Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Friday, July 27, 2012

Why Romney is a Necessary Evil

Many of us on the conservative Right (not to be confused with Republicans), Libertarians included, feel that voting for Romney is morally wrong. Many of us have voted for the "lesser of two evils" for many years, believing that Carter and Clinton and others would do more damage than a "left-of-center" Republican, especially ones who voted for gun control, such as Bush, Sr. and now Mitt Romney, and we no longer want to vote if it means we cannot vote for someone for whom it is actually worth voting.

We have never been faced with such a clear-cut threat of the destruction of America before, though. We now have a creature at the controls of the ship of State who is intent upon transforming America into a collectivist State, even if it must be done by driving her up onto the rocks of economic catastrophe and the destruction of our national security. A creature who was born to, raised by, and mentored by admitted Communists. The Left can make all of the references they like about Communism being dead, as Bill Clinton did when he claimed that no American Communist had been seen in over ten years (remember Van Jones, peckerwood?)

I have said it before, and it has recently been reinforced by an article at The American Thinker: He has maneuvered Congress, with the help of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, into providing him with the power to ignore Congress in furthering his agenda. For example, in Obamacare there are written permissions for various "Secretaries" such as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to mandate regulations and provisions as determined by his/her agency, as well as to deny services at the whim of the agency. So the agency could demand that doctors provide services to illegal aliens while denying the same services to anyone over 65, or who is a Republican or Libertarian, or who had donated to any party other than the Democratic Party. (We have already seen Republican Party donors target by IRS and other agencies, just as Guild Guitars was charged with a violation of the Lacey Act, while Martin Guitars - a Democratic Party donor who used the same source of wood that Guild purchased - was not.)

As the article mentioned above articulates:

"Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g. the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history. In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.

Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people."


It goes on to add:

"Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism. Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted."

It sounds trite to say, "This time it really is important to vote for the lesser of two evils", but trite or not, it truly is the most important thing we can do. It doesn't matter that Romney is practically a Democrat or that he voted in favor of gun control, or that he originated legislation containing a health care mandate in Massachusetts.

As bad a choice as he is, he will not continue down the same road as Obama. He will not work to dismantle our military, our nuclear deterrent, our national security. He will not leak vital national security secrets, will not provide Russia and China with details of our missile systems, surveillance satellites, or submarine propulsion systems (a Clinton betrayal). He will not seek to help install Muslim Brotherhood governments throughout the Middle East and Africa, while working for the downfall of the State of Israel, our only ally in that region. He will not sabotage our oil, natural gas, and coal industries, will not try to drive the costs of electricity and gasoline up to where many of us will have a difficult time affording it. Even more importantly, he will not work to hand our sovereignty as a nation over to the U.N., allowing them to determine when we should go to war, what we can do with the resources of our country and offshore waters, or whether or not Americans can keep and bear small arms and ammunition.

There are many reasons why Romney is one of the last people we should be voting for, but not as many reasons as Obama is the very last person for whom we should be voting. But beyond that, Obama must be defeated, because we have seen proof that he will ignore Congress, the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the very rule of law upon which our country depends for justice and for liberty.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Every Man A Felon

It has been said many times that the way for government to control people is to write so many laws, create so many regulations, that no person can escape violating some law or some regulation which provides for criminal penalties. In such a situation, any one of us can be arrested, tried, and convicted even though there was no intent to violate a law or regulation. Indeed there are so many laws, and so many regulations which provide for criminal penalties when violated that no man or woman could possibly be capable of knowing them all, even if he or she devoted their entire life to such study.

Even if they were capable of discovering where the information could be located - not all of the laws and regulations are available at a library or on-line - and read every word, much of it is written so obscurely that it cannot be understood, even by those who would enforce such laws or regulations. Think of how much of the tax code is not even understood by the IRS agents who decide whether or not you have violated any of it.

The Cato Institute has produced an article on this topic. Tim Lynch testified before Congress on the subject, as it pertains to an attempt to simplify Federal criminal code so that citizens aren't subject to criminalization when there is no bad intent (mens rea) or when the law is simply not understood. Worse, Federal criminal code is often so poorly written, in such a broad and ambiguous manner that Federal prosecutors can get people convicted in spite of the fact that they have not even violated the law - save for how the prosecutor interprets the law to mean something else entirely.

