The definitive Gunwalker summary

The War on Guns: Word

You will have to click through several posts to get to the meat, but it is worth it. Michael Bane has the definitive summary of the Gunwalker fiasco so far. He ends his summary this way:

It's hardly a secret that I don't think much of the failed narco-state of Mexico, a country of peasants that has allowed a series of blowhard morons turn their country in something resembling one of the rings of hell. But one thing that strikes me as horrific, and breaks my heart, is how easily, how casually, a group of men in suits, in air conditioned offices in Arizona,, in Texas, and, ultimately, in Washington D.C., sanctioned the inevitable deaths of brown people in another country.

And they think it is WE, the citizens, who shouldn't have guns. How pathetic.

Who owns your land; You, or the Government?

The Declaration of Independence states that we have certain unalienable rights grant to us by our Creator, among which are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But the first draft of the Declaration had these rights listed as Life, Liberty, and Property. The artful phrase "pursuit of happiness" was substituted, but intended to include property rights. If you own yourself, then you have the right to trade some of your labor for rights in property. The property could take the form of money, or corn, wine and oil, or head of sheep and cattle, or it could be real estate.

We now get to see if indeed the people do have a right to property, or if the Federal Government, and the Environmental Protection Agency actually has effective control of the land you paid for with your labor by virtue of making so expensive to get justice, that there simply is no justice unless you are George Soros. World Net Daily has the story here. The Sacketts are asking that their rights to the court not be precluded because of unreasonable cost which they could never afford.

Under the Federal Clean Water Act, the Federal Government does indeed potentially lay claim to all the land in the United States. Of course they claim all the navigable waters. But many lakes are connected to rivers, which are navigable, so they claim those as well. The most controversial of their claims, and the one which probably affects the Sacketts is the claim of "upland wetlands." If you have a low spot on your property, even a man made low spot, that has accumulated silt from rainwater filling the low spot, you have an "upland wetland." that in theory must be protected. Protection potentially means you can not use that land as anything other than something to look at. You can't walk there, or mow it, or fertilize it, or...well...do anything but look at it.  In essence, you enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you get to pay for, and pay taxes on land that kept in the public interests.

"The reality of the Sacketts' situation is that they have been unambiguously commanded by their government not to complete their home-building project, to take expensive measures to undo the improvements that they have made to their land, and to maintain their land essentially as a public park until the property is 'restored' to the satisfaction of the EPA. They have been threatened with frightening penalties if they do not immediately obey; but they have been refused the prompt hearing they should have received as a matter of right in any court," Pacific Legal argued.

While courts have indeed upheld this claim by the Government, it is none the less a Constitutionally dubious claim, and one which is harmful to all that has made this country prosperous. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that private property shall not be taken for public use without due compensation. Since a person has rights in the land and waters on his own property, how is this not a taking? More to the point, if a person purchases land for a certain use, only to find that he has to maintain that property as a "park," does that not disincentive people from investing in the United States? What other property does the Government claim?  To keep the Government from doing what it is doing was the reason this provision of the Fifth Amendment was added to the Constitution.  Like every other protection of the Constitution, it has been whittled away, and watered down by interpretation, until it no longer exists.

Poll taxes were struck down as Unconstitutional because they denied many poor people, and blacks in particular, the fundamental right to vote.  If voting is a fundamental right, then how much more are property rights fundamental?  How much more should the Supreme Court uphold property and its corollary, contracts?  Yet the costs to get into court are so great as to preclude any hearing.  In the Sacketts' case, the costs to get into court are so great, that even if they win, they may no longer be able to afford to build their dream home.  You do not own the land, you rent it from the Government. 

Now, in fairness, I do have certain reservations that I will share with readers about this story. First off, the issue of any "upland wetlands" should have been resolved when the developers were developing the subdivision. These should have been clearly delineated on the plat when the owners bought the land.  One of the checks done to get a building permit should have been to see that contractor would not disturb any wetlands delineated.  If these things were not done, the Sacketts do indeed have a moral claim to harm from the developer, though how enforceable that claim is may be doubtful. 

Now the Food Police strike

Well, that didn't take long. ObamaCare is not even fully implemented yet, and already the Federal Government is looking to regulate what and how much food you can eat. The Daily Caller has the report in a piece on 22 June 2011 entitled Feds Look to Regulated Food Similar to Tobacco by Neil Munro.

If you believe that you own yourself, this should deeply offend you.  Countless people warned that if ObamaCare was passed, the Federal Government would acquire the means to regulate every behavior it wanted to regulate.  Here is the first fruits.  Rush Limbaugh has talked about it.  British Member of the European Parliament has warned us about it.  And to be fair, depending on what poll you read, between 50 and 70 percent of Americans were against ObamaCare.  Eighty-two percent of Americans were happy with their current arrangements, thank you.  But the Democrats passed ObamaCare anyway.  Why?  Well, because of the fact that the only way they could reasonably be able to control what you eat, what you do, where you go, and how you live, is by the excuse that we are all now paying for your bad habits.  Believe me when I tell you that it will only get worse, and that the craziest ideas will now have a hearing, and get a chance to shove their ideas down every one's throats.

