Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day–Mikee

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Because courts have decided that people have an inherent right to use condoms to protect themselves and others during acts of consensual sex (surely an optional activity for both parties), they cannot rule that people do not have an inherent right to use firearms to protect themselves and others during acts of non-consensual violent attack (surely a non-optional activity for the victim of attack).

Mikee
0926, June 11, 2009
Comment to Second Amendment Might Be Back on Its Way to Supreme Court via Say Uncle.
[Contrast to James Kelly saying, “…the right to own a gun as a relatively meaningless, one-dimensional freedom, and thus interpret the banning of handguns as merely a minor disappointment to the minority of people concerned…”.

Which way will the courts ultimately decide?–Joe]

Tingles and tears

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This post by David made my back and neck tingly for a good five seconds followed by my eyes welling up with tears.

Quote of the day–Dave Workman

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Gun control, as a philosophy and as a political mechanism, is a flimsy sham. It has become a smoke screen behind which its proponents hide two simple facts: 1) they are more interested in controlling the public than reducing crime, and 2) they are incompetent when it comes to reducing crime.


Dave Workman
May 29, 2009
Gun control laws target wrong people, don’t stop violence
[It’s preaching to the choir but it helps to reinforce the talking points.–Joe]

It depends on what your definition of ‘or’ is

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Following a link from Sebastian on efforts to block importation of common knives I found this:



Our interpretation of 15 U.S.C. § 1241(b) and 19 CFR 12.95(a)(1) is supported by case law. In Demko v. United States, 44 Fed. Cl. 83, 88–89 (Fed. Cl. 1999), the Court of Federal Claims, in analyzing a regulation regarding the grandfathered sale of ‘‘street sweeper’’ shotguns, recited the following interpretations of the word ‘‘or’’ as used in statutes and regulations:



‘‘Generally the term ‘or’ functions grammatically as a coordinating conjunction and joins two separate parts of a sentence.’’ Ruben v. Secretary of DHHS, 22 Cl. Ct. 264, 266 (1991) (noting that ‘‘or’’ is generally ascribed disjunctive intent unless contrary to legislative intent). As a disjunctive, the word ‘‘or’’ connects two parts of a sentence, ‘‘but disconnect[ s] their meaning, the meaning in the second member excluding that in the first.’’ Id. (quoting G. Curme, A Grammar of the English Language, Syntax 166 (1986)); see Quindlen v. Prudential Ins. Co., 482 F.2d 876, 878 (5th Cir. 1973) (noting disjunctive results in alternatives, which must be treated separately). Nonetheless, courts have not adhered strictly to such rules of statutory construction. See Ruben, 22 Cl. Ct. at 266. For instance, ‘‘it is settled that ‘or’ may be read to mean ‘and’ when the context so indicates.’’Willis v. United States, 719 F.2d 608, 612 (2d Cir. 1983); see Ruben, 22 Cl. Ct. at 266 (quoting same); see also DeSylva v. Ballentine, 351 U.S. 570, 573, 100 L. Ed. 1415, 76 S. Ct. 974 (1956) (‘‘We start with the proposition that the word ‘or’ is often used as a careless substitute for the word ‘and’; that is, it is often used in phrases where ‘and’ would express the thought with greater clarity.’’);


Emphasis added.


They go on to conclude:



In New York Ruling Letter (‘‘NY’’) G83213, dated October 13, 2000, CBP determined that ’’a folding knife with a spring-loaded blade [which could] be easily opened by light pressure on a thumb knob located at the base of the blade, or by a flick of the wrist’’ was an ‘‘inertia-operated knife’’ that ‘‘is prohibited under the Switchblade Act and subject to seizure. See 19 C.F.R. §12.95 (a)(1).’’ In NY H81084, dated May 23, 2001, CBP determined that 18 models of knives ‘‘may be opened with a simple flick of the wrist, and therefore are prohibited as inertial operated knives.’’ In HQ 115725, dated July 22, 2002, CBP determined that a ‘‘dual-blade folding knife’’ in which the ‘‘non-serrated blade is spring-assisted [and] is opened fully by the action of the spring after the user has pushed the thumb-knob protruding from the base of the blade near the handle to approximately 45 degrees from the handle’’ ‘‘is clearly a switchblade as defined in § 12.95(a)(4) (Knives with a detachable blade that is propelled by a spring-operated mechanism and components thereof.)’’