Most people in the "gun culture", as John Ross calls it in his book Unintended Consequences, will recall the case of David Olofson. He was convicted and sent to prison because a semi-automatic rifle he owned malfunctioned and fired more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) tested his rifle and initially determined that it was not a machine gun, because it was broken and had simply malfunctioned. An immoral and ambitious agent of the BATF had the rifle tested again, this time using ammunition with soft primers which were able to fire the ammunition even with a light touch of a broken firing mechanism. After repeated attempts, she was able to get he rifle to fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger, and then had a prosecutor charge Olofson with having transferred a machine gun into the possession of another person.

In spite of the fact that the gun was proven to have been broken, and the fact that intent to commit the crime was not provable (because the intent never existed), the court ordered Olofson imprisoned because the technical definition of a machine gun - as established by the BATF, not by legitimate Congressional legislation passed and signed into law - was met. So this young man was taken from his wife and small children and placed in prison, made a felon, because he had loaned a broken (unbeknown to him) rifle to another man.

The Cato article states the fact that:

In America alone, there are over 4,000 federal criminal offenses. Under the Lacey Act, for instance, citizens and business owners also need to know – and predict how the U.S. federal government will interpret – the laws of nearly 200 other countries on the globe as well. Many business owners have inadvertently broken obscure and highly technical foreign laws, landing them in prison for things like importing lobster tails in plastic rather than cardboard packaging (the violation of that Honduran law earned one man an eight-year prison sentence). Cases like this make it clear that the justice system has strayed from its constitutional purpose like stopping the real bad guys from bringing harm.


It goes on to say:


We face a Congress that puts forth an ever-increasing volume of laws in general, and of criminal laws in particular. It should be no surprise that as the volume increases, so do the number of imprecise laws. And no surprise that our indulgence of imprecisions that violate the Constitution encourages imprecisions that violate the Constitution. Fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the-courts legislation is attractive to the Congressman who wants credit for addressing a national problem but does not have the time (or perhaps the votes) to grapple with the nitty-gritty. In the field of criminal law, at least, it is time to call a halt. [Ed: “We have to pass the law to find out what is in it.” Nancy Pelosi]


Please read the whole article. It is a bit lengthy, but there is a lot of information there, with explanations of concepts that used to be common knowledge before Congress and the courts - including SCROTUS - removed them from the lexicon of justice.

Also, please consider going to FIJA.org where you will learn about the most powerful tool possessed by those would regain Liberty. Not a .50 BMG Barrett sniper rifle, but the principle of jury nullification. If it were understood by a large enough number of people and put into practice, no law or regulation created by Congress or a bureaucracy run amok could harm us.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

My Hero


Saw this a few days ago at Ken's web site, Knuckledraggin' My Life Away. Not only does this guy have balls, he also is intelligent enough to have developed the right personal opinion of the lying sack of sh*t we have for a Pretender-in-Chief.

BTW, this is one of three or more buses Obama spent our tax money on which were made in Canada. So much for providing jobs for Americans. The only jobs he is interested in providing are for cronies and other government scum, public sector jobs which cost us all (producers, not the entitled) money instead of private enterprise jobs which add money to the economy.

My understanding is that, thanks to legislation passed by Congress, any protest occurring in the vicinity of anyone being protected by the Secret Service is now a felony. This guy may have been subject to that oppressive assault upon the First Amendment. Courageous, if indiscrete, but I would have done the same, even at the risk of arrest. Just as I would gladly spit on Jane Fonda if I ever found myself accidentally in her presence and close enough to accomplish it. If not close enough, she would definitely get the same high sign and a few ungentlemanly words describing my opinion, as a Vietnam-era vet, of her .

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Our Collectivist Government


One of the primary differences - perhaps the defining difference - between the progressive Left and the truly conservative Right (forget "Republican" - that party is not conservative) is that the progressive believe society, the collective group of citizens, is more important than any one individual. So, if you wish to "improve" society and that means some particular individual must give up the hard-earned fruits of his labor, his property, that is fine and just. If an individual has to suffer the loss of his freedoms, his rights, in order to benefit society, that is how it should be.