And for crazy ideas, there are none crazier that those of the Center for Science in the Public Interests.  Of course, there is no science, and the public's interest is the farthest thing from their minds.  So let's look at the Center for Science in the Public Interests (CPSI), mentioned prominently in the Daily Caller piece.  Here is what Activist Cash had to say about this supposedly benign watch dog group just looking out for what is best for you. But in reality, CPSI is a scare monger group that, as Jacob Sullum of Reason Magazine says:

CSPI is driven by a “suspicion of pleasure without pain, of enjoyment unencumbered by fear,” argues Sullum. “That suspicion,” he concludes, “is the thread that runs through CSPI’s uneasiness about artificial sweeteners and caffeine, its dire warnings about fat and salt, its campaign against the fat substitute olestra, its hysteria about acrylamide in French fries, its discomfort with food irradiation, its condemnation of the imitation-meat product Quorn, and its opposition to alcohol consumption as a way of preventing heart disease.” (For the lowdown on many of these fears, see CSPI’s “Blackeye.”)

In fact this group is a actually composed of few poor benighted souls with connections to all the usual suspects: The Tides Foundation, a Soros money laundering operation, The Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has been taken over by neo-prohibitionists, the Humane Society of the United States, a false flag operation, Greenpeace, and others.  Their funding includes grants from the Tides Foundation and the Joyce Foundation.  Past grantors have included the Robert Woods Johnson foundation.  If the CPSI had their way, our diet would consist of three organically grown salads a day, hold the dressing.  But remember, even that "healthy" food will kill you some day.

Just as running will not extend your life, though some of it is good for you, so eating a spartan CPSI diet will not make you live longer, though you may feel like it stretches out before you to eternity.

Gunwalker Scandal: Why Charges Are Not Being Brought

Mike Vanderboegh has an interesting post up entitled Media & Congress the Big Legal Point of the Gunwalker Scandal: It Was a Conspiracy to Illegally Export Weapons to a Foreign Country. Mike makes some excellent points, and an excellent case that high officials should be brought up on charges. Yet nobody is talking about such a thing.  Even Mexico, which has been injured in this debacle, has not brought any charges.

Hmmm.

Oh, so that's why.  Go read the whole disgusting thing.

Jackbooted Thugs Step on People's Rights-People Say "Thankyou, can I have another"

Once again we read of innocent Americans being patted down and groped, their luggage gone through, and their rights violated in the American Thinker article of 20 June 2011 entitled TSA Now Storming Public Places 8.000 Times a Year, by Tara Servatius.

Americans must decide if, in the name of homeland security, they are willing to allow TSA operatives to storm public places in their communities with no warning, pat them down, and search their bags. And they better decide quickly.

Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow.

I am always surprised at how readily people seem to buy into this kind of "security theater," and how quickly they are ready to give up their rights for the illusion of safety. Nobody wants to push back, since that will involve some discomfort and inconvenience.  Didn't anybody object to being groped at the bus station? The guy ABC news interviewed was a pretty articulate guy.  Do the views he expressed represent most of the people on the bus?  Is this really so noncontroversial that ABC felt no obligation to present the other side, and is it truly that difficult to find someone to speak for the other side? Was there no opposing view to show? Or was this an advertisement by the State controlled media for the latest installment in the "Resistance is Futile" show.

First of all, there was no basis for these agencies looking at either the passengers or their belongings, by their own admission. There was no claim of a credible threat, no Warrant to look at either the people or their belongings. So, the first thing we note is a gross violation of peoples' 4th Amendment rights to be secure in their persons and papers against unreasonable searches and seizures. Where are these jackbooted thugs going to show up next?  At a checkpoint on the highway?  At the local Wal Mart or shopping mall?  Perhaps at your house?  Will they have similar documentation, namely none?  Will their excuse be that they are doing random searches of all houses, to see if their is terrorist activity, or if you might be hoarding cash, gold, or silver to seize?  Will they perhaps take your computer to look through at their convenience?  And what "incentives" did the TSA offer Greyhound to allow them to come onto their property and perform this little spectacle? Was Greyhound blackmailed with the "Cooperate or we will make running your business very unprofitable" line?  Was that all it took for Greyhound to agree to the violation of its passengers' rights?

If you want to know what a police state looks like from the inside, look no further than the Tampa Greyhound bus station.  But don't believe for a moment that police states only exist elsewhere.  They are building a very solid one right here at home.

Update:  According to this, the Texas bill to limit the TSA groping, at least in Texas airports is back. Let us hope for some sanity, and a return to common sense. There is a principle in this country called equal justice. Do you remember it from school?  It was taught to us old farts in civics. Equal justice means that everyone is under the same laws. Because a person appears claiming "authority" does not give them special powers. Only you can give them the authority to abridge your natural rights.

