Americans Learning How To Be Serfs

Following up on yesterday's post here is an article in the American Thinker entitled Americans Learning to Submit by Anthony W. Hager. Hager makes many of the same points I did yesterday, so it is worth a read. I say this because I am often accused of exaggerating; of being a wild eyed radical. "They would never do THAT" I am told.  To further queries of what, pray tell, would stop them, I get just vague notions of human decency and the fact that the public wouldn't go along with it.  If you are one of those people, and you have been paying attention the last two years, I submit that there is no bridge too far.  Our "ruling class" is determined to "rule."

Some quotes to stimulate a quick trip to the American Thinker:

On Animal Farm, appeals to necessity, subtle changes to established rules, and revisionist history were the tools used to control Boxer and his comrades. Boxer willingly accepted his marching orders until his fate was sealed. The tactics that led to his demise and the enslavement of his friends are now deployed at airport security checkpoints across America. I can't help but wonder if we've become a nation of "Boxers."

and

The TSA has released images from both the millimeter wave and backscatter imagers currently in use. The fact is that the TSA images aren't exactly fodder for next month's Playboy centerfold. Other images are circulating that depict an inverted scan that reveals both nudity and identity. But such photos are easily faked, and there appears to be no proof that they are authentic. That's little comfort to air travelers who are exposed to humiliating body scans and invasive pat-down searches. Even the stance assumed for the scans -- feet apart and hands held above the head -- portrays a submissiveness that belies a free people. Fellow Americans, our government has declared us guilty until we prove our innocence.

Emphasis mine.

It has been said that our Constitution is not a suicide pact.  Perhaps not, but any official who violates Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights should have to answer for it, and defend his actions.  Until then, it would be wise for everyone to remember that our Constitution was written for both good times and bad.  There are ways to increase airport security that do not violate peoples civil rights, their dignity, and do not assume citizens are guilty until they can prove their innocence.  There are also laws against officials violating civil rights under color of law.  It may be hard to find a prosecutor to do it, but if you do, the "I was just following orders" defense will not stand.

Update:  Yet another outrage from The Sexual Assault agency can be found here courtesty of the Drudge Report.

Gun Control Bad for Blacks

Marc Lamont Hill has a pretty even piece in the NY Daily News Wednesday entitled Strict Gun Laws are Bad for Blacks: Why African-Americans Should Value Second Amendment Protections. Of course, along the way Hill displays the usual Liberal's disdain for people disposing of their own property as they please, and doesn't seem to know that "straw purchases" are already illegal. But on the whole, it is a pretty insightful piece for a liberal newspaper.

As a black progressive, I am tempted to echo the sentiments of most liberals, who regard this pro-gun turn as a full-fledged civic crisis. For most of them, gun ownership is an expendable rather than inalienable right, one worth ceding in exchange for a more peaceful society.

While I understand this position, the price of the ticket, at least for black people, is simply too high.

The price for anyone should be viewed as too high. But I understand if Hill thinks that a minority might be especially targeted by bigots. It has happened before all too regularly both here and abroad.  Indeed, all of the Constitutionally protected rights should be upheld by everyone to protect everyone.  That is why they were put into the Constitution.  But I am happy to see a black writer in a liberal newspaper awakening to the dangers and starting to speak out.  I welcome Marc Lamont Hill to the fold.

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...

When Freedom Succumbs to Liberty

A short piece over at the American Thinker today has some really excellent points to be made about illegal immigration, and about self defense. Anthony W. Hager writes in When Freedom Succumb to Necessity that:

Look at air travel since 9/11. Six imams sue an airline, and their fellow passengers, because the imams themselves behaved suspiciously. A suicidal bomber conceals explosives in his underwear and our government won't even identify him as a Muslim. Thus we must remove our shoes in airports, face strip searches and submit to full body scans so Islam isn't offended. Shampoo, nail clippers and knitting needles become weapons of mass destruction. It's a necessity.

Another example lies in the right to bear arms. Innocence must be proven before government allows Americans to buy guns. We must prove our innocence to carry concealed weapons. Yet the thugs who are arrested for violent gun crimes sport rap sheets longer than War and Peace.

Criminals are criminals because they couldn't care less about legality. They aren't concerned with government approval. Criminals just act. Yet the lawful must allow their assailant sufficient opportunity to retreat or face possible prosecution from the same government that paroled the violent convict.

Our whole system seems backwards because it is. Government hasn't the will to do anything about it, so you and I have to submit to losing more of our liberties instead. Well, I don't buy it.

Obama Dictating the Consciences of the Monks

Ken Blackwell brings us news today of a small Catholic college here in North Carolina being attacked by the Orwellianly named Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The story, on today's Townhall.com is entitled Got Monks? Get the Monks! A quote to set the stage:

But Obama’s EEOC obviously reads that ad as an invitation to “get the monks.” The EEOC’s district office in Charlotte, N.C., is demanding that Belmont Abbey cease and desist violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If you thought that act was about ending racial and sex discrimination, you would be right. If you thought that unelected bureaucrats could not use that law as a sledgehammer to threaten religious schools, you would be naïve.

What the EEOC is complaining of is Belmont Abbey’s practice of not providing abortion-inducing contraceptives to their employees in their health insurance plan.