The true conservative, on the other hand, believes - knows for an inarguable fact - that the rights of the individual supersede the desires or even needs of society, of the collective. Simply because there are people who would benefit from the use of his hard-earned - or even un-earned, inherited money or property - does not mean that he should be so abused. Taken to an extreme, simply because it would benefit society at large to do so does not make it right to enslave an individual, figuratively or literally.

Because the Left cannot see this, it is often impossible to come to any agreement with them. I have a lovely cousin married to a very caring and compassionate husband, a registered nurse who is an excellent husband and father, but who is a Marxist. I know that he would deny being a Marxist, but he does believe in the tenet, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." He simply doesn't understand that this was promulgated by Old Karl himself, or if he does know it, probably thinks that the old guy got at least one thing right. He is currently working hard to improve working conditions for his fellow employees at the hospital for which he works, as a union organizer and steward. A noble intent tied to Marxist thoughts and behaviors, collectivist values. He has actually spoken the old saw about "If you have two coats, and your neighbor has none, give him one of yours."

Unfortunately, he is also of the mindset that this should mean if someone else - not him personally - has two coats, that person should be forced to relinquish one of his. That, simply because it would benefit the needy (whoever gets to define "needy"), it is all right to take from one man to give to another. He has lost sight of the fact that the Bible and other religious and philosophical writings were meant to encourage charity, not theft by taxation, regulation, or governmental decree. To the collectivist, charity means taking from the productive to give to the non-productive, taking from those who earned - or were given by their loved ones - their property and handing it out to those who are either unable to earn it or choose not to earn it. What we conservatives know as the FSA: Free Shit Army.

Funny, isn't it, that most of the time, most liberals/progressives are more than willing to give your money to the "needy" but unwilling to give their own, even to the extent of avoiding taxes. I'm no fan of Romney, but he has given over 15% of his income to charity, while Obama has given about 1% (and that charity was probably a non-profit school for rappers who specialize in muslim poetry). In spite of the fact that almost every expense of Obama's is paid for by us (and therefore has no need to spend any of his own money), the taxpayers of this country. By the productive, such as Romney. Not by the FSA - who all vote for Obama. Conservatives routinely give more to charity than the progressives.

Further, as my older sister likes to point out from time-to-time, it was the Right in the form of Republicans, believe it or not - who rammed through civil rights for minorities. The Democrats - especially Southern Democrats, unfortunately, as most Southerners I know are pretty warm and giving people - were the ones who fought to deny equal rights to the blacks. And in this case, we are not simply speaking of a distaste for the Federal government telling the States what to do, we are talking about bigoted old Southern Democrats who tried their damndest to make sure blacks did not get to have the same rights as whites. Try to make most black folks understand that fact, or admit it if they are informed enough to know it to be true, and you'll understand the meaning of "futile".

Just as true muslims, true followers of Islam, will never coexist with infidels, so will no true member of the collectivist Left ever be willing to coexist with someone who believes - as the people who founded this country did - that the rights of the individual are not subject to infringement by society simply because it would benefit said society. That is why the Left is so insistent upon calling our country a "democracy" - an ideology that our Founders were convinced would be the ruin of our country. They established a Constitutional Republic, a form of government which respected and protected the rights of the individual against the desires of the collective, the larger group. So, for many, many years now, the Left has been pounding into young minds in school, and through mass media, that our country is a democracy, where the majority rules - even if it runs rough-shod over someone's rights.

The Right, on the other hand, is willing to coexist with the Left - if they would simply leave us alone. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." We would not obstruct the Left's actions insofar as they would not damage our rights, but the Left is not so generous. They expect that we should be subject to their wishes even where it harms us.

We on the right have to understand that, like a true, orthodox muslim, those on the Left who truly believe in "the greater good" are incapable of coming to an understanding with us. They are incapable of allowing us the freedom to live as we wish. They believe we must be forced, by law or by the might of the government, to do what they believe is the best for the collectivist group, for "our country". "Our country" as defined by the Left, of course. The Left wants a Universal Caliphate just as the muslims do, however, their Caliphate would be run not by imams but by the elite. People like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer. People like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snow. People like Barack Hussein Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano.

Sad to say, there is going to be a fight. I hope you are ready for it.

