Don't look now, you are being watched!

Rev. Paul has some interesting news, in case any of you didn't already know: You're Under Surveillance Right Now.

Being a former Navy employee, I pretty much figured I was already under surveillance.  When I began blogging, I used the name "PolyKahr" to 1) Protect Mrs. PolyKahr and the grand kids from the intrusion of Left wing trolls and 2) To honor the writers of the Federalist Papers, such as Plubius, who used pseudonyms to hide their real identities.

That the government feels the need to monitor its subjects (for that is what they consider us to be) is not a reflection on the citizenry, but a reflection on the corruptness of the government itself.  If they weren't doing things they know they ought not do, they wouldn't be so worried about us talking among ourselves.  The degree to which the government does not trust me is the degree to which I do not trust the government.

America's Two Gun Cultures

Yesterday, I beat up (figuratively) Daniel Doherty at Townhall.com for falling for a poll designed to elicit a ridiculous response so that the Left could laugh at how stupid Conservatives are. I didn't have time to note Katie Pavlich's excellent article Clarifying America's Gun Culture at the same site. Pavlich's article illuminates the real gun culture in America, and indirectly alludes to why each side seems to talk past each other without eliciting any understanding.

Ms. Pavlich's thesis is that there are two gun cultures in America.  One, the one you and I are familiar with, is the responsible gun culture.  People in this culture use guns for hunting, target shooting, and protection of themselves and their families.  They learn, practice, and teach safe gun handling.  This gun culture goes back to our founding, and runs deep in the American soul.  People in this culture tend to have great respect for their guns, and often pass them on to their children.  Ms. Pavlich:

The first gun culture is deeply seated in American history and her founding. Founding Fathers like George Washington understood that an armed citizenry would prevent government tyranny, which is why we have the Second Amendment. This is a concept rapper Ice-T understands but sadly doesn’t promote in his songs.

snip

Each year, more than 75,000 National Rifle Association members meet for the NRA Annual Meetings. The majority of those people carry concealed and every year, everyone who attends that meeting goes home bullet wound-free.

Historically in America we’ve had a deep respect for firearms. The vast majority of people have used them to celebrate American history, for collection, personal protection, hunting and sport. We see American gun culture celebrated each year when dads take their kids elk hunting for the first time. We see it when women head to the range to safely practice shooting their new pink pistols. We see it when a mother shoots an intruder while she is home alone in order to protect her children. We see it practiced when thousands of people sign up for concealed carry permit and hunters’ safety classes each year. Not to mention, the multi-billion-dollar firearms industry employs millions of people and provides the government with billions in tax revenue every year.

Then there is the other gun culture, the culture of criminal gangs.  Guns in this culture are tools of the trade, so to speak, because gangsters can't very well go to the police when someone steals their merchandise.  Unfortunately, it has also become the culture of people who don't necessarily belong to it, but glorify it.  More unfortunate, the people doing the glorification are often the same people our children look up to because of their talents or their athletic ability. Ms. Pavich again:

The other gun culture in America can be found in the inner city of Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles and others. Ironically, violent gun culture is found within gangs in cities with the strictest gun laws. It is the same culture promoted in Hollywood films made by liberals, glorified by rappers whose music is worshiped in violent gang plagued neighborhoods and disrespectfully joked about at NBA parties.

Go check out Katie Pavlich's article. It is well worth the time, and as I said, gets at the truth about guns, namely that it is not the guns, but the people using them, and how they use them, that determines whether we see them as a net good or something to be banned.

Meanwhile, Herschel Smith over at the Captain's Journal has some harsh words for Bob Costas, but then thinks perhaps he should rethink things after a post by one Caryn Riswold writing at Feminismxianity (I hope I spelled that word correctly.) Mr. Smith:

So they say that confession is the first step to healing. I am a man, and therefore, according to Ms. Riswold, I condone wanton violence and have no language with which to deal with all sorts of emotions – I know not what they are – and need to get more in touch with my feminine side, or something like that.

But now that there is this new-found freedom and honesty, I have so many unanswered questions. For instance, if guns lead to so much violence, then why doesn’t the data back up this hypothesis? Why do I and all of my gun-carrying friends work so hard to avoid confrontation if we can just win the argument by the pull of a trigger?

Indeed. I have commented frequently on the fact that once I started carrying a gun, I became much more circumspect in my dealings with people. Even if they didn't have a gun, I knew I did, and therefore did not want an argument to escalate. Frankly, I am not sure what drives Ms. Riswold to conclude the things she does, but she obviously has not been exposed to the responsible gun culture. But she should understand that it is the far larger of the two. Without it, I doubt we would have the freedom to be conducting this debate today.

49% of Republicans Think the 2012 Election was Stolen

Only 49%?  Are the other 51% just not paying attention?

According to this headline at Townhall.com, 49% of Republicans Think the 2012 Election was Stolen. Daniel Doherty, then attempts to disparage fellow conservatives by pointing out that the former organization ACORN no longer exists. Frankly, this sort of thing disappoints me. The Left constantly uses straw men to characterize our arguments as ridiculous. We don't need our own side doing to us too.  This poll was taken by a Left leaning group, and asked:

Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election this year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?

So, if you think the election was stolen, but don't think ACORN per se did it, how do you respond? Answer: you don't answer Leftist "gotcha" polls and give these low lifes something to chatter about.

The fact is this election was characterized by wide spread suspicious activity. In particular, polling machines in a number of locations did not register the choices made by Republicans. This should be investigated. Republican poll watchers were physically thrown out of polling stations in Cleveland. We should get to the bottom of just why the election judges felt this was necessary. I would also point out that since the Governor of Ohio is Republican, the Chief Judge should have been Republican too.  Where was he or she in all this.  We have evidence that 59 polling districts in Philadelphia did not register a single vote for Romney. That seems unusual, and should be investigated. Same with the Cleveland 9 polling stations. In Fairfax County, Virginia, one poll watcher noted that people came in to vote that had no idea where they lived. What are the chances? And these instances are just the illegal vote tampering that I have seen reported. Then there are the perfectly legal ones where nursing home workers registered nursing home patients, and drove them to the polls. Did the nursing home workers also cast their votes? How many of these people were not competent to make a choice?  How many were in essence coerced?

As for ACORN, sure, the organization that went by the acronym 'ACORN' disappeared, but the people who ran it are still around, squirrelled away in other organizations and presumably doing what they did.  Changing names has been a Leftist tradition at least since the Bolsheviks came to power.  Lenin wasn't born with that name.  He started out life as Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov.  Stalin also had a more prosaic name before becoming the 'Man of Steel.'  These people change names like everyone else changes their shirts.  They also move around form one Leftist group to another.  But they don't ever seem to stop what they have been doing.

As for looking ahead to 2014, believe me we are.  But if the same shenanigans go on, will we be able to trust those elections any more than we trust the 2012 elections?  Will there even be an election in 2014?  Will there be a Republican party left, what with our fearless leader giving away the farm on every front.   

Resurrecting an Old Idea

The article in question, Vermont's Right Not to Bear Arms by Joanna Mereth at the American Prospect comes from December 19, 2001. The article describes a proposed bill that would register non gun owners, and fine them $500 for failing to own and carry a gun. The logic is that every member of the civil society is also a member of the militia, who should be counted upon to defend the State against a variety of potential catastrophes including tyrannical government, a disaster forcing refugees into the State, or...well...something else unexpected that may require the State to call up its citizens. Against those who do carry, and are thus prepared, those who refuse to do their duty should pay a fine. It is a valid argument, as far as it goes.  To be truly effective, every citizen should receive militia training as part of their high school requirements, and minimum requirements for serviceable weapons and ammunition should be established.  At specified intervals, citizens between certain ages should be required to go to the range and shoot qualifying rounds.

Sometimes, the world around one turns savage, red in tooth and claw, and only a savage response will save your life.  A person prays to never see those days, and the parents who have pray their children will never see such times.  But let's not pretend there will never come such a time.  To do so is to stick one's head in the sand.  For citizens, as opposed to subjects, being prepared to defend your self and those around you is a civic duty, akin to voting.  Indeed, it may be the more important of the two duties.   

The Fiscal Cliff debate

Everyone seems very concerned that we avoid the "fiscal cliff." Talking heads on the television with their worried faces on are constantly tell us we must avoid jumping off the cliff, and of course, it is all the Republicans fault. Those dirty Republicans won't make a "deal" on extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the middle class, while allowing them to expire on the "richest" Americans. Everyone is talking about taxes, but nobody is talking spending cuts. Even Paul Ryan, he of pushing Granny over the cliff fame, only talked about slowing the rising baseline by a percent or two. We would still be spending more next year than we did this year under his "devastating" austerity measures.