Belmont College is a small Roman Catholic school run by Benedictine monks. Apparently they cleave to Catholic orthodoxy, which says, among other things, that aborting babies is murder. On that basis, William Thierfeld removed abortion and sterilization coverage from the College's health insurance coverage in 2007. Frankly, I admire the monks for standing by Catholic teachings on this point. I could wish that the church to which my congregation belongs, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America would follow Jesus teachings similarly. Oh, Jesus never said anything about abortion, but what he did say about sin in general, and murder in particular leaves one to believe that if the topic had come up, he would have been outspokenly against it.

Liberals and leftists, who want to be able have abortions with a clear conscience, point out that, well gosh, Jesus was a radical you know. He was all about upsetting the apple cart. True enough, but he was radical for his time and place. Look at what the establishment did, and believed at that time. Women were treated like, and in reality were, possessions. They could be discarded for burning the husband's dinner one night. Children in many cases were treated worse than cattle. People who did not have wealth or means also had little ability to acquire any short of selling themselves into indentured servitude. Only the wealthy could afford to fully participate in the religious experiences of the time. Into this milieu came Jesus to say that helping ones neighbor in a time of need is helping God himself. To the publicly pious establishment at the time, Jesus said you may be worshiping some god, but it is not the God I know. So what do you think he would say about a mother who has her own child sucked out of her womb? Sure, Jesus was radical, and if he walked among us today he would still be so. But it wasn't, and isn't still of the "if it feels good do it" kind of radical. Jesus challenges us daily to be better that we can humanly be.

Leftists also like to point out that people should be free to chose. Well, no one would today (thanks to Jesus, by the way) dispute that. However, looking just a little deeper into the matter, nobody was forced to work for Bellmont. Nobody was forced to have sex outside of marriage. These are choices which people are free to make. But once made, they must live with the consequences. Don't like the Catholic Church's stand on abortion? Don't work for a Catholic Institution. It really is that simple.

What we have here, with the EEOC trying to tell a Catholic Institution how they must act in spite of their beliefs, is another case of the Left trying to impose its own twisted sense of morality on the Church. They are using the "law" to try to dictate what we should believe. Another quote from Blackwell:

Not since King Henry VIII seized church lands in England has there been such a radical threat to religious freedom. I hope President Thierfeld never has to carry out his firm resolution of closing this wonderful old school rather than submit. I pray that all Americans who cherish religious liberty will awaken to this new militancy being unleashed against them.

I do too. In a land of nearly uniform politically correct thought, someone has to present diverse ideas to students who otherwise might not discover them on their own. In a land where we are rapidly losing the right to chose, unless it is the "correct" choice, someone has to present the truly radical Jesus, who lives and reigns today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

The Ministry of Truth

John Griffing has another article on the Cass Sunstein's proposal to limit bloggers free speech entitled Ministry of Truth, Obama Style at the American Thinker today. I previously reported about it here. At that time I said:

Well, boo hoo. It's called journalism, and is protected under the First Amendment.

Let me also say that I am not going to stop calling this Administration fascist (a term that has been misused by the left since I can remember to describe other Presidents, and pretty much anyone else they didn't like.) This time, it seems to to me to be a pretty accurate fit. Lefties have been shutting down debate whenever they can not win the argument with facts, which is most of the time. So, if Obama wants to sign an Executive Order making Sunstein's little tirade "law," it will simply prove what I and others have said all along. I will not shut up.

For more on what exactly Fascism is, see Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism.

The Flu Shot...What's In It

I invited Joe to become a poster on my blog, and he has responded with his first post below. I frankly do not know a thing about the flu shot, and probably not much about the other stuff Joe will blog about from time to time, but I offer it to you as he sent it, and as usual, you can decide for yourself.

PolyKahr
III

FLU SHOT...
WHAT'S IN IT?
You can call me stupid, ignorant, old and foolish, but being a 67 year old diabetic I read and check the ingredient label on everything I take, may it be food, oral medicine, or a flu shot. How many ask to see the ingredient label, before taking a flu shot? If you did, would you know the meaning of ingredients listed and what they do? This old fool does and it should be something we should all know!

Here are some of the ingredients I have found on flu shot labels, which I would bet few, even medical professionals have even read the ingredients.

Some Flu shots contain now and in the past the following

INGREDIENTS:

Dead influenza viruses - which are the major flu shot ingredients, are grown in chicken eggs. Are you allergic to eggs?
Aluminum - a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease (it is used as an additive to promote antibody response)
Triton X-100 - a detergent
Phenol - (also known as carbolic acid (this is used as a disinfectant, dye)
Ethylene glycol - (antifreeze)
Betapropiolactone - a disinfectant
Nonoxynol - used to kill or stop growth of STDs
Octoxinol 9 - a vaginal spermicidal
Sodium phosphate - clear colorless crystals, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, fertilizers, detergents, and pharmaceuticals
Thimerosal - a mercury disinfectant/preservative) can result in brain injury and autoimmune disease. Some flu shots contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose. This means that it may contain more than 250 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for mercury.
Neomycin and Streptomycin - (used as antibiotics) have caused allergic reaction in some people.
Formaldehyde - a known cancer-causing agent
Squalene MF59 - incites your immune system to attack all the squalene in your body. Ingested squalene has a completely different effect on the body than injected squalene. When molecules of squalene enter the body through an injection, even at concentrations as small as 10 to 20 parts per billion, it can lead to self-destructive immune responses, such as autoimmune arthritis and lupus. Most people will never equate these conditions being caused by a flu shot.