Monday, July 2, 2012

More on "SCROTUS"

Since my blog tends to lean toward offering information that will hopefully awaken some folks to the fact that our liberty has been stolen, for the most part, permit me to continue with more about the Supreme Court.

On this day in 1986:

The U.S. Supreme Court endorsed numerical hiring goals for minorities, rejecting the Reagan administration view that affirmative action be limited to proven victims of race discrimination


If that is not judicial activism, what is? Can you think of any provision within the Constitution, any Article which gives the government the power to create specific numerical hiring goals for minorities? How could the Court rule such legislation Constitutional? Is it the job, within the limited powers granted by the Constitution, for the Supreme Court to attempt to satisfy the socialist agenda of creating "social justice"? Of enforced "equality"?

Of course, this is no such thing as enforcing equality. It is a matter of enforcing preferential treatment, based on the view that a minority was poorly treated in the past. Indeed it was, but it should be sufficient to enforce equality, without enforcing preference.

As an example, I once applied for a job with the San Diego Sheriff's Department. As I already had earned my Basic P.O.S.T. (Police Officers Standards of Training) certificate, which requires having graduated successfully from a P.O.S.T. certified academy and having completed a minimum of one year of duty as a police officer or deputy Sheriff, it was considered a "lateral" hire. That simply means hiring a qualified, experienced officer as opposed to a new hire, who would require a year and a lot of expense on the part of that department to get to that same point.

I was informed, when I discovered I would not be hired, that the Sheriff's Department was required by law to pass over the first 100+ experienced people on the list in order to reach down to minority applicants - most of whom would have been expensive "new hires".

Now, I have absolutely no problem giving a minority person preference when we are equally qualified. There is enough compassion in my heart to want to provide that to someone who might need the job even more than I did. Not that my life has been a stroll through the roses either, but I know minority individuals often suffer a more difficult life. However, when I am significantly more qualified, I expect that I should be hired in place of someone much less qualified. That only makes sense for the employer. Now, if the department was filling a position for a liaison to the Black community, or Hispanic community, then the qualifications for the job would exclude me. But that was not the case in this example.

A year or so later, I was the top applicant for a job at the California Highway Patrol. Since they were under the gun to hire minorities, they hired the third most qualified applicant, because he was black. He did not survive his one-year probation, being unable to function competently in his position, so CHP contacted me and offered me the position. I worked there for over ten years before quitting to seek full-time employment as a commercial helicopter pilot (unsuccessfully, due to low hours as a PIC).

So, SCROTUS failed. It failed then, and it has failed us once again just a few days ago. In truth, it has been failing us, actually harming us since Madison vs Marbury. And that, my friends, was back in 1803. Considering that we didn't have a Supreme Court just a few years prior to that decision, I think I can safely say that SCROTUS has been screwing us over almost since its inception, in 1790 (when it first met).

{BTW, I will state here than I really am not a bigot or a racist. For those who will dispute that based on my hatred for muslims, please consider this: it is the adherence to Islam, the edicts of the Qur'an and the Hadith, that I hate, along with the culturally embedded abuse and disdain that muslim men practice upon women and children. Take that pseudo-religion and cultural imperative away from the Middle Eastern male, and I have no issue with them. Coptic Christians, for example, who do not genitally mutilate their female children, who do not beat their wives, or stone them to death, or murder their daughters for dressing in Western fashion or dating a boy of another faith, are men with whom I have no issue.

But the followers of Islam - orthodox Islam, such as the Wahhabists practice - are filthy, abusive, murdering and vile. Again, understand that the so-called "moderate" muslims are not muslims at all, since they do not follow the teachings, the Sura, the Qur'an and Hadith as Islam requires them to follow. They are actually apostates, and would be killed as such by any true muslim. So, in reality, I am only bigoted against the fake religion of Islam, not against Arabs or Sudanese or Malaysians or anyone else not connected with Islam. Which certainly absolves me from any claim of racism. If you want to accuse me, accuse me of "religionism" - although Islam is a fake, manufactured "religion" that was simply established to provide the privilege to abuse women and the freedom to rape small children to Mohammed and his followers. It is as much a real religion as the "Church of Scientology".}

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Roberts A True Conservative? I don't think so.

