sipsey Street Irregulars where Mike Vanderboegh presents the Hannity expose on the Fast and Furious affair. The Obama administration has also issued regulations that would force the purchasers of multiple long guns in the 4 Southwestern States to register those purchases, something that the law strictly forbids. He has gone to war without Congressional approval (and Congress sits there like a potted plant.) There is more, much more. A dictator behaves in this fashion, not the president of a republic.

You asked why I thought he was doing all this, and destroying the economy. I told you I thought it was deliberate. Obama is doing his best to destroy the United States of America, and he is getting a lot of help from Congress and the MSM. "Why?" is a harder question. I believe that it is deliberate, because if it were mere bungling, surely he would sometimes muddle in our favor. What I believe, is that Obama is a Marxist. What flavor of Marxist isn't really important. Whether he is Communist, Socialist, or Fascist doesn't really matter, because they all lead back to the same thing, a Marxist dictatorship. For more information on that read this National Review Online article by Stanley Kurtz. Also check out his book Radical In Chief.

For a Fascist Obama, look at the GM and Chrysler fiasco. He totally subverted normal bankruptcy laws, kicked the bond holders of those companies under the bus, and turned General Motors into Government Motors. The Fascist part was where, instead of outright nationalizing the company, he made himself a major partner in the firm. I remember seeing Obama saying that the Federal government would now honor GM warranties. Riiiight. Obama should have let GM go bankrupt, and Chrysler too. That would have been the lawful thing to do, but I think he was looking for a test case. If he could get away without anyone raising a fuss, he would move on to more and more egregious examples. As for his purely Socialist side, look no further than ObamaCare. A lot of people warned us about what it would mean if we passed ObamaCare. We came close to defeating it. But Harry Reid pulled that stunt to make it a budget bill where he only needed 51 votes instead of 60. And right on time, they are trying to control our food.

But all that still doesn't really answer the question of "why?" I have a working theory about that, though I can not prove it. Before Marx, there was no name for the capitalist system. It was just the way business that were successful operated. Marx came along and presented as new some very old ideas, a bit of class warfare and hatred for the other, and created a very powerful economic and political philosophy-if your idea is to gain power. It appeals to the non achievers, to the ne're do wells, to the lazy and the incompetent, the criminal. Unfortunately, that segment of society makes up a lot of people. Because unexamined, the Marxist appeal is so great, it will always be with us. Standing against the Marxist economy, which always fails, was the United States with its more or less free market economy. The United States, by its very existence, put the lie to the Socialist economies every day. No wonder they hate us.

Interestingly, I believe Obama may be a true believer, one who has drunk the koolaid and truly believes his own hype. But what about the others? How do they benefit from the wheels coming off the wagon? First, lets clarify terms. True believers as I said, are those who have bought the theory hook, line, and sinker. They are the holders of a secret knowledge not available to the average schmuck. They honestly believe that in working daily to bring about their Utopian dreams, that they are bringing about a better world, carrying fire from the gods, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, and man will not fight anymore. Everyone will have all he needs, and we will all live in peace. I can almost hear the choir tuning up with Kumbayah Of course, since such beliefs can not stand up to penetrating scrutiny, they quickly resort to calling us racists, or haters, or terrorists, or whatever the latest group of people are for whom they regularly hold their little two minute hates. Some in this group also constitute what Lenin called the useful idiots. Useful idiots are those that parrot the latest talking points (yes, the left really does have talking points! It's not just a term or art.) People like Paul Krugman I would place in this category. Stalin had Walter Duranty at the NY Times to cover up his atrocities, while Obama it seems has the entire press. But people like Reid and Pelosi are in it for the power. Lenin and Stalin were in it for the power. Lenin didn't believe all that stuff, he just used it to gain a power base that allowed him to take power from the Czar, and keep it by murdering and brutalizing huge numbers of his own people. So, we have the true believers, the useful idiots, and the power trippers.

So, who is who and how do they benefit? I believe that Obama is a true believer, but will not discount that he is a power tripper with unusually good acting skills. He seems to be trying to settle scores with the American people as a whole for imagined sins against "his people." Of course, if "his people" are black Americans, they are taking the brunt of his economic warfare. Reid, Pelosi, and others in Congress I am convinced hope to share in some of Obama's power, but they also hope to generate enough wealth to insulate themselves and their families from the storm that will inevitably rock the U. S. when the sh*t hits the fan. How did Barney Frank, for example, become so rich on a Congressman's salary? Answer that, and you will know why many go along with the administration. That pretty much covers the Democratic leadership. Most of the back benchers in that party go along because they want to keep riding the gravy train. As for the Republicans, the leadership of the Republican party today would have been Democrats several generations ago. They are moderates, who believe that less of what ails us may be all it takes to avoid melt down. But they have nothing against the disease, except that it is killing us. They will serve as unwitting useful idiots until such time as they are no longer needed. I fear the Democrats have utter contempt for John Boehner and company, or they would be trying to remove him.

Now for the other side. Obama, and various party leaders like Kerry, Pelosi, Schumer, and others, have been out talking on topics to the press. In every case, the out and out, bald faced, wouldn't fool a five year old lies is maddening, and breath taking. What do they hope to accomplish? One can easily see through such fabrications. My conclusion is that they think it no longer matters. Whatever "it" is, it's in the bag. Let me close with this. Senator Lautenberg had a proposal to deny people on the "no fly" list guns. Nobody knows how you get on the no fly list, who is on it now, or how you get off. You or I are not allowed to see the "no fly" list. Apparently the criteria are pretty loose, and any Federal agent can put anybody's name on the list at any time with no due process. Meanwhile Janet Napolitano's DHS is busy putting out official notices to police departments and such that TEA party folks, people who believe in the Constitution, conservatives like you and I, are terrorists. We are to be watched, spied upon, our every move suspicious. We might find ourselves unwittingly on the "no fly" list, and would know it because we don't fly. Had Lautenberg's bill passed (and I think it might someday) we could suddenly find that our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are abridge without due process for the crime of disagreeing with the Obama administration. It's one thing to disagree with an administration, and quite another when such disagreement makes you a criminal. Get ready.

Yours truly,
PolyKahr

Update: For a slightly different take on Obama, see News Flavor where a supposed White House insider slings dirt on Obama. In this take, Obama is an empty suit, controlled by others behind the scenes. Who these "others" are is not said, though one can think of several names. Also note that we don't know who the "Insider" is, and ultimately have no way of knowing if what he says is true, or if he even said it. But it is an interesting data point. In any case, the message is largely the same-get ready.

For a different take altogether, see Sultan Knish. This is a good read anytime.

"If it Bleeds, it Leads" Unless there is a good Sex Scandal

2011-08-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

The writer of this piece of reporting at the American Thinker today gives a very generous, extremely magnanimous take on why the MSM has failed to cover the Fast and Furious scandal, otherwise known as Gunwalker. In this piece, M. Catherine Evans claims Politicians Sex Drives Trump High Level Government Crime. Really? Take a look. Ms. Evans actually does take the media to task, but then gives them an out by claiming that a sex scandal will always trump murder and mayhem with the public. It is true that sex sells, but so does violence.

Does the fact that hundreds of people in Mexico, and an as yet untold number of Americans were killed, on our own soil, by guns which were deliberately allowed to walk into the hands of drug cartels by an agency of our own Federal government, with the knowledge of at least Eric Holder and some of his assistants, not really count as news? What happened to the adage "if it bleeds it leads?" I am not talking here about theoretically having blood on their hands. I am talking here about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) actually breaking both U.S. and Mexican laws (presumably to enforce the law) to create a bloodbath with guns that could be shown to come from U. S. gun dealers to prop up a political agenda to again ban so called "assault weapons." These are indictable crimes! Yet no one has been indicted, or tried. No one has had to fall on their sword. The MSM has barely mentioned it, and the public barely knows it happened.

While the law breakers are trying to claim that they just made a mistake, the truth is that many are experienced law enforcement and prosecutors. They knew exactly what they were doing, they knew the likely outcome, but deemed lives to be a cost they were willing to pay for a political agenda. The least we can do is require them to pay something more.

The Morality of Gun Control

2011-08-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Caught an interesting piece over at the Buckeye Firearms site entitled It's the Criminals, Stupid-Man is dead after City of Cleveland fails to get violent felon off the streets by Ken Hanson, Esq. Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms for pointing me to this site. I recommend every read the whole article, though the title says everything you need to know.

Now, putting aside that the City of Cleveland is run by a gang of leftwing ideologues who have more sympathy with people like Mr. Lesure than the do with the average, hardworking and taxpaying American, this article points up the entire problem with telling people where, and when, and how they may carry defensive weapons, or if they may carry them at all. It is not the average person on the street you need to worry about. It's the criminal, stupid.

Many people do not know this, and are shocked to discover, but the police do not in fact have any duty to protect individual citizens. You can read about it here. Indeed, how the citizen who was, at the time, the main means of defense of both himself and his family became a "vigilante" who should not take the law into his own hands is just one more way in which our natural rights have been perverted over the years. But it points up the moral problem various governments have when they try to restrict any citizen from carrying a weapon, either concealed or openly.  How can a government morally say that a citizen may not carry, or can only carry with permission, and then disavow the responsibility for that citizen's death if it is not natural? Indeed, how can a restaurant that serves alcohol put up a sign that says "no guns" and then not be responsible for the safety of everyone in that restaurant? How can an employer say to someone they may not carry, and then not provide security for their safety.