Some of you may try to equate a Flu Shot to some of the medical break-through vaccines of the past. The adjunct ingredients they now put into flu shot vaccines is something far different than what they use to put into vaccines. I’m not for or against flu shots. I’m for taking care of my body. Ultimately, we are all held accountable for what we do with our bodies!

It is your right to take the flu shot or not, and that is A-Ok for you don’t need any ones approval to do so. The same should hold true if you don’t want to take a flu shot. What should be of most concern to all of us is that the government is moving towards making this mandatory, required by law, and if they do we will have lost another one of our freedoms of choice.

Joe JAM

"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." Jessica Mitford

Obama isn't paying attention to the ACORN scandal?

I just had to highlight this article in the American Thinker by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs today. A quote:

This is madness. What this constitutes is a coup on the American electoral system, a usurpation of the will of the people: government by the people and for the people made into a sham. It's a government by the moochers and the looters, for the moochers and the looters, stolen from the good, hardworking Americans. And worse, the American people have sat by and let it happen. Obama's presidency is not an accident of history. It was a very deliberate assault by the hard left on the foundation of the greatest country in human history.


If we purged the illegals, the dead and the fraudulent from the voting rolls, this would be a different country, with honest leadership that reflected the real landscape of this great nation.


ACORN is a racketeering criminal organization whose specialty is sedition -- overthrowing the good governance of this great nation. Why hasn't it been stripped and rendered illegal like the Cosa Nostra? What's the difference, except that the mafia was patriotic?

Go read the whole thing.

Taking it Public

Walls of the City has a great post called Taking It Public about the man open carrying a firearm at the Arizona speech given by The One. Hot Air has the story on how MSNBC tried mightily to hide the race of the man in question to promote their agenda here, which basically boiled down to PSH. Say Uncle has more discussion of the issue from the points of view of other gun rights activists here. Even the White House has put out a positive announcement on the topic, or at least as positive as this president is likely to get here.

Indeed, this incident has been discussed so frequently, that you may be wondering why I am weighing in, given my general reluctance to speak up when others have already done so, often more eloquently than I can. So here goes: for a long time I have been of two minds on the topic.

I applaud those who choose to open carry. As Linoge says:

Simply put, a right not exercised is a right well and truly lost. It is not "normal" for citizens to carry rifles because citizens do not carry rifles, and citizens do not carry rifles because it is not "normal". Now, when given the option of first changing the definition of "normal" by words alone, or first carrying rifles, which do you think will actually result in honest change?

It is, of course, a circular argument, but it also makes a point, that I have made as well, that people no longer go about armed. For whatever reason, and there are many, it is no longer "normal." Many people look at you as paranoid if you even carry a simple pocket knife. The only way that carrying a weapon will ever be "normalized" is if some hardy souls begin to carry openly. Such hardy souls will face hostility from their fellow citizens and from some "authorities" who will generally make their lives miserable. So such people would need the support of family and friends who shared their goals. As for tactical advantage, I think it is generally a wash. You potentially give up surprise, though not necessarily. But you do gain speed, since you don't risk fumbling around under your cover garment for your weapon.

On the other hand...

A person who ventures out with a gun obviously on his hip must be a fairly articulate speaker, who has rehearsed in his mind a number of scenarios, and has well chosen come backs for things people might say. If you are a stumblebum when speaking to people, as I am, it may be better to be discreet. If your wife, your children, or your friends are not on board, it may be better to be discreet. If you are not wealthy enough to out spend the State whenever you are stopped and arrested on trumped up charges for defying their "authoratah," you may want to be discreet, because you will be scrutinized, and you must obey every jot and tittle of the convoluted, contradictory and unevenly applied "law."

But...

Concealed carry has problems too. The obvious is that when you have to go before the State and apply for a license to exercise a right, it really can not be said to be a right. A concealed handgun permit, like a driver's license, is a privilege. It can be taken away just as easily as it was granted. Where open carry is permitted and generally recognized, you can fall back on that and open carry if concealed carry is not granted. But if you live in a police state, and many places in the United States have become exactly that, you may not have that option.

So, which ever way you decide to go, you will get no argument from me.

Calling People Nazis

Andrew C. McCarthy has a great piece up today on National Review Online entitled Nazi for Me, but Not for Thee. I heard about it while driving around running errands today and listening to the Rush Limbaugh show. Rush had it up along with his "amazing stack of stuff." In the article, McCarthy makes the point that citizens pointing out similarities between ObamaCare and socialized medicine in Nazi Germany are not wrong. At the same time, Pelosi and other Democrats calling opponents of ObamaCare Nazis are engaging in scurrilous and misplaced name calling.