All of this has me in mind of a couple of cartoon characters from my youth. The first is Wimpy, a character in the Popeye cartoons who goes about every day seeking a handout from anyone who is dumb enough to give him one. He uses the line "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The "deal" Republicans are asked to take is kind of like Wimpy's deal; in return for increasing tax rates today, they will promise spending cuts later. But Republicans have seen this play before, and should know that the cuts will never happen. I am also reminded of Lucy, in the comic strip Peanuts, who every year would hold a football for Charlie Brown, promising not to pull it from him this year. Every year, old Charlie would be suckered into kicking the football, whereupon Lucy would pull it away at the last minute, and Charlie would land on his kiester. Democrats must sense that Republicans are a lot like Charlie Brown.  Behind the scenes, they must be laughing at us again.

Today, David S. Whitely asks at the American Thinker Will We Ever Get Our America Back?. Whitely is concerned that nobody is making the principled, moral argument that needs to be made in this debate. Rather, everybody is arguing over whose ox to gore, and by how much. Shall we kill the golden goose, or just harass him a bit more. Whitely:

Doesn't anyone ever consider that the public treasury isn't ours to give? Let me be clear: giving is great, giving of our own accord is doing the work of the Lord. Giving away the labor of others, being generous with other people's money, is not moral -- it's a grave and dangerous character flaw. For who but a robber takes great joy in taking or giving away another man's treasure? Who rests comfortably at night with a clear conscience after giving one man the labor of another? Does anyone -- let alone the cold faceless State -- have the ability to "love your neighbor" for you?

The taxes in the public treasury belong to "the people". We need to understand that this is an account of trust, governed by Constitutional law. The public treasury isn't a gift bag to be given to the constituency of the winner of an election. Nor is it to be spent any way one person or party believes it should be. There are rules to follow, though you wouldn't know it from national politics today.

We used to understand these things. People in government used to understand that they had a fiduciary duty to the people to spend "the peoples money" wisely, to not go into debt, and that there should be a relationship between taxes taken and benefit received. What is the basis, then, for the notion of progressive income taxes?  Does not the Army defend both rich and poor alike? Can you seriously make the argument that our foreign policy helps the rich more than the poor? But today, we have the case where the ObamaPhone Lady gets more benefits from the government than she pays for, while a moderately well off individual gets less benefits.  How is this fair?

The basis for a progressive income tax is at core simple envy.  Someone somewhere is seemingly enjoying life, and we don't like it.  We don't like our jobs.  We don't like eating hamburgers instead of eating caviar.  We want to wear expensive suits instead of slacks we got a WalMart.  Somehow, life is always greener somewhere else, if only we had the money to get there.  It is the politics of the chronically unhappy.  With our inflated sense of importance, we believe we would be richer if the rich didn't hog all the money.  But properly understood, wealth is an IOU from society for excess goods and services already provided.  Bill Gates' $66 billion represents a huge debt that I an others owe to him for Microsoft products alread delivered.  Further, the existence of Bill Gates' wealth doesn't in the least harm me, indeed, had not a Bill Gates existed,  I would be unable to bring you this blog.  So thank you Mr. Gates.  Indeed, thank you Mr. Rockefeller for seeing the use of oil, and saving the whales.  Thank you Mr. Ford for building cars I could afford.  Thank you Mr. Edison for coming up with a workable light bulb.  We should be thanking these and others every day for making our lives better.

Oh, and one more thing, most of these guys give away a lot of money to various causes.  We should thank them for that too.  But we shouldn't make them pay more in taxes.  There is no moral justification for that. 

Rats

Thanks to David Codrea, at the War on Guns for providing a link to Clair Wolf's latest ebook Rats. The great part is Clair Wolf provides it free of charge, and recommends everyone post it on blogs and Facebook. So I am doing that, in hopes it may help someone out there.

On Secession

It made news after the election that a number of States had petitions at the WhiteHouse.gov to allow them to secede from the union. By now, all 50 States have a petition with the White House, and at least one has enough signatures to demand an answer.  Clearly, you don't secede by asking politely "Please Mr. Dictator, may I go now?" These petitions, are not credible, and signing them is a waste of time, and possibly dangerous if the regime decides that these people are "terrorists" and need to be locked up under the NDAA. But, a discussion of secession as it stands today is worth taking up, and Walter Williams has some good points at Parting Company, published on Townhall.com yesterday.

Williams first point is that nothing in the Constitution prevents a State from pulling out, if it feels that the Federal government is trampling the rights of its people, and is not giving proper respect to its Sovereignty.  Those were the conditions upon which the States ratified the Constitution.  If the Federal government now wants to change the relationship that exists, there are ways to go about it set forth in the Constitution itself.  The Constitution has been amended 27 times, so it is not impossible.  But nobody has tried to amend the Constitution to accomplish their power grabs.  Instead, they have used the notion that the Constitution lives and breathes to steal our rights when we weren't looking, and then pretend it didn't happen.

Williams points to a number of statements by the founders, as well as newspaper editorials that favored secession.  Williams writes:

There's more evidence seen at the time our Constitution was ratified. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated, should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution would have never been ratified if states thought that they could not maintain their sovereignty.

The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

The proximate casus belli was the demand of the surrender of Fort Sumter, backing the demand by firing canon at the fort. Lincoln had his war, and could honestly say that the South started it. And so, the issue of whether or not a State may secede was settled on a "might makes right" basis. But it has never really been settled.  I can not help but believe that if we are truly citizens, and not just serfs on masters plantation, then we must have the right of secession.  But it will come only by a State legislature voting for secession, a Governor signing the legislation, and serving notice to the Federal government that henceforth any relationship with said State is dissolved, and any contact with said State shall be treated as a foreign country would be treated.  That is how you secede.  You must take it, for it will not be given.

Update: Thunder Tales has some more thinking about secession. He notes that when people are forced to stay in a union they no longer want, it is not very productive.

Why America's Voters Seem Insane

Selwyn Duke has an article today at the American Thinker entitled Invasion of the Liberal Body Snatchers in which he explains the inexplicable: How intelligent people, who can understand what the reelection of Obama means, still vote for him.

Mrs. PolyKahr and I were discussing a co-worker whom I had described as an "idiot" in a moment of immoderation, and she wondered what had brought that on.  I mentioned that we had had a conversation about Obama, and ObamaCare in which he had expressed frustration that his child, who had been born with a cleft palate, was considered to have a preexisting condition, so was not covered under his health insurance.  He had had to bear that burden entirely, and of course he did not feel it was "fair."  I pointed out that it also wasn't fair to impose huge costs on everyone else just because he had had to suffer.  Obviously not the right words.  My wife pointed out that the experience he had endured had clearly blinded him to any other considerations. Selwyn Duke:

This is why I shake my head when hearing talk of how conservatives can possibly "win over" women or Hispanics or blacks or whatever the latest pander-worthy group may be, of how they need to "reach out" or "reframe their message," as if everyone is a logic-worshipping Mr. Spock. After all, even if the media would disseminate the conservative argument without twisting it into a soggy, unpalatable pretzel -- which they won't -- did it ever occur to these tacticians that the problem isn't mainly a matter of intellect, but emotion?

Herein, however, lies a problem far greater than any other for restoring the Constitution. Most of us who write on these topics are used to logically reasoned arguments, to looking at facts, studying history, reasoning from religion, and so forth to derive our arguments. But we may be arguing in a language nobody but us understands anymore. We may be arguing in Latin to a population that only understands English. How to translate our arguments into something they will understand, and that will change their hearts? Duke again:

Lest I be misunderstood, I'm not cynical about reason; after all, presenting reasoned arguments is what I do by trade. But I also know that I'm writing for a different, and perhaps even less fashionable, one percent (slight exaggeration? Perhaps, but you get the point). And we're not going to reason people out of positions they haven't reasoned themselves into, to paraphrase Ben Franklin. The "emerging demographic majority" will just behave unreasonably and, like the proverbial scorpion that stung the duck ferrying him across a river, thus guaranteeing both their deaths, essentially say, "I could not help myself. It is my nature!"

In the gun rights community, we often make the point that the reason laws controlling who may have a gun, or what gun they may have are so ineffective in preventing crime is because a criminal, by definition, ignores the law.  It should be obvious, and unquestioned.  It is almost axiomatic.  But there are people out there who believe, because they want to believe, we are on the verge of Utopia if we can just write one more magic incantation written in official language in a law book. They believe it with all their hearts, and telling them that lead will never become gold falls on deaf ears.  There are others, of course, who cynically use these people. That is what we are up against, and what Duke calls the "Triumvirate of Evil" made up of academia, the media, and popular culture.  In order to change people, we must change the message of the Triumvirate.

