Obama's Thugs

From the American Thinker today comes an article by Kyle-Anne Shiver entitled Obama and the Thugs. You need to read the whole thing and look at all of the links, as she is not making this stuff up. The White House has staged town hall meetings in which only certain people could ask the President softball questions. They have had "doctors" extolling the virtues of single payer health care, only to be shown later that they weren't really doctors. They have sent goons to beat up ordinary citizens who speak out. Congressmen have bussed in people to fill up town halls in order to deny their constituents entrance. What is going on?

Of course, this is not the first time in history that playing politics has been a contact sport. The answer I suspect may be to have our own security forces at these events. Not armed, but trained in "persuasion" to act against the goons. The other thing is to have plenty of video cameras recording so these guys can be identified and outed at the very least.

Meanwhile, I found this somewhat amusing. Hitting home just how mean spirited the "tolerant" side is, and how "unjust" the people who are always looking for "justice" can be there is this piece also from the American Thinker today by C. Edmund Wright calling for those who oppose ObamaCare to go to the floor of the Senate and deliver a speech in the same vein as the "Liberal Lion" did against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Of course, in this case, they would be telling the truth. Hmmm....

If Liquor were Treated like Guns

Marc Folco has an excellent piece in the South Coast (Massachusetts) Today for August 23, 2009 entitled Open Season: A new twist on the liquor license. It really is must read. Thanks to David Codrea for bringing it to my attention via the War on Guns.

In the article, Marc uses government statistics to make the point that alcohol kills far more people each year through drunk driving and diseases associated with consuming alcohol than are killed with guns. So, rather than implement more gun control, why not apply the same methods to alcohol control?

It's obvious that we need liquor control more than gun control, so let's treat alcohol and alcohol consumers — including myself, a social drinker — the same as we treat guns and gun owners. From now on, you'll need a license to buy and/or consume alcohol and it will cost you $100, renewable every six years. Before your license is issued, you will undergo an extensive background check, get fingerprinted and photographed and take a safety course that stresses the dangers of drinking, alcoholism and drunk driving. Balk at that? It's the same fee and procedure as for a gun license.

But wait! It gets better!

The background check is to see if you have prior convictions of drunk driving (DUI) or if you've been treated for alcoholism. If you have, you will be denied a License to Purchase and Possess Alcohol (LPPA). Also, if you've ever been convicted of a crime that was punishable by a two-year jail term (whether or not you served time), no license for you. Those buying liquor stronger than 80 proof will be required to apply for a Hard-Capacity LPPA.

Upon entering a liquor store, you will be required to present your LPPA and you'll be limited to one case of beer, four regular size bottles of wine (or two big ones), and a fifth of hard liquor per month. And come back in a week to pick it up. Don't forget about that seven-day waiting period. All purchases will be logged into a national computer database, so you can't jump from store to store or even state to state.

If you try to buy more liquor than your monthly quota, the computer will flag it and your license will be revoked and you will pay a heavy fine and serve jail time on the assumption that you are conducting illegal "straw purchases" for drunks, unlicensed persons and kids. It's the reason some politicians want to limit us hunters and shooters to buying one gun a month — they blame us for reselling them to gangbangers to kill their rival "colors" with.

He continues in this vein, citing proposed restriction after restriction, all to keep alcohol out of the hands of people who will abuse it. He doesn't quite go so far as to drag out the "for the children" argument, but he does make the case that buying alcohol would become a pretty oppressive thing to do, and that there are enough "gotcha" provisions that only the truly intrepid would attempt it. The cleverness of this piece is to make the reader empathize with how the legal gun buyer and owner is made to feel like a criminal, and to point out the many ways that the legal gun owner is put in jeopardy for failure to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees.

The really galling part is that every gun owner knows that these laws have no effect on criminals, who, not surprisingly, don't obey laws. Gun owners suspect that the legislators know that too. This suspicion in turn makes gun owners wonder if the legislators are really that out of touch, or is there a more sinister motive at work here.

It all sounds crazy doesn't it? Like a bad dream. But I'm not making any of this up. These are some of the same stupid laws that we have to follow — and some that are being proposed — for legal gun ownership. Now you know how we feel.

Left unsaid, of course, is that keeping and bearing arms is not supposed to be infringed. Yes, there are consequences to misuse, as there should be, but the restrictions in place represent a prior restraint, which is anti-constitutional. Why do people who are smart enough to see that, choose to continue to ignore it.

Anything you say to your doctor can be used against you

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to your doctor, along comes Sen. John McCain to snatch certain defeat from the jaws of victory. David Limbaugh has the scoop today in the Townhall.com column entitled Don't Give Obamacare a Life Raft. I had hoped after the election that McCain would skulk away, having violated his oath too many times, but especially egregiously with the McCain-Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform Act." But no, here he comes again, riding to the rescue of Leftists everywhere with a proposed lighter version of a single payer health plan. At this point, the best they can hope for is something they can call "health care reform" which will serve as a marker for future efforts towards a single payer system.

We can not let this happen, if we want to maintain even a shred of our liberty. Imagine going to the doctor and being given a Miranda warning.

