We will not see actual cuts in spending

Jerry Pournelle writes a very telling post entitled There Won't Be Cuts, courtesy of Kevin at the Smallest Minority over in the side bar.

I am taking a road trip, so won't be around for a few days. But this is what I fear we will end up with. Smoke and mirrors, but no real cuts. Or, and this is a trick I especially like, put the "cuts" in the out years, where Reid and Boehner can not be held accountable for them since no Congress can legally bind a future Congress. The Republicans will say that they need more people in Congress to get something done. Don't fall for it again. This is the same trick they pulled on us in 1994. We gave them more, but they betrayed us at every turn.

The Debt Ceiling Silliness

Or, what is the other hand doing while we are being distracted.

An article on the "Super Congress" idea floated by John Boehner (RINO, OH) at American Thinker by Robert Eugene Simmons, Jr entitled Boehner's 12 Member Commission Political Game gives John Boehner the maximum benefit of the doubt with his insane idea. Unconstitutional doesn't begin to say it.  But it will do.  Boehner is proposing to disenfranchise each and every one of us from budget decisions.  The underlying assumption is that tax money belongs to the Government.  In fact, tax money belongs to each of us, and we each have to have a say in how it is used.  Otherwise, why do we need Congress.  Save the money and go with the "Super Congress."

In one narrative, Mr. Boehner is trying to avoid the opprobrium that will no doubt be heaped on him come election time if he does not succeed in both raising the debt ceiling (allowing his Social Security constituents to be paid) and securing spending cuts (as demanded by his TEA party constituents.) In other words, he it attempting with his idea of a "Super Congress" to avoid blame that will inevitably cost him his cushy Congressional job.

Or, there is another possibility. Who does Mr. Boehner actually work for?

Yesterday, as I was driving to work in morning rush hour traffic, I heard a talk show host make a remarkable statement. I will have to paraphrase because I didn't want to risk taking my eyes off the road, or pulling over. Even here in Raleigh, rush hour drivers are crazed. In any case, this individual said that after much study of the debt ceiling issue, we needed to raise the debt ceiling because of contractual obligations the Government had incurred during the last six months, which would be defaulted if we did not raise it.

Hmmmm.

Now, as I understand the process, money is typically appropriated by one committee,known as a Appropriation committee. There are many such committees.  All of the Appropriations committees' various appropriations combined make up the budget. This is passed to the Senate, which may tweak them. If so, the two sides negotiate, both pass the same bill, then send it to the President for signature. But, before the President can actually obligate that money, (for instance, let a contract) the funds also have to be Authorized by an Authorization committee. The Authorization committee should be fully aware of where we stand relative to the debt ceiling. It doesn't matter how much has actually been obligated by the Executive, because he can not spend money that has not been authorized. So, where did this process break down? Did the Authorization Committee allow the Executive to spend funds beyond the debt ceiling, or did someone in the Executive branch obligate money that was not authorized? Mr. Boehner surely knows this, so who is he trying to protect?  If you answer that question, you will answer who he is working for, because he is not working for us.  I have said for a while now that Boehner should tell the President to go pound sand, politely of course.  He should not be afraid of letting the debt ceiling stay where it is.  If the President decides to not pay Social Security, then it is on his head.  If the President decides to default, that too is on his head.  We take in enough in taxes to allow us to pay our debts, and pay essentials.  What not raising the debt ceiling does is force a debate on what is and is not essential.  We have needed that for a long time.

If I am wrong about this, I wish someone would tell me how.

Liberty Sphere: Yes, Progressives Really Want to Control You

And they will if you let them.

Our friend, the Welshman, Anthony Martin, who also writes the Conservative Commentary for the Examiner, has an excellent piece up today entitled Yes, Progressives Really Want to Control You. Click to read the whole thing. A sample:

The reason citizens must have the freedom to keep and bear arms is that a large and dangerous sector of society does not obey any law that says you must not commit murder, or that you must respect another person's property, or that you must conduct yourself in a manner in which others are not harmed. Progressives sitting in their sanitized, insulated ivory towers claim to be ignorant of such people. But informed, free citizens know the danger and must have the means to defend themselves not only against threats to their lives and property but against oppressive governments as well. This is at the heart of the American experience dating all the way back to the Declaration of Independence. And yes, deadly force was used to defend freedom when it was attacked by totalitarians.

This piece, and I encourage you to go read it, illustrates fundamental difference in philosophy between Progressives, on the one hand, and Conservatives on the other. I believe a people must be able to govern themselves. Writing more, and more restrictive laws does nothing but make criminals out of otherwise law abiding people. If you write the law with that idea in mind, people will respond by making more adult decisions. If you write the law as if you believe people can not govern themselves, you will infantilize them and they will prove you correct as well.

Terrorists and Rebels Among Us

There are terrorists, insurrectionists, and people advocating the overthrow of the Constitutional Republic among us. But they are not those calling themselves Constitutionalists, who advocate for restoring the Constitution. So who are these people, and where are they?