Stephen Crowder and ZoNation have begun to change popular culture with their You Tube ventures.  Having young celebrities twittering their support helps as well.  But we must burrow into academia and reintroduce students to Western Civilization and Western thought; to Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, to Adam Smith and Bastiat.  We must also develop an even stronger news industry.  Glenn Beck has seen one future, and is working to make it a reality.  But we are still only one hostile takeover from having any news at all.  Fox news, who has been the closest to "fair and balanced" we have got, will become another CNN or MSNBC once Rupert Murdock retires.  All this will take a generation of two, and I doubt I'll live to see it to fruition.  But I hope some young people out there are reading this, and can see their way to make it happen.  Otherwise, the great American experiment is well and truly dead.

On another note, I will be out of pocket until next week.  I will try to stay in touch, but the holiday this week may be all consuming.  Have a happy Thanksgiving, and remember to give thanks to the Lord for all he has done, and will do.  Pray also for Israel, who is surrounded and fighting to stay alive.  Israel can use a miracle or two right now.   

Note the Similarities to Today

Janet Daley has the piece at the Telegraph, a United Kingdom newspaper, entitled We're Heading for Economic Dictatorship. It is perhaps the best explanation of what will necessarily happen in the future if present trends continue. The Communist block collapsed in beginning in 1989, 23 years ago. Even before that, though, communism had been soft pedalled by the media and academia, so that few people understood life behind the iron curtain. A movie like Michael Moore's Sicko could have reasonably been made then, and people might have had an excuse to believe it. Since then, not so much.

Daley writes:

Now there are some people for whom this will not sound like bad news. Many on the Left will finally have got the economy of their dreams – or, rather, the one they have always believed in. At last, we will be living with that fixed, unchanging pie which must be divided up “fairly” if social justice is to be achieved. Instead of a dynamic, growing pot of wealth and ever-increasing resources, which can enable larger and larger proportions of the population to become prosperous without taking anything away from any other group, there will indeed be an absolute limit on the amount of capital circulating within the society.

As Daley makes clear in her piece though, once the economy stagnates to a stand still, the value left in it will degrade every year that the economy doesn't grow. Soon, we will not have anything to trade that others want. We know this because of the experience of the Soviet block, where the Ruble and other currencies were worthless outside their closed system. But, this can also be predicted by simply applying a little business acumen to the problem. Businesses must make a profit in order to stay in business. Capital goods such as machinery for production, rolling stock for transportation, and so on must be replaced as it wears out, and as techological advances make it obsolete. But if the wealth of businesses is redistributed to others, those others will consume it, and there will be none left to recapitalize the business. Each year, some equipment breaks down, and the only thing the business can do to keep operating is to cannibalize the broken equipment to keep the other equipment operating. Eventually, there is nothing left to cannibalize, but by then the business has stopped running. This, along with gross mismanagement that would have had any CEO in the West drawn and quartered by the board of directors is what happened in every socialist economy where it has been tried.

As the value of the economy goes down, there is a greater and greater temptation to use ever more totalitarian methods to maintain the illusion that things are being "fairly" distributed to everyone.  The government has to continually find scape goats to point to in order to deflect the people's righteous anger.  Thus, in today's world, the leaders in Iran must constantly point to America as the source of their troubles.  Who will Iran point to when we are obviously not the problem?

Read the whole piece to see where we are heading.  If you wonder why I have been trying so hard to get you to see the horrors of Marxist Socialism, Fascism, and Communism, Ms. Daley has laid it out as clearly as anyone.  The Soviet Union had, and has abundant resources, more than the United States, but these resources went unexploited to maintain a criminal gang of thugs in power and keep the everyday man in desperate poverty.  Does any of that sound familiar?

Social Justice vs. American Justice

I was talking yesterday to a fellow conservative and Republican about the election. I can not get over it. Some have blamed the moronic, idiot voters for this tragedy, and in my darkest moments I think about that. But then I realize that somehow it is up to us, the people who see what is going on, who have failed to inform enough of them so that they would have a better understanding of what they are doing. Oh, you can't tell the ObamaPhone woman anything, true enough. But others can learn, and desire that their children live in freedom and liberty. My Republican friend assured me that a new crop of truly conservative Republican candidates for office is bubbling up. He anticipates that we may eventually have a Hillsdale graduate for President!

Well, it made me feel better anyway.

Linda Chavez, writing at Townhall.com had an interesting article up entitled How Conservatives Can Defeat Liberalism yesterday that makes just this point, though it hasn't been for lack of trying. Reading it, I was reminded of something that I have said in the past, but that bears repeating often. Its that going after what Thomas Sowell calls "cosmic justice" is a fools errand.  So called social justice is a term that has no real meaning, and into which one can pour every injustice in the universe; thus "cosmic justice."  Had an abusive father? Social justice means that society must even that out and allow you now to prey on those who had loving fathers. Didn't do as well on the economic front as your neighbor? Social justice means the government will take from your neighbor and give to you to even things out.  "You didn't build that" is a form of social justice that implies that if you didn't build it, someone else would have, so society can take the fruits of your labor and redistribute them.  Wonder why Eric Holder dismissed a sure case against the Black Panthers for voter intimidation at that Philadelphia voting place? Social justice is the reason. Blacks, they reason, have been kept down by white racism, so turn about is fair play.

Social justice is a fundamentally socialist term. I will get to why it fails momentarily, but let us look now at traditional American political justice. I will allow Ms. Chavez to explain it to you:

The Founders believed that man's nature had two parts and that a just government accords with both: that part of man's nature he shares with all men (his natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) and that part that is uniquely and unequally his (talents, brains, motivation and so on). It follows that just government should be limited to preserving a man's natural rights while leaving him alone to do with his unique abilities as he sees fit.

So, what is wrong with social justice? If we can even out the odds, what's wrong with that? The answer lies in the limitations of man, and the limits of mankind's understanding not only of himself, but the universe.  Socialists treat people as if those who look like each other or have common characteristics are monolithic in their needs, their desires, their intelligence and talents, and thus how they vote.  It is called identity politics, and when conservatives get caught up in it, we make the same mistake that the Leftists make.  It may be true that one person who had an abusive father becomes a serial killer, but thousand of others do not.  Why?  It may be that some rich person's kid is even more talented than his father, but it also happens that many rich kids waste the inheritance left to them.  The Left explains these so called aberrations in their theory of identity politics as "false consciousness," which requires "consciousness raising."  Consciousness raising is a popular pastime with Leftists as a way to grow the number of victims, and little "two minute hates" are useful for bringing anyone who gets off the reservation and thinks for themselves back on it.

The so called rich, of course, are seen as a monolithic class as well, and in this case are the enemy of the other 99% of the population in socialist theory.  But in fact there are probably as many of more Leftists in the 1% as Republicans.  The Koch brothers on the right are matched by George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, as well as lesser known characters on the Left.  While Conservative millionaires are funding hospital wings and food pantries, Leftists fund Leftist think tanks and campaigns. 

As an example of identity politics, you may have noticed that when Clarence Thomas, Allen West, or other black Republicans are mentioned that the Left routinely dismisses them with something like "Yeah, but they are not authentically black."  Being "authentically black" is code for someone who thinks, and presumably votes, according to his own lights rather than following the supposed tribal interests.

On the other hand, in American political justice, everyone is treated equally before the law, but in other respects, everyone is given latitude to be him or her self.  I was reminiscing as I watched some of the great Western television shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Virginian and the High Chaparral. These people were out on the frontier, where the law was barely enforced, and they had only their wits to keep them alive. Out where they could give full reign to their individualism, they used to build great ranches that fed a growing America.  What they don't show, is how many cowboys were blacks, or Asians, or Latinos, because Leftist Hollywood plays identity politics too.  What they also don't show is how many ranches owned and built by Mexicans and immigrants.  America was the place where a person could become anything.  That is the miracle of American political justice.

In her piece at the American Thinker, entitled Nightmare on Election Street, Cindy Simpson notes:

Following the election, Mark Judge wrote: "America has been fundamentally transformed. God has not." God is still watching, and the principles outlined in our founding documents remain true even though the majority of today's population fails to understand or rejects them. We realize now that our strategy must be adjusted to meet the new reality of voting demographics, but we still believe that the conservative moral and economic platform holds the key to survival and prosperity.

Obama won not because conservatism is wrong or archaic. He won because he managed to organize motley crews having vastly different motivations and backgrounds into a Frankenstein-ish voting majority. Obama's script, written by Saul Alinsky, was dedicated not to a hero of community service, but rather to the master of community organizing -- the king of bogeymen, Lucifer himself. Obama's lines, like "you didn't build that," animate his creature, inspired by "revenge," fed with freebies and led "forward" by Orwellian chains of sexual freedom.