Now, before I get a bunch of hate mail from hoplaphobes saying I want to give guns to every newborn as soon as he leaves the hospital, and train them to shoot before they can walk (there is a prone position, isn't there?) I do realize that going into some of these places is entirely voluntary. You don't need to visit a restaurant, and if you do, you take the risks the owner imposes. But working has been determined, (by the Left interestingly enough,) to not really be a choice. That was the basis for no smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Bartenders and waitresses were subjected to second hand smoke their entire shifts, day after day. These people couldn't decide that they would rather work elsewhere.  Or was it that you felt they were to stupid to make the right decisions for them?  But I digress from the topic at hand.   Governments, on the other hand, are not voluntary, and the sovereign nature of governments makes suing them for negligence or dereliction of duty problematic. It is even difficult to sue based on a government acting illegally.

Of course, what I am saying here ultimately has nothing to do with law, or "justice" as we know it in this lifetime. I am speaking of morality. When I read about instances of citizens living in places like Cleveland, where everything is done to discourage citizens from exercising their rights, and then find they are killed by a criminal who should be behind bars, but isn't, I ask myself by what moral right do they act? Our Constitution recognized the right to keep and bear arms for all citizens. What gives these people the right to overturn the Constitution and say otherwise? And while the law may have nothing to do with such morality, surely the closer it cleaves to that standard, the better it would be for everyone.

Governments Have Blood On Their Hands

2011-08-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

I received the following e-mail from Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizen's Defense League about how the Virginia law allowing Concealed Carry in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol has worked after its first year. I will have more to say on the other side.

BREAKING: I will be talking about this article on Armed American Radio with Mark Walters tonight, Sunday, August 14th at 9:30 PM. You can catch the show, which is on from 8 PM to 11 PM on http://armedamericanradio.org/listen-live-2/ ]

Last week I was interviewed by Mark Bowes, a reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He was investigating what affect the repeal of the ban on carrying concealed handguns into restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages has had in its first year.

Basically the result was as predicted by VCDL and other pro-liberty organizations for years now - there were no shootouts over undercooked tuna with other patrons diving for cover AND some violent crimes committed in restaurants, in fact, declined.

All that whining and fear mongering by the other side was proven to be nothing but their usual paranoid fantasies. Every time VCDL tries to expand the rights of gun owners in any direction, it is always the same "end-of-the-world" prophecies from liberty-haters. And they are methodically proven wrong each and every time.

That's the only play they have in their playbook, so we'll see it again next year as VCDL keeps moving the ball forward.

Unfortunately things weren't perfect. There were two incidents in the first year involving permit holders. One was where a permit holder who, in trying to pay for a beer, proceeded to shoot himself in the leg as he pulled money from a pocket that was shared with his concealed gun. He won't find any sympathy from me on a variety of fronts, including breaking the law and putting a handgun that probably was not holstered into a pocket full of other items. At least the only person who was hurt was the permit holder.

The other incident was an intoxicated permit holder who intentionally drew attention to the outline of a concealed handgun in his pocket, leaving the waitress feeling threatened. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior, so, again, I have no sympathy.

While these two events were frustrating, one has to look at them in perspective - there are almost 1/4 MILLION permit holders in Virginia! Neither event was a violent crime, but more along the lines of foolishness with some stupidity thrown in for good measure. No innocents were hurt and the law worked, as both permit holders were punished.

Here is the article, WITH A POLL. I have inserted a few comments in the story:

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: http://tinyurl.com/3svxsns

Gun crimes drop at Virginia bars and restaurants

By Mark Bowes

Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.

The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper's request.

And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law's first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.

A total of 145 reported crimes with guns occurred in Virginia bars and restaurants in fiscal 2010-11, or eight fewer than the 153 incidents in fiscal 2009-10. State police track all murders, non-negligent manslaughters, aggravated assaults, forcible sex crimes and robberies in more than two dozen categories, including "bars/nightclubs" and "restaurants."

"The numbers basically just confirm what we've said would happen if the General Assembly changed the law," said Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League, which strongly lobbied for the law's change that made Virginia one of 43 states to allow concealed guns in restaurants that serve alcohol. "It's sort of a big yawn. So from my point of view, none of this is surprising."

"Keep in mind," Van Cleave added, "what the other side was saying — that this was going to be a blood bath, that restaurants will be dangerous and people will stop going. But there was nothing to base the fear-mongering on."

State Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, who was a strong opponent of the law, said it's not clear what conclusions can be drawn from just a year's worth of data.

"Most folks obey the law, and that's a good thing," said McEachin, who remains staunchly opposed. "But I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that just like drinking and driving doesn't mix, guns and drinking don't mix." [PVC: People drink and drive legally all the time. Being intoxicated is the issue. Hopefully the good Senator has actually read the law he is speaking about and understands that it prohibits drinking while carrying concealed with a CHP, making his sweeping generalization nonsensical.]

David Rittgers, an attorney and decorated former Army special forces officer who is now a legal policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the growing number of states that are adopting concealed-carry measures like Virginia's have seen no appreciable rise — and in some cases a decline — in violent crime.

Rittgers said.

Rittgers said states that have enacted such concealed-carry legislation — "even when they've done some relatively restrictive provisions upfront" — have relaxed those over time "because of the lack of violent incidents that might be connected with persons carrying concealed (weapons) with a permit."

* * * * *

At The Times-Dispatch's request, state police pulled from their computerized database all major crimes at bars and restaurants reported by local law-enforcement agencies across Virginia for two successive fiscal years. The Times-Dispatch then contacted more than a dozen police departments in Virginia for more detailed information on all aggravated assaults, homicides and sexual assaults involving firearms at those businesses.

Reported robberies were not analyzed because they tend to involve premeditated crimes by perpetrators openly displaying guns, and many of the affected businesses are chain restaurants that don't serve alcohol.

Only two fatal shootings occurred during the last fiscal year — one outside a Petersburg nightclub and the other at a Radford restaurant — but neither involved concealed-gun permit holders. And only two of the 18 aggravated assaults reported could be linked definitively to concealed-carry holders.

Several other cases appear to have involved hidden guns, but the suspects either didn't have a concealed permit, or they fled the scene before they could be identified and arrested.

One of the few unambiguous cases of a concealed-gun permit holder breaking the law occurred on July 28, 2010 — 27 days after the law became active — at a deli in York County. In that case, a patron who had been drinking heavily with a gun concealed in his pocket allegedly sexually harassed a female waitress and, at one point, placed his hand over his hidden gun so the waitress could see its outline.

After making a comment the waitress construed as a threat, the man left but was stopped a short time later by police. They recovered a .380-caliber pistol from his pants pocket and charged him with driving under the influence, brandishing a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon.

He was charged with the latter offense — even though he had a permit to carry the gun — because he had been drinking in the deli while in possession of a concealed firearm. The law forbids concealed-gun permit holders to drink alcohol while they are inside bars and restaurants with guns hidden from view. Patrons who legally carry firearms openly into bars and restaurants can drink freely.

Authorities confiscated the man's concealed-gun permit, but the brandishing and concealed weapon charges were eventually withdrawn by prosecutors. He was convicted of driving while drunk.

In another case closer to home, a Hopewell man with a concealed-carry permit was arrested in June after police said he brandished a gun in the parking lot of a chain restaurant after a verbal dispute escalated into a fight among several patrons. No shots were fired, but punches were thrown.

Although the man pulled a concealed weapon during the fight, the new law didn't really apply because the restaurant where the incident occurred doesn't serve alcohol. The man was convicted last month of brandishing the gun — which he appealed — and a malicious-wounding charge was certified to a Hopewell grand jury.

Aside from the two homicides, the only assault that resulted in a person being shot occurred in February outside a Virginia Beach restaurant and bar. The shooting followed an altercation inside the restaurant. Several unknown men were asked to leave, and the victim was shot and wounded as he walked toward a male in an adjacent parking lot, police said.

But because the suspect was never identified and arrested, police don't know whether the shooter was carrying a concealed gun or whether he had a permit to carry it.

* * * * *

Tom Lisk, a lobbyist who represents the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association, still believes it's a bad idea to mix alcohol and firearms, and he says the crime numbers essentially affirm his initial position on the issue.

"We acknowledged during the legislative debate that the vast majority of individuals that hold concealed-weapons permits are indeed law-abiding citizens, and most would not cause any problem," Lisk said. "But at the same time, we also advocated that they in fact were human beings, and some small number would probably be the source of some problem because you're mixing alcohol and firearms. [PVC: Yet, hypocritically, the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association has no problem with mixing alcohol with drivers. I've never seem them lobby to keep drivers with concealed car keys from being able to drink in restaurants.]

"And I think that's pretty much borne out by what we've seen," added Lisk, citing the York case as an example. "This was a law-abiding citizen that got a permit, but yet he went in and broke the law by drinking while carrying a concealed firearm." [PVC: And the legal system punished him for doing so. That's how the law is supposed to work in America.]

Lisk also cited another incident publicized last year that involved a concealed-permit holder who accidentally shot himself in the thigh at a Lynchburg restaurant. The gun discharged after the man apparently reached into his pocket to pay the bartender for a beer. He was convicted of recklessly handing a firearm, ordered to pay a $500 fine and lost his concealed-carry permit for a year. His gun was confiscated.

While the new law has not led to rampant crime or "random bloodshed in restaurants," Lisk said, "certainly we've seen a few incidences of permit holders using bad judgment — drinking and then, in unfortunate circumstances … shooting themselves or accosting a waitress. So I think in that respect our concerns have been validated." [PVC: So let's punish 250,000 people who did nothing wrong last year then, Tom?]

McEachin echoed that view.

"I promise you that the waitress that had the gun brandished at her by someone who was drunk and sexually aggressive — to her that was a serious offense," he said. "And when someone gives themselves a self-inflicted wound, that just underscores the fact that guns and drinking don't mix. I don't know if there's anything disproven by those numbers." [PVC: Someday McEachin will actually read the law and be shocked to find out that it prohibits drinking while carrying concealed. I'm not holding my breath, however.]

