Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee

Bruce Walker has an excellent article today at the American Thinker entitled The Left's Ware on Free Speech. A quote:

The left is utterly wedded to thought control. Like all sibling totalitarianisms, the left in America is addicted to power and repelled by truth. The creation of officially defined oppressors and officially defined victims determines who has rights and who does not. The totalitarian narcotic of "Social Justice," the drug of choice for Hitler, Stalin, Father Coughlin, and Sir Oswald Moseley, dulls the people into a twilight land in which "Freedom is Slavery" and free speech too.

Walker takes us on a little tour of the recent history of free speech, and shows that the Marxists are being less than honest about free speech rights for everyone. In fact, it is free speech for me, but not for thee.

Steve Chapman Writes About Lautenberg Proposal

Steve Chapman has a good piece up today at Townhall.com entitled The Truth About Gun Sales to Terrorists. Go take a peek.

While Chapman isn't saying anything that a number of gun bloggers have not said, the truth is that Chapman reaches a far larger and wider audience. Also, since Chapman is not normally a gun writer, I suspect he has more credibility with average readers than we who are looked upon as having a vested interest. We Second Amendment types need all the help we can get in getting out the message.

As for Mr. Lautenberg...

Cap and Tax Your Way to Prosperity

David Harsanyi has a piece entitled Cap and Scam that is worth reading at Townhall.com today. This in particular caught my eye:

And seeing as we never waste a crisis, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has given cap-and-trade supporters another hammer to add to the debate. Though, as Newsweek summed it up, "considering that the Kerry-Lieberman bill contains a little something for everyone, it's likely to pass."

Yes, I have been hearing that lately in the left ear. But follow the logic for a moment. Any time that something man built fails, that means we should never do it again. So, had that been the attitude at the time of the Titanic, men would never have sailed again. Had that been the attitude at the time the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failed (1940), we could never have built another suspension bridge. But then, who needs bridges, since Toyota failed, we shouldn't be riding in cars either. Clearly this is nonsense. Just as clearly, it doesn't justify saddling the American people with skyrocketing gasoline prices.

Interestingly, offshore drilling has been pretty safe. If BP (stands for British Petroleum) is shown to have been partly at fault, they should, of course, be made to pay. Certainly, the Regime is also at fault, but good luck in getting them to own up to their own faults.

Meanwhile, David Harsanyi has been getting angrier and angrier over the last year. Whether that is genuine, or is reflective of his readers coming to a boil is a question. But it certainly fits in with my own sense of frustration. We are heading into socialist hell, and there seems to be little we can do to stop any of it.

The War on Guns: Back to the Future

The War on Guns: Back to the Future

Cynthia Tucker thinks suspected terrorists should not have a right to purchase a guns. Hmmmm.

There is something called "due process," Cynthia, that requires that before your rights are summarily taken from you, you have to be proved to have been a terrorists, and to have committed terrorist acts. Merely having a Federal bureaucrat put your name on a list does not qualify. Keep in mind that the watch lists contain names only (as far as we know), there is no other identifying information. If you are on it, you were put there anonymously, without your knowledge, and without your ability to question your accuser. For all I know, a Federal agent could get miffed at his neighbor and put his name on the watch list to harass him. Are you, Ms. Tucker, willing to sacrifice Constitutionally protected rights? What other rights of free men are you willing to sacrifice? Perhaps you are willing to give up your vaunted free press and freedom of speech? Well, even if you are, I am not. Nor am I willing to entertain the loss of gun rights. Every United States citizen should receive the full measure of his Constitutional rights. The Constitution must be honored in the breech, or it means nothing.

The other day I read about a 3 year old boy who is on the watch list, and must receive extra screening every time his family flies for a vacation. So, when this youngster reaches the age of 21, having committed no felony, according to Ms. Tucker, he should be forever barred from owning a gun because his name appears on a watch list? Whatever happened to the so called "fairness" everybody on the left keeps talking about.