Reading "'puter's" post at The Gormogons labeled "Chief Justice Roberts Creates A Schrodinger's Tax", I am left a bit confused. I find Justice Thomas far more conservative than Roberts has ever been, yet he dissented from Robert's opinion along with Kennedy, Alito, and Scalia. Nonetheless, 'puter raves about how Roberts proved so appropriately conservative in his decision.

This is at variance with much else I have read. At Forbes, Avik Roy writes about something I have read in several other locations, that the dissent was written in such a manner as to cause one to believe it was originally the majority opinion, until Roberts changed his mind. If he was such a puissant and dedicated conservative, how could he have waffled in his decision? Why is it that Kennedy - who I would have expected to vote with the liberals - was such a strong supporter of the actual conservative members of the court?

Why didn't Roberts make the diminishment of the Commerce Clause a functioning part of the majority opinion, instead of mentioning it in an aside that establishes no possibly of precedent, that does not weaken the Left's construction of the Commerce Clause as their personal weapon for controlling all American activity, public and private?

Jan Crawford, Chief Legal Correspondent at CBS News - not exactly a font of conservative opinion - wrote an article detailing her belief that Roberts switched his views. As she had interviewed several of the justices personally, there is good reason to believe her statements are accurate. The outcome of this sad affair tends to logically support these contentions made by Roy and Crawford.

I also read at the Cold Fury blog some quotes from an article by Mark Levin concerning his reasoning on the damage done by Roberts, along with the notion that Roberts did not provide any substantive assistance in curtailing the misuse of the Commerce Clause that the government has been abusing for so many years and administrations.

So, as much as I respect 'puters erudition and insight, I believe he may be calling this one inappropriately and in error. My first clue was in hearing him speak of Roberts as a champion of conservatism, but I find other reasons to doubt his premise as well.




SCROTUS Fail


Ah, permit me my little juvenile word-play with the acronym for the slime who inhabit those robes, for the institution which has so exceeded and perverted the limitations imposed upon it by the Constitution.

I am not so naive that I believe even a 9-0 opinion of SCROTUS deciding that Obamacare was unConstitutional would have helped, but it would have at least indicated that there was some honor left in that group of maggots. Like all of the rest of government, however, it proves that absolute power (which they believe they possess) corrupts absolutely.

Please do not fall for the recent analysis put forth by numerous pundits that Roberts actually did us all a favor. He did not. His mention of the inapplicability of the Commerce Clause does NOT set any precedent whatsoever. Even if it did, Obama would ignore it as he has all of the other limitations set by the Constitution, legitimate legislation, and court precedent. He has proven that the law is whatever he says it is, and he will not be swayed by any factors other than his own desires.

An excellent analysis has been posted on the blog Cold Fury, titled "Desperation-2". Please read it. I am not a Constitutional scholar, but it appears to me to provide a reasoned explanation of how we have just been screwed by Roberts. Elsewhere, I read that the dissenting opinion written by Kennedy was written in such a way as to appear to have originally been the majority opinion, as if Roberts initially agreed but then changed his mind at the last moment. I find this eminently believable, and jibes (in both meanings) with the way Obama operates, bringing pressure to bear in the manner of an "offer which can't be refused," upon those whom he wishes to coerce in order to get his way.

This also begs the question of why the Republicans didn't force the issue of Kagan recusing herself, which it is provable she legally should have. That horse is out of the barn now, so it would only be a distraction to attempt it at this time.

Finally, I agree with those who have said that, even if a miracle were to occur, and Romney was elected in November, he will not repeal Obamacare. Who on G-d's green earth is foolish enough to believe his promises carry any more weight than all of the promises Obama made and then reneged upon? We are talking about the man who rammed through an equivalently mandated program when he ruled the state of Massachusetts. Once in office, I'm certain he could come up with a host of reasons why he just couldn't do it, all sounding so plausible and regrettable. We all know Congress doesn't have any desire to do anything to upset the Administration's applecart, and I have no reason to believe it would be any different with Romney at the helm. Yes, the Democrats would piss and moan and posture, but it would all be puppet theatre.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but wishful thinking on our part is not going to accomplish anything except to allow .gov to further molest us. We may not be in any worse position than before, but I truly do not believe we are in any better, either.