Rittgers said once concealed-carry laws come into effect, the fears associated with such measures generally are not realized and fade. "None of those predictions, frankly, have come to pass," he said.

A certain amount of unreasonable fear is associated with guns generally because they are used by criminals in committing crimes, Rittgers said. But concealed-carry holders, who Rittgers said tend be more law-abiding that the general citizenry, "are willing to go through the background checks and the training that is often required" for the permit.

Van Cleave believes he and other supporters of the law deserve an apology — especially those who "screamed the end of the world was coming with this."

"At some point," Van Cleave said, "it would be nice to have some of them admit that they were wrong, that they didn't see any of the horrible things that they thought were going to happen." [PVC: I know, I know - the other side lives to shamelessly fear monger to get their way. But that doesn't mean we should let them get away with it unscathed.]

First, I want to thank both Mark Bowes, and the Richmond Times Dispatch for running a fair article on the subject. Too often we see articles where we gun owners know that factual evidence in favor of guns has either been grossly distorted, or the article includes out and out lies to make gun owners look bad, and that could have been easily countered had the writer bothered to check.

Part of being fair is telling both sides in context. In this case, the article tells there were only two incidents, out of 250,000 concealed permit holders in Virginia. That amounts to 0.00080%. Not exactly a crime spree.  In the case of the guy who got sloppy drunk and threatened a waitress, do you really think a law might have stopped him? In any case, the man was punished, which is how the law should work.

Second, there is the case of North Carolina. All of the States bordering on North Carolina now have some form of carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, except South Carolina. But they are working on it down there. Even Ohio now has restaurant carry. In every case, of course, you may not carry while drinking, which is a more restrictive than for drivers. In every State, a person can have a blood alcohol level of up to 0.07 and not be legally drunk driving. But for gun carriers, the standard is that you can't drink, period. There is no "reason" why the legislature has not allowed carry in restaurants the serve alcohol in North Carolina, but there has been plenty of "emotion." Most of the hysteria has been generated by a series of editorials making claims of shootouts over undercooked tuna, and of blood running between the tables.  As in Virginia, this is all they've got. There is no evidence, nothing to point to. But the editorials did manage to cow the North Carolina Senate. While we saw the same editorials in Virginia newspapers before the votes in Virginia, their legislature is apparently made of sterner stuff.

There are already laws on the books making both murder and assault crimes. Yet these crimes happen with dreadful regularity. While guns may be excellent tools to use in the commission of such crimes, a look at Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that absent a gun, other weapons will be used. Indeed, in South Africa, which has a tremendously high homicide rate, and very strict gun control, homicides are not committed with guns by and large. Yet they are still committed in numbers that make the United States look like a childrens' picnic. The instrumentalities that people find to kill each other are baffling in their ingeniousness, from knives to machetes, to hammers, to screwdrivers, to pantie hose to bare hands. The list is hardly all inclusive. Would you ban all these things from restaurants that serve alcohol? If not, why not? What about automobiles? Should waitresses take the keys of those they serve alcohol to so as not to allow them to drink and drive? If not, why not, in the interests of being consistent. Note too that all of these potential instruments of death are safe in the hands of someone who has no intent to use them for murder and assault.

All of the above has so far dealt with statistics, looking at the pragmatic effects of banning the mere possession of an instrument in certain circumstances. Now we come to the principled argument.  The idea here is that there is some level of lawlessness committed by others that justifies restricting the rights of the law abiding. Within our system of law, there is no basis for the practice. The idea of punishing the whole class for the acts of one or two miscreants comes from our youth. When little Johnny throws a spit ball at the teacher while her back is turned, she naturally asks who did it. When nobody volunteers, she sentences the entire class to extra homework. It didn't seem fair then, and among adults it is a loathsome notion. Every one of us has been granted the right to defend him or herself by virtue of our birth, and for most of history, we had only ourselves to do it.  It is an ancient right that goes back to beginning our our species, and was recognized in law by the Bible, by the Romans, and reaffirmed by the English Common law and by the U. S. Constitution. By making laws which infringe on that right, Governments take on the moral responsibility for defending us from criminals, even as they evade that responsibility by declaring themselves sovereign. In essence, the Government that makes such laws has the blood of innocent victims on its hands. Let us hope the NC Senate can find the fortitude to buck the newspapers and pass restaurant carry in North Carolina.

So, This is "Civilized Society"

2011-08-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

How's that working out for you?

Melanie Phillips has a piece up blaming the Liberals in England for the riots at How the Liberals Ruined Britain. Of course, you must understand that while political labels such as "Liberal" and "Conservative" are the same words as used in the United States, the groups are not exactly analogous. In particular, "Conservative" in Britain means pretty much what it says, while in America, Conservatives wish to maintain the great leap forward in freedom and liberty of the individual represented by our Constitution, and would be more analogous to Libertarians. In any case, Phillips makes a number of good points. Children, boys especially, need fathers to show them how to be men, because most of what children learn is by example. To that end, society should encourage two parent households wherever possible. The schools, creation of victimhood and victimcrats, welfare and the entitlement society, nonjudgementalism, multiculturalism, are all destructive policies that need to change.

Here is another: The disarmament of the law abiding citizens, and the denial of the ancient right to self defense. I have written some time ago that the gun is civilization, in Why the Gun is Civilization. Once again, a hat tip to Marko at the Munchkin Wrangler for saying it much better than I could. Essentially, in any conflict, if both parties are armed, they must come to a reasonable understanding between them. Neither can be forced. In a disarmed society, the strong, the younger, the more ruthless will always "win" no matter the merits of their position. Interestingly, open handed methods, or the sword, while representing a step up from being totally disarmed, require many years to master, and a good deal of physical fitness that may be denied to some as they age or because of injuries or disease. But you can master the basic essentials of the gun in an hour at the range.

After reading the above, and reading the link, you will no doubt find it laughable that Rebecca Peters, former Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) always referred to her disarmed societies as "civilized society." Peters apparently had some odd notions of what "civilized" means. If the land that sits in the place of the formerly Great Britain is an example of a "civilized society," is it any wonder that most Americans reject that in favor of keeping their guns? If those riots come here, most Americans want to be able to defend themselves and their property as the Koreans did in the L.A. riots.

America is traveling down the same road that has brought ruin to the British, but we have a chance to repent and again listen to Rudyard Kiplings Gods of the Copybook Headings, but we still want to keep our guns, just in case...

Update Saturday, 13 August 2011: Jan LaRue has a piece touching on this same topic at American Thinker entitled Bats the way it is for unarmed Britons. Go take a look.

Curiosity

2011-08-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

I finally watched "Curiosity" last night. I had recorded the show out of...well...curiosity. The hype leading up to the show said they were going to tell us whether or not God created the universe. I knew, of course, that the likely outcome would be that He did not. My suspicions grew when I noticed how many different channels had the same show at the same time. Gracious, they really wanted to get the message out.

The program was hosted by eminent Professor Stephen Hawking. I had read his history of time, and generally followed along his physics career in a dilettante way. With Stephen Hawking on board, I expected to be challenged to think about my positions, and to have to justify myself. Unfortunately, the thinking and reasoning put forward could be easily knocked down by any high school advanced placement physics student.

Hawking uses significant time during his hour to either assert theories as proven fact, or to reiterate old canards. For example, he posits the existence of something called negative energy. To my knowledge, nobody has proven the existence of negative energy, though its existence is a necessary condition if wormholes actually exist. But then, wormholes are not a proven theory either. Fine, but what does that really have to do with the question at hand?

Hawking also reiterates the idea that the Luddite "church" stands against brave scientists like Hawking, citing the story of Galileo to prove his point. But Galileo wasn't imprisoned for discovering that earth revolved around the sun, or that Jupiter has moons. Rather, what the church could not abide is that Galileo insisted on telling students not only what is, but what it means. In other words, Galileo was invading the church's turf. Galileo was only reluctantly made to recant after he became so outspoken that the church had to do something or risk losing all credibility. He was imprisoned in rather lavish surroundings where he was allowed to continue his work until his death. Not the work of an angry church on the run from science, is it? But Hawking is a physics professor, not a historian, so one can easily let this little slip up pass.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Hawkings basic argument is that at the very beginning of the universe, matter and energy were condensed to an infinitely small point, a black hole of infinite mass compressed into an infinitely small point. You could say that the universe was packed into nothing. You will recall that as something gets closer and closer to a black hole, time slows down, and if the black hole is sufficiently massive, time eventually stops all together. So, at the moment of the big bang, there was no time, and no space (because the two are inextricably linked.) Now, because there was no time, and no space, therefore there could not be a first cause, because God would have no time in which to initiate the first cause. The universe must have created itself.

I kid you not. That is the argument. Nowhere does Hawking see fit to address objections.

This betrays an extremely juvenile notion of what and who God is. It is hard for us to imagine anything outside our universe. For instance, into what did the universe expand? What did God do "before" creating the universe? Both questions are meaningless because they assume that space expanded into space, and that time actually existed. But that does show the difficulty since what we can know is bounded by our known physical laws. Everything else is speculation. Then there is the idea that the universe created itself. How? If you are going to live entirely with the physical laws of the known universe, you will die with them too. By what physical law does the universe suddenly decide to start inflating? Because one of the things we first learn is that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Something had to initiate that force. I am betting it was God. Hawking makes a statement at the beginning of his show that he will prove that there is no God who created us and controls our fate. Of course, I don't believe God controls our fate. We do that, through free will. But God knows what we will do, while at the same time allowing us to choose. Since God can stand outside of time and space, he knows our fate, and what we will choose to do. He doesn't sentence people to hell, but he doesn't force them to choose rightly either. Ultimately, I believe God wants a relationship with each of us, but allows each of us to choose. Why? I have no idea. It is grace beyond all understanding, beyond human reason...I am left speechless.

