Category Archives: Freedom

Wow!

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I really should read the decision before saying a whole lot but my first impression is that this is incredibly alarming:



In a broad endorsement of federal power, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Congress has the authority under the Constitution to allow the continued confinement of some sex offenders after they have completed their criminal sentences.


Prisoner: “Today is the day my sentence is complete!”


Government: “Today is the day we start keeping you in prison without due process and ex post facto increase the penalty as long as we feel like it.”


[H/T to Chet from work.]

On my way

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I’m on my way to Charolette for the NRA annual meetings.


I made it through A Security Theater at Seatac with only a minor hassle.


Because I was checking a gun through in my baggage TSA handles the bag “special”. They opened up the suitcase, pulled out the hard-sided case with the handgun and swabbed the interior for explosives. The gun was in a side compartment and they didn’t even see the gun. They just wanted to swab the interior of the gun case.


What do they think that is supposed to do? Other than, of course, irritate me.

Quote of the day–JadeGold

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So how do you measure a “potential terrorist”?

NRA ballcap or decal.

JadeGold
May 6, 2010
In the comments to Bloomberg on the “Terror Gap”.
[And when 80,000 “potential terrorists” get together this weekend just think of the havoc they will create. And it happens every year. It’s time people realized we can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately have freedom of association…

 

Oh, that’s right, the people at a NRA convention are extremely well behaved. It’s when a dozen or more leftists get together that they frequently riot and/or destroy property. The leftist terrorist organizations (FALN, ALF, ELF, anarchists, revolutionary socialists, etc.) commit far more crimes in this country than all the conservative, right-wing (National Alliance, WCOTC, Aryan Nation), and libertarian (have there any been libertarian terrorist organizations?) organizations combined.

 

I guess it must be the mental problems of JadeGold causing them to engage in projection.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alan Keyes

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The only difference between today’s slavery and the slavery of the old South is that at least the plantation owners paid for the chains.


Alan Keyes
Presidential Candidate
At a speech in Orem Utah in approximately ~2000.
Via Richard Mack and From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 197.
[Most people in this country don’t seem to realize they are slaves. A typical attempt at refutation might go something like, “Life is good! And if the government would just give us [fill in the blank] life would be even better. We aren’t slaves!” I’m almost at a loss for words in such a conversation. Their own words refute their claim. When you have to beg your superiors to give you what you want with no opportunity to escape you are their slave. I have heard slavery defined as when more than “X” percent of your work output is taken by force and only the remainder is used for your food, housing, and other individual needs. IIRC “X” was in the neighborhood of 25%. Our taxes far exceed exceed 25% of our work output. I have no meaningful escape to freedom from the oppression of my “master”. I, in many ways, am a slave.–Joe]

It sounds like a good idea to me

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I haven’t read it but I like what I see here:



The philosophical idea of liberty and Capitalism reached its peak at the time our Founding Fathers were authoring the U.S. Constitution and its enumerated Bill of Rights. Standing repeatedly in the way of progress and human dignity, then and now, are the nihilistic philosophies of radical economic Socialism and its myopic mystical counterpart, violent religious fanaticism. Today, these two binary ideological forces are embodied by irrational terrorism on the part of Islamic fanatics in the Middle East (e.g. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.), and radical secular extremists posing as intellectuals in the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, the U.S. Congress and the White House. Together they form a political and ideological date-rape drug for liberty and Capitalism. The present work advocates amending Federal treason law to include the definition of Socialism as a traitorous act of intellectual terrorism, and prosecuting the legislative acts of Socialism by the elected enemies within the American government who would destroy Capitalism, end private property, expropriate the means of all production and manufacturing; ultimately destroying our American right to “…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Stripping controls from taxpayers

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From the editorial The Gun Lobby’s Long Shadow in the NY Times:



Senator John McCain and other members of the gun lobby’s cohort are pressing for legislation to strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls as owner registration and a ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles — laws already upheld by the courts.


First off, the owner registration and “ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles” was not upheld in the Supreme Court. My presumption is that they are talking about the Heller decision which merely said registration and bans on certain types of guns were not at issue in the decision.


Second, it is very telling the way the writer words things, “strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls…” It has not been proposed the taxpayers be stripped of anything other than “chains”. It has been proposed the local government be stripped of a claimed power than infringes on a specific enumerated right. The wording used is analogous to someone whining about proposed legislation that would eliminate registration of blacks and prohibitions against them being in public after dark after the 13th Amendment was passed.


Such basic controls are just common sense, right? It was foolish to pass the 13th Amendment but even if we accept it at face value surely no one can believe that it can mean that the people will be stripped of basic common sense Jim Crow laws. Can they?