Again, emphasis added.


So now it appears you can be prosecuted for possession of a switchblade knife if the spring holding the blade shut is broken. It’s the Olofson case applied to knives. And it appears they are pushing toward calling any knife you can open with one hand as a switchblade. And who does the testing to determine if whether the knife “may be opened with a simple flick of the wrist”? Will the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, Knives, and Sharp Pointy Sticks have labs full of technicians with calibrated wrists such that you can send your knife in for periodic testing to make sure the retention spring hasn’t gotten too weak?


I have to wonder if a Second Amendment test case can’t be brought up on knives in one of the states in the 9th Circuit where incorporation has already been made (or in D.C.). What is the government going to say, “Sure, the Second Amendment guarantees you the right to carry a handgun to defend yourself but we can’t let people own something as dangerous as a knife in their own home! Think of the children!“? Actually, they might. But it would be pretty funny seeing them laughed out of court when they do.


Update: I just figured out how to open my Spyderco Delica “with a simple flick of the wrist”. I think I can use the same method with nearly any folding knife. It’s easier and faster to open my Delica one-handed the way it was intended but still it appears that that if the criteria is “may be opened with a simple flick of the wrist” to define it as a “switchblade” and hence it’s outlawed then it’s game over man. We then will have to go to the courts to be able to carry a folding knife.

Quote of the day–Ben Franklin

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This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.


Ben Franklin
[I can’t say that I disagree. The problem is that people have not been taught to know and prize their rights. Ignorance has been a big part of our country’s downfall. People vote for politicians promising perceived benefits without glimmer of recognition there might be unintended consequences.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Wilhelm Reich

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The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.


Wilhelm Reich
[I’m thinking of dominate political ideologies of Democrats and Republicans. Extraordinarily powerful social realities with the utility of the bubonic plague. That sounds about right.


The major political parties appear to have no principles or underlying philosophy. As near as I can tell they are merely coalitions of people in desire of fame/power/money. Political ideologies based on consistent philosophies such as the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party are for the most part unable to achieve power. This is in part because they are consistent philosophies which makes them less willing to compromise.


I sometimes fantasize of creating a political system that makes such coalitions of zero or negative value but have been unsuccessful of anything approaching something feasible. I keep coming back to enumerated powers such that the coalitions can’t exceed certain boundaries. We tried that once and look at what we have now. There needs to be a “Fourth Branch of Government” or something that does nothing but permanently nullify laws and remove politicians who voted for them from government if something like 10% of the members think the law violates the constitution.–Joe]

Can We Put This to Rest, Please?

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I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from an anti-rights activist; “There are ‘Reasonable Restrictions’ on all rights…” as an attempt to convince us that gun restrictions, in and of themselves, are not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s been a lot.  As often as not, the pro-rights advocate falls for it, too.


The main argument the anti uses is the old, “You can’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” meme as an example of a Reasonable Restriction on a constitutionally protected right (you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater, therefore your second amendment rights are null and void.  QED).


Oh please!  Seriously; when has fraud been a candidate for the title “free speech”? 


Anyone?


It is a malicious fraud to yell “Fire!” if there is no fire.


The first amendment does not protect fraud, libel, slander, or incitement to illegal violence as “free speech” any more than the second amendment protects armed robbery and murder as an integral part of the right to keep and bear arms.  It says, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”.  It doesn’t say, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms and to threaten, to rob or to kill anyone they wish, shall not be infringed”.


We can readily accept laws against robbery, aggravated assault, and murder without our second amendment rights being threatened in the least.  “Keeping and bearing” arms has nothing to do with committing crimes using said arms.  Keeping and Bearing is absolutely protected, and, well, crime is crime.  Can you say, “Duh”?  Everyone together now;  “Derrrrrr!”


