Thomas Sowell on Socialist or Fascist

I missed this excellent article by Thomas Sowell at the American Thinker entitled Socialist or Fascist? on June 12, 2012. I have been seeing and hearing more of this kind of talk of late. If it does nothing else, it vindicates my own instincts that Obama is a socialist functioning as a fascist. It also is gratifying that someone with a far larger reach than your humble correspondent is informing the American people that they have elected a Fascist to office, with the implication that he better be voted right back out.

My first warning about Obama came in November 2008 with a book report on Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. There have been several since. But Sowell's piece is perhaps clearer for having had the last four years to consider. Thomas Sowell:

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

Just so. That is the distinction I have made as well between a Socialist and a Fascist.  The fact that Fascist want to leave business in private hands, but to call the shots led to the term "Thugocracy."  I have likened this administration as being like a Mafia boss who comes into a restaurant, takes a look around, and says to the owner "Hey, Bub, you got a new silent partner, me."  What can the owner do but acquiesce.  If he refuses, he knows he will be shot.

But of course, it is more than just the economy. He wants control of everything. Obama, and his minions in the Administration believe that we the people are virtual children who don't really know what is good for us, and so he and his regulators must decide these things for us.  Why? Well let's look at Jonah Goldberg's definition of Fascism from the book:

“Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.”

See, that is why they can't simply limit themselves to educating you. Right now, Michelle Obama is "educating" the nation on the "right" things to eat. But the American people just won't listen. They keep eating all the "wrong" foods. Soon, she will bring out the iron fist to regulate you, and if you still refuse to eat your vegetables, well..."ve haf vays..." It's for your own good, don't you see?

In a similar vein, the Administration is in conflict with religious liberty in general, and the Catholic church in particular because Catholics insist on maintaining their principles in the face of the HHS regulation that says every institution (except now places of actual worship) must offer contraceptives and abortificients.  But Catholics have Universities, Hospitals, and parochial schools, as well as offering help with addictions and other social services.  I imagine they look at these institutions as "worship" too, as would be Biblically correct.  Indeed, all work is looked upon by Christians as "worship," so that having our worship defined in any way by the State is a violation of our First Amendment rights to begin with.  Never mind that we be forced to be parties to murder. 

In fairness, this has been going on, little by little, for close to 100 years. Starting with the 16th Amendment to the Constitution ratified in 1913, and continuing with a blizzard of "good governance" laws from local zoning ordinances to Federal laws such as the Endangered Species Act, and through Supreme Court decisions such as Kelo, we have been losing our property rights, and with them our freedoms and liberties. New York City's law limiting salt consumption and its proposal on soft drinks are just the latest and most bizarre. But these have come about because once private property that happened to be used for the benefit of the owner by serving the public has now become de facto "public property."  In some communities, it is illegal to cut a tree on your own property without the permission of some little tyrant...er...government official.  You are now just a share cropper on the Master's land. And if the Master doesn't want you to do something on that land, like say, build your house he will sic his regulators on you.

Sowell, again:

The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences.

The point? Since Sowell is too polite to say it, I will. You can not compromise with these people. You can not appease them. Give them half a loaf, and they will bite off your hand. They can not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, because even if what they want is not wanted by the majority of Americans, they will find a way, legal or illegal, to jam it down our throats. You can not even concede that they may have a point.  The Left sees itself as the elite, destined by whatever they call a god to rule. They play for keeps. We should too.

Quote of the Day

Can be found Gun Rights 4 Us:

Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

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

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

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

Read it? Good.

The GOA writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Molon Labe

Finally, More Mainstream People Recognize the Fascist Regime

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

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

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

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

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

The Republican Establishment Speaks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OWS Just Gets Better and Better

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Poor Little Rich Kids at the Occupy Wall Street Rally

A Dana Summers Cartoon says it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NC Governor Perdue Shames Us All

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

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

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

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

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

May the Lord yet deliver us.