Professor Hawking could be right, of course. It may be that the universe is a completely random affair, and that our existence here is entirely a matter of luck. If so, it represents one of the cruelest of "jokes," because such a random collection of matter and energy can not actually have the intelligence to make a joke. But you understand. Going from the smallest of particles that make up all matter, to the largest galaxies, the order of the universe becomes less random, more ordered. If one could get "outside" the universe, and see the whole, it would be, I think, unimaginably beautiful. How cruel for Professor Hawking to come this far and think there is nowhere else to go.

It is unfortunate that Professor Hawking has chosen as he has, though there is time to change his mind. I hope you, dear readers, will choose differently.

Theo Spark: Video: Islam's Greatest Invention#links#links#links#links#links#links

2011-08-10T05:18:00.000-07:00

Theo Spark: Video: Islam's Greatest Invention#links#links#links#links#links#links

Theo Spark's site has a history of the "Palistinian" people that is must see. You can find this at times by reading Caroline Glick or other Jewish writers, but you won't find any of this in the MSM. It has been flushed down the memory hole, and in its place has popped the "Palistinian People" and their great desire for a homeland.

Personally, I stand with Isreal. When your making preparations, think about your Jewish friends too.

Hard History Coming, Redux

2011-08-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

I was unsure whether to post this under "Hard History Coming Continued" or to note the bright spots that Clarice Feldman points out in today's American Thinker article entitled Raging at the Dying of their Light. You should go and read the whole article. Ms. Feldman first notes two incidents during which a liberal exploded with rage beyond all reason or explanation:

In the first instance, some years ago, I was a guest at the lovely Maine lakeside lodge of a relative of a college roommate. At the conclusion of a perfectly pleasant dinner in which the conversation was not at all political, my host asked quite unexpectedly what I thought of (then) president George W. Bush. I said I loved him. (And I do. I think that he is a decent gentlemen who tried in every way to perform his responsibilities honestly, no small matter in such a thoroughly base age in which he was unremittingly slanderously vilified.)

My host rose red-faced from his seat, and smashed his fist on the table, shouting, "How could you be so close minded?" As I recall, I could only laugh at the absurdity of his response. His wife , a proper hostess, tried to smooth it over, but I had seen first hand the tyrannical face behind the mask of a liberal urbanite. I had not raised the matter. I had merely answered honestly and succinctly his question in a way he found intolerable simply because my short reply so challenged his own views that all decent, educated people shared his opinion. Hold a different opinion and you are by definition "close minded."

I have been subjected to similar outbursts, though less polite. I have seen liberals reduced to sputtering unprintable words tossed my way when I pressed the argument with facts that clearly refuted the current liberal theory du jour. What I haven't done is convince anybody to rethink his or her ideas. That would have been too much. But in the violence of such outbursts, one can easily see that more thuggish Leftists will not give up power without a fight.

You are aware of the routine use of censorship to silence debate from the right on many of the issues of the day. The Left uses cat calls of "racism" "terrorist" or "hater" and other other scurrilous characterizations to keep the Right from raising the arguments in the first place. If one suggests that perhaps welfare needs to be pared down to those that truly need it, one is both a racists and a hater. If one suggests means testing for Medicare and Social Security, one obviously wants to throw grandma over the cliff. At universities, Leftist students regularly shout down Ann Coulter or David Horowitz. In Canada, speaking opinions not sanctioned by the Left has been criminalized, and there have been calls to do the same in this country. So, it was with some consternation that I listened to Senator John Kerry telling the press to just not print certain points of view:

Add to the irony of rank unscientific dogmatists posing as free thinkers, a huge dose of arrogance, and you get John F . Kerry, intellectual poseur , font of internationalist elitist conventional wisdom and avatar of effete snobbery, saying stuff like this:

SEN. JOHN KERRY: "And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

While I remain skeptical that the so-called debt ceiling deal represents anything other than the Republicans and Tea party being rolled again by wiley Democrats, Feldman finds some bright spots. In Feldman's formulation, we have shifted the debate away from more and bigger government programs, and toward cutting programs and balanced budgets. Economic conditions are sure to worsen. The stock market, to date propped up by government bail outs and stimulus, can no longer hold its value and is declining. The rush to precious metals can not be covered up by the happy face media. The Keynesian's have shot their wad, and have nothing left. Meanwhile, the fact the George Soros is buy gold tells us something about what he REALLY believes, and when push comes to shove, Soros believes in hard currency and power.

Obviously, the struggle is another generational fight, in which we on the side of personal freedom are going to have to remain ever vigilant, and polite but aggressive if we are to win. It is a fight to the finish with the Left, and is winner take all.

New freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida seems to get it in the floor speech he delivered if Joseph Ashby is to be believed in a piece at the American Thinker yesterday entitled Marco Rubio's House Divided Speech. Ashby likens it to Lincoln's speech on slavery in which he famously said that a house divided can not stand. Similarly, Rubio points out that the two visions of America currently dividing the nation can not coexist forever. On the one hand are those who see government as the source of prosperity and who have no philosophical difficulty taking from those who produce wealth to give to those who do not. On the other are those who view the private sector as the proper sphere for creating wealth. These people view equal opportunity, and equal protection of the laws as more important than equal outcomes. Go read the whole article, and consider again that this will eventually involve a fight.

I was at the Raleigh Gun Show yesterday, volunteering at the Grass Roots North Carolina table. During a lull, I was speaking to one of the other men working there about the debt ceiling debate, the Gunwalker hearings, and other political issues. He, of course, is a politically aware individual. He expressed similar opinions to mine that we had been played in the debt deal, and that Gunwalker represented our own government breaking its own laws. Then he said that a bloody civil war was likely in the future, that it was the last thing he wanted to see, but he did not see a way out of it.

Hmmmm.

Hard History Coming

2011-08-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

I have been getting reoriented since my return on Sunday. But things continue to be busy around PolyKahr Estates, so I have had limited time. One thing I have been paying some attention to is the debt ceiling debate, in which our "brave" Republicans have once again capitulated and given the Left what it wants for a mess of pottage. So, it was with interest that I noted that my friend, fellow blogger, and Conservative Examiner, Anthony Martin posted a piece on Saturday entitled Why Bloody Civil War is Inevitable. Go read the whole piece, including the links. I'll wait. Then read the Curmudgeon Emeritus's post at Eternity Road entitled The Short Route to Chaos. Notice some similarities?

On Sunday, Anthony had to publish again to make clear he was not calling for civil war, but felt in was inevitable. You can read that here. I was particularly disgusted by the comments left by on the Examiner site by "Glenn Wright" who frankly looked to be a troll trying to provoke someone...anyone... into careless words that he could take and say "See, see! They are plotting to overthrow the government!" Today I read at the Summer Patriot, Winter Soldier site the following:

it seems to me inevitable that we fight them. it is because they are our enemies, as surely as vladimir putin, as sure as ahmadinejad. we owe them no apology for our views, and we should back away from them not one iota, and give them not one peppercorn's consideration.

There are, in fact, many other sites where one will find expressions like this. To a man or woman, all express the fear that a civil war is inevitable because otherwise, liberty will be wiped out on the face of the earth. In a former time, one could emigrate to America. But now there is no place to run. Those who desire freedom to live their lives without some dictator telling them at every turn what he will and will not allow, will have no choice but to stand and fight, or accept slavery for themselves and their children, grand children, and all future generations. For too long, liberty loving individuals have been giving up ground to the loony Left. It is as if we were in a primitive tribe who gives into mad man rather than provoke him, because nobody knows what he will do next.

On guns, to take one issue, we have caved, and capitulated our way to where we were back in the 1990s, when the concealed carry movement really got rolling. If gun rights activists became radicalized, it was because it was only by being radical that they made any progress regaining our former rights. I remember GCA 68, though I was in high school at the time. All the wise men recommended appeasing the mad men because society was coming apart, "riots everywhere you know, we can't let them have guns too. It's only a small infringement on our rights, after all. Who knows what they will do." But once they got GCA 68, there were further demands, always more demands to "compromise" and "be reasonable" yet again. But we began to see that we were not being asked to compromise, but to capitulate, and we began to follow Jesse Helms advice:

“Compromise, hell! … If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

"By any means necessary" is not just a slogan, but a modus operandus with the Left. It was telling to me that one of the guests interviewed on Andrew Napolitano's show, Freedom Watch, Friday let slip the remarkable statement that they needed to cut a deal to raise the debt ceiling because they feared Obama would actually not send out Social Security checks or pay the troops! If true, the President can be said not to be merely fear mongering, but committing economic terrorism on vulnerable Americans. And what does that say about who cares more about grandma? The "we care more" party is willing to hold Grandma hostage until they get their debt ceiling raised, because spending more is all that counts with them!

The great majority of Americans consider themselves some brand of conservative, while only 20 percent consider themselves Leftists. Typical of conservatives, they have been slow to react to the foreign invasion of a European philosophy called Marxism. It has not helped that the Marxist have hidden themselves behind false flags and innocuous sounding names. But America is waking up, at the 11th hour. It appears that the Left is currently in control of all the cards. We just have ourselves, our faith and our guns. So be it. Our side is through capitulating. With Jesse Helms, we say "Compromise, hell..." Of course, that will not satisfy the mad men. They have taken everything else, but the want our freedom and liberty too. So, yes, there will be bloody civil war. I am not calling for it, I just don't see any way to stop it, barring a miracle. Don't shoot the messenger.

We will not see actual cuts in spending

2011-07-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

Jerry Pournelle writes a very telling post entitled There Won't Be Cuts, courtesy of Kevin at the Smallest Minority over in the side bar.