Do you know that this will marginalize your side with the American people so severely that you will lose credibility for years to come?  Are you insane?  Or are you just really so blind that there is nothing, nothing, that you could ever, ever support to keep anyone, anyone, from [edited to “sneaking around after dark”]?


God. This one is so simple.  I cannot believe that you and your commenter’s can be opposed to this and call yourselves American patriots.  It’s put up or shut up time, [edited to “nigger lovers”].


Bigotry is an ugly thing. No matter where it is found.

Quote of the day–Steven F. Hayward

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According to the annual Freedom House survey of democracy and liberty around the globe, there was almost no increase in freedom during Carter’s presidency. Instead, both Iran and Nicaragua, principal targets of Carter’s human rights policy, became human rights disasters; the Soviets cracked down on human rights activists Anatoly Scharansky and Aleksandr Ginzburg; and Carter’s foreign policy weakness encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan. The aftershocks of Carter’s foreign policy failures reverberated most powerfully in the Islamic fundamentalist terrorism we have today. It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that created the mujahadeen, who revived the idea of jihad. More important, the fall of the shah in Iran gave Islamic fundamentalist radicalism an enormous state sponsor and inspiration and made being an American ally in the Middle East seem more dangerous than being an American foe. Carter’s idealism failed in confronting communism during his presidency and later in confronting communist North Korea. Carter idealism–if it can be called that–in the Middle East would have us side with the terrorist PLO rather than the democratic Israel, and would have us on a perpetual merry-go-round of talks aimed at appeasing Arab dictators rather than toppling them or challenging them to reform and cease sponsoring terrorism.


Steven F. Hayward
The Real Jimmy Carter, page 230.
[One can claim, with reasonable ability to defend the thesis, that Carter was a “nice guy” and had “good intentions”. But the results of his policy are just like the “nice guys” who have “good intentions” and want infringe our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. They fail. They fail because they are naive. “Bad guys” exist. Bad guys take advantage of the weak. It is, as George Orwell said, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”


Guns in the hands of the common person allow them to sleep peaceably in your bed at night because they can do their own violence when it becomes necessary to defend themselves and other innocent life. It is hopelessly naive to believe removing the power to do violence from the innocent will ever make the world a better place. At every level from the individual through city, state, and national level the means and the will to defend the innocent will always be a requirement for a safe and just society.


H/T to Davidwhitewolf who donated the author signed copy of The Real Jimmy Carter to the Boomershoot raffle. The inscription reads “Dear Boomershooter, Thanks for supporting the 2nd Amendment, Boomershoot 2010, and Project Valor-IT, [signed] Steven F. Hayward. I put many raffle tickets in the bucker for this book but someone else got it. They brought it to me afterward and asked me to blow it up for them. “Huh? Didn’t you read the find print on the jacket cover? It says, ‘How our worst ex-president undermines American foreign policy, coddles dictators, and created the party of Clinton and Kerry’?” Nope. They hadn’t read the fine print. I said that I would be glad to take the book and even blow it up for them if they really wanted that. But I would rather read it and use it as a source of quotes. They agreed and gave it to me.–Joe]

Scolding us about the TSA

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It’s nice to see this on the Huffington Post which I generally think of as a statist blog. From Airport Security and TSA — Isn’t it Time For Us to Grow Up?



Enough. America deserves better, unless of course it doesn’t speak up. We shuffle in cowed silence like passive zombies through the airport security lines, but that doesn’t mean we have to do the same thing once we are within reach of a phone or a computer. Grow up, America, you’ve been had. This emperor isn’t just without clothes. He’s a malicious streaker, and he’s running around town with the shirts off your backs!


TSA is an acronym for “A Security Theater”.

Typical

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Some incompetent religious fanatic tries to blow up the infidels and the would be tyrant politicians want to infringe the rights of everyone:



New York desperately needs more anti-terror funding and tighter gun control laws to guard against the next attempted attack on the city, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly told Congress Wednesday.


Bloomberg cited the handgun found in the van of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahraz. He noted new federal stats showing that suspects on terrorism watchlists tried to buy weapons more than 1,200 times in the last six years and were successful 90% of the time.


…


Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) backed Bloomberg’s plea for more Homeland anti-terror funding while breaking with the Obama administration on how the arrest of Shahraz was handled.


“I don’t believe somebody like Shahraz should receive Miranda rights,” Lieberman said. Terrorism suspects “ought to be turned over to the military justice system” Lieberman said.


Until a suspect is clearly associated with a foreign organization they are common criminals not enemy combatants.

Quote of the day–Say Uncle

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This would be catastrophic for a few reasons. First, a good portion of funds invested in the market are now government property. Second, if you tried to take money from folks’ plans, they’d just take their money out of the plans. And third, they’d probably kill you for trying.