The American Dream of becoming who you are meant to be is dead for now, as the Leftists take their "revenge" on all who they think kept them down. Of course, the only people keeping them down was themselves. Everyone struggles, and there is no sense of inevitability for anybody.  It may be true that some have a better start than others, but life itself has a way of evening things out.  No matter, it is up to us to fight this battle, while others teach a new generation the truth of the American Constitution. Maybe then America will rise again. Update: Meanwhile, J. D. Garth takes a look at secession fever that is sweeping the country, and wonders if people are serious, or are expressing extreme frustration. But the most interesting thing he wrote is:

So now it is a surprise that people are discussing secession? Hardly. When people believe that their country is being taken from them, when they think that our founding principles are being ignored, and when they think that the United States, a country they love, is being fundamentally transformed into something foreign to them, well, they may start to act a bit rashly. You'll have to forgive them for their passion.

I'm sure that liberals will claim that they love their country too. Which begs the question: if you love your country so much, why are you in such a terrible hurry to change it into something else?

I shall not hold my breath while waiting for an answer.

Pistols in Church?

Many States allow concealed carry of handguns in Churches. Where this is permitted, I think it is a good thing for concealed carry permitees to carry their guns into their Church services. Pistols In the Pulpit talks about pastors and deacons taking formal steps to increase security of their parishioners. That is all fine and good, and I am glad to see that pastors are taking such measures more seriously. But crime can happen anywhere, at any time, and the pastor or deacons can not be everywhere at all times. In my Church, meetings are often held while the congregants meet for coffee and fellowship after the service. Our choir practices evenings when nobody else is there.

Unfortunately, here in North Carolina, our State has seen fit to deny many Church goers the opportunity to arm themselves against an armed person intent on murder and mayhem by declaring that carrying on school property, whether public or private, whether K-12 or college, is a felony. Further, they have declared it a felony anytime of day, any type of "school."   A lot of churches have some sort of "educational facility" on church property, or attached to the church itself.  These facilities offer child care, as well as K-6 instruction.  Frankly, their students often outperform public school students at the same grade level, so I encourage church groups to offer these schools.  On Sunday however, when church services are held, is it a school or a church?  In the evenings when choir practice is held, is choir practice a school event or a church event?  The law is vague enough to give pause to any concealed carrier who doesn't want to go to jail. 

An article appeared yesterday in the National Catholic Register that speaks to the loss of religious freedom here in the United States. The article, Papal Nuncio: Catholic Division Undermines Religious Freedom points to a split between lay catholics and by extension the Catholic Church, and their political leaders. Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and others come to mind.  But, for whatever reasons, the Church is under attack, and its practice of religion is being curtailed.  This is public, and anyone paying attention knows it is happening.  Go read the whole article, then come back.

When the government is seen as attacking an institution like the Church, it emboldens those who have an animosity towards the Church, for whatever grievance, to begin doing more than just grumble to whoever will listen.  Some may be emboldened to physically attack the Church and its members.  These events are likely to accelerate in the future.  With our new three star governor in place, I hope Grass Roots North Carolina will seek to clarify this in the law, as well as go after Restaurant Carry again.  We were so close.

The Left No Longer Cares

As promised, I am getting onto this story from Selwyn Duke, who asks at the American Thinker Was the 2012 Election Stolen?. Go read the whole article including the links. The massiveness of the fraud indicates that the Left no longer cares if we see it or not. That should scare you.

When I heard that the Philadelphia Inquirer was reporting that 59 voting districts reported not a single vote for Romney I was immediately suspicious. Not-one-vote. Really? Is that even possible?  Well, of course it is possible, the the probability is vanishingly small.  Then the Cleveland Plain Dealer also reported 9 such precincts which it found incredible. Then there is this piece of news by Bob Unruh at WND where a poll watcher claims to have been an eye witness to voting machines switching votes from Romney to Obama. Duke writes:

And vote fraud is Democrat domain. Liberals are the situational-values set, people who for years insisted that right and wrong is relative and that if it feels good, do it. And what feels good to them at election time is stealing votes to win - and they do it. They relish it, in fact. Like the liberal who addressed Bill Clinton's it-depends-on-what-is-is infidelity and adamantly told me, "He did the right thing," leftists love the con. To pull a fast one like private eye Jim Rockford, fool everyone, and get away with it is like winning the Nobel Prize in Prevarication in their world. Thus, it's assured that there's no small number of liberals who are currently brimming with pride at having negated the votes of countless knuckle-dragging conservatives.

Mrs. PolyKahr insists both sides do it, but aside from the one case where a Republican was convicted of voter fraud in Eastern Kentucky, I have never heard of that particular form of criminality. Republicans may have different forms, but Duke is correct that voter fraud is a uniquely Democrat crime. Look at it like this, if Republicans were better at it, Republicans would have won more elections.

The question is, will it be actively investigated this time, or will the Left sweep in under the rug as usual.  Where there are Republican AGs, will they finally go after fraudsters?

Look, the legitimacy of our form of government rests on the consent of the governed.  Our form of government is a Constitutional Republic, which means that some things are simply not up for elections, no matter that a temporary majority votes for them.  But, of the things that are up for grabs, the candidate who wins can impose his ideas.  But, if we can not trust the election process to deliver a qualified candidate with a majority of the backing of his or her constituents, what then?  If a candidate for office loses the actual vote, but fraudulently obtains a majority of apparent votes, is that candidate legitimate?  If enough of the legislature seems to have such issues, can the laws they vote on be said to be legitimate?  Do We the People need to obey such laws?  What happens when 50% of the people say "yes" and 50% of the people say "No"?  The ensuing chaos should give everybody in government pause.  Because that is where this is heading unless action is taken to punish the fraudsters, and put in place procedures that bring it down to a dull roar.  You know, when the MSM, the propaganda arm of the Democrat party, begins to notice, then it must be pretty widespread.

Update: Anthony Martin, whom you may know as the Welshman, author of the Liberty Sphere, has a piece up on the subject entitled Growing Protest of Obama Reelection Reaching Fever Pitch

Girl with gun: 1, Rapist: 0

I had to post this one because of the joyful look on the young lady's face, and because of the story that is told. The story is a curt news report of a rapist who found out too late that his intended victim had a gun and knew how to use it. He bled out. Too bad for him, but then that's what can happen when you set out to violate the rights of others.

The picture is not of our heroine, but when I saw it, I just couldn't get over the overjoyed look of someone who has just done an amazing feat. Good for her. We need to see more like that. Indeed, I would like to see all of our daughters and wives armed and able to defend themselves. Maybe then we would have fewer rapists trying to take advantage of women.

Open Letter to a Communist (Whether He Knows It or Not)

Dear Comrade,

I wanted you to see what I see as the consequences of this election.  You, gentle reader, are probably growing tired of constantly rehashing an election that is done, over with, and that the conservative cause lost.  You, my regular readers, are free to tune out and go elsewhere.  I will get to other issues, such as  the possibility of voter fraud in Pennsylvania and Ohio eventually. But, I want to show Dear Comrade what you have wrought by your vote for Obama last Tuesday.  First, go read Daren Jonescu's article in yesterday's American Thinker entitled America Votes to End Western Civilization.  The central theme of Jonescu's piece is:

At the core of modern civilization is, or was, the project of practical freedom -- the effort to build societies consistent with the principle of ethical individualism. From the Platonic-Aristotelian conception of the individual rational soul, to the Gnostic divine spark, to the Christian emphasis on individual salvation, to Thomas Aquinas' injunction that human law must respect man's spiritual need for earthly freedom to choose virtue, to Locke's natural rights -- from all of this, and more, evolved a central theme of modern civilization, the effort to establish a society fully respectful of the dignity of the individual human being.

It is the notion that the Individual is first sovereign over himself. He delegates some of his sovereignty to the State to empower it to perform certain, circumscribed duties for the common good. This delegation only exists as long as the Individual, the ultimate sovereign believes the State is acting for the common good. He reserves the right to overturn the State and establish one more suited to the needs of the people. This is a revolutionary basis for government, and the only one of its kind in the world.  It is the basis for the exceptional nature of America, and on Tuesday a week ago, 53% of you voted to do away with that, in favor of getting trinkets from those of us who pay taxes.

Some may have a fuzzy notion of the difference between being a "subject" and being a "citizen." This is especially true when one views modern Europe through the lens of the post World War II period, and notes the seeming carefree good life that they enjoyed against the struggle, and poverty that some lived in here in the United States.  In Europe, they enjoyed endless unemployment benefits, free health care, subsidized apartments...in short they were taken care of despite their lack of ambition or entrepreneurial spirit.  On the other hand, unemployment in the U.S. has been looked upon as a shame, that must be corrected as soon as possible.  Here, we had to hustle, and got less vacation, less free time, and less job security.  If we had a job, we were required to go there five days a week, sometimes six, at oh-dark-thirty, and bust our tails until the job was done.  We bought our own health insurance, or "went bare."  We had to pay for our homes, our utilities, our food, do our own lawn, trim our own bushes.  It is hard work, being an American. You had to wonder, was it worth it?