Whether you agree with that or not (I happen to think it’s undeniable), Rush was also making a larger point that is not only fair argument but essential argument. There is a trajectory of socialism, regardless of the good intentions of many socialists. As he framed it, you take things such as health care, things that are traditionally understood as within the ambit of individual liberty and free choice; you move such things into the ambit of state responsibility as the welfare state emerges and grows, on the theory that it is government’s responsibility to provide for everyone’s needs (by redistributing resources); as more things are moved from private to public control, the state by definition becomes totalitarian; and, inexorably, the totalitarian state gets bad leaders and the society comes to reflect the policy choices of those leaders.

There it is. At what point does a society made up of truly free men and women 200 years ago become enslaved? When a man can only buy what the State says he can buy, that person is a slave to the State. A free man can purchase whatever he can afford. When a man has to beg the State for medical care, because he can not get it on his own, he is a slave. A free man is able to see any doctor he can afford. If the State starts telling him what he can and cannot eat, what he may, and may not drink, whether he can smoke or not, and a thousand other things because it has deemed these things to cause health expenditures that are too high, that man is a slave. A free man can eat, drink, and do what he pleases and take the consequences thereof.

It is a given that we can not allow them to have health care reform. We can not even allow them to have something they call health care reform and claim victory. But beyond that, we must begin rolling back the New Deal. We can no longer debate the left on their terms, but must debate on the principles on which this country was founded, natural rights, civil rights, and the Constitution.

Kennth Gladney: Patriot

From American Thinker today, Matthew May has short article entitled Kenneth Gladney: 21st Century Crispus Attucks. Kenneth Gladney was attacked for passing out Gadsden flags during a protest outside SEIU headquarters in St. Louis, Mo.

When a black man supports the freedom movement, he unfortunately paints an extra large target on his back. The Left tries to divide us up into "groups," assigns group identity interests to each group, and keeps us stirred up fighting each other. Blacks are considered by Leftist to be one of their pet groups, so when a black man starts speaking for himself, they feel the rage of betrayal. I wish Mr. Gladney well, and hope he continues to raise his voice for liberty.

Incompetence or Malice

The Smallest Minority has an unnerving post up today in which he presents several humorous, yet seemingly unerring "laws".

Heinlein's (or, if you insist, Hanlon's) Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

Then there's Grey's Law:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

And Rick Cook's admonition:

The key to understanding the American system (of government) is to imagine that you have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy will be the one to enforce it.

Kevin goes on to point out a number of unintended consequences of various laws and policy decisions...or were they? Was it merely incompetence or was it malice? Here is another example, from the 60s, taken from the Hoover Institution interview between Peter Robinson and Thomas Sowell:

Peter Robinson: "The transparent dishonesty with which quotas and preferences have been instituted and maintained here in the United States," you write, "is a dishonesty reaching into the highest court in the land as the Weber case demonstrates." Take us through what took place in the Weber case.

Thomas Sowell: In the Weber case, Weber was a worker in a plant in Louisiana and he wanted to get into a training program which would qualify him for higher jobs, and he was turned down. And blacks who had lesser qualifications than him were admitted. And so he took this to the Supreme Court. And the Civil Rights Act of 1964 said, "individuals," and Justice Brennan, someone with a great verbal sleight of hand, turned this around. Said, well, but the real intent of Congress, you see, was this or that and so he then ruled against Weber and then when the dissenting opinion of Rehnquist said that this reminded him of the great escapes of Houdini. That, you know, the language was so plain and clear, in the law itself. And it was also plain and clear if you got into legislative history where they talk about the possibility of quotas and Hubert Humphrey who was pushing the Civil Rights Act said, you know, I'll eat my hat if this thing turns out into quotas. Well, he wasn't there to eat his hat.

The emphasis is mine. You should go read the whole interview to find out just how anti-American and unconstitutional the whole quota regime is, but the question is again, was it incompetence, or malice, or both? I was thinking these of these ideas when I read this from the Liberty Sphere:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office, saying in a Facebook posting that he would create a "death panel" that would deny care to the neediest Americans.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote.

"Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote on her page, which has nearly 700,000 supporters. She encouraged her supporters to be engaged in the debate.

The claim that the Democratic health care bills would encourage euthanasia has been circulating on the Internet for weeks and has been echoed by some Republican leaders. Democrats from Obama on down have dismissed it as a distortion. The nonpartisan group FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania says the claim is false.

Is Congress and the supporters of Obamacare being incompetent, or malicious? They all know that the way to judge legislation is to imagine that it is enforced by your worst enemy. Oh sure, the bill doesn't have "euthanasia" in it, and the bill doesn't have anything about health care rationing either. So, technically, Obama and his supporters are telling the "truth." But here's what could happen:

The bill will be passed. Sometime in the future, some regulator will "interpret" euthanasia into the language. Of course there will be fights about it, but the Supreme Court will find, somehow, that it is all nice and Constitutional, so just submit to it. Later, after we all get used to the idea of "putting Grandma to sleep," which is the only compassionate thing to do in light of her obvious suffering, the New York Times will run articles about how Down Syndrome babies lead such a miserable existence, how any "civilized" people would put them out of their misery. It's the only "compassionate" thing to do. They will keep up the drum beat, politicians will jaw bone and wring their hands, the Pope will point out the obvious and be ignored. One day, the some regulator will "read" into the law mandatory abortion for these unfortunate children. A court will manage to find that this is indeed what the legislators intended. And voila, there you have Margaret Sanger's eugenics program, all nice and legal.