I am taking a road trip, so won't be around for a few days. But this is what I fear we will end up with. Smoke and mirrors, but no real cuts. Or, and this is a trick I especially like, put the "cuts" in the out years, where Reid and Boehner can not be held accountable for them since no Congress can legally bind a future Congress. The Republicans will say that they need more people in Congress to get something done. Don't fall for it again. This is the same trick they pulled on us in 1994. We gave them more, but they betrayed us at every turn.

The Debt Ceiling Silliness

2011-07-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Or, what is the other hand doing while we are being distracted.

An article on the "Super Congress" idea floated by John Boehner (RINO, OH) at American Thinker by Robert Eugene Simmons, Jr entitled Boehner's 12 Member Commission Political Game gives John Boehner the maximum benefit of the doubt with his insane idea. Unconstitutional doesn't begin to say it. But it will do. Boehner is proposing to disenfranchise each and every one of us from budget decisions. The underlying assumption is that tax money belongs to the Government. In fact, tax money belongs to each of us, and we each have to have a say in how it is used. Otherwise, why do we need Congress. Save the money and go with the "Super Congress."

In one narrative, Mr. Boehner is trying to avoid the opprobrium that will no doubt be heaped on him come election time if he does not succeed in both raising the debt ceiling (allowing his Social Security constituents to be paid) and securing spending cuts (as demanded by his TEA party constituents.) In other words, he it attempting with his idea of a "Super Congress" to avoid blame that will inevitably cost him his cushy Congressional job.

Or, there is another possibility. Who does Mr. Boehner actually work for?

Yesterday, as I was driving to work in morning rush hour traffic, I heard a talk show host make a remarkable statement. I will have to paraphrase because I didn't want to risk taking my eyes off the road, or pulling over. Even here in Raleigh, rush hour drivers are crazed. In any case, this individual said that after much study of the debt ceiling issue, we needed to raise the debt ceiling because of contractual obligations the Government had incurred during the last six months, which would be defaulted if we did not raise it.

Hmmmm.

Now, as I understand the process, money is typically appropriated by one committee,known as a Appropriation committee. There are many such committees. All of the Appropriations committees' various appropriations combined make up the budget. This is passed to the Senate, which may tweak them. If so, the two sides negotiate, both pass the same bill, then send it to the President for signature. But, before the President can actually obligate that money, (for instance, let a contract) the funds also have to be Authorized by an Authorization committee. The Authorization committee should be fully aware of where we stand relative to the debt ceiling. It doesn't matter how much has actually been obligated by the Executive, because he can not spend money that has not been authorized. So, where did this process break down? Did the Authorization Committee allow the Executive to spend funds beyond the debt ceiling, or did someone in the Executive branch obligate money that was not authorized? Mr. Boehner surely knows this, so who is he trying to protect? If you answer that question, you will answer who he is working for, because he is not working for us. I have said for a while now that Boehner should tell the President to go pound sand, politely of course. He should not be afraid of letting the debt ceiling stay where it is. If the President decides to not pay Social Security, then it is on his head. If the President decides to default, that too is on his head. We take in enough in taxes to allow us to pay our debts, and pay essentials. What not raising the debt ceiling does is force a debate on what is and is not essential. We have needed that for a long time.

If I am wrong about this, I wish someone would tell me how.

Liberty Sphere: Yes, Progressives Really Want to Control You

2011-07-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

And they will if you let them.

Our friend, the Welshman, Anthony Martin, who also writes the Conservative Commentary for the Examiner, has an excellent piece up today entitled Yes, Progressives Really Want to Control You. Click to read the whole thing. A sample:

The reason citizens must have the freedom to keep and bear arms is that a large and dangerous sector of society does not obey any law that says you must not commit murder, or that you must respect another person's property, or that you must conduct yourself in a manner in which others are not harmed. Progressives sitting in their sanitized, insulated ivory towers claim to be ignorant of such people. But informed, free citizens know the danger and must have the means to defend themselves not only against threats to their lives and property but against oppressive governments as well. This is at the heart of the American experience dating all the way back to the Declaration of Independence. And yes, deadly force was used to defend freedom when it was attacked by totalitarians.

This piece, and I encourage you to go read it, illustrates fundamental difference in philosophy between Progressives, on the one hand, and Conservatives on the other. I believe a people must be able to govern themselves. Writing more, and more restrictive laws does nothing but make criminals out of otherwise law abiding people. If you write the law with that idea in mind, people will respond by making more adult decisions. If you write the law as if you believe people can not govern themselves, you will infantilize them and they will prove you correct as well.

Terrorists and Rebels Among Us

2011-07-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

There are terrorists, insurrectionists, and people advocating the overthrow of the Constitutional Republic among us. But they are not those calling themselves Constitutionalists, who advocate for restoring the Constitution. So who are these people, and where are they?

I have been pondering the issue of illegal and illegitimate government, that is government unbounded by the laws established by our legislative branch, as well as activist judges who twist the laws and Constitution to say things the writers and the Founders never intended to say, for a number of years now. In the latter category, I would put the collectivist theory of the Second Amendment. We can read the writings of the founders, the Federalist papers on the topic, as well as we can read the Constitution itself, and it is pretty clear to all with an open mind that it was intended as an individual right. Even Alan Dershowitz, that progressive Constitutional scholar, has come to the conclusion that it is an individual right. Historians can look at a number of documents and ascertain that clearly it was intended as an individual right. Indeed, the collectivist theory did not arise until the 20th century, along with the rise of progressivism. Yet despite the relatively recent reinterpretation of the Constitution by progressives, it took thousands of man hours by scholars as diverse as Steven Holbrook, Dave Kopel, Alan Korwin, and Dave Hardy; it took the organizing effects of groups like the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and belatedly and unenthusiastically, the NRA; it took 40 years of effort by individuals fighting a seemingly quixotic battle, and it took having a Supreme Court that would listen and a spunky lawyer like Alan Gura to bring the case, all to prove what we already knew. Namely that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Here's something else we know: that States that require a Concealed Carry permit and that restrict that permit in terms of where and when you may carry are also infringing that individual right.

I started off with the Second Amendment because I wanted to show that this sort of thing has been going on for at least 100 years, and it is not just the scheme of the current holder of the Office of President, though that person has greatly accelerated the process. It is also not the scheme of Democrats or Republicans either. Both parties elected officials are guilty of loving power more than their country. The "Gunwalker Scandal" is only the latest, and in some ways the most egregious, in a long line of government actions that either break the laws set out for everyone else, or violate the Constitution that every elected official, and indeed every so called civil servant is sworn to uphold.

A quick review of the "Only Ones" files over at the War on Guns website will illustrate that many police officers have come to view themselves not as paid servants of the people they serve, but as masters whose job is to control us. In many cases, we find that the police have acted in ways that if a private citizen were to act, the private citizen would be arrested, yet they are found to be acting within "police protocols." We find in the Olofson case that the ATF acts with, shall we say, fluid standards and that the judges seem to assume that the prosecution is acting in good faith despite clear evidence to the contrary. The TSA runs grope-a-thons and takes naked pictures of citizens, acts that if a private citizen were to do them on the street, would have him or her arrested and put on the sexual offender registry, and we meekly submit. Has everyone forgotten our history? the Founding generation would be shooting already.

Then there is the slow erosion of property rights, starting with the money you make by the sweat of your brow. Through inflation, the money you earn has slowly eroded to the point that a dollar today is worth only pennies compared to the dollar a person earned in 1900. There are rulings like the Kelo decision that made every one's home a potential target of some developer who wants it to build a higher tax base for the government. Then there are the countless environmental laws and regulations that restrict what you may do and build on your land, yet no compensation has ever been offered. The Supreme Court has even found that carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas that every living animal breathes out, and that every living plant uses for food must be regulated by the EPA, a decision that makes no sense scientifically, and which the government has no constitutional authority with which to deal. Rather, it is a move designed to put more power in the hands of the government.

In yesterday's American Thinker there appeared an article entitled Of Rebels and Rebellions, by Jeremy Egerer, that makes the case that it is not we, the Constitutionalists who are "insurrectionists" but they, the Progressives, who are trying to change the government.

It has been claimed, by prominent media outlets and even the American government, that right-wing movements comprise insurrectionary parties and that many conservatives are inherently opposed to the existence of our current government. But by following the writings of a man who greatly influenced the founding of our country, one could reasonably conclude that insurrection in America has already been underway for quite some time -- and that the conservative movement is not its main proponent.

Early on in this Administration, the DOJ tried to intimidate Constitutionalists into silence by publishing documents telling law enforcement that Constitutionalists were now terrorists. It didn't work, but for those not paying attention, media reports created a certain taint to anyone who talks about such issues.

But suppose that an official of the government were to act against the common good of his society by disregarding the established laws and infringing upon the man's unalienable rights. Such an act would remove that citizen from the protection of the commonwealth and place him again in a state of war. For any organization which seeks to take property or life without legal precedent should commonly be recognized as an outlaw party no different from any pirate or robber (sect 202).

Note carefully the events currently happening in Quartzite, AZ, where the police chief, with the backing of the town council, has taken over the town and is terrorizing everyone in it. So far, neither the Sheriff of the County, nor the State AG have taken action. Why have the townsmen not formed a militia and arrested these tyrants?

Locke argued that a man's position of authority gives him no more license than anyone else to act outside the law, just as anyone who has a greater chance of harming someone should be held by his neighbors under equal, if not greater, scrutiny. To do otherwise -- to grant authorities greater power to act outside their legal boundaries and to break laws -- would place citizens in greater danger than they were in before they formed their society in the first place. For a man defending himself against an entire nation of individuals and small gangs would stand a far greater chance than he would standing against an authority who maintained a total monopoly on violence.