Cap and Tax Rises from the Swamp

So, if Lindsay Grahamnesty won't introduce his version of Cap and Tax, Kerry and Liberman will introduce their own. Brain Sussman has the story at the American Thinker entitled Cap and Trade is Back.

Apparently, the Senator feel that enough time has passed, that most people have forgotten about climategate, and the blow to the credibility of climate "scientists" that was delivered. So let me highlight a few points for them:

- The Hockey Stick was proven soundly to have been a complete hoax. Michael Mann is under investigation. Phil Jones of the CRU has been forced to resign, and has made a number of apologies (sort of) since.

- Without the Hockey Stick, anybody can see that it has been much warmer than today, as well as much colder. Within historical times, the Medieval Warm Period was significantly warmer than today, yet the world suffered no catastrophic rise in sea levels, or melting of the polar ice caps.

- I would argue that the Little Ice Age that followed the MWP was more devastating to civilization than the MWP. Populations grew during the MWP. Crops were plentiful, and spread as far as Greenland. When the LIA hit, huge numbers of people starved. I would also ask, what makes people feel that the world wide climate we have today is the ideal climate?

So, if the stated reason is not the real reason, what is the real reason?

The Senate version of Cap and Tax, like the already passed House version (no, David Price, NC 4, I have not forgotten that you voted for that monstrosity), transfers huge sums of money from the middle and lower classes to certain favored parties in the ruling class, such as Al Gore, those wonderful guys at Goldman-Sachs, Franklin Raines and others. Goldman Sachs owns a significant share of the Chicago Climate Exchange, as does Al Gore. So this is nothing more than another demonstration of Crime Inc.

This must be stopped. This bill will drive up energy costs, drive jobs overseas, and make absolutely no difference in "saving the climate." It will further impoverish the middle and lower classes, and send literally trillions of dollars to the moneyed elite.

Way Up North: Righteous Anger

The Rev. Paul speaks on issues near and dear to us in Way Up North: Righteous Anger. The Rev. has been hitting on all eight cylinders lately. I highly recommend that you at least bookmark his site, and check in from time to time. Meanwhile, go read this excellent post.

Restoration not Revolution

I may have this all wrong, who knows. If so, I apologize in advance, but here goes.

I like Glenn Beck. I've been listening to Beck for several years, whenever I am in an area where his program is carried on the radio. I did not watch him during the time he was on CNN out of principle (I stopped watching the Communist News Network to deny them one more Neilsen rating) but I "tivo" his show on Fox News. Since the beginning of the year, Beck has been...well...preaching nonviolence, and a reliance on faith, hope, and charity. I do not speak for Glenn Beck, but I get where he is coming from. As a Christian, I too strive to demonstrate daily those qualities that my Lord commands, though I often fall far short. From the way he speaks about General George Washington, and the whole history of the Founding, I conclude that Beck is not a pacifist. When he talks about the bottom he hit as an alcoholic, I think other than losing his family, he has no fear. But he does have a point that America has had its revolution. What we want is not another revolution, but a restoration. It's the other side who wants a revolution. It's the other side who tries constantly to create chaos, and use their media buddies to help do that.

I also like Mike Vanderboegh and regularly check into the Sipsey Street Irregulars. Mr. V. is always spot on when it comes to the threat we face from Leftists because he has been there. Mr. V knows that "by any means necessary" is not just a slogan, but a way of operating for the Left. Nothing is out of bounds, or too low for these people, if it advances the "cause." If he sees more clearly than others, it is partially because he has been involved in some of those same acts, so he is primed to see them in action. But Mike Vanderboegh has also said "No Fort Sumters." By that, he means we won't start it, but we will definitely finish it.

So, it was somewhat painful, several weeks ago to see this at The Sipsey Street Irregulars.