Was it incompetence, or malice?

Sure, it's only one possible outcome, of many. But we know that the Left has dreamed of eugenics since the 1920s, and has had universal health care on the Democrat platform since 1948. So why give them the power over you to this to you in the first place? The Constitution doesn't grant it to them, so why would you? Remember that you must interpret any law in its worst light. Otherwise, you are just giving them the rope with which to hang you.


Incompetence, malicious, or both?

What Rights Does Judge Sotomayor See

Jeff Snyder, the author of "A Nation of Cowards: Essays on Gun Control" wrote a piece back in 2001 for the Freeman entitled Rights Without Exception. If you have ever read "A Nation of Cowards" or if you ever read any of his columns in American Hangunner, you will know that he stands on principles in his writings. In this article, he discusses how our rights should be viewed by the courts, and contrasts that with how they are actually treated. I would note that the examples used are often gun rights, the right to keep and bear arms. In the latter half of the twentieth century, gun rights have become the canary in the coal mine. The courts have put free speech rights on an alter, allowing the most odious of expressions to pass, as long as they could find some redeeming value in what was said. On the other hand, the courts have generally treated gun rights as the red hair step child, who had earned whatever punishments society wished to rain down on it. But if the courts can interpret the Second Amendment out of existence, is there any hope to retain the other nine rights in the Bill of Rights? Ponder that as the Senate votes on the Sotomayor nomination.

The statements of rights in the Bill of Rights are categorical and contain no exceptions. This form suggests that the rights referred to do not vary to suit the circumstance, are not to be “outweighed” in balancing tests with other rights or interests, and are not subject to unstated exceptions: Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and so forth. Qualifications such as, “unless presenting a clear and present danger,” “except to the extent inconsistent with public safety,” or “unless outweighed by a compelling state interest” simply are not there.

Along the way, he first disposes of such silly arguments as the one that says if you truly have a right to keep and bear arms then that would include keeping a nuclear bomb. Yes, believe it or not when I have argued that the right to keep and bear arms includes machine guns, people have extrapolated that I was also arguing for keeping nuclear bombs and artillery pieces. I was not, and neither is Snyder.

In discussing whether there are legitimate exceptions to our rights, he discusses the "felon exception" at length. At the time of the founding, as pointed out, felonies were truly egregious crimes punishable by death. From that perspective, a "felon exception" really wasn't needed. But now that so many crimes, many malum prohibito-that is wrong because we say so, are felonies, one has to ask whether a "felon" who has paid his debt to society does not have the right to self defense in his home? For example doesn't Martha Stewart deserve to have aright to self defense? Do you really think she is likely to murder someone? Think how the "felon exemption" works in favor of anti-gun legislators. They know that a convicted felon may not own a gun. Therefore, the more behavior they can define as felonious, the more individuals they can put on the prohibited persons list, while looking tough on crime to their constituents.

Can a convicted felon be denied his right to free speech or freedom of the press? Can he be denied the right to assemble or to the free exercise of his religion? May convicted felons be subject to unreasonable and warrantless searches and seizures? May they, on arrest for a subsequent crime, be denied due process of law and the right to trial by jury; and, when convicted, may they be subject to cruel and unusual punishment? Surely crime would plummet if these rights, too, were subject to a felon exception for the sake of public safety, and if the police could summarily execute felons they suspected of committing crimes. But if those rights must be respected, why is the right to keep and bear arms a different kind of right that admits of such an exception?

Clearly, he is arguing that it is not a different kind of right. As David Codrea has pointed out, and I paraphrase here, if a man can not be trusted with a gun, he can not be allowed out without a custodian.

Well, what about majority rule then. Can't we all let our rights be decided democratically? I know from reading much of Snyder's other writings, that he holds a special scorn for this line of thinking.

The problem is that an exception has been introduced to the right whose scope is defined by action of the majority (through legislative action and subsequently through a majority of a panel of judges). That is fatal to the right because it makes the right a captive of majority rule.

and

So first we may note that if a right in the Bill of Rights is subject to an exception whose scope is defined by action of the majority (the legislative process), the right has been rendered subject to the will of the majority. That is, it has ceased to exist and has become a creature of legislative grace.

That is to say, your rights under this scheme, are defined by whatever your neighbors say are your rights. It is variable from one day to the next, and highly dependent on who you are. This means you really don't have rights at all.

Try to determine how far the government could go on grounds of public safety. For example, why is there an interest in public safety only in government buildings, airports, and school zones? Why not hospitals—indeed, all public property and all businesses open to the public? If you find a stopping place that leaves any private person with the right to keep and bear arms, explain why the concept of “public safety” indicates that you must stop there and not go any further.

Well, if we can't limit or restrict rights by majority rule, what about interpreting the purpose of rights? This seems like fertile ground for finding the limits of rights.

Another way in which rights are often limited is to “interpret” them in light of the purpose they are supposed to achieve. For example, those who oppose the private ownership of arms sometimes assert that the purpose of the Second Amendment is related to the maintenance of militias. Since militias no longer exist and are a discredited and ineffectual means of securing the common defense in the modern world, the Second Amendment has been rendered obsolete and and may therefore be ignored. Is this a legitimate way of imposing a limitation on the scope of a right, of rendering it less than absolute?