I have been pondering the issue of illegal and illegitimate government, that is government unbounded by the laws established by our legislative branch, as well as activist judges who twist the laws and Constitution to say things the writers and the Founders never intended to say, for a number of years now. In the latter category, I would put the collectivist theory of the Second Amendment. We can read the writings of the founders, the Federalist papers on the topic, as well as we can read the Constitution itself, and it is pretty clear to all with an open mind that it was intended as an individual right. Even Alan Dershowitz, that progressive Constitutional scholar, has come to the conclusion that it is an individual right. Historians can look at a number of documents and ascertain that clearly it was intended as an individual right. Indeed, the collectivist theory did not arise until the 20th century, along with the rise of progressivism. Yet despite the relatively recent reinterpretation of the Constitution by progressives, it took thousands of man hours by scholars as diverse as Steven Holbrook, Dave Kopel, Alan Korwin, and Dave Hardy; it took the organizing effects of groups like the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and belatedly and unenthusiastically, the NRA; it took 40 years of effort by individuals fighting a seemingly quixotic battle, and it took having a Supreme Court that would listen and a spunky lawyer like Alan Gura to bring the case, all to prove what we already knew. Namely that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Here's something else we know: that States that require a Concealed Carry permit and that restrict that permit in terms of where and when you may carry are also infringing that individual right.

I started off with the Second Amendment because I wanted to show that this sort of thing has been going on for at least 100 years, and it is not just the scheme of the current holder of the Office of President, though that person has greatly accelerated the process. It is also not the scheme of Democrats or Republicans either. Both parties elected officials are guilty of loving power more than their country. The "Gunwalker Scandal" is only the latest, and in some ways the most egregious, in a long line of government actions that either break the laws set out for everyone else, or violate the Constitution that every elected official, and indeed every so called civil servant is sworn to uphold.

A quick review of the "Only Ones" files over at the War on Guns website will illustrate that many police officers have come to view themselves not as paid servants of the people they serve, but as masters whose job is to control us. In many cases, we find that the police have acted in ways that if a private citizen were to act, the private citizen would be arrested, yet they are found to be acting within "police protocols." We find in the Olofson case that the ATF acts with, shall we say, fluid standards and that the judges seem to assume that the prosecution is acting in good faith despite clear evidence to the contrary.  The TSA runs grope-a-thons and takes naked pictures of citizens, acts that if a private citizen were to do them on the street, would have him or her arrested and put on the sexual offender registry, and we meekly submit. Has everyone forgotten our history? the Founding generation would be shooting already.

Then there is the slow erosion of property rights, starting with the money you make by the sweat of your brow. Through inflation, the money you earn has slowly eroded to the point that a dollar today is worth only pennies compared to the dollar a person earned in 1900. There are rulings like the Kelo decision that made every one's home a potential target of some developer who wants it to build a higher tax base for the government. Then there are the countless environmental laws and regulations that restrict what you may do and build on your land, yet no compensation has ever been offered. The Supreme Court has even found that carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas that every living animal breathes out, and that every living plant uses for food must be regulated by the EPA, a decision that makes no sense scientifically, and which the government has no constitutional authority with which to deal. Rather, it is a move designed to put more power in the hands of the government.

In yesterday's American Thinker there appeared an article entitled Of Rebels and Rebellions, by Jeremy Egerer, that makes the case that it is not we, the Constitutionalists who are "insurrectionists" but they, the Progressives, who are trying to change the government.

It has been claimed, by prominent media outlets and even the American government, that right-wing movements comprise insurrectionary parties and that many conservatives are inherently opposed to the existence of our current government. But by following the writings of a man who greatly influenced the founding of our country, one could reasonably conclude that insurrection in America has already been underway for quite some time -- and that the conservative movement is not its main proponent.

Early on in this Administration, the DOJ tried to intimidate Constitutionalists into silence by publishing documents telling law enforcement that Constitutionalists were now terrorists. It didn't work, but for those not paying attention, media reports created a certain taint to anyone who talks about such issues.

But suppose that an official of the government were to act against the common good of his society by disregarding the established laws and infringing upon the man's unalienable rights. Such an act would remove that citizen from the protection of the commonwealth and place him again in a state of war. For any organization which seeks to take property or life without legal precedent should commonly be recognized as an outlaw party no different from any pirate or robber (sect 202).

Note carefully the events currently happening in Quartzite, AZ, where the police chief, with the backing of the town council, has taken over the town and is terrorizing everyone in it. So far, neither the Sheriff of the County, nor the State AG have taken action. Why have the townsmen not formed a militia and arrested these tyrants?

Locke argued that a man's position of authority gives him no more license than anyone else to act outside the law, just as anyone who has a greater chance of harming someone should be held by his neighbors under equal, if not greater, scrutiny. To do otherwise -- to grant authorities greater power to act outside their legal boundaries and to break laws -- would place citizens in greater danger than they were in before they formed their society in the first place. For a man defending himself against an entire nation of individuals and small gangs would stand a far greater chance than he would standing against an authority who maintained a total monopoly on violence.