Postmodernism and the Democratic Party

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

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

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

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

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

An Open Letter to a Friend

Dear Mickey,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours truly,
PolyKahr

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

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

Hard History Coming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mask Coming Off the Thugocracy

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

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

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

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

Your not Paranoid if Someone is Really Trying to Get You

When a person speaks out against abuses and stupidity, like TSA's daily gropathons, as one example, it is expected that one will not earn friends in high places. When a person speaks out against the "religion of peace" as I have, it should surprise no one that I might have ruffled a few feathers here and there. I have been writing this blog for two and a half years now, and I note that my readership includes people from countries like Iran, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain (welcome), Germany (??) and a few others. But most of you are here in the USA. So, for my USA readers, the Survival Blog has an interesting piece by law enforcement officer warning to Beware of Homeland Security Training. This is what our local police are being trained in by our government. In other words, your and my tax dollars are being used to turn you and me into criminals.  Are you as offended by this as I am?

So how does a person qualify as a potential domestic terrorist? Based on the training I have attended, here are characteristics that qualify:

He goes on the list of number of items such as expressions of libertarian philosophies, Second Amendment oriented views and membership in the (gasp) NRA, stockpiling food, water, medical supplies and purchasing gold or silver, religious views concerning Revelations, fear of Big Government, and insistance on the Constitution as the basis for Government action. Now, while I am not a Libertarian, I do side with the libertarians on a number of issues. Of course, my Second Amendment advocacy is out there. Isn't preparation always considered a good idea? I thought FEMA encouraged people to stockpile stuff like food and water.  Do DHS and FEMA talk to each other?  Finally, any Christian who hasn't at least read Revelations and wondered what this apocolyptic book means, and doesn't want to make sure when the music stops that he is standing with God....just sayin's all.

Look, if a police officer buys into this stuff, he will be seeing Domestic Terrorists all over the place.  And, sure enough, they provide some helpful tips on how to make a criminal out of someone lawfully going about his business:

Methods of developing evidence of terrorist activity from virtually any search have also been discussed. Various common materials which may be associated with homemade explosives are listed, such as lengths of pipe, gunpowder, matches, flammable liquids and fireworks. Officers are told when these items are found, they can be listed as “bomb making materials”. The training even goes so far as to instruct officers that the items are cleverly disguised as legitimate, such as gasoline stored near a lawn mower, pipes stored in a shop building or gunpowder stored with reloading materials.

One course I attended used the example of a person employed as a plumber being the target of a search warrant. In this example, the officers were told how to use his employment as a plumber as further evidence of terrorism. The suspect’s employment would be described as an elaborate scheme to justify possessing pipes and chemicals so as to have bomb making materials readily available. Based on this example, all plumbers are potential pipe bomb makers. All gun dealers are plotting to provide arms to gangs or terrorists. All pest control companies are preparing mass poisonings. By using this logic, simply having the ability to do something criminal automatically makes the person guilty of plotting the crime. With all the various methods of manufacturing methamphetamine, it would also be easy to claim that a disassembled clandestine drug lab was located during the search. In other words, it is easy to frame anyone for possessing bomb making materials (or other crimes) if the officer knows what items to list in the report and how to link these items to terrorism.

So, the DHS wants to be able to turn virtually anyone they desire into a criminal. Once upon a time in the country, to insist that the Government follow Constitutional procedures, and that each person recieved those natural rights protected by that Constitution was considered a patriot. When I was a young man, such a person would have been considered simply a crank. To now be considered a domestic terrorist flips the system on its head.  Can anyone look at this and not think we are heading towards a Fascist dictatorship?

Drill, baby, drill!

You would think a television channel like the History Channel would be one place where you could go to get balanced information. However, sadly, you can not. I was watching a program from the Universe series this week, that showed how life might have spontaneously begun on Earth. Now, I acknowledge that the theory of spontaneous genesis is one possibility, but it is not the only one. The question not asked was this: if elements spontaneously combined to produce the first living things, why is that not happening somewhere in the world today? There could be a number of plausible reasons, but asking the question would have brought out the fact that in truth science has no idea how life appeared on this planet, or why. Other programs often present the current efforts, so far fruitless, to find life somewhere else in the Universe. What one never hears is why science seems hell bent on finding something out there. I think I know why, however. If they discover at some point that there is life elsewhere, then they believe they will be proven correct, that we are not the special creation of a loving God, but just one of many happy accidents in the Universe.

In any case, I was watching another History International Channel piece called Prophets of Doom the other night on television. The "prophets" all seemed to be unlikely experts. One was an ex-detective who had bought into idea of "peak oil" and combined this with neo-malthusianism. Another was a journalist who had covered the petroleum industry for most of his career and had bought into, you guessed it, "peak oil." The most down to earth guy was actually the former hedge fund manager, but he too had been infected with the idea of "peak oil" and neo-malthusianism. Of course, just to really scare the pants off of you, they had an environmental activist telling us that we were running out of water too.  Now, just so we are clear, the theories of Malthus have been thoroughly debunked by Economist Julian Simon (RIP.)