While the “interpretation” cited above is a misreading of both the words and history of the Second Amendment, the effect of interpreting a right by reference to its purpose is nonetheless revealed: it, too, leads to the destruction of the right!

What we are left with is that the rights enumerated in the Bill or Rights are fundamental, can not be ignored, or legislated away, or "interpreted" out of existence.

With the foregoing, then, I hope to have provided some basis for advancing the following claim: A right, to be a right, must be absolute, that is, subject to no exceptions, and held or respected as an end in itself, not as a means to some other end. Otherwise, it does not stand outside and above the law, but becomes subject to it, a mere creature of legislative action, majority rule, and the peripatetic opinions of judges. If the right is not absolute, you absolutely have no right.

As I said at the beginning, Senators should think about this as they vote on the Sotomayor nomination. Judge Sotomayor claims not to see a right to self defense in the Constitution. One wonders what other rights she does not see there.

The Liberty Sphere: Stealth Congress-Obama Scheme in Shadows

The Welshman has the scoop on what is flying under the radar in The Liberty Sphere: Stealth Congress-Obama Scheme in Shadows . Naturally, it is nothing good. So called "hate crimes" are thinly disguised attempts to require opponents to sit down and shut up. Now let's be clear. When you arguably steal elections which makes peoples votes not count, and then refuse to prosecute those cases as Eric Holder did recently with the Black Panthers, when you pass laws to make speaking out crime, when you appoint judges who make a mockery of the rule of law, you don't leave those who take their (former) liberties seriously much choice.

Stop the Sotomayor nomination

A Washington Times article by Tom Lobianco Wedenesday raises the idea that Judge Sonja Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination may be in danger. I certainly hope so, but I have my doubts. The NRA issued a weasel worded letter to Senators here. Clearly, NRA is holding some of its political capital in reserve. After all, in case Sotomayor becomes a Justice, they don't want her to be predisposed against them going in, not that Sotomayor would hold it against them, of course.

I sent an e-mail to both my Senators requesting that they do not confirm Sotomayor, and force the President to make a better pick. I made the points that:

* She has spoken out against the Heller decision in which the Supreme Court recognized the individual right to Keep and Bear Arms.

* Expressed disdain for private gun ownership dating back to her senior thesis at Princeton University, where she wrote that America has a "deadly obsession" with guns and that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to firearms ownership.

* In United States v. Sanchez-Villar, she stated that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." In addition to her record opposing the Second Amendment, she has also strongly advocated judicial activism.

Lest I become trapped here by my disdain for "judicial activism" let me explain. When judges substitute their own prejudices and predispositions for a fair reading of what the law says, I consider that "judicial activism." There have been too many such cases in the last 40 years, and each one undermines the rule of law. It may also be described as legislating from the bench. On the other hand, if the Legislative branch passes, and the Executive branch signs a law that is unconstitutional, I expect a judge to recognize that fact and to strike it down. All three branches have a duty to the Constitution. For example, if the Legislature passes a bill reinstating the unFairness Doctrine, I would hope the President would veto it, as is his duty. But if he signed it, then I would expect the Supreme Court would strike it down as unconstitutional. Such "judicial activism" is not, but is instead their duty.

The rule of law is what our Constitution was founded on. In theory, everyone knows the law, and everyone will be treated equally if brought before a court. Ms. Sotomayor's thinking suggests she does not believe in the rule of law, but instead believes that certain people, for whom she has "empathy" should be treated better than other people for whom she does not. That is the rule of men. If she takes us down that path, the destination is ultimately the rule of the Strongman.

I watched the Postman with Kevin Costner again last night. The movie itself takes all the usual bows to liberal ideas like goofball wormening, but Will Patton plays an excellent General Bethlehem, being thoroughly tyrannical and proud of it. That is what we face if we go down that path; warlords who treat the rest of us like peasants. If only it were as easy to end such treatment as Costner did. I especially liked Costner's line "Wouldn't it be great if wars could be fought by the assholes who started them". Indeed. But I have a feeling that if our system of laws becomes much more strained, no one's liberty, or property will be safe.

Of Government and Being Conservative

Then God said "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...." Genesis 1:26.


Shortly thereafter, mankind bit into the apple, and the rest is history. From that moment, mankind needed rules and regulations to keep him from killing everyone else. Such rules were initially provided by the strongest man in the tribe, under the unquestioned assumption that might makes right. The weaker, or less ruthless men were forced, at the point of the spear, to do whatever the Strongman desired. The point of the spear might well mean death, so folks tended to tow the line. The Strongman, of course, had the best of the women, the best of the cattle, indeed, the best that the tribe could offer. Everyone else had what was left.


It seems it wasn't long before the Strongman (now called the Chief ) looked around and realized that conquering another tribe might have advantages for himself. So, he set out to conquer all the other tribes' Chiefs around him, which he did, at the expense of his people. Of course, in the self aggrandizing ways of all men, he had to have a new title to distinguish himself from the lesser beings around him. Chief of chiefs wouldn't do. After much thought, he thought of King. How grand! The new title let him pretend that somehow he was more than just the strongest and most ruthless Strongman. Eventually, it occurred to him to strong arm the priests into declaring that their gods had decreed a divine right for him to rule his "subjects," rather like the mafia today will take over a business by offering to "protect" them from...well...themselves. It probably also occurred to him to write down his idea of laws as a legacy to "his" people. And I am sure the people were "pleased" to receive these laws.