It is plain to all who read the Constitution that our governmental powers have been transgressing their boundaries for quite some time now, and that they have overridden the original intent our forefathers engineered for both themselves and their children. Of course, some of these advances into the private citizen's rights have been made incrementally, and with the consent of an increasingly lazy, litigious, and immoral citizenry...

Some general principles that ought to be taught to every lawyer, in every law school, if it isn't already, is that the law can not be upheld by breaking the law. If to uphold the law, one must break it, then something is terribly wrong with the law. No man is above the law, no matter his station, status, or authority. The President may not order the death of other Americans without due process. The Congress may not use tax funding to subsidize one individual at the expense of another. Nor can they force individuals to purchase health insurance, or broccoli for that matter. High sounding phrases, and noble intentions do not change the fact that in both cases they are stealing from you and me and providing the money to someone else. Federal agencies may not knowingly and deliberately allow guns to walk across the border, much less sell them directly to drug cartels.    To do so is the break the law in order to enforce it.  Our Founders would have seen this for what it is.

Jeremy Egerer closes with:

If the latter be America's leaders, and large portions of the American public be their supporters, then that is America's lot. Such a result is no fault of anyone other than a cowardly, ignorant, unrighteous populace. But those who oppose such traitors cannot be declared either outlaws or the true threat to our great American society. Rather, it is plain to all reasonable men that the opposition of illegitimate governmental pursuits amounts to nothing less than patriotism and self-defense. Indeed, under these circumstances, our very leadership, should it counter that patriotism, acts as a rebel force. So if Americans will not take their stand today for the protection of their God-given rights, it would not be unwise to declare victory for the rebels already.

Court Rules TSA Naked Scans Constitutional

Of course they did. Did you expect anything different? From Forbes.com we learn that Federal Court Rules that TSA Naked Scans are Constitutional because you can opt out of the naked scans and get a pleasant pat down instead. That the pat down is just as much of an affront to our dignity, and just as much of a violation of our 4th Amendment rights is overlooked.  It will be one intrusive method or the other, but either way, we are going to violate you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I am reminded of the mugger who corners his victim, then offers "I can either shoot you, or stab you.  Which way do you want it?"  Such kindness. 

Prosecution under RICO

Bob Owens has the latest summary of the Gunwalker scandal over at Pajamas Media entitled More Gunwalker Emails Suggest Gun Control Conspiracy. It is a good read, and an excellent summary. Unfortunately, it does not give credit where it is due, namely David Codrea (The War on Guns) and Mike Vanderboegh (Sipsey Street Irregulars). I remain in awe of Mike's ability to get sensitive information out of ATF.

Bob Owens:

Chait was asking Newell to use tracing data to support an initiative supported by the administration to require the reporting of multiple rifle sales.

If that sounds familiar, it should; this week, President Obama pushed an executive order — an end-run around Congress – stating the feds will now require the reporting of multiple rifle sales within a five-day period. That the office of the presidency lacks the constitutional authority to enact such a rule seems irrelevant to this administration, which is certain to see this edict challenged in court if the ATF attempts to enforce it.

The emphasis is mine. This President, and his administration, have no respect for the laws of this nation, no respect for the Congress, and since they were elected by the people, no respect for the people of the United States.  To our "Most Wise Anointed One", we are just a bunch of rabble who need to go back and play with our toys, while the "Professional Politicians" solve our problems for us.  What nonsense.

Owen again:

Every component of federal law enforcement within the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security — and most likely with the knowledge of the Department of State — undertook a massive operation designed to facilitate the flow of thousands of weapons into the hands of some of the most vicious criminal organizations on Earth. These operations likely took place with the full knowledge of cabinet level officials, and possibly the White House. The weapons “walked” were used to gun down innocent men, women, and children, not to mention the brave police officers and soldiers in each nation trying to wage peace.

It demands a criminal investigation and the possible RICO prosecution of dozens of federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, senior management, political appointees, and possibly elected officials.

Our federal law enforcement apparatus became a criminal conspiracy. This was an assault on the democratic rule of law and the very essence of our republic.

Some of these people may actually believe that the presence of guns is the problem, and not the fact that Mexico is a kleptocracy that doesn't recognize the Mexican peoples' natural rights. Maybe. But they have succumbed to the totalitarian temptation very quickly. They are manufacturing "evidence" and writing illegal laws that will enable them to control, not the guns, but the law abiding people on this side of the border.  That is always the way, isn't it:  in order to stop some criminal bastard, miraculously they put the burden on the law abiding citizens, and not on the criminals who in any case just ignores the laws.  And they do it over and over and over.  At some point, one has to note that such "incompetence" always seems to make your and my life more difficult while seeming to make the criminal's life easier.  Do you see a pattern?  It is not about guns, it is about control.  Our government does not trust the average citizen to use guns responsibly.  That is the problem.

Update:  From the Klamath Falls Herald and News comes this letter to the editor. It is pretty direct and to the point:

This is an astonishing development when the very agency that will be charged with the administration of the new regulation was responsible for permitting the felonious sale and transportation of firearms to Mexico.

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.