Peak Oil is the idea that at some point, a country will be pumping the most oil it will ever pump, and after that, it is all down hill. Malthusianism is the philosophy that, just like other species, humans will reproduce up to the point where they run out of resources, and then catastrophically begin to die off. You can guess where this program was headed. Of course, nobody seemed to question either assumption. Because the United States had pumped the highest amount of oil to date back in the 1970s, that amount was assumed to be "peak oil" for the U.S. Nobody knows for sure, but it is believed that the Saudis have reached their "peak oil," as have most of the oil producing nations around the world. Combine that with the fact that the population is still rising and you have your doom and gloom.  It is certainly one theory, but it partakes of the typical Malthusian conceit, that we will just continue doing things the way we have always done them.

Notice that no engineers, or scientists, or oil industry experts were consulted in the making of Prophets of Doom If the had, we might have gotten something like The Only Way Out for the American Economy by Steve McCann at the American Thinker yesterday.  McCann points out that through improvements in technologies on a number of fronts, America sits on an estimated 300 years worth of oil and natural gas.

The Bakken Fields in North and South Dakota. New drilling and oil recovery technology is making the capture of this oil feasible and some development is now underway. It is estimated that there is at least 200 Billion barrels of oil in this region. At a price of $100 per barrel the value of this find is $20 Trillion.

The Outer Continental shelf. It is estimated that around 90 billion barrels of oil sit beneath the ocean bed 50 to 100 miles off the shore of the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. The value: $9 Trillion.

The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. About 10 billion barrels are locked up here with a current value of $1 Trillion.

Tar Sands: Around 75 Billion barrels of oil could come from these areas which are similar to the Canadian tar sand fields and which now produce about 2 million barrels per day. The value: $7.5 Trillion

Oil Shale. This is the most massive area of potential oil production in the world with an estimated 1.5 Trillion barrel potential. The technology necessary to extract this oil is now in place and being operated on a pilot project basis. The value of this resource: $150 Trillion

That is just the oil. If we also take advantage of natural gas and coal supplies we may buy ourselves perhaps 400 to 500 years to find an alternative to oil.  Note too that oil and natural gas do not need subsidies.  People readily buy oil products because they are the cheapest available, and they work.  Solar and wind on the other hand are not reliable, and expensive, even with subsidies. As an example, the market for a car like the Chevy Volt is extremely limited. Even if one never takes cross country trips by automobile, and never has more than a few small items to carry, many people drive more than twenty miles from their home on weekends for various reasons. The only reason a person might settle for a Volt is if they believed oil would not be available. But we know it is available, and that the shortage is being artificially created to make certain constituencies richer, at the expense of everyone else.  We need to stop pandering to the Gaia worshippers, and start drilling.

Update: Right on que, Francis Porretto at Eternity Road has put it in a nut shell, as usual. 

Collective Punishments

Courtesy of Tamara K from View From the Porch comes this priceless piece from Oleg Volk entitled Collective Punishments.

Bolsheviks and Nazis alike practiced collective punishment. The Reds would take hostages against “good behavior” of residents of a town and shoot them if any resistance was offered. Nazis would sometimes kill everyone in a town near which one of their troops perished. We look at such practices with abhorrence, though US and Allied bombings probably killed a few innocent bystanders of their own. As a culture, we don’t view collective punishments as acceptable…or do we?

When one insane man in the UK murdered a group of kids in 1987, hundreds of thousands were punished for his sins. British gun owners were deprived of their guns and not given a choice about it. That was collective punishment in its pure form, affecting only people who had no connection to the crime at all.

No doubt it would be sold here in America as making us all safer.

Overwhelmed

I have a cold, and like many men, I am a total baby about such things. You would think I was about to die. Since I am not running a fever, I am pretty sure I will live, but never the less, I feel a sense of ennui.