Christians are admonished to turn the other cheek. By this it is meant that rather than returning insult with insult, tit for tat, we should hold our tongues, and if possible, return only kindness. Christ did not say, but I surmise two reasons for the admonition: one practical, one spiritual. On the practical side, nonviolent resistance shows up the other side as having no convincing arguments, but only force and coercion. Spiritually, one can not go before God with hate in ones heart. We should also realize that these people are enemies not of us, but of God. If we are forced to use protective violence, we must never rejoice in the act. Christ did not mean that the Christian should allow himself to be beaten to death, or worse, with no defense. To do so is to spit on the very gift of life that God gives each of us, and that no one has a right to take from us. Similarly, King was speaking of resisting, nonviolently, attempts to coerce Blacks to conform to unjust laws, highlighting the unjustness of the law. But, he did not mean that when Klan members were trying to hang a black man, that the man should just submit. I think you will find that King was very much in favor of guns to prevent such things from occurring.

In the end, I think each man's visions of our future are very close indeed. Glenn often says that we must be prepared for the worst, but pray for the best. He is, however, short on details of just how one might go about preparing for the worst. Food insurance apparently, and buying some gold. Anyway, of late, he has begun to speak out about our government as a crime syndicate, Crime Inc. he calls it. He points to how many laws are being passed or proposed that have the effect of impoverishing the middle classes, and enriching movers and shakers of the Left, while making permanent the poverty of the poor. At the same time, they are covering their tracks and preparing to blame all this on various "villains" such as big banks, big oil, and of course, you and me. It reminds me the Reichstag Fire, where the Nazi's torched the Reichstag, then succeeded in blaming the Jews, in order to have an excuse to begin rounding them up. Mike Vanderboegh tells us how to prepare, both physically, with his "Praxis" articles, and psychologically. Mike concentrates more on the SPLC, to whom the media turn for lies about how you and I are terrorists plotting to overthrow the government. But whether it is SPLC, or ACORN, or Organizing for America, the Apollo group, or SEIU, or...there are seemingly an endless supply of such groups and organizations...they all want the same thing. They all want to REALLY overthrow the government and replace the Constitutional Republic with a totalitarian government. If possible, they want to pin it on YOU, and me, and the other patriots. We really can not afford to be squabbling amongst ourselves right now.

The Progressive/Marxist left and Post Modernism

Dr. Paul Kengor has a depressing piece on Progressive Death in today's American Thinker. What Kengor is talking about is how the Progressives are always moving the goal posts, and what that means for what started out as simply an eugenics movement, but soon enough became a bloodlust for abortion. But where are they taking us now? Where does it end? They can not tell us. Some quotes from this wide ranging article:

Here is the essence of the problem with progressives and their movement, which is a gigantic problem for all of America: One of the only things we really know about progressives, and that they know about themselves and their ideology, is that they favor constant "change," "reform," an ever-shifting, ongoing "evolution," or, yes, progression. And therein is an inherent, significant difficulty: progressivism offers no clear, definable end. The goal-post is always moving, forever pushed further away. Ends are never ends; they always "progress," with culture and society -- all along relying on the ludicrous assumption that the changes are always (or largely) good.

And this:

Consider what else we know about progressives, evident from a track record of roughly 100 years: They consistently advocate more and more centralization of power, through collectivism and wealth redistribution. Inescapably, this leads to a progressively powerful state, one comprised of widening regulations and agencies and departments -- launched mainly under the presidencies of Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Carter, and now Obama -- fueled by a (literal) progressive federal income tax that in less than 30 years had skyrocketed from 1% (1913) to over 90% (1940s). It is a one-way expansion of power sliding almost entirely toward the national government.

Needless to say, this is, as a matter of plain fact, fundamentally antithetical to America itself, that is, our republic as conceived by its founders. The American system is based on limited government, on eschewing a single federal Leviathan, on limited taxation, and on circumscribed control over the citizenry. Of course, to the progressive, this means that the Constitution itself is unsuitable, as it, too, must always evolve; the Constitution is always a work-in-progress, never good enough, and certainly not etched in stone. (It's exasperating when progressive presidents like Obama and FDR wrap themselves in a publicly professed love for the Constitution. This is rhetorical pabulum -- mere cynical public relations.)