Say Uncle
May 5, 2010
401(k) and union retirement
[I’m not sure about the first point. I’ll take his word for that.


I have some questions on the second point–money and most hard assets such as your home and vehicles are far too easy to trace.


On the third point I suspect he is spot on.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Glenn Beck

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To quote the president, he didn’t want to take over GM, but he had to. The auto industry was in a crisis. He didn’t want to take over the banks, but he had to. The financial industry was in a crisis. It was corrupt and on the verge of trouble. I don’t want global regulation but we have to. Remember the pitch for TARP? The global economy would collapse if it’s not passed. They’re saying it now again.


The stimulus, America wouldn’t survive if we don’t pass it. Health care, how many times did we hear that the health care system is in crisis? Cap-and-trade, energy crisis, environmental crisis, climate crisis. Oceans will flood if we don’t act now.


Each one of these crisis, there is only one benefactor. One. Who is it? Big government.


Mark my words, the pattern will continue.


Glenn Beck
May 3, 2010
Big Government vs. Small Government
[Barb sometimes complains that I depress her. Sometimes I depress myself too.–Joe]

Illegal Immigration – a Primer

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You can speculate over the notion that so many legislators over the decades proposed and passed immigration laws that they never intended to see enforced.  You can speculate over the intentions of said legislators, whether or not they’re evil or just retarded, or some combination of both, or whether they should be tarred and feathered or simply stripped of their citizenship and deported to Cuba.  There are some things regarding illegal immigration however, that I believe are not arguable (though I know well that most readers will argue passionately all the same.  You shouldn’t bother on my behalf, as I’ve heard it all before, more times than I can count).


One assertion at a time;


“They’re takin’ our jobs, Man.”  Uh,.. no.  First, you don’t own your job.  Your employer, and to some extent your employer’s customers, own your job.  Illegals are coming here, some of them, to work for below minimum wage.  They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t consider it an improvement over their previous situation.  American citizens also work for below minimum wage, under the table so to speak.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  Minimum wage and income deduction laws are the issue.  Government has no business getting between a worker and a prospective employer.  Peaceable, voluntary exchange is not a crime, since no one’s rights are being violated.  Repeal minimum wage laws and the sixteenth amendment, eliminate 95% of the IRS, and that government-manufactured problem goes away overnight.  Instate a fixed 5 to 8% national sales tax and all the legitimate functions of government will be more than paid for, given the massive increase in GDP that will soon follow, plus we’ll save billions of dollars, and countless productivity hours, on tax preparation.


“They’re using up government services, breaking the bank of local governments, Man…”  That’s a case of socialist services being used as a magnet to attract freeloaders and deadbeats (more socialists).  American citizens take advantage of the same goodies– more slowly perhaps, but with the same results eventually.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  The socialist goodie spigot racket is the issue.  If people are not being attracted by the socialists’ confiscated goodies, they’ll only come here for the right reasons, and in that case the more immigration the better.  More people equals more productivity, not less resources.  Turn off the spigot completely, remove the pump, dig up the plumbing, dynamite the well, and that problem goes away literally overnight.


“They’re comin’ here to sell drugs, Man, and that results in violence, Dude…”  (sigh) Did we learn absolutely nothing from alcohol Prohibition?  Seriously?  Prohibition’s primary legacy is the empowerment and enrichment of international organized crime.  Its secondary legacy is the encroachment and entrenchment of official government corruption.  Together, those two inevitable results are vastly worse than the actual drugs’ effects on society.  Government has no business telling any emancipated adult what they may or may not put into their bodies on their own property.  No rights violation, no crime.  That’s the proper test.  Eliminate all vice laws and that whole set of problems goes away almost overnight, plus we save billions and billions on drug enforcement and the corrupt sons-a-bitches in government will have to resort to more conventional crime.


Immigration is tedious and takes a long time, so it’s much easier to jump the border.  Simplify the process, which will be easy after the above steps are taken, and that problem goes away overnight.


Take those simple steps, and we can all get on with howling over some other man-made/government-created problems we’re unwilling to face honestly or with courage, or compassion, or tolerance.


Is all that too “extreme” for you?  Can’t handle the nation’s founding principles?  OK then, this manufactured problem will persist and grow and become far more expensive, which is of course the intention, and it is just one of countless examples of how, as I put it some fifteen years ago; every little bit of socialism requires just a little bit more.  Just a little.  Hope you like crap.

Hear Ye!

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I can’t call it the Quote Of The Day, because that’s Joe’s gig.  Instead I’ll just post it;



“I think public service should be an honorable profession, with high standards of integrity.  I don’t know about you, but I’m done waiting for these people [the current crop of politicians and their sycophants in media] to supply that which they do not have.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if we want it, we’re gonna have to bring it.”  —  Scott Ott of PJTV, referring to his recent decision to enter local politics.