There is so much in the news to comment about, that keeping up with all of it, and making useful comments seems an overwhelming task. The unions protesting in Wisconsin against the Governor's plan to require that they pay some of the costs of their benefits is one that simply defies belief. Here we have teachers standing along side socialist and communist organisations, throwing a hissy fit because they are going to be asked to pay a part of their health plans and retirement. Everyone else does. Teachers felt it was OK to shut down the schools, and to use their students as props, and to get fake doctor's excuses to do so. What sort of ethical standard does that make for the children to emulate? What message does it send to have them standing with socialists and communists.  Communists and Fascist regimes were responsible for an estimated 130 million murders of their own people in the 20th century.  How do they justify standing with such people?  While the Left has been calling for "civility" from the right, where it has gotten nothing but civility, what message does it send to students to see their teachers making threats and rude comments to lawmakers on the television?  Perhaps they should all be fired, and Wisconsin should start over.

The Project Gunwalker scandal has reinforced for me my take on Government in general. Namely that it is the biggest, toughest bunch of thugs out there. You can find my personal beliefs about what government is at Of Government and Being Conservative. But the complete, and very public lawlessness of what ATF has done is staggering. In the process of sending guns into Mexico deliberately, they have violated our laws, violated international treaties, violated Mexican law, been responsible for one, maybe two murders, and that is just the start. The cover-up, as always, has led to violations of more laws. The DOJ looks to be running out the clock on Senator Grassley, and they just might succeed. Despite the heroic efforts of David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh to keep the story going, I fear the ATF will get away with it, which will embolden it to more thuggish behavior. I urge anyone who may be concerned to write their Senators ask them to hold hearings on Project Gunwalker. You can find the details at The National Gun Rights Examiner page.

Then there is the utter ignorance in Kaylee Dodson's letter to editor, found at Keep and Bear Arms. Ms. Dodson, writing to the Standard Examiner claims:

Elias makes a good obvious suggestion that would protect schools from such events as the Columbine shootings. The Second Amendment does protect the right to bear arms, but in it may also take away others rights to confidently attend school in safety. It could be argued that one might not see a 'Gun-free Zone' sign and therefore wander into that zone without being aware. How many times has a person been pulled over by a cop because they failed to 'observe' a stop sign or a red light? The warning is there, it's your job to see it. Much like a No Smoking sign, I feel that setting up gun-free zones can help protect those who do not wish to be subject to the dangers that come with the prohibited action. We don't all make the same choice to carry a weapon or smoke a cigarette and therefore shouldn't all be exposed to the fire that may follow.

The only way that a person can be confident of his or her safety is if he or she is prepared to enforce that safety against someone who might try to violate it. The putting up of signs, whether they are  "gun free zone" signs, or "no smoking" signs, only stops those inclined to obey them. But these are not the people you need to be worried about. The people you need to be worried about are the people who would violate those signs with the intent to do you harm.  I say this with complete respect for the tough job the police do, but if that day ever comes, when seconds count the police will be minutes away.  You may not like to be around people carrying guns, but if a criminal brings a gun on campus despite the signs, you wouldn't know it until he decides to draw and start shooting.  That's the reality.  So, your confidence in your safety is in fact only an illusion, smoke and mirrors to lull you into such a state.  You can remain in your state of arrested development, but I advise that you grow up and see the world as it truly is.  Begin looking out for yourself.  Buy a gun, learn how and when to use it, and carry it with you everywhere you go.  And stop putting up roadblocks to others who have already grown up.

Now, for those who have grown up, there was a post over at the Truth About Guns entitled Self Defense Tip: Just Because You're Shot Doesn't Mean You're Dead. It is definitely worth thinking about. What if you get shot in a confrontation?  According to Robert Farago, most people survive gunshot wounds, which means your assailant has likely survived and you need to keep an eye out not only for further assaults from him, but his possible friends as well.  Please read, and think about what you might do.

We Are All Fascists Now

My fellow blogger, and a man I respect, Francis Porretto left a comment to my post entitled This and That last Thursday here. I had not read Garet Garret's work before that I was aware of, but I had known the gist of it from studying other authors. For reference, Garret's piece entitled The Revolution that Was? is located at Lew Rockwell. Garret's point is that we have lived in a Fascist State for 80 years! Four generations. I would actually place the date somewhat earlier, in 1913, which puts it 98 years ago. It has been a soft Fascism to date, what Jonah Goldberg called Liberal Fascism. Most people didn't much notice, but we have not had a "free market economy" in years. With the ratification, in February of 1913, of the 16th Amendment, the slow process of destroying our property rights began, and with our property rights, our freedom and liberty went too.