Let's look, for a moment, at the difference between being a "citizen" and being a "subject" and see.  A citizen has natural rights that can not be taken away from him (or her) except through due process of law.  A citizen's natural rights include Life, Liberty, and Property.  A citizen has a right to self defense (and the tools to accomplish that), to speak freely, to practice his religion, to confront his accusers in Court.  The State must prove its accusations against him, and can not depend on him incriminating himself.  These rights have traditionally been so strong that no less a body than the Supreme Court has ruled felons, who are not supposed to be in possession of a firearm are immune to requirements to register those weapons.    So the Supreme Court has ruled in U.S. vs Haynes (1968). You can read the explanation of why at Clayton Cramer's site, but I wanted to throw that out there to illustrate the protections a citizen has against unreasonable government intrusion into their lives.

A citizen can, because of his rights, start a business, make contracts that are binding, and reap the rewards (and the headaches) of his success.  He can pass those rewards on to his heirs, or to his assigns as he sees fit, because he built that out of his own time effort and sweat.  In short, he owns himself, and the results of his labor.  People like Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, and many others who seem to have had great wealth beyond all expectations started out poor, but had a great vision that paid off handsomely.  In the process, we benefited as well.  That is what made America prosperous.  It was a bi-product of the rights of citizens.  Carnegie didn't steal anybody's iron ore, he purchased it and refined it into useful steel.  Rockefeller didn't steal anybody's oil, he didn't even drill for oil.  Instead, he purchased oil from producers and refined it to make it useful.  Another way to look at it is that a citizen "owns" himself, and therefore the State.

Now, let's take a subject and see where the differences are.  A subject has been subjugated by another, be that the Queen, a dictator, or a social democracy.  His chains may sit lightly, for now, but he is none the less a subject, and the State can at any time do anything it wants to him.  The State owns its subjects.  There was a children's book entitled Black Beauty that I read as a child. The book was told from the point of view of the horse, Black Beauty, and recounts the way that various owners abuse him, and mistreat him.  Beauty is, of course, a horse, and everything depends on his owner.  Because the State provides his health care, for example, the State can also deny him health care for any reason.

If you wonder that so many conservatives were so adamant that ObamaCare was an evil to be avoided, that is the reason.  It may be imposed with the best of intentions, but it will come down to budgetary constraints, and then who will be treated, and for what will become a matter of politics and political correctness.  Moreover, in can only be imposed in a government system based on the State owning its subjects.  But nobody had a debate about whether to change our Constitutional basis of government.  The Constitution remains the law of the land, it is just ignored.  Further, Obama knows this, knows the symbolic value of ObamaCare.  He is announcing to the world that he has conquered America, has stabbed it though the heart, has subjugated it, an we are now his slaves, to do with as he pleases.  He has announced that he owns us.  Conservatives will not admit to being owned by anybody, anytime, ever. 

But maybe you don't believe that Obama and company believe they are subjugating us.  I have wondered all along if you see the same set of facts as I do.  But yesterday's outburst that a certain author was a "hater" and thus the what he has to say can be ignored answered the questions running through my mind.  First of all, Mr. Levin is not a "hater" and indeed loves the country, and loves the people in it.  More importantly, just as we have to listen to Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, so it wouldn't hurt for you to open your mind to ideas that you find so distasteful.  Perhaps you will see that two people can honestly have different opinions.  Or not.

Yours truly,
PolyKahr

Mark Levin on Real Clear Politics

"Speaking truth to power" is Mark Levin. I like Mark Levin, though I don't get his radio show in this area. But real Clear Politics has this 17 minute segment from his radio show the day after the election.   Just listen to it  Like Levin, I do not accept this election.  It is not legitimate.

Please do not accept this election.  Instead, resist.   

Businesses Announce Layoffs

The Blaze has published a list of firms that have announced layoffs since the election, Tuesday under the title How Many Businesses have Announced Layoffs Since Obama Won a Second Term by Mike Opelka. It not only lists the number of firms that have announced, but the number of people likely out of work. Its an impressive list, with some interesting names on it, and some eye popping numbers.  It indicates that businesses don't seem to believe that the Socialist in Chief will bring about very much prosperity, and they are cutting their losses ahead of the game.

So, hows that Hope 'n Change working out for you?  Socialism produces these results-always.  Too bad we can't just learn by reading about others' mistakes.  No, we stick our hands in the light socket and get shocked too.  Churchill said “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Now the results of that envy are hitting homes across the land. Half of the voters have yet to learn that there is no such thing as "free" stuff. Instead, the government gets the money for handing out "free" stuff from those who pay taxes. Those who pay taxes, in turn get it from people buying the things they are selling. When enough people can no longer afford to buy things, the people selling things won't be able to pay taxes, the government can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and at that point, as Margarate Thatcher said "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money."

And what of the morality of playing Robin Hood with other peoples money?  If I were to go up to someone on the street, rob them at gun point, then give the money to some needy person, I would be arrested.  Even if I "means tested" the individual before I robbed him by, oh, say, noting that he was driving a very expensive car, I wouldn't get any breaks.  So, why do you think it is fine for the government to do what an individual can not?  Either way, it is theft.  The only legitimate taxes are those needed to fund the discrete powers granted the government in the Constitution. 

The Long War Begins in Earnest

After publishing my initial thoughts on the recent unpleasantness, I had some further thoughts. Much of the day was spent in a real depression, not unlike Illeana Johnson Paugh at the Canada Free Press, who wrote a piece entitled The End of an Empire. I do take exception to calling the United States an "empire." We have seldom been imperial in our dealings with the outside world, though the Spanish American war, and Teddy Roosevelt's interference in Latin America to build the Panama Canal do come mighty close. After mourning the death of the United States of America as a Constitutional Republic, Ms. Paugh has this to say:

The communist motto “Forward” that resonated with so many ignorant Americans will plunge us into many years of darkness from which we will never be able to recover. We have proven our Founding Fathers right, they did give us a Constitutional Republic and we were unable to maintain it.

Why, of course, is another question.

Ignorance of our Constitution and its brilliance is part of it. At work the other day, one gentleman stated that he didn't know why we have an Electoral College to elect the President, yet it was one of the most brilliant, among many such ideas. The Electoral College forces candidates to visit a lot of the States, and make their case to the people of that state to get elected. If it were simple majority, then candidates could go to a few metropolitan areas, mostly on the coasts, ignore what they consider "fly over country," and win the election by pandering to those narrow interests.

Then there is the ignorant desire for "stuff." Most people, sadly, have the belief that government somehow has money. There used to be actual video of these people on You Tube, but the audio remains available. They don't question from where that money comes. Since many do not pay taxes directly, they have a sense that money magically appears, and that the failure to give them "stuff" is because the "big wigs" who are in control of this money are just too stingy to give them what they want. Democrats feed these beliefs and point to the evil rich guy Republicans who are keeping "stuff" from those in "need" because of greed. This is a childish way to understand how the world works, but then the Progressives have been infantilizing us for generations, so that comes as no surprise.

The welfare dependent Americans, unions, and illegal aliens have chosen for the rest of us the dark path of serfdom to big government and to socialist utopia.

snip

Who would have guessed that Americans were as ignorant and irresponsible as to choose fiscal destruction over fiscal sanity for their children and grandchildren, secularism and communism over faith, dependence over personal responsibility and self-reliance?

Well, enough of mourning. I have had my share of dark thoughts, best left as mere thoughts. Today is a new day, and we must prepare for the long, generational war. Constitutionalists Conservatives must steel themselves, gird for war, and be prepared to speak truth to power at every turn. We must be prepared to make ourselves unpopular. We must be like the ancient Prophets of Israel, who risked life and limb to tell the people the truth.