It is plain to all who read the Constitution that our governmental powers have been transgressing their boundaries for quite some time now, and that they have overridden the original intent our forefathers engineered for both themselves and their children. Of course, some of these advances into the private citizen's rights have been made incrementally, and with the consent of an increasingly lazy, litigious, and immoral citizenry...

Some general principles that ought to be taught to every lawyer, in every law school, if it isn't already, is that the law can not be upheld by breaking the law. If to uphold the law, one must break it, then something is terribly wrong with the law. No man is above the law, no matter his station, status, or authority. The President may not order the death of other Americans without due process. The Congress may not use tax funding to subsidize one individual at the expense of another. Nor can they force individuals to purchase health insurance, or broccoli for that matter. High sounding phrases, and noble intentions do not change the fact that in both cases they are stealing from you and me and providing the money to someone else. Federal agencies may not knowingly and deliberately allow guns to walk across the border, much less sell them directly to drug cartels. To do so is the break the law in order to enforce it. Our Founders would have seen this for what it is.

Jeremy Egerer closes with:

If the latter be America's leaders, and large portions of the American public be their supporters, then that is America's lot. Such a result is no fault of anyone other than a cowardly, ignorant, unrighteous populace. But those who oppose such traitors cannot be declared either outlaws or the true threat to our great American society. Rather, it is plain to all reasonable men that the opposition of illegitimate governmental pursuits amounts to nothing less than patriotism and self-defense. Indeed, under these circumstances, our very leadership, should it counter that patriotism, acts as a rebel force. So if Americans will not take their stand today for the protection of their God-given rights, it would not be unwise to declare victory for the rebels already.

Court Rules TSA Naked Scans Constitutional

2011-07-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

Of course they did. Did you expect anything different? From Forbes.com we learn that Federal Court Rules that TSA Naked Scans are Constitutional because you can opt out of the naked scans and get a pleasant pat down instead. That the pat down is just as much of an affront to our dignity, and just as much of a violation of our 4th Amendment rights is overlooked. It will be one intrusive method or the other, but either way, we are going to violate you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I am reminded of the mugger who corners his victim, then offers "I can either shoot you, or stab you. Which way do you want it?" Such kindness.

Prosecution under RICO

2011-07-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Bob Owens has the latest summary of the Gunwalker scandal over at Pajamas Media entitled More Gunwalker Emails Suggest Gun Control Conspiracy. It is a good read, and an excellent summary. Unfortunately, it does not give credit where it is due, namely David Codrea (The War on Guns) and Mike Vanderboegh (Sipsey Street Irregulars). I remain in awe of Mike's ability to get sensitive information out of ATF.

Bob Owens:

Chait was asking Newell to use tracing data to support an initiative supported by the administration to require the reporting of multiple rifle sales.

If that sounds familiar, it should; this week, President Obama pushed an executive order — an end-run around Congress – stating the feds will now require the reporting of multiple rifle sales within a five-day period. That the office of the presidency lacks the constitutional authority to enact such a rule seems irrelevant to this administration, which is certain to see this edict challenged in court if the ATF attempts to enforce it.

The emphasis is mine. This President, and his administration, have no respect for the laws of this nation, no respect for the Congress, and since they were elected by the people, no respect for the people of the United States. To our "Most Wise Anointed One", we are just a bunch of rabble who need to go back and play with our toys, while the "Professional Politicians" solve our problems for us. What nonsense.

Owen again:

Every component of federal law enforcement within the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security — and most likely with the knowledge of the Department of State — undertook a massive operation designed to facilitate the flow of thousands of weapons into the hands of some of the most vicious criminal organizations on Earth. These operations likely took place with the full knowledge of cabinet level officials, and possibly the White House. The weapons “walked” were used to gun down innocent men, women, and children, not to mention the brave police officers and soldiers in each nation trying to wage peace.

It demands a criminal investigation and the possible RICO prosecution of dozens of federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, senior management, political appointees, and possibly elected officials.

Our federal law enforcement apparatus became a criminal conspiracy. This was an assault on the democratic rule of law and the very essence of our republic.

Some of these people may actually believe that the presence of guns is the problem, and not the fact that Mexico is a kleptocracy that doesn't recognize the Mexican peoples' natural rights. Maybe. But they have succumbed to the totalitarian temptation very quickly. They are manufacturing "evidence" and writing illegal laws that will enable them to control, not the guns, but the law abiding people on this side of the border. That is always the way, isn't it: in order to stop some criminal bastard, miraculously they put the burden on the law abiding citizens, and not on the criminals who in any case just ignores the laws. And they do it over and over and over. At some point, one has to note that such "incompetence" always seems to make your and my life more difficult while seeming to make the criminal's life easier. Do you see a pattern? It is not about guns, it is about control. Our government does not trust the average citizen to use guns responsibly. That is the problem.

Update: From the Klamath Falls Herald and News comes this letter to the editor. It is pretty direct and to the point:

This is an astonishing development when the very agency that will be charged with the administration of the new regulation was responsible for permitting the felonious sale and transportation of firearms to Mexico.

The Mask Coming Off the Thugocracy

2011-07-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

The American Thinker has an article up today by Robert Eugene Simmons, Jr entitled The Soft Dictatorship that expresses what I have been arguing for some time. First, that there is no basis to allow Congress to delegate its power to enact laws to a third party, much less to the branch of government that has the responsibility to enforce those laws. Thus, the regulations imposed by, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that affect what any party outside the agency does, are Unconstitutional, and thus illegal "laws." Unfortunately, the courts have for so long gone along with this fiction, that we are unlikely to put the genie back in the bottle.

Now, along comes Obama, and the creation not just of illegal "regulations" but illegal "Executive Orders." This is no different in either scope or kind, from a classic dictatorship. Obama wants something done. Obama goes to Congress, but Congress balks. No problem, Obama just writes and Executive Order and it is done. Simmons characterizes this as "scary." "Scary is not nearly strong enough. Scary is when you go to an especially well made horror movie in which you don't know until the climatic scene who done it. No, this goes beyond "scary." No one of the 300 million people living in this country is safe or secure in their homes, their papers and possessions, their liberty, or their life. As we have seen with the revelations of Operation Fast and Furious, there is no law either U. S. law, or treaty, or international, that Obama will not violate, if it suits him. As with Libya, if someone calls him on it, he changes names but continues along, and nobody stops him.

We are about to meet hard history. Are you prepared?

Update: On the same topic, Alan Korwin has an article up at Ammoland. Hat tip to Keepandbeararms.com.

It is Official: Congress Irrelevant

2011-07-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

It is now official: Congress has become irrelevant. The BATFE has just announced that buyers of 2 or more long guns in 4 Southwestern States will have to register their purchases. I was notified Tuesday by the NRA at Obama Administration Approves Illegal Multiple Sales Reporting Requirements. I have to admit to taking some time to digest my thoughts and put them into a post because I was so angry. You see, the fact is, the Obama Administration has no authority under law to do this.

Now the term "has no authority" sounds so tame. What it means is that the government can not do it. But as the executive, they can do it if they are willing to ignore Congress. Neither Congress, nor the Courts have the ability to enforce their statutes or rulings. This has been the danger many of us perceived all along if Obama was elected President. My Leftist "friends" always thought I was racists for opposing this guy, or that I was merely hyper partisan. No, I perceived that Mr. Obama would be a lawless, rogue executive, and so he has proven to be.

The BATFE has no legal authority to demand these reports, and the flood of new paperwork (BATFE estimates 18,000 reports per year) will waste scarce law enforcement resources that should be spent on legitimate investigations.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in the DOJ statement that this new reporting measure “will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations.”

As anyone who watches the news is aware, the BATFE has recently come under intense scrutiny due to its involvement in, and handling of, the ill-conceived and ill-fated “Fast and Furious” operation. "Fast and Furious" was a part of the five-year-old "Project Gunrunner" program and encouraged Arizona gun stores to sell thousands of guns to suspicious buyers, despite objections from dealers and BATFE field agents alike.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called the new policy "the height of hypocrisy," and said the Obama administration is restricting the gun rights of border state citizens "when the administration knowingly and intentionally allowed guns to be trafficked into Mexico.” Smith went on to say, “Limiting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens is not going to solve the problem."

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on and passed, by a vote of 277 to 149, an amendment to H.R. 1 offered by Reps. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Dan Boren (D-Okla.) that prohibits the use of federal funds for the reporting scheme.

That last, the Rehberg Amendment was stripped out of the final bill by Senate Democrats. And it is Democrats again who are showing that they are more than willing to infringe on that which shall not be infringed.

Here's the thing. When the government violates the clear meaning of its own Constitution to create new "laws," those "laws" are not legitimate, and you and I have no reason to follow them, other than the consequences getting caught. No one respects the law when the laws are made or broken at the apparent whim of Dear Leader. It may be the Chicago way, but it is not the American way. In the case of Second Amendment rights, it is interesting to me that governments that deny those rights, such as New York City, Chicago, and Mexico are always whining that governments that recognize more of those rights, such as Virginia and Florida are creating crimes by exporting guns. Except for Fast and Furious, though, guns are not the problem. Any time you deny the peoples' natural rights, you are going to be creating crimes. People are going to try to earn a living legitimately if possible, illegitimately if it is not. People are going to try to defend themselves, legitimately if they can, illegitimately if they can't.

Speaking of Fast and Furious, Katie Pavlich had a piece yesterday in Townhall.com entitled Operation Fast and Furious Designed to Promote Gun Control.

"Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday [Monday]."