A tax on income is a tax on a your very life, the hours of your days.  Most of us are paid based on how many hours we work.  But even salaried people can break down their salary by the number of hours they work during the year and come up with an amount per hour.  Every pay day, a person can look at his pay stub and see the amount of taxes taken out.  Every April 15th, you can look at your tax return, and figure out what percentage of your life you were allowed to work for yourself and your family, and what percentage Master took.  That is the portion of your life that is taken from you by government.  It is like they are cutting off a little piece of you.  But worse is the presumption behind the notion of taxing your sweat and toil, for in taxing your income, the Government presumes that your money, that you traded your life for, is really theirs.  We often talk about the fact that legally, Congress represents us, we don't work for them.  But the income tax puts the lie to that theory.  The fact is, we do work for them, and they have become our masters.

I have bemoaned the slow loss of liberty that has taken place in the nearly sixty years I have been on this earth.  When I was a kid, many of us boys had pocket knives, which we carried everywhere with us, even to school (!)  It was our father's job to decide at what point a boy learned the basics of knife etiquette and care, and not the school board's job.  It was a mother's job to feed her children, and not the President's wife's job to tell her what to feed them.  James Brovard has detailed the loss of liberty that has occurred in this country in a now dated book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberties. The book was published in 1994, but the problems cited then have only grown more entrenched since then.  You see, the mistake that the Fascists made was not that they were in effect ruling us, but that under Obama, they did so nakedly, for all to see.  Obama dispensed with the legal niceties and let us see who really is in charge.

But, if the Government actually owns your income, and thus your life, why not infringe your liberties? Why can't they tell you and me that we can't carry a weapon for our own defense? Why can't they tell us what to eat, and what not to eat? After all, unhealthy habits such as smoking affect us all, since we all pay for healthcare. Like a slave or a serf, your bodies are not really your own, so why can't they see your naked form, and pat you down at the airports?  You have no dignity, you are only a serf.  And who are we to cry about liberty; we who toil daily for the State; we who own nothing and whose lives the State suffers at its own discretion.  We the serfs.  And they are right.  Until we are prepared to live as free men, and suffer the fate of all those who have come before who lived as free men, we do not deserve it.

Update:  Today at the American Thinker, Selwyn Duke has a good article bearing on this topic entitled The Nanny Staters at Life's Dangerous Intersections. Go read the whole thing. A quick quote:

The problem is a common one. People instinctively think about achieving new levels of safety but seldom worry about losing old levels of freedom. And the result is not necessarily greater safety, but greater levels of tyranny. I call this the New Red Light Syndrome. This is because it's much as when a locality identifies the most dangerous intersection in town. The traffic planners, realizing that something must be done immediately lest a person who means so much to those around him meet an untimely end (as opposed, I guess, to someone whose demise is desired by all and sundry), erect a new traffic light as remedy. This does seem to make sense and is hard to argue against. It saves lives, right? The problem is that even if it does, now some other spot is "the most dangerous intersection in town." Thus, there can always be justification for another red light.

And this:

Of course, we do need a few red lights at both literal and metaphorical intersections. And if we want but a few, we must realize that old levels of freedom require old levels of virtue. But our nanny-staters are content to destroy virtue and make the whole nation a red-light district, a place defined not just by licentiousness, but also by license to do little but indulge it. Their government will change the signal to green if and when you can go. And you will be happy...and controlled.

This and That. Still Catching Up.

Thomas Sowell had a great article yesterday at American Thinker entitled New Heroes vs Old. I can remember a time when Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller were regarded as heroes. Many such heroes were lionized by popular culture for their contributions to the well being of their fellow men. Sowell:

Henry Ford's mass production methods cut in half the cost of producing the famous Model T Ford in just five years. People who had once lived their entire lives within a narrow radius of a relatively few miles could now go see places they never knew about before. The automobile expanded their horizons.

People today who complain about the automobile's pollution have no idea how much more pollution there was before the automobile came along. In New York City, for example, the 40,000 horses that were the backbone of the city's transportation, before the automobile, produced 400 tons of manure per working day, along with 20,000 gallons of urine.