Daren Jonescu has a good piece out today at the American Thinker entitled A Few Things I Never Want to Hear Again that lays out the outlines of the generational war we are now fighting. He makes the case that America is not a center-right country, a point Bob Beckel also makes. When, as Romney rightly pointed out, 47% of Americans are net takers, this is no longer a center-right nation, but has become a socialist nation. The election simply confirms this fact. He also makes the case that the Republican establishment threw everything but the kitchen sink at the other primary candidates to make them go away. Romney was not our nominee because of a "thin primary field," but because the gnomes in the establishment believed he was the only "electable" candidate. Just as socialism has failed wherever it has been tried, so conservatism has succeeded. But we never want to try it. The guys, and gals, on "our side" believe that nobody will vote for it. Look, if all you want is to get elected, you might as well be a Democrat. Republicans must take principled stands for liberty, property, self reliance, and entrepreneurship. The one I like the best is:

(4) "I know he's a good man, and wants what's best for America." I hope this is the last presidential election in which conservatives will have to hear this validate-your-opponent claptrap from their standard-bearer. Barack Obama is neither a good man nor one who wants what is best for America. He is a bad, conscienceless man, who wants to undo America in the name of a very foreign model of social organization. When we say this among ourselves, the mainstream media's dupes do not hear us. A conservative presidential candidate, on the other hand, is the one man who has the national microphones of the mainstream media at his disposal -- the one man, in other words, who has the ear of those dupes. To fail to speak truth to illegitimate power at that moment, and into that microphone, is nothing less than an act of cowardice.

No, he is not a good man. But the half of the country who voted for him will have to find out the hard way.

Update:  Also read Anthony Martin's Musings After Midnight says things that I have not, but felt like saying. Like him, I am not in forgiving mood. Half the population has just voted to send all of us into a Marxist state, with all the fearful dread such brings. If you are one such, how dare you? How dare you vote to destroy this Constitutional Republic, when there are a thousand other choices?  You could move to Greece, or Canada, or practically anywhere else. Instead, you took it upon yourself to destroy the one shining example of what mankind could achieve. I will close with a quote:

"... Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

I leave the quote unattributed, because patriots will recongize it, and the ignorant traitors will not.

Some Thoughts on the Election Results

I went and voted at 9:00 am yesterday, then went to get a hair cut, had lunch with Mrs. PolyKahr and the grandson, then went home to do some chores and watch the election results. I prayed for a miracle, and God, in his wisdom answered "not no, but hell no!"  While a few seats in the Congress changed hands, the power did not shift one little bit.  We are in the same shape as we were yesterday, with a Marxist in the White House, someone whom I suspect to be one leading the Senate, and a gutless Republican party in charge of the House.

I began to think something had gone wrong last night when I noticed that none of the Senate candidates were winning their races.  Pocahantas Elizabeth Warren easily won over Scott Brown, in spite of his incumbency and his clearly better character. Apparently Romney was not carrying anyone with him. Hmmmm.  Massachusetts went for Obama, which I expected, but when Wisconsin was called for Obama, I knew the game was up.

I heard Bill O'Reilly's analysis, and I shuddered to think it was true, but after a nights sleep, I can not think otherwise.  The nation has changed.  The majority of the people no longer want freedom, liberty, opportunity.  They want stuff.  The Obamaphone woman represents what we as a nation have become. We don't care that we are lied to on a near daily basis. We don't care that our government, in our names, is running guns to Mexico or other countries, lets our Ambassador get killed and does nothing, breaks the laws, shreds the Constitution, gropes us, and spies on us. Just so long as we get our trinkets from the government. All I can say is that voters have sold their country for a mess of pottage, so I hope they enjoy the slop.

There is plenty of blame to go around.  Pat Caddel has noted that "journalists" have been advocating for Obama all along. Such advocacy is dangerous for the nation, but then journalists apparently want to destroy America as much as Obama does. They have pushed stories that made him look good, ignored news that was bad for Obama, and have in the process become a propaganda arm of the Democrat party.  They cheered ObamaCare, but have ignored, or have failed to ask the tough questions about Benghazi or Fast and Furious.  They pushed for Romney's tax returns, but have never asked for anything from Obama.  It seems on the outside, looking in, that journalists get their talking points from the White House each morning and run with them like happy dogs chasing after the latest bone.

There will be time to get into the numbers, but I suspect that a lot of conservatives and orthodox Christians stayed home.  Mitt was not a conservative.  He certainly was not my first choice, but I made peace with voting for Romney.  Many are blaming Mitt Romney this morning for being Mitt Romney.  Others are blaming the Republican establishment, a group who is more blame worthy than any other.  In there desire to put up an "electable" candidate, they again tossed aside the concerns of their natural base.  There was no real enthusiasm for Romney, and many were suspicious that once in office, he would ignore conservatives entirely.  The Republican establishment had better get over being embarrassed by us, or find themselves as a minor back bench party-that is if there are ever elections again.

I can't help but believe that Selwyn Duke's analysis may have also had something to do with Romney's loss, but we will never find out about that. In any case, once the fraudsters get in office, they are immune to prosecution for having committed fraud. So, it will be done again.

A toast then, to the United States of America. Born 17 September 1787. Died 6 November 2012 by suicide.
  

Selwyn Duke's Depressing Analysis

I keep hearing from Republican operatives and party regulars that despite how it all looks, Republicans will win big this November 6.  No, I don't believe that will solve all our problems, but it would be the lesser of the evils potentially visited on us.  On the other hand, I overheard Mrs. PolyKahr talking to a young (legal) immigrant from Russia.  After discussions about her pregnancy, plans for the Holidays and other matters, the Missus asked for whom she was going to vote.  She replied  "Obama!"  Mrs. PolyKahr exclaimed "Are you out of your mind!?"  Well, some people never learn.

Selwyn Duke has a depressing piece out today at the American Thinker entitled Can Democrat Leaning Voting Machines Win Election for Obama. I have noted the polls, both national and state by state are all seemingly within the margin of error, which means within the margin of fraud as Duke points out. In each of the cases of voting machines reportedly recording the wrong vote, the machines miraculously always favor the Democrat. Now there is a real surprise!  You would expect that some calibration errors would go one way, and others would go another. Random errors occur all the time in engineering applications.  One uses statistics to take out the random errors because these sorts of errors can not be helped, and you know they will happen.  For example, in surveying land, it is common to measure three cumulative measurements of an angle, then divide by three to find the actual angular measurement.  It is also good practice to measure the rest of the angles around the circle, and sum these to see that they add up to 360 degrees.  Any error is distributed equally to each angle making up the circle, again because they are random.  Manufactured items have tolerances, plus or minus because of random errors

What Duke is talking about here is systematic error, error that always favors a certain direction.  Is it so hard to believe that technicians who favor Obama, while setting the calibration, might just make the Obama area on the screen a little larger than the Romney area?  It would be virtually undetectable.  In a tight race, it wouldn't take many people who didn't notice that the machine was malfunctioning to push one candidate over another.  Together with other dirty tricks, already documented at this blog, Romney would have to win by a landslide to win at all, while Obama has to merely win by a nose.  Failing a landslide, and if Romney's lawyers challenged the results, Obama could "Al Franken" his way to victory.

Unlike Mr. Duke, and unlike the upbeat pundits, I don't know who is going to win, or what will become of this once great nation.  Instead, I pray to God for a miracle.  Only he can send the devil back from whence he came.  Make no mistake, collectivism by whatever name you call it, is of the devil, however you imagine him.  I urge you, gentle readers, to do the same.

Biden Mistakenly Told the Truth?

Every so often, a politician will mess up and accidentally tell the truth. Such times are known as "gaffes". Here, Vice President Biden makes the ultimate gaffe. Somehow I think this beats adding an "e" to "potato."

Mrs. Axelrod Comes In From the Cold

Growing up, our family was not poor, but my Dad and Mom had to often make trade offs to make ends meet. As the oldest, I was more aware of a few of these trade offs, and I was more willing to do my part to help out where I could. I say this to let you know that while I endured some small hardships on occasions, I never went through mind numbing poverty. We always had shoes, and we had nutritions food on the table. So, when I speak of the mind numbing poverty, and the utter hopelessness of living in a socialist system, some may think I have no knowledge of what I speak. They are right, of course. I have no direct experience, but like a lot of people, I can read, and empathize with these people. So, when talking about socialism, I often urge you to read what others who have been through it themselves have to say. Such is the article by Alla Axelrod in today's American Thinker entitled Why an Honest Russian Immigrant Hates Obama.

Mrs. Axelrod's piece is unfortunately marred by making side trips to some of America's problems as well, thus diluting her story. She makes good points, but now is not the time to deal with them.  In spite of some of the editorial issues with her piece, please go and read it.  Notice that everyone in a Communist system makes the same, low salary, whether they work hard or not, whether they invent a better way of doing something or not, whether they invent a new product or not. It doesn't matter whether you are a an engineer, a doctor, or a janitor. There is no incentive to innovate or discover something new, because the individual who does so can not profit thereby. Indeed, one feels in such a situation that the best thing to do is not to be noticed. Remember that it is the nail that sticks out that gets hammered.  Also note that somehow, (surprise!) the leaders managed to exclude themselves from the misery they imposed on everyone else.  The way to riches in the Soviet Union was through politics, and politicians create nothing, only suck off the production of others.