Now, ruling a State does require cash. The enforcers..er...soldiers have to be paid. They needed weapons and gear, food, water, time to train, etc. Unfortunately, our "King" had no source of cash, but hey, since everyone else was living under his "protection" why not institute a system of payments off the top of every transaction. Yeah, that's the ticket, a tax! And while he was at it, some extra would be needed to hold grand parties, and a place to hold them, and a staff to serve them, and...well...the usual retinue of a Court. We couldn't have our King look less regal than the next King over, or the other thugs might get some ideas about taking over our Kingdom.


This went on for centuries. Kings came and went, as did kingdoms. Dynasties grew under strong Kings, then eventually died out as the decedents of the strong King became soft and indolent. History seems to revolve around the Great Men, and nobody seems to have given any thought to their "subjects." But there was thinking going on. Christ had preached that each man would be judged individually for his actions, and his inaction; for what he said, and for what he thought. He would be judged not as a member of a group, but for himself alone. This raises a dilemma. How could a subject, who was not free, indeed in many cases was a peasant who could not even decide to go elsewhere, be subject to the laws of God? The Apostle Paul answered to some extent in
his letters, and these are deemed authoritative as far as they go. But layers of thought and philosophy built up under the church, eventually culminating in the direct philosophical forbears of the Founding Fathers such as John Locke. Man is a free creature, a moral actor, who must have certain natural rights guaranteed to carry out his mission as a moral actor. Otherwise, if a man is not free, how can he be judged?


The gun, strangely enough, is what put teeth behind these philosophical ideas. Open hand techniques, like Karate, require many years of training to master. Interestingly, to be most effective, the attacker has to play along, offering up attacks which the style is designed to counter. I remember my sensei demurring when asked which style was most effective, pointing out the the true master never had to throw a punch in the first place. The sword also requires many years of training to master. Both techniques require a great deal of strength as well, leaving women, the old, or infirm unable to participate, and thus to be at the mercy of the strong, the young, and the ruthless, which tells us why the strong man was the dominant figure for so long. Initially, the invention of firearms tended to strengthen the Strong Man against his enemies. But as time wore on, firearms became more sophisticated, powerful, and easier to use. By 1776, it had become possible to target and kill a specific officer at a distance. The individual at last had a weapon at his disposal which equalized the disparity in training and strength among men. Technological innovations such as the cartridge, and smokeless powder have only made guns more powerful and easier to use.

Which brings us to gun control. There are two types of people who profess a belief in gun control, the pacifist and the tyrant wannabes. As to the first, I am sure there are some out there who truly abhor guns. I feel for these people because what the truly abhor is not guns, but what the gun can do in the wrong hands. These people do not feel they can judge the men who murder, rape and rob as bad or evil, so they blame the instrumentality instead. What they fail to see is that the victims of crime, with whom they are empathic, would be just as dead had they been killed by the sword, or spear, or bow and arrow, or a nail gun for that matter. It is not guns that are the problem, but evil men and women who use guns in that manner.

Then there are the tyrant wannabes. They do not believe that the individual is a moral actor, do not believe in natural rights granted by God, and do not trust the common man with the potential power to take a life. These are the people who say that only the police and military should have guns. Notice that if they had their way, government would have a monopoly of power. But governments, as we have seen, are just thugs all dressed up in a show of pomp and circumstance to appear bigger than they are. They all have fancy titles, like President, or Congressman. They call each other "The Honorable" or the "Gentleman from the Great State of", but strip all that away, and government boils down to "do as I say, or you will face the consequences, up to being killed." Of course, the tyrant wannabes believe they will be in the catbird seat, able to dictate to the rest of us, the unwashed masses. What they do not want to face up to is that government is jealous of power, does not want to share, and too late they will find that they have been used as just tools of the thug.

Which brings us to why I started this blog, and continue to publish it even though it often takes several hours a day. As a Conservative, I believe that each individual is a free, and moral actor. If that is true, then the role of government must be limited to certain enumerated duties, and that we must jealously guard against any expansion of those duties beyond the bounds set forth in the Constitution. I believe that if government truly derives its just powers from the governed, then government can not exercise any power that I myself do not have. For these reasons, I also jealously guard my guns, and choose to exercise my right to keep and bear them. As a grandfather, I do not want my grandchildren to curse me because they no longer have their natural rights honored by their government.

Finally, lest you believe I am anti government, nothing could be further from the truth. We do need government to perform certain duties it would be impractical to perform for ourselves. These include providing for the national defense, treating with foreign nations and among the several States, providing a national currency, upholding contracts and a few others. The enumerated powers of government were all set out in the Constitution, and if government would stick to doing those things, this blog would not be needed.

Happy July 4th!

Things will soon be getting crazy, but I thought I'd take a minute to wish everyone who stops here a Happy July 4th Holiday. Here on the PolyKahr estate, for the moment, we can all pretend that we are still free people. No, I will not celebrate by going to the range, but by having friends and family over to eat a lot of food, play games, and enjoy the day.