Today what we hear is a constant drum beat of how these evil rich people exploited the poor, ravaged the land, calling up images of viking raiders raping and pillaging. Yes, I suppose there was some of that, but I suspect there was a lot less of this behavior than you might think. Some of it too was born of ignorance, as people didn't always know the damage they were doing to the land in strip mining for instance.  In any case, we should be grateful to these men who have made our lives better. We should also be grateful to God who sent such men, with these ambitions and talents, to make life better for all of us.  Instead, we have a bunch of pampered children who have never had to live with hardship moaning and groaning about what their fathers did.
_______________+________________________+____________


Obama, in his SOTU speech said that we should "invest" (code word for Government spending) in all sorts of things.  One of those things was $1 Billion for research and development of new drugs.  Now, didn't the drug companies themselves used to do R&D for new drugs?  Indeed, wasn't the United States the leading country for R&D of new drugs?  Shouldn't those who stand to make money from a product invest in the R&D to bring that product to market?  Thomas Edison certainly did.  That is the traditional approach in a free market economy.  But Mr. Obama finds that distasteful.  Instead, what Obama is doing is creating conditions so hostile to free enterprise that companies, realizing there is no money to be made, are abandoning the field. Then Obama comes riding in on the white horse, announcing that the free market has failed, so government should make these "investments." Of course, the free market didn't fail, it was strangled.  John F. DiLeo outlines just some of the ways that Obama is doing this in an article in the American Thinker today entitled Obama's Dangerous Export Inititative.

What Mr. Obama is doing has been called many things: crony capitalism, a thugocracy.  It is all of those things, but it most resembles Fascism.  The Government gets to set the agenda, and tell companies what to do, and as long as they do it, they get to make a little money.  It is not, however, a free market.  The upside for politicians in this system is that they can claim credit for whatever goes right, and can lay blame on the (not so) free market for any failures.  But in the process, they will have enslaved us all.

Liberal Fascism: Socialism By Other Means*

I discussed a situation, which I viewed as dire, on 22 December 2010 in a post entitled Another Power Grab, This Time by the FCC. My concern was whether we were now unequivocally diving into dictatorship, and what that meant for liberty. Today, an article at the American Thinker entitled Socialism By Other Means by Aaron Gee caught my eye because it tangentially deals with the same ideas. What could he mean "by other means." It seemed to me that Reid and Pelosi, along with Obama had rapidly finished the job started by FDR, and continued by LBJ to turn the citizens of this country from Freemen to social slaves. Lets look at the article in question:

As I pondered the direction our Government had taken over the previous year, I looked at the definition of socialism by typing "define: socialism" into Google. The first definition presented was from Princeton's wordnet and read as follows; "a political theory advocating state ownership of industry." The definition feels woefully lacking.

Ownership denotes control, and the state is certainly getting into the business of controlling industry. Over the last year our government has exerted more control over enterprise via legislative fiat than at any other time since FDR's power grab during the Great Depression. From the thousands of pages of ObamaCare, to the thousands of pages of the Dodd-Frank "financial reform" bill, government power is firmly entrenched in business and expanding. The more regulations the state adds the more control it exerts.

Mr. Gee calls this style of government "Regulationism." I think it fits the pattern of classic Fascism.  Fascism has two distinguishing characteristics.  Unlike Communism, which styles itself as an international movement of the workers rising up against their capitalist exploiters, Fascism is a national movement.  Fascists often create, or manipulate local myths to strengthen their own ties to the people, and distract people from the fact of their slavery.  Hitler, for example, created the myth of the Aryan people, and borrowed heavily from the old Norse mythology to support it. Mussolini, on the other hand, pointed to ancient Rome, and fed the Italians a steady diet of what they had once been.  The other distinguishing characteristic is that whereas Communists actually own the means of production, and therefore the responsibility for the failure to perform, the Fascists have found a way out of that predicament.  Instead of owning outright the industrial capacity of the country, they just control it, and take the profits.  But if there is a failure, they can always point back to those evil capitalists.

Fascism enslaved not just the so called capitalist class, but everybody who worked for a living as well.  Any time you illegitimately take the money that someone has rightfully earned, you violate that person's natural rights and use him to further another's interests.  That is slavery.  Of course, you can outright steal from him, hold him up at gun point.  More subtly, you can get the government to do it for you.  So, if you are taxed at a different rate than you neighbor, whether because you make more, or you have more hair on your head, that is illegitimate.  If the government decides to tax certain legitimate activities in order to discourage them, that also is illegitimate.  The other way Fascism enslaves people is to limit their legitimate choices so that, while believing themselves free, they really are not.