Or this:

As with nearly everything progressives do, where they started wasn't enough. Birth control and eugenics couldn't satiate the lust, which became a bloodlust for "abortion rights." Planned Parenthood's progressives blindly bowed to the next level, beckoned by what Pope Benedict XVI calls "the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashion." (Such power, notes Benedict, crucifies truth.)

In Europe, progressives have already moved on to euthanasia, and Progressives here have included the Death Panels in the new ObamaCare law. What's next? Progressives can't tell you that, but I suspect whatever it is, you won't like it.

So, what explains where all these whacky ideas come from? Many of them have no logic involved, yet become "common wisdom" among the pseudo intellectuals spouting their trash at us. One such that arose recently during the climate debate was the notion that we shouldn't eat red meat because cows fart greenhouse gases. But, with a little thought, it becomes clear that cows fart what they eat, and what they eat is grasses and grains that would, in any case break down into greenhouse gases. So, cows simply recycle existing carbon dioxide and methane back into the atmosphere, and in and of themselves create no new greenhouse gas. But such unscientific thinking is the subject of M. J. Braun's piece, also in today's American Thinker entitled Postmodernism: a unified theory of all the trouble in the world.

Except, it is not. What Braun is actually talking about is has been dubbed "post normal science." Whereas "science" is the search for truth, "post normal science" dispenses with all that clap trap and simply defends, using postmodernism, some politically correct agenda, such as the theory of anthropogenic global warming, what I call Goofball Wormening. Braun explains why this is happening best:

Science has succumbed to the same virus that beset literature, art, economics and the rest of the social sciences: postmodernism. Postmodernism is a progressive virus that negates reason, objectivity, and truth -- replacing them with relativism, subjectivism, and pragmatism. Having colonized every other branch of academics decades ago, postmodernism has now come for science.

There is no universally agreed upon definition of "postmodernism." Like the philosophy itself, it means whatever the person who espouses the position wants it to mean. Three general tenets are acknowledged: objective truth is unknowable, objectivity is fallacy, and modernity is a failure. By the later they mean that the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Industrial Age are all malevolent failures of reason and objectivity, as they failed to solve the world's existing problems and created new ones. Stephen Hicks, PhD. explains in his book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault,

Postmodernism rejects the Enlightenment project in the most fundamental way possible... (it) rejects the reason and the individualism... And so it ends up attacking all of the consequences of the Enlightenment philosophy, from capitalism and liberal forms of government to science and technology.

That we can never know objective truth is a true statement in the cosmic scheme of things. The theory of gravity, for instance, has never been known to be disproved, but there might be an exception out there where a tiny apple is repelled away from the massive earth rather than to be attracted to it. It is in that sense, we can never know objective truth. But billions of people rely on the theory of gravity every day, none the less. However, the postmodernists will tell you that gravity may be simply a construct of our imagination. It is by abandoning the search for objective truth, that they can deny the existence of gravity itself.

Now, all this may be fine for criticism of art and literature. But when it comes to explaining reality, you need to have common agreed terms, that have fairly precise definitions, using words that don't mercurially change their meanings from one individual to another. If one person kills another, it won't do to have as his defense that the person killed isn't really objectively dead. But then, I suppose the postmodernist will realize that his jail cell isn't really objectively there either.

In this instance, they ignored the fact that Marx's economic philosophy was based on rational objectivity. Ironically, postmodernism's rejection of reason, logic, and objectivity provided that rationalization. Accepting the premise that facts and falsehoods are culturally or socially constructed allowed them to sidestep the issue. As Hicks noted: "Postmodernism gives you, in effect, a get-out-of-jail-free card against any rational attack on your system."

Which is why reasoned discourse with these people is a waste of time. It is why ad hominem attacks are seen on the left as ending the debate for their side, but hitting below the belt for you. It is why they can, with a straight face argue for abortion on the one hand, and the freeing of murderers on the other. It is why the truth of AGW doesn't matter. It is why... well there are too many discrepancies to list.

But life sure would have been easier for me if I could have simply hung my structures from sky hooks.