Yup.  That’s about the size of it.  If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.  After all; you can’t expect a pig to write a sonata, no matter how hard you might wish for it.


Afterthought; We hear a lot of talk about integrity.  “This is a man of great integrity..” and so on.  OK, but how about principles?  Integrity doesn’t really tell the whole story, does it?  Cannot one have integrity and still be wrong?  Alright then, I want to see integrity and principles.  Alright; integrity and American principles (of liberty).  It’s all I ask.

Quote of the day–L. Neil Smith

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They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political philosophy — can be put.


If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.


L. Neil Smith
Why Did it Have to be … Guns
[I have tried to put it a little more succinctly but I suspect I will lose a lot of people with that. Smith spells it out concisely in a manner that everyone can understand. RTWT.–Joe]

A contrast

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In most states in the U.S. if you want to shoot clay pigeons you can go to Wal-Mart or any number of other stores, pick out a gun, fill out a form, wait a few minutes then pay for the gun and walk out with it and as much ammo as you can afford and/or carry. I considered the form and the wait an infringement. What would the courts say if there were to be a law requiring you to fill out a form and get permission from the government before joining a church (another constitutionally protected right)?


Even as oppressive as I consider our current laws it doesn’t compare to the U.K. when you want to go clay pigeon shooting.

Quote of the day–Oleg Volk

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These rolling hills are Irish-Green
But those who herein dwell
Have rifles that reach a mile
To send Cromwell’s hosts to hell


To them Ruby Ridge was a warning
An alert to the fair and free
Like other, more recent incursions
Against them and you and me


Enjoy rolling hills of Idaho
They look Irish but hold more lead
In case someday reason fails
And the living might envy the dead


The Federal hydra seldom
Comes into these rolling hills
To it the climate is noisome
Though the locals are dressed to kill


Plain are natives of green and beauty
Simple and rough their talk
But they have enough math to know
How far long-range bullets drop


These rolling hills are Irish-Green
But those who herein dwell
Though wishing for peace and quiet
In war would do rather well


To them you are valued visitor
By whom they strive to do right
Those who come in friendship
Need not fear the rifles’ might


These rolling hills aren’t Ireland
But a more formidable land
And despite all the Pharaoh’s armies
These people will win in the end


Oleg Volk
April 29, 2009
Of Idaho
[Yup. There is lead in the hills and I’m not the only one in Idaho to invest in copper coated lead.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Stuart Mill

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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.


John Stuart Mill
(1868)
[And those that would give up the tools with which they might fight for their freedom in the false hope that thugs and those that would take their freedom will give up their tools of oppression and become good neighbors are no better than those unwilling to fight for freedom.–Joe]

You ARE the Help

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The now infamous North Hollywood bank robbery has been analyzed every which way and beaten to death.  Dozens of cops pinned down and absorbing fire from two sedated robbers was a disgusting, pathetic situation.  But this isn’t about that.  Seeing the History Channel documentary on it again the other day only reminded me of the larger point.  What triggered this post was the comment that these dozens of cops were waiting for help.


Help?  Dudes; WTF?  You ARE the help.  As Ron White pointed out; any teenager having experience with a hunting rifle could have ended the bank robbery standoff with two shots from a concealed position.


It comes down to mindset.  Sure, some people have more capabilities and resources than others, but in your everyday life, you, the reader, ARE the help if you have your mind right.  Bringing a pistol to a rifle fight is just one of countless examples of going through life, and even responding to an on-going situation, unprepared and oblivious.  Condition white.


You Do have fire extinguishers in your house and garage, right?  You do carry one in your vehicle, and you do carry jumper cables, tools, a working jack, water, a first aid kit, a spare coat, a good spare tire, a tow strap, a phone and a carbine, right?


I don’t have to try to display a complete list.  That’s not the point.  It starts with the mindset.  After that, the list comes along naturally.  Nor does preparedness come solely from hardware and supplies.  You can have all the goodies and not the mindset that tells you, everywhere you go, that you are the help.  Backup is another matter.  You are the first responder in your own life.  You choose either to face up to it or shirk your duty.


The current crop of weasels in government would have you do the latter.  They fear and hate the strong, the self reliant and the charitable, as threats to their relevance.


Tam’s recent post provides further study.

Quote of the day–George Washington

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To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.


George Washington
First annual address to Congress, 1790.
[I was reminded of this by my (and about 125 other people) preparations for Boomershoot.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ronald Reagan

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Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.


Ronald Reagan
[A good strategy for the “war” on gun rights as well.


This weekend is my most important “battle” for the year.–Joe]