Once a company has cleared all of the hurdles of getting the oil out of the ground and turning it into a product for market, the tax man comes. For every gallon of gasoline the government collects between 30 to 50 cents in taxes (18 to the feds, and on average 22 to the states and quite often 2-5 cents to a local municipality). In 2007 Exxon made $40 billion dollars in profit, but it paid $100 billion in taxes and royalties. In other words government made 2.5 times more from Exxon's oil production than Exxon and its shareholders did.

Good to see that government is on the case and sticking it to those evil capitalists again.  Except, they really aren't.  You see Exxon passed the costs of the royalties, taxes, and all the regulations on to drivers.  It is built into their cost of a gallon of gasoline.  YOU paid, not them.  Exxon was merely the tax collector for the State.  To the degree you paid too much for gasoline, you had less discretionary cash to spend for other things.  In other words, by stealing your money, they have also stolen your liberty.  But hey, it was done for a noble cause.

It has been said that our Constitution creates a capitalist, free market society.  It does no such thing.  Rather, unlike Marxism, which is concerned exclusively with materialism, and who gets what stuff, the Constitution is concerned with maintaining the liberty of the people.  A necessary part of that is scrupulously maintaining their individual rights in contracts and property.  We have let too much slip away through clever language that encouraged muddled thinking.  Aaron Gee again:

The goals of regulationism and socialism are the same, control over a company or business. The end result of regulationism and socialism is also the same, a lifeless economy filled with uncompetitive businesses. November's election wasn't just a rejection of a political party, or a fight over personal taxes; it was also the rejection of regulationism.

And here you have more of the same. By saying that the fight is between business and the government, the writer encourages you to yawn and go back to sleep. After all, you are not a businessman. But in reality, the fight is yours and mine. Taxes and regulations put huge burdens of excess cost on every product we have to purchase, reducing our discretionary cash and our choices, and our liberty.

* With a nod to Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism: A Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

The End of the Republican Party

I had to cool off before I could get my thoughts together about the lame duck session of the 111th Congress. So many things that needed more time, more debate, were hurriedly passed, such as the START treaty, DADT Repeal, and others. Frankly, I don't know why there is a lame duck session. These people have lost the confidence of voters, so having them decide issues seems unethical at best, actionable at worst. In any case, the Republican party did not cover itself in glory during the lame duck session, caving to the Democrats time and time again, when they should have used the filibuster to delay as much as they could. The American Thinker has a piece up entitled Is the Republican Party Finished? by Michael Filozof. Mr. Filizof believes that we conservatives are in the same position today as were leftists in the 1960s. He argues that we need to take to the streets, and take over a party as the leftists did in 1968.

Not so fast there, agent provocateur.

I have argued for some time that one of the distinguishing characteristics of Progressive/Socialist/Marxist/Leftists/Fascist/Communists is a certain lack of emotional maturity. There are means that are repugnant to a moral understanding of life, no matter how noble you think the ends may be. Peacefully rallying as Glenn Becks 8/28 rally are good. Rioting as...well take any riot you can think of from Los Angeles, to Chicago, to the Seattle, is not good. Property damage, people injured and arrested without a tangible goal being accomplished.  Oh, everyone knows you threw a tantrum alright. But what actually changed? The Left didn't take over the Democrat party as a result of the 1968 riots in Chicago. In point of fact, they took over, and purged the party of the moderates in 1972 under the banner of George McGovern. It was politics, not riots that got them there. It was also then that they began the Long March through the institutions. It is the Leftists of 1972, not the Leftist of 1968 that we must emulate.

Thanks to Dave Hardy, Stephen Holbrook, David Kopel and others, Second Amendment research and scholarship took a great leap forward over the last 30 years.  The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and others have advanced conservative scholarship in other areas as well.  Books like Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg have been coming out to wide audiences, and people are reconnecting with the real history of the United States. That needs to continue. We have made progress with our media on the Internet and talk radio. Our next mission, should we decide to take it, would seem to be to re-infiltrate colleges and universities.  Finally, one of the things we must do is commit to Constitutional governance.  The Left claims that we just want to tell them how to live.  For example, if we were following the Constitution, Roe v. Wade must eventually be overturned.  But we can not put in a Federal law that makes abortion illegal either.  The Constitution does not deal with that, instead leaveing such matters up to each individual State.

Let the Left flail and burn.  We have more important tasks to do to get the country back on the right track.