The "one the DOJ announced yesterday" was the rule on multiple sales of long guns I was posting about above. Instead, it is the smoking gun proving that the entire operation Fast and Furious was nothing more than a plot designed to provide evidence supporting the Obama administration's preconceived gun control agenda. It was not about catching drug cartel heads, because they already knew who and where they were. It was not about catching straw purchasers, because if they had that in mind, they would have arrested them as soon as they walked out the door with the goods. It was about manufacturing "evidence." The government violated the laws, that you and I must obey on pain of prison. Untold Mexican nationals were killed. At least two Federal agents, and Lord knows how many U. S. civilians will eventually be killed because of it, just to manufacture evidence for a non existent problem.

The laws are supposed to apply to everybody, irrespective of station and status. If the Administration has chosen to break some laws, and they are not held to account (as in go to jail) then all bets are off. Nobody has to obey any law they choose not to. Meanwhile, if Congress wishes to regain relevancy, Democrats must put ideological considerations aside, and will join with Republicans to stop this President's lawlessness now.

Update: Appropos of about which I was talking is David Codrea's Nation Gun Rights column entitled Will Gunwalker Violations Bust Criminal Investigations Wide Open. David's column includes an e-mail from someone who sounds like he has experience, and knows whereof he speaks. Go read what he has to say.

Update 2: The American Thinker has an excellent article on the Gunwalker scandal, and the Mark Chait e-mail which provides us with a "smoking gun" at The Real Under the Radar Target of Operation Fast and Furious by Roya Johnson. A good read.

Handgun Stopping Power

2011-07-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

Stopping power studies have always interested me, though in truth I had long ago concluded that in general bigger slower bullets tended to have a slight advantage. At the same time, I do not feel under gunned with either a 9mm, a .38 Spl, or a .45 ACP. So, it was with special interest that I read An Alternative Look at Handgun Stopping Power by Greg Ellifritz over at Buckeye Firearms Association. Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms.

People have argued about which is the "best bullet" and the best round to use ever since I have been interested in guns; going on 35 years now. Back then it was .38 Spl, vs. .357 Magnum vs. .45 ACP. In the gun rags of the time, the .45 ACP often took on near mythical properties for its supposed ability to stop a bad guy with one shot. Since Mr. Gore's interwebz had not been invented yet, that was pretty much all anyone outside law enforcement had to evaluate which gun to purchase. Too, there was a certain logic involved. A theoretically bigger wound track means theoretically greater blood loss at a theoretically faster pace. What kept me away from the venerable John Browning design, and cast the vote for the .357 Mag was the jamomatic nature of 1911 design. If I was getting a gun for defense, I surely wanted it to fire when needed, and not choose that particular moment to become a short club.

Flash forward to 35 years later. Ballistic gelatin is now more widely available. The internet provides one with a forum to publish lots of data and have it evaluated by a wide variety of folks (which was the intent, incidentally) and the current war of words is over 9mm vs. .40 S&W vs. .45 ACP. The 1911 platform has been improved with better materials, and better manufacturing techniques such that it is seen as a reliable weapon for many police departments and elite military units. The limp wristed 9 mm round has been improved to the point that ballistically it performs as well as the .38 Spl. But the question remains, which round is the best?

Now comes Greg Ellifritz to pop the arguments of all those who thought their favored round was the best. Ellifritz data, taken from 1800 actual gun shot cases, shows that among the most commonly used defensive rounds, there is virtually no statistical difference. .380 ACP to .45 ACP, they are all the same. What does make a difference is shot placement. Unfortunately, shot placement can only be achieved through lots of dull, boring practice. So, here's some free advice on purchasing your next handgun. Buy one that points naturally for you, and that you shoot well. I have a friend that loves his little .380 ACPs, and I have friends who like their 9 mm and .40 S&W. They all work well, and I wouldn't want to be shot with any of them. Then go out and shoot the *#%$@ out of it in different circumstances, from different stances and different holsters. Don't worry too much about getting the latest super duper defensive cartridge. Studies show that the old reliable Federal HST round is still working great for law enforcement. In 9 mm, I like to use Remington Jacketed Hollow Points that come in 100 round value packs. They are cheap enough to use for the range, and can then be loaded up for carry on the trip home.

Update and epilogue: Later I was telling Mrs. PolyKahr about the article. With her usual matter of fact dismissal she said, as I was explaining the .38 Spl vs. .45 ACP debates of old. "Well, shot placement is more important than what gun you use." That of course was the conclusion I had come to, but she had short circuited my "brilliant" discussion. But there is more to it, I said. If you believe yourself capable of cold bloodedly placing a shot at just the right point in the heat of battle, with your adrenalin pumping, your perceptions distorted, and possibly while severely injured, then shot placement is everything. But I don't believe most people know this about themselves, and I suspect most believe when they are in grave circumstances, there could be a few wild shots, or shots to parts of the body that may not stop the attack. So it is not unreasonable to search for an extra advantage; to seek an edge. Couple that with the well known tendency of people to take the easy path of purchasing their self defence rather that of taking the harder path of training, and you have the makings of a debate. But as Ellifritz has shown, within the range of defensive handgun rounds available, there is no advantage. I need to get some more training.

The King's Royal Deer

2011-07-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

The idea behind the King's Royal Deer is that the King of England claimed all the deer in the land for himself, and hung anyone caught poaching those deer. But now we find that there is a form of the King's Deer here in America. In a free country, I as the owner of land, should be able to kill any deer I find on my property, including the three I caught munching on my tomatos, whenever I want. But I can not, you see, because the State in essence claims ownership of the deer, and I must beg for a licence to kill deer.

The analogy to the King's Royal Deer has application to many property rights issues, including to Obamacare and the King's Royal Deer by Jon N. Hall at the American Thinker today. In the 6th Circuit Court ruling recently, a now almost 70 year old case, Wickard vs. Filburn is cited more than 20 times to uphold the Constitutionality of ObamaCare. Here I must reiterate that under the doctrine of stare decis a bad ruling begets even worse rulings until some future ruling becomes wholly detached from the Constitution itself. It is like an historian who uses secondary sources to make his case. He may have gotten it mostly right, but got something just a little off. Now a future historian comes along, and uses the secondary source to claim that the primary source said something that in fact he never said. So it is with using stare decis to "interpret" the Constitution. It has, of course, been done deliberately over time by activist judges who didn't want to wait for the slow, grinding pace of convincing enough Americans to have the Constitution amended to take some of their own rights.

What?...Wait...There is a way to amend the Constitution? Who knew about this?

Well, all those activist judges, and lawyers, and politicians knew about it. But as I said, the elite priesthood of the law couldn't wait long enough to convince a majority of Americans to go along with giving up their rights. So, a little tweak here, and little tweak there. Put some turgid, boring language around it, and voila, you have a new meaning for the Constitution that its framers never intended, and you have them saying something that they never said.

Sadly, we must watch the confirmation hearings of Federal judges just as much as we must stay on top of everything else. We must insist that when interpreting the Constitution, judges and justices must return to the original document, the minutes of the Constitutional Convention, and especially the Federalist Papers. Had they paid heed to the Federalist Papers, which I am sure they read at some point, they would have seen that the commerce clause and the general welfare clause (not the good 'n plenty clause as one congressman stated) should be read very circumspectly, as Madison warned, not expanded, as Wickard does.

Dominate. Intimidate. Control.

2011-07-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

Back on June 21, 2011, I had a post up about the TSA coming unannounced to a bus station and begin their security theatre schtick here. John Whitehead has more to say about it at the Rutherford Institute website entitled VIPR Searches and the American Citizen: Dominate. Intimidate. Control. Sipsey Street and War on Guns have also featured this author's piece, and I recommend you read them as well over in the side bar. The danger, as Whitehead sees it, is that we are being conditioned to accept a police state by a slow, but steady diet of violations of our persons and papers in open violation of our Constitution rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d’etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall.

Perhaps you have yet to experience the particular thrill, and I use that word loosely, of being manhandled by government agents, having your personal possessions pawed through, and your activities and associations scrutinized. If so, not to worry. It’s only a matter of time before more and more Americans will experience such a military task force knocking at their door. Only, chances are that it won’t be a knock, and they might not even be at home when government agents decide to “investigate” them. Indeed, as increasing numbers of Americans are discovering, these so-called “soft target” security inspections are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat. Worse, not only is this happening with the blessing of the Obama administration but at its urging.

What I’m describing--something that was once limited to authoritarian regimes--is only possible thanks to an unofficial rewriting of the Fourth Amendment by the courts that essentially does away with any distinctions over what is “reasonable” when it comes to searches and seizures by government agents. The rationale, of course, is that anything is “reasonable” in the war on terrorism. What the powers-that-be understand--and Americans remain oblivious to--is the fact that by constantly pushing the envelope and testing the limits of what Americans will tolerate, the government is thus able to ratchet up the level of intrusiveness that Americans consider reasonable.

Further down, Whitehead explains that:

VIPR is the first major step in the government’s effort to secure so-called “soft” targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. In fact, some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. Given the virtually limitless number of potential soft targets vulnerable to terrorist attack, subjection to intrusive pat-downs and full-body imaging will become an integral component of everyday life in the United States. As Jim Harper of the Cato Institute observed, “The natural illogic of VIPR stings is that terrorism can strike anywhere, so VIPR teams should search anywhere.”

The flaws in this jackbooted thug's wet dream should be obvious, but in case they are not, let me explain. First, as with police officers, the TSA can not be everywhere at all times, even if that was desirable. And it is not. Imagine that you are taking the family out for a treat to an Applebees, only to discover that TSA has set up a security theatre operation there. Most people would just drive on by, and go to Ruby Tuesday or Friday's instead. Would Applebee's be somewhat upset at the lost profits? Yeah, I think they might just be. Same goes for Wal Marts, or Shopping Malls, and most other such venues where people have a choice to go or not. Most terrorist would be even more alert to avoid such places.  So, while the TSA is harassing Americans who have never contemplated shooting up their friends and neighbors, terrorists will be able to easily evade detection.