Mrs. Axelrod's article is also marred by the fact that we do not elect "rulers," though some of them seem to believe they have been so elected.  We elect servants to carry out certain duties as prescribed in the Constitution.  Our Presidents do not "reign" and are only our chosen executives for a term of office.  But as a Russian immigrant, she can be forgiven for using that terminology.  And of late, with so many now thinking that they can pass anything they take a notion to, and it will pass Constitutional muster, perhaps she is more right than I am.

Many people continue to believe that if only the "right people" could be put into power, then the Communist system would finally work, the lion would lie down with the lamb, peace and justice would reign, everyone would sing Kumbiaya, and peace and plenty would rule the land.  But who are these "right people" who would take the same salary as everybody else, and would create just laws that benefited everybody, and would see that everybody had everything they needed?  Well, during their reign of terror, the Weather Underground thought they were the "right people."  Thoroghly familiar with all the latest Marxist theories, they were the ones who could bring the pure Communist system to a corrupt America. But listen to former undercover FBI agent Larry Grathwohl talking about the estimated 25 million people they thought would need to be exterminated to bring about their plans. I guess maybe Bill Ayers wasn't the "right people" after all. Nor was Pol Pot and company, nor was Fidel Castro and his merry band of revolutionaries, nor was Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or Saddam Hussein, or...  You see, the right man has never been born, and never will be.

Is America corrupt?  Yes!  But the reforms we need are not to make of America another socialist state.  What we need is to put our government back into the box the Constitution confines it to.  It is enough to be our President, he need not be "the most powerful man in the world," though as long as the rest of the world is in thrall to socialist ideas, he will be of necessity.

Superstorm Sandy is still howling its way across the landscape.  New York City, the New Jersey shore, Long Island and Rhode Island seem to have taken a very hard hit from this storm.  Did any other country offer to help out?  No?  Did any other country offer food and water, or other aid to the displaced?  No?  We go to help wherever in the world disaster strikes.  Maybe our prosperity seems excessive to some, and yes, we waste it on silly things too often, but its good to be properous at times like this.  Just a thought.

Two from the American Thinker

Stella Paul is relatively new to American Thinker, but she is promoting her work and I want to help out by flagging Mission Accomplished: Obama gets Americans killed to Kill the Constitution in yesterday's American Thinker. Of course she is talking about both the Fast and Furious scandal, a scandal which remains unresolved, but we know the outlines of the story. Under the ATF, the regime sent thousands of guns, purchased by straw buyers, into Mexico and to drug lords, where they used them to kill hundreds of Mexicans, as well as Border Agent Brian Terry. The regime had been spouting the lie that 90% of guns in Mexico came from U.S. gun shops. When Darryl Issa's Oversight and Government Reform committee started investigating, and the facts came out, it became clear that Fast and Furious was a program designed to bully Americans into accepting more infringement of their Second Amendment rights. She is also talking about the Benghazi scandal, in which the regime lied to the American people for two weeks that four Americans were killed at our Consulate in Benghazi, Libya because of an unknown film trailer that up to that point had been seen by perhaps a dozen people.  It became clear that the regime also wanted us to give up our First Amendment rights as well, perhaps as a way to stop the lawsuits currently being raised by the Catholic Church on freedom of religion grounds.  Or just to get blogs like this one to shut up.

In fairness to the regime, the Constitution has been dying a slow death of a thousand cuts for a century or more.  As Thomas Wood noted in the book Who Killed the Constitution, we all have in some ways killed the Constitution by not paying attention, and by letting lawyers get away with high sounding phrases that mean very little, but allow them to impose their own meanings on them later.  A "Living Constitution" sounds so grand, and it is if understood in its proper context, its true.  If, after going back to look at the original intent of what was written, we find a truly unique case, then We the People have the right to amend the Constitution to remedy the situation.  But we have allowed nine men in black robes to "interpret" our Constitution into many times saying things the Founders did not intend.  In the process, they have used emanations and penumbras, and the evolving standards of society as excuses, even foreign laws.  But at heart, these are nothing more than a way to achieve the Justices' idea of what should be rather than what is.  Even worse, we have elevated precedents to the status of being greater than the Constitution itself, even wrongly decided precedents.  Worse still, the longer a precedent stands, the more reverently it is held by judges to be true, even though the Constitution itself is the oldest precedent, and had the widest approval.  The Constitution, and each of its amendments were decided by two thirds of each house of Congress, and by three fourths of the States, surely a larger number than nine men and women.

But Stella Paul's title none the less carries a great deal of truth.  This lawless regime knows nothing sacred, except raw power.

Which brings us to Daren Jonescu's piece in yesterday's American Thinker entitled Would Obama Incite Civil Unrest to Win?. It is a question I have been asking myself for months.  You can read Jonescu's article for yourself, and make up your own mind.  I believe Obama is a Marxist of some variety, ether Communist or Fascist, and Marxists have been using unrest, protests, propaganda, and lies since their founding to get their way.  They can not stand on the truth, for if we knew the truth, we would never vote for them.  They can not simply debate the issue, but they must make of their debate opponent who sees things differently the enemy.  Opposing abortion on demand as murder or not wanting to pay for contraception out of tax dollars means you must hate women.  Opposing anything Obama endorses means you are a racist.  Oppose gay marriage and you hate all gays and want to see them dead.  Insisting on having a weapon for your protection, and as a means to defend your family and property in a disaster means you are an insurrectionist.  Enough, I grow weary of this stuff.  Let's have some peace for a change.       

A Voice in the Wilderness, Crying 'Wake Up'

I have to say that I completely agree with Anthony Martin (aka The Welshman) as he wrote this Musings After Midnight-Is This The Last Election of the American Republic?. Go read the whole thing.  The strength of the language used is what I feel, but I often do not express for fear of appearing to you, gentle reader, as if I had gone off the deep end of the pool, never to surface again.  But in Anthony's hands, I think you will understand that in the wee hours of the night, things look particularly dark.

I think maybe Thomas Sowell's timing may have been a little off, as he was predicting that 2008 would be our last election.  I tend to look at all the stories of voter fraud coming out, and I wonder how much of that is taking place.  But more, I wonder that 50 percent of the American people are prepared to vote for a man, and an administration that has not just spun the truth, but actually lied, repeatedly, to the American people.

Are we not awake yet? 

John Allen Muhammad to be Executed Tuesday

Perhaps it is in an American newspaper, but I read it in the UK Telegraph. The Telegraph has the story, unattributed, that the Washington sniper, John Allen Muhammad is to be executed Tuesday. 

I lived in Northern Virginia at the time the Washington sniper was active, and while I was not terrified, as the paper claims, one can't help but increase one's situational awareness. The FBI had profiled the sniper as a white male, 25-45, and so forth. The profile turned out not to be very helpful in catching this guy. Then there was the search for a white van. Probably the most common color for vans is white, and they are everywhere on the road, so that was no help either.

No doubt there will be a vigil outside of Greensville prison Tuesday, of those who say we never should execute anybody. I don't agree. When you get down to it, the opponents of execution are saying that these men, like an animal, do what they do because society, in some incomprehensible way, made them like they are. But that is to ignore all those brought up in similar circumstances who choose not to murder people. Muhammad could have chosen not to murder as well. He earned his place on death row, and earned his execution Tuesday.

Update:  Well, how embarrassing.  I am red faced.  Muhammad was executed in 2009, as my friend Sean Sorrentino mentioned in the comments.  Why the Telegraph has the story today is a mystery I shall look into.  Meanwhile, my comments about him earning his execution stand.

It is always good to have friends to fact check, it helps to keep one honest, and besides it drives up the traffic:-).  So, thankyou Sean.

Stealing an Election

I have heard rumors of this for years, but there has been very little proof until now. With the advent of tiny video cameras that a person can have in things like a pen or eye glasses, it has become possible to catch people saying things that they wouldn't normally say publicly, but they do say to people they trust. Thus, at the American Thinker today, Selwyn Duke has the story of people plotting to steal elections. Go check out the whole thing, and also the links.

Patrick Moran is right about one thing, the requirement to have a photo ID when you vote is not related to minorities and the poor not being able to get such ID.  Most states offer these forms of identification free of charge.  The expense involves simply getting to a local Department of Motor Vehicles to both register to vote, and to obtain an identification.  No, the resistance on the part of the Democrat party is because voter fraud is harder to accomplish when photo ID is in place.  Harder, but not impossible.

With so many states in play at this point, perhaps the regime feels that they can "count their way to victory," as did "Senator" Al Franken.  "Oh, we just discovered some uncounted ballots in the trunk of a car, and look, they all voted for me!  Who wooda thunk it!"