I also thought I'd leave you with this essay from today's Townhall.com by Carrie Lukas entitled Government Growth Challenging Liberty This July 4th A quote:

We are constrained today because our government is already so large and over-extended. That problem will only get worse. Due to promises the government has already made—most specifically spending on Social Security and Medicare—the share of the economy that government will demand is going to continue to balloon.

This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. This means that your children and grandchildren will have less control over the money they earn and their property because they will have to pay off liabilities accrued this year. That generation will have less to meet global challenges and each family will have less to meet personal ones.

She goes on to bemoan the tendency each of us has to say, in essence, "there ought to be a law!" and the zeal with which politicians seem to step over themselves making such laws. Its a bad bargain in which the people always lose, and the Government always wins. Stop asking for more from Government, and do more for yourselves. In the end, you'll be glad you did.

The War on Guns: Prior Restraints on Speech and Guns Enable Tyranny

The War on Guns: Prior Restraints on Speech and Guns Enable Tyranny

David Codrea has an excellent link up to his Gun Rights Examiner article. A quote:

And like it or not, just as we can't require a permit for you to speak your mind, or impose a waiting period before you can purchase a newspaper, or demand that you register your video purchases, just as we can't pass laws prohibiting concealed crucifixes, the same holds true for guns--or at least should.

But that's not the same, cry the gun haters. The only purpose of guns is to kill!

Demonstrably not true, but so may words and ideas, unless you think the despots of the past and present have rounded up and dispatched their victims by themselves. And just as words can also provide deliverance, so too can guns. They do in this country on a daily basis, to the tune of up to 2.5 million times* a year.

This leads us to the final flawed premise; that any of the 20,000* "reasonable" infringements constructed in the minds of headline-seizing politicians, and enacted to date at the federal, state and local level, have made society safer, or have kept the predators among us from wreaking carnage at will.

Is there anyone who seriously thinks law number 20,001 will be the one that finally works?

All of us, in our own way, keep saying the same things. Why is no one listening?

The Confusion of the Pagans

Sandy Rios has an article on Townhall entitled The Confusion of the Pagans, in which she delivers some sharp words concerning the murder of George Tiller. She is commenting on Dr. Carhart's eulogy for Tiller:

“What I want to assure the press and reassure the women of America is that we will somehow, somewhere continue to provide abortions later in gestation.” Who exactly is assured by that statement? Who is comforted … happy … relieved? And what kind of man would spend his days dismembering live, kicking babies and delivering them part by part? What kind of man would assure women he will continue to perform the heinous act of stabbing a baby in the back of the head with scissors, suctioning its brains, crushing its skull as the lower body, already delivered, thrashes in pain, removing the head last so as to fool himself and the law into thinking it is not infanticide? What man is proud of that? What man lives and breathes that mission and what woman or member of the press applauds his assurance not to worry? It can happen to their baby or grandbaby in the future too?

Go and read the whole thing. It is very powerful.

Customs and Border Patrol Sneaking One By Us

John Longenecker has a good article on what I am calling the "Great Pocket Knife Scandal" over at the Los Angeles Gun Rights Examiner. You can find the article by clicking on Gun Rights Examiners on the side bar to this blog, and going down to John Longenecker and clicking on "Pocket knife ban models gun control formula." A little quote to whet your appetite:

You see, the agencies charged with deciding ultimately decide against the will of the people. Instead of taking No for an answer, they invite comments, but will still not reject the idea as an interference with our liberty. This is soft tyranny. They’re going to get their way instead of our getting our way.

Soft tyranny.

Why it’s a mistake to make guns and pocket knives illegal is because they just telegraphed this exact blueprint to America that our fears are coming true. Soft tyranny is here. In the United States, you can see the second amendment’s function against this kind of tyranny at work; the armed citizen totally discredits many anti-crime policies which don’t work because that is not where crime is fought. Crime is fought the moment it strikes. Crime is caught after it has struck and done its damage. This may speak the language of Justice, but it does not speak the language of safety and sovereignty. Forty-eight states affirm your right to carry a handgun, but the big cities punish it. It wouldn’t do if the big city populace got the idea they didn’t need so much of what the government wants to ‘give’. Gun control obfuscates one’s authority to act; crime grows and dependency on officials grows. Unwelcome. Unconscionable

When I was in my teens, my Dad taught me how to make a knife from an old file. An old saw blade works well too, or if you want to hammer and forge, old lawn mower blades can by put into service. There are, of course, many ways to make a knife, and a serviceable one can be made without a great deal of skill required. My Dad learned as making a knife was his introduction to a high school class in forging. My point is that pretty much anyone with a modest amount of machine tools can make knives. With more tools and a well equipped shop, it's easy to make either guns or knives.

My recollections aside, as hard as it is to fight everything that is coming down the pike at us, we need to write our Senators and Congressmen about this. The administration is testing our resolve, looking for weaknesses. Perhaps it's knives, or eating greasy burgers. Maybe if they don't ban it but tax it, we'll sit by complacently. But the Left wants to control you and your behavior (for your own good of course) and they don't sleep. Ever.