Second, the venues mentioned are not within the Federal Governments mandate, but in the State's mandate. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court saw fit to uphold drunk driving checkpoints (see here.) It was yet another balancing test of the desirability of catching drunk drivers versus the inconvenience to the general public. But the 4th Amendment doesn't have any balancing test; it gives a general command not search people without a warrant or probable cause. In any case, I am sure that will be used at some point to argue that security theatre operations are also legal when the "goal" is to stop terrorists. I am not a lawyer, nor a Constitutional scholar, but so far I am still allowed an opinion, and in my opinion, this case was wrongly decided. It would be better to have someone out there driving under the influence, than to have everyone's rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures absent any probable cause be destroyed. Of course, a full scale security theatre operation inconveniences the citizen more than a checkpoint, but then if time is the defining point, how much time is acceptable, and how much time is clearly beyond the pale?

Third is the cost. We are at the moment debating whether to raise the debt ceiling to cover the deficits the government has been running. Now here comes John Pistole wanting $110 million, up from an exorbitant $30 million in 2009.

It is up to us, the citizens of the States, to resist this police state action at every turn. Short of shooting the bastards, you can do your best to humiliate them in return. Loudly crack jokes about the "testicle squeezing agency" if you see a TSA agent in uniform away from his place of work. Crack jokes about the latest outrage. Call them perverts for sexually assaulting little girls or boys. If you have one living in your neighborhood, place a sign in his front lawn with something like "A Jackbooted Thug lives here."   Make them hate their job, and feel ashamed of what they are ordered to do. When you go through the airports, don't tell others it wasn't as bad as you thought. It was bad. If a stranger on the street came up to you and wanted to run his hands over your body, you would be deeply offended, and if he did it, you would have him or her arrested. It is really no different when someone puts on a state costume and does it. You have a right to be offended. Be offended.

Be offended.

These security theatre operations are designed to numb the citizens to police state actions. They are designed not to provide actual security, something they could never actually accomplish, but to change the relationship between you, the citizen, and the State. They are designed to eventually dominate, intimidate, and control you. In the eyes of the elites, YOU are the terrorist. Indeed, this administration doesn't even see an enemy abroad. It sees YOU as the enemy.

Update: Ron Paul has introduced a bill to turn airport security over to private screeners here.

Restaurant Carry In North Carolina Thwarted Again

2011-07-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

The LA Times had a piece on July 1, 2011 entitled Ohio Governor John Kasich Signs Bill that Allows Concealed Guns in Bars The article is a bit snarky, referring to having a concealed carry permit as a "luxury," and noting that the Ohio Senate has a habit of "kowtowing to the handgun lobby." The handgun lobby? Well, that's a new one.

The Buckeye Firearms Association should be congratulated. They have been working the issue for a number of years. While it is true that the existence of a permitting process for any form of carry is an infringement of that which shall not be infringed, until the day comes that our masters recognize this fact, the loosening of these restrictions is a great benefit to people who choose to exercise their rights through the legal process.

Here in North Carolina, the restaurant carry bill was thwarted, again. Legislators were scared by dubious polls showing people didn't want it, and numerous editorials claiming shootings over an overdone hamburger. Meanwhile, one year later, all the "blood in the street" hysterics raised when Virginia passed restaurant carry have not come true. There has not been a single instance at a Virginia restaurant. That should have been good enough for legislators in North Carolina, if those legislatures were true advocates of freedom, and not just giving it lip service.

One editorial I read, that summed up another argument asserted that alcohol and guns don't mix. While drinking alcohol, and handling guns at the same time indeed does not often end well, the simple argument that alcohol and guns don't mix implies physics defying magic. The implication is that in the presence of an unopened bottle of an alcoholic beverage, the gun with jump out of its holster, into the hand of the person carrying it, and proceed to pull its own trigger. Now, I can believe that a bunch of lawyers can imagine such things, but in the real world, that simply doesn't happen. Note that the law already makes it illegal to drink while carrying a gun. Note also that it is perfectly possible to go into a grocery store, buy a six pack of beer, and go out and drink that beer, while still carrying. The words written by legislators will not stop someone who has intent to disobey the law. For that matter, if someone decides to carry a gun without benefit of a permit, and chooses to carry it concealed into a restaurant that serves alcohol, unless he chooses to use it, will anyone know?

The fact that people are probably at this moment carrying concealed handguns into bars and restaurants, and other places where the State says not to points up the inanity of the law as currently written. Except in the case of court houses and police facilities, no one is likely to know anyway. The State is not burdening unlawful carriers with these restrictions, but lawful ones. And that tells us something about the State itself. Unable to prevent the issue of permits to those who applied, the gun grabbers in the legislature decided to put so many hurdles and burdens on lawful concealed carry, that few would choose to exercise the right, seeing as it was worthless. I suspect it has had that effect. So what does it say about a State that doesn't trust its own citizens to carry guns, but does trust these people, or these people? Frankly, they seem to be more afraid of you and me, than of the criminals and terrorists.

The Murder of the Innocents

2011-07-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

Is it appropriate, with the holiday weekend, to bring this up? I think I will anyway. Fay Voshell has a piece in the American Thinker today entitled A Right to Kill which brings up the moral issue of having an absolute right to abort babies on the say so of the mother alone. Please go read the entire piece, though it will sicken you.

A quote:

A great lesson is to be gained from the revolting examples given above; namely that there is a strict adherence to a pro-abortion ideology which demands the absolute "moral" principles of abortion on demand must be adhered to, no matter what. Rush Limbaugh has been much vilified for describing abortion as a sacrament of the deeply religious cult of the Left, but he is not far from the mark. The fact of the matter is that no horrors, no matter how often they are uncovered and documented, appear to be too great for the pro-abortion crowd to give up their core belief that a woman is entitled to abort her baby at any stage of pregnancy.

After citing the cruel, and inhuman way in which the murdered fetuses are treated by abortion doctors, as garbage to be cleaned up and put in trash bags, Voshell goes on to cite the "unintended" consequences to the living:

-That females would be aborted in greater numbers than males,

-That cases of incest would be swept under the rug by getting rid of the evidence,

-That the father-to-be would be kicked out of the decision loop because only the mothers would have a say.

Interestingly, Voshell makes a case that even the execution of capital murderers may be immoral, something that I am open to, but have not seen a convincing argument for yet. But many of the same people who argue for abortion on demand at the same time argue for elimination of the death penalty. How can this logically be?

The Racist Roots of Gun Control

2011-07-01T03:15:00.000-07:00

Are gun control laws racist? The answer is yes, and deliberately so. Here in North Carolina, gun control was initially passed in the Jim Crow era and was applied to blacks, but not to whites (unless the Sheriff didn't like you.) I am happy to see that blacks are picking up on the fact, as is the case with Charing Ball writing in the Atlanta Post on June 29, 2011 in an article entitled Is Garry McCarthy Right When He Claims that Gun Laws are Racist. It's tough history, but it more blacks need to hear it. The more blacks know about the history of gun control, and the intentions of those who passed it, the less likely they will be to accept gun control as legitimate.

It has been disconcerting to me that groups ostensibly speaking for the black community have often had as one of their platform positions a gun control agenda. Indeed, not only blacks, but others who supposedly stand for minorities and those less able to defend themselves or who may be targets such as feminist groups, homosexual activitists and Jewish groups are often on board with more gun control. Why? Why are groups like Second Amendment Sisters, Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, or the Pink Pistols somehow considered not quite...kosher? Ultimately, guns should not be a partisan issue, or an issue at all. Do we have an issue with chain saws?

The other problem with gun control is that it doesn't control guns. Terrorists, and criminals will get guns in any case. They will steal them, or buy them on the black market which amounts to the same thing. Bonnie and Clyde raided a National Guard armory to obtain their Browning Automatic Rifles. They didn't buy them through legal means. So, adding to the burdens of gun ownership by those who obey laws does nothing to burden criminals and terrorists.

Personally, I think that the more concealed carrying by responsible citizens of any type, the safer we all will be. Terrorists, and rampage shooters tend to attack soft targets, where people are not as likely to be armed. Schools, churches and synogogs, shopping malls, have all been targets. Strangely, military bases have also been targets, but again military bases are places where everyone is disarmed. Do you think the planes used on 9/11 would have been hijacked if the terrorists thought that 50% of the people on board might be armed? I don't.

Of course, I can imagine now the people who don't trust their fellow citizens to handle guns responsibly wringing their hands in horror. "What if," they will say, "someone shot someone by mistake? Or, what if someone got into an argument over their luggage or their seat assignment? The aisles would be running with blood." It is the same as the argument that there would be blood in streets as people got into gun fights over parking spaces. It has not happened. I have personally been aced out of parking spaces on several occasions, and was not even tempted to draw my weapon. Do you think you would? Really? You believe yourself to be of such a low character? And you vote?

The definitive Gunwalker summary

2011-06-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

The War on Guns: Word

You will have to click through several posts to get to the meat, but it is worth it. Michael Bane has the definitive summary of the Gunwalker fiasco so far. He ends his summary this way:

It's hardly a secret that I don't think much of the failed narco-state of Mexico, a country of peasants that has allowed a series of blowhard morons turn their country in something resembling one of the rings of hell. But one thing that strikes me as horrific, and breaks my heart, is how easily, how casually, a group of men in suits, in air conditioned offices in Arizona,, in Texas, and, ultimately, in Washington D.C., sanctioned the inevitable deaths of brown people in another country.

And they think it is WE, the citizens, who shouldn't have guns. How pathetic.