Here in North Carolina, we seem to have some voting machines that magically switch your vote if you voted for the wrong candidate **cough, cough, Romney, cough, cough**. Apparently the machines know when you do this, and for your convenience, they just change your vote automatically.  Nothing to see here, move along.  In that case, I don't know how anyone can trust the vote, no matter how it turns out.

Selwyn Duke ends his piece on this disturbing note:

I've said for a long time that this election is going to be the dirtiest in US history, mainly because the left moves ever further down the rabbit hole of relativism, which begets an end-justifies-the-means mentality. Moreover, I truly believe that these liberal political operatives can steal enough votes in swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico to turn them in Obama's favor and thus steal the election. Remember, you don't need an October Surprise when you have a November 6 Surprise.

snip

Conservatives had better wise up, load up, and realize that this is a war.

It is a war, and it needs to be fought seriously for the stakes it represents, but it needn't be fought fire with fire. We need to push voter ID, and we need boots on the ground watching the polls alert to any fraud.

Update: Patriot Update has a similar story to the North Carolina case of voting machines automatically checking Obama despite repeatedly voting for Romney. I suspect this may be happening other places as well.

Gutting the EPA

Glenn Beck has recently been hawking the 1791 Supply Co. as a company that makes all its products in America, using American labor, tools, equipment, and raw materials. They also apparently make denim on the original looms used by Levi Stauss, making jeans as rugged as those in the 19th century. One problem: the clothing costs a fortune. The canvas shirts run $90 a piece. Jeans, I recall, were something like $150 a pair. Glenn Beck may be able to afford clothes that cost that much, but I certainly can not. But 1791 Supply Co. is symptomatic of everything "Made in the USA." You will pay luxury prices for simple items. Why?

There are many reasons. Union labor and excess government are often cited by libertarian writers. I think you can begin to unravel some of the problems by reading Environmental Protection: the Enemy of Green by Anthony J. Ciani over at the American Thinker. In Ciani's thinking, the issue is that we have become so good at measuring pollutants with modern spectroscopy, that it is possible to see pollution everywhere. People who discover harmful pollutants in their environment don't seem to ask the next question: is it harmful in the quantities found? Apples contain arsenic, but nobody has ever died as result of eating apples.  But, as long as nobody knows about the arsenic, that is a naturally occurring substance, nobody is the least bit worried about it.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Another issue comes as result of people not thinking through the entire process.  All of the chemicals we commonly use are natural, and in the environment already.  A case in point is cadmium, a toxic metal in high enough doses:

So what has a radical crusade against toxic metals gotten us? One company wrote a proposal to the Department of Energy to investigate a way to make cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells more efficient. Many of the reviewers thought it was a good idea, but one reviewer said, "nothing with cadmium is any good." The proposal was not funded, probably beaten out by a shrimp treadmill, but at least that reviewer prevented all of that cadmium getting from our environment back into our environment. You see, whether it is used to make solar cells or not, all of that cadmium comes as a byproduct of zinc smelting. It has to go somewhere.

(The emphasis is mine.  If it is possible to increase the efficiency of solar cells using cadmium telluride, it seems reasonable to at least explore it.  I do not consider fossil fuels to be the great evil that some people do, but like them, I would like to be able to use less of them if I can do so economically.  I am slowly relamping my own home with LED replacements, which cut energy use by a factor of 10.  We'll see if the extra costs of these bulbs is outweighed by the longer life, and lower energy costs.)

The EPA has been run by zealots since it was founded.  It needs to be run by more practical people who understand that a safe environment is only one of our values, not our one and only value.  If our ability to make things and to innovate is crippled, to the point that no one has a job, it is little comfort that the food we can't afford to purchase, the home we can't afford to buy, the car we can't afford to drive is free of all environmental hazards.      

Blogiversary

Four years ago, I started Standing By. It was just before the Presidential elections, and I could see it coming. Obama would be elected, and impose a Marxist governing system on this nation as fast as he could do so. Some may be curious about the title of the blog. Here is what I wrote on 23 October 2008:

The title of this weblog is a reference to the last line of the poem "On His Blindness" by John Milton. Milton's exact quote is "They also server who only stand and wait." I too often feel blind to the full extent of why this or that is happening. I can't help but believe that much goes by for which I am simply not educated enough to understand. Never the less, I will try to pass on to the reader the best I can find on topics of daily interest from those more educated in these matters than I am, and together we will try to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Of course, I also hope to acquire some knowledge of this "blogger stuff" and to finally find out what the heck an RSS feed is.

I hope in the years since, as I have brought to your attention the thoughts of great thinkers and writers such as Thomas Sowell, Jonah Goldberg, David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh, and newer (to me) authors such as Daren Jonescu, that you and I have learned more about why things are happening, and what we can do about it. I have published 852 posts so far, and written a total of 932. The difference represents ideas either not fully formed, or which on reflection seemed not important enough to bring to a wider audience. I don't have the exact statistics in front of me, but of the posts, probably 40% have dealt in one way or another with guns, or self defense. Another 30% have dealt in some way or another with the Constitution.  I wanted to leave for my grand daughter, and now for my grand son, a record of why I did what I did, thought what I thought, and hopefully leave them with the tools to work their way back.

The United States is, or was, truly exceptional.  No other nation on earth had a Constitution like ours.  I can't help but feel that Constitution was the result of Divine Providence.  The United States was truly the place to which everybody wanted to come.  Unlike Europe, a person could come here and make something of himself, provide for his family, and enjoy freedom and prosperity.  The Constitution set limits on what the Federal government could do.  Because it took a small role in peoples lives, it left a greater scope for them to pursue their dreams.  Because property was respected, people were encouraged to satisfy customers desires by innovation and invention, secure in the knowledge that they would reap the benefits.  The candle thus was replaced by oil lamps, to be in turn replaced by electric incandescent lights, which are now giving way to light emitting diodes.  Despite the population growth, Malthus's predictions have not come true.  We have innovated at each stage to produce more food for more people on less land with fewer hands.  It is said that there is no shortage of actual food.  Instead, there is a shortage of goodwill in some nations, where those in power would rather starve their people than make food aide available to starving minorities.  But the evil is in those people who would deny food and medicine, not in the those who would provide the food and medical aide

Starting around the turn of the last century, with the election of the first "Progressives" to government, the government has grown, and the plain meaning of the Constitution has been subverted and in some cases turned on its head.  Property is no longer respected in America, which in turn has made innovation and invention a riskier prospect.  Hard work and inspiration no longer bring prosperity. Indeed, now children aspire to be rock and roll stars, or Wall Street moguls rather than becoming great scientists or engineers.  Rather than make more pie, people more and more see taking others' pie to be the road to riches.

The GAO  estimated there were approximately 8 million active concealed carry permit holders in the United States as of 31 December 2011, out of approximately 300 million population.  If we also add Constitutional carriers, and those that carry without a permit but are otherwise peaceable people, there may be 8.5 million carrying guns in public, or about 3%.  That is a small number, and yet it is small enough to have brought crime down in every state where "shall issue" concealed carry has been implemented.  Thus, I consider carrying a gun, and being proficient in its use to be a civic duty, on a par with voting.  Now, crime in this country, contrary to what you may hear overseas is not rampant.  I can go most places without being threatened.  But I have found that the responsibilities of carrying a gun daily have made me see the world as it is, not as I want it to be.  I can't help but believe that if more people carried a gun, and felt those responsibilities, the infantilization that I see every day around me would slowly disappear.

That is my great hope.          

George McGovern Dies

The Blaze has the story of former Senator and Presidential candidate George McGovern's death at age 90 here. The story is written by Madeleine Morganstern.

I have never agreed with George McGovern on political issues.  In fact, I vehemently disagreed.  McGovern was a Socialist and a Progressive, hiding in plain sight as a Democrat.  It was during the Democrat Convention in 1972 that McGovern welcomed the New Left into the party, and began the purge of the old conservative Democrats.  I voted for Nixon, not because he was the best Republican, but because he was the lesser of two evils.  I have always believed that not voting is a vote for whatever the majority chooses.  That is my view, and I understand the thinking of those who choose not to vote as a way of withholding their consent.  But those who do not vote have little right to complain because politicians don't do the right thing.

I met McGovern years later, after he was out of politics.  I had gone to work for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, and was tagged to take the coveted Capitol Hill course.  I can't recall now the exact name of the course, but it involved learning about how the government worked.  The number of people in the class was small, and George McGovern taught one of the sessions about how the Senate works, contrasting it with how the House operated.  McGovern was charming, friendly, and personable, something I did not expect.

McGovern was also a pilot during WWII, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross flying 35 missions in a B-24.  He deserved our respect for that service, but as a closet Socialist, he didn't deserve to be President, and I do not regret my vote for Nixon, though he proved to be a flawed candidate as well.