OK, so Miranda warnings may be harsh. But you should realize that the most intimate details of your life may be probed, and will surely end up in a Federal database, where someone may use it, perhaps illegally, to discredit you at some later point in your life. Think of all the attention"Joe the Plumber" got from someone illegally going into his State of Ohio files and pulling stuff out to use to discredit him during the campaign, all because he asked the One a question. The press, because it fit their agenda, happily reported the information despite knowing of its illegality (and that the story should be exposing that illegality.) Doctors have a way of asking seemingly conversational questions like "so how was your weekend" then writing down all the details, harmless as they may be at the moment, to be memorialized in the Federal medical records database, there to come back to haunt you when you least expect it. It might be wiser to deflect the question than to answer "I was loading ammunition this weekend."

There's work to be done in NYC

I am afraid that this post turned out to be all too true. Arthur Frommer, the famous travel writer, had this post up on his blog suggesting boycotting Arizona travel because...horror of horrors...they carry guns there! I would add that I hope he keeps his effete New York travelers out of North Carolina too.

But the real action comes in the comments. Check this one:

Travel4Sushi - They are extremists because their behavior, openly wearing guns to a political event, is well outside the perceived political center of a society or common moral standards - part of the definition of Extremist.

So Linoge has made his case.

Appeal to the Constitution

James Madison is probably rolling over in his grave. The Federal government has long slipped the leash of his finely crafted Constitution. Obamascare is only the latest usurpation of powers by the Federal government. So much that they do is not Constitutional. Rather than discuss the health care reform proposals on their merits, which gives the Left a tacit reason to continue with them, we should be asking by what authority do they propose to do anything at all. Today, at the American Thinker, Andrew Sumereau has an article entitled Introducing the Tenth Amendment. The tenth is the one that says powers not delegated to the Federal government are reserved to the States or to the people. It's an important point, and one often overlooked. The States may impose a health care system, or they may not. But the Federal government is not empowered to do so. The Constitution was a delegation of certain enumerated duties to the new Federal government by the States. The States, in turn, derive their powers from the People. So, the People ultimately have the power, and the Rights described in these various Constitutions. Several States have passed resolutions asserting their Tenth Amendment rights. We should applaud these, and insist our own state passes a similar resolution. If enough States do so, it may even get through the incredibly thick heads of our "representatives."

Meanwhile, if we want to recommend something to our Congresscitters, who keep insisting that the "system" is broken, we could recommend they do something that is actually within the enumerated powers granted to Congress. They could force the States to recognize health insurance from any other State. That would be "regulating commerce between the States," and I suspect Madison would approve.

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.

The Repo Man

Robin of Berkeley is the nom de plume of a "recovering liberal" writing for the American Thinker. Today, she has an appropriately thoughtful piece entitled Obama the Repo Man at American Thinker. A quick quote to set the mood:

Cezanne painted most of his masterpieces as a senior. Woody Allen still cranks out a movie each year though he's in his 70's. McCain at 72 and Ron Paul at 73 held their own on the campaign trail.

and

We all know people like this. Maybe we are people like this. I know I am: I am over 50, and I struggle with a chronic medical condition.

After setting the stage, she goes on to explore what, in her opinion as a psychiatrist and an observer of people, Obama and the people around him are like. And she discovers an ugly truth: Obama, his advisers and "czars" don't like people very much.

In the world of Obama and his friends, there are able bodied people who can be used. Then there are the clunkers, the parasites and sponges. The welcome mat has been pulled out from under us; the Statue of Liberty is sinking.


For Obama, the only needy people are the invented victims, casualties of what Michelle Obama has deemed a "mean country." These sufferers deserve special status and help; for the rest of us, the sands of time may be running out.

For Obama, average people are a cancer on the world, a virus that must be destroyed. He likes playing "messiah" to the masses, but he really doesn't like real individual people very much. In her words, "Obama and his friends are the ultimate repo men." So what happened to Obama to stunt his heart so, to make him feel as he does?

Why in the world would the Powers that Be value an endangered lizard more than us? Because they look at the world through the lens of resentment and rage and only see good and bad, black and white. In their distorted world, there is no Truth, no Higher Power, no "time for every season under heaven."


There is no karma to work out, no crosses to bear, no grand design. The world is absurd, and they must reconstruct it, engineer a new and improved Genesis. Because they reside in the miserable, illogical world of the Self, they have no other path to redemption.

And there it is: they have to faith in God, no belief in anything higher than themselves. They never see the grandmother's joy in the fresh face of her grand daughter, nor the hear the hard won life lessons the grandmother teaches. In their great desire to make the world into Utopia, they never stop to think that God can not exist without the devil, that we may only know perfection because we have known imperfection. The irony is that "Utopia" means "nowhere."

When you view people as bodies that are utilitarian and disposable, your heart is as absent as the cold, metal tin man's in the Wizard of Oz. You are like the condemned souls in Dante's Inferno whose punishment was to never know God. To hide the emptiness, you try desperately to control the world.


But if you live in the Divine, then every day is a miracle, and human lives are precious gifts to be guarded and protected like newborn babes.


So, who is the next poet among us? The next artist, scientist, builder, adoring parent?


Who is the holy person in our midst?

Who indeed.