An Apology to the Curmudgeon Emeritus, and Fran Porretto: A Sunday Rumination

Francis Porretto, a writer whom I admire, and whose blog Eternity Road is on my regular reading list, wrote to say that I mischaracterized libertarians the other day in my post entitled Why I am a Constitutional Conservative.  He took some umbrage from that, and from several other things I wrote, or that the featured writer that day, Ann Coulter had written. Frankly, he was right to call me out on it.  I tried to respond to Mr. Porretto in comments, but Blogger kept sending me through a do loop that prevented me from posting. In short, I sent an e-mail. There followed a short exchange, but concluded with gracious reply at the Eternity Road website.

Now, I will admit that in answer to why limiting government is right, I did give a Christian response. There is great power in this particular argument. The Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights. If our Creator gave us our Rights, who indeed is anyone to take them away? Since the Declaration has stood now for 235 years without being successfully disputed, that makes the argument pretty solid.  Now, most libertarian thought that I am aware of starts on a similar premise, but makes the assertion that we each own ourselves. Either starting point eventually can yield the rightness of a limited government. Either assertion can be dismissed by those who wish to do so. But I admit that those who do not already believe will have less patience for the argument from religion.

I believe my friend, Francis, believes, as I do, in the fallibility of man.  But what of libertarian anarchists, and libertarian minarchists like Murray Rothbard?  At core, they must believe in the essential goodness of man, for how else are these philosophies supposed to work in the real world?  Then there are those who claim the title libertarian who believe that property and resources should be owned in common.  Frankly, I have no idea how that is derived from the premise that we each own ourselves, and I suspect the title libertarian is a false flag flying for Leftists pure and simple.  In many ways, the term has lost its meaning.  On the other hand, the word "conservative" has been abused and misused to the point where I am sometimes afraid to use it.  Conservatism grew out of the old Classical Liberal movement.  Conservatives wanted to conserve the gains made by the Revolution and the Constitution in human liberty.  Pretty unimaginative, these conservatives.  They were the guys standing athwart history and yelling "slow down, analyse the consequences both intended and unintended of what you are doing!"  But then there started to be fiscal conservatives (who were social liberals), and social conservatives (some of whom believed in big government programs), religious conservatives, neo-conservatives (communists who got mugged by reality and came in from the cold) and of course the ultimate betrayal, compassionate conservatives.  The KKK, skin heads, and neo-Nazis have been described as conservative, but actually are collectivists and belong on the Left.  Now everyone running for office as a Republican wants to call themselves a conservative.  The term has lost its meaning as well.

Fran, and you too Curmudgeon, I propose we call ourselves simply Constitutionalists. Oh, and yes, I have yet to find a point of disagreement between us.  Finally, I will try to do better the next time.

God bless and keep you,
PolyKahr

Gunwalker: Why is nobody being charged with a crime?

Here's a real dumb question for you, but it goes to the heart of much of the current terror raining down on the American people by their own government: Why is any agency of any government allowed to break the law as part of law enforcement? I have been reading the "Gunwalker" scandal that has been finally in the news lately, after getting very little traction for months. David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh raised the alarm when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed, but could get no news agency interested. Finally, Codrea got one of the whistle blowers in touch with Senator Grassley's office, and a few news agencies began to take notice. Now GOA is calling for the ATF to be dismantled.  I agree with them.  The ATF has been charged with enforcing Unconstitutional laws.  Whether or not recognized by the courts, an Unconstitutional law is not valid (though of course you WILL go to jail for violating such a law, and rot in prison with the cold comfort of knowing you were right.)

The one thing that has struck me all along about this situation, and that nobody seems to be talking about is why we allow agents of our government to break our own laws? It is clear from the Issa hearings that ATF agents knowingly allowed an estimated 2000 guns to get into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels, when they could, and should, have stopped them. The AFT agents therefore chose to overlook violation of United States laws for which they were charged with upholding.  Doesn't that make them complicit in the violation of those laws?  Since the consequences were in some cases actual murders, then why are those agents, or their supervisors who ordered them to overlook these laws, not brought up on charges? If a someone gets killed in a bank robbery, the get-away driver who did not shoot anybody is still held accountable for murder, as if he had pulled the trigger himself. By that logic, the same should hold for these agents.

Now, before a bunch of Brady-bots get ready to blog about how hard a police officers job is, and how they need maximum latitude to perform it, don't worry.  No ATF agent is likely to be charge with anything, or even reprimanded.  Just as Lon Horiuchi was not charged with murder even though he did pull the trigger on an unarmed woman, just as the members of the SWAT team that killed Iraqi war veteran Jose Guerena was recently exonerated, just as...well, I could go on. The point is that time and time again we let police, prosecutors, law enforcement, and agents of the State off for doing things that you and I would be put in prison for doing.  So don't worry that some poor miscreant might be in danger here.  But we are not going to reign in our out of control government until the American people get good and "het up."

Editor's note "het" is the past tense of "heat".