Can we please not, ever, allow the old (says in a snotty tone) “Well, there are plenty of Reasonable Restrictions on other rights, and I don’t see YOU opposing with THOSE” argument to get any traction whatsoever?

Pravda Criticizes U.S. Descent into Socialism

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I never though I’d see the day. I recall listening to Radio Moscow, pre Gorbachev, on HF (that’s “shortwave radio” to most) as they blasted the U.S. and her evil capitalist ways. They did it in English, using an announcer who sounded like your favorite uncle from Texas. Now our own government officials sound much like Radio Moscow’s English service did in those days, but more strident.

Via the Rush Limbaugh radio show, I heard Pravda is criticizing us for our “descent” into socialism.

Things are bad when Pravda says we’ve gone too far to the left.

Pravda’s web server seems to have melted. It worked just minute ago, but when Rush mentions a web site it usually spells “meltdown”. Keep trying. You have to see it.

Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.


Thomas Jefferson
[One might reasonably conclude that the bailout of the automobile and banking industries is evidence that this principle has been forgotten in the years since Jefferson help found this nations government. But then what do I know? I’m not the constitutional law professor who actually respects the constitution like President Obama.–Joe


Update October 28, 2012: This is a bogus quote. Thoreau said essentially this if you want to quote someone famous on this topic.]

Is that all it takes?

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My jaw dropped after reading this:



What started out as a report of a man drunk and passed out in his car at a Franklin restaurant early Saturday morning led to federal agents searching a storage facility.



Officers received a call at 4 a.m. of a man passed out at the Steak n Shake on Carothers Parkway. Police arrested the man, Timothy Tyndall, and found a gun, ammunition and marijuana in his car.



While he was being questioned by authorities, Tyndall said he had chemicals stored at a facility that were capable of making hydrogen gas, a highly flammable substance.


Officers raided Tyndall’s storage unit in Cool Springs and found half a dozen containers of chemicals. Agents with the ATF and FBI examined the chemicals and found they were not capable of exploding.


Having the chemicals capable of making hydrogen gas is that all it takes to get “raided”?


If your home has water and electricity then you too have the capability of making hydrogen gas.


When you can get a judge to sign off on a search warrant when given evidence someone has the capability of making hydrogen gas the 4th Amendment is completely, totally, without meaning–as opposed to the minor speed bump that is now.

Quote of the day–Fred Woodworth

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If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.


Fred Woodworth
[I think Woodworth overlooks some fundamental issues with things like his opposition to profit in economic relationships and ownership to raw land but I think he makes some valid points about the non-utility of government.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Josh Horwitz

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It’s time for all advocates of gun violence prevention to stand together and demand principled action from our elected officials. Capitol Hill needs to receive a clear message—they cannot continue to ignore a majority of Americans in order to do the gun lobby’s bidding without paying a price at the ballot box.

Josh Horwitz
Email newsletter
May 26, 2009
Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
[Poor Josh, he’s such a Sad Panda. No one is listening to him anymore.

I’ve always wondered what “principles” they adhere to. It’s not some sort of advocacy of safety as they hint at on their web site. If it were then they would be able to answer Just One Question. It’s certainly not constitutional principles or freedom/liberty. As near as I can tell it’s some modern day equivalent of “We don’t want no damn n**gers around here.” It’s no wonder people don’t pay attention. Bigotry is such an ugly thing.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Richard K. Willard

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The link between handgun legality and aggregate crime levels has little constitutional significance. The purpose of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is to allow individuals to privately protect themselves, not to reduce overall crime rates or curb gun-related accidents. … The framers knew that an individual right to keep and bear arms would carry with it the risks of crime and accidents, just as an individual right to speak freely carries with it the risk of libel. Faced with these trade-offs, the framers deliberately chose a form of government that can accept such risks as the price for protecting individual liberties.


Richard K. Willard
February 11, 2008
D.C. versus Heller
Brief Amicus Curiae Of The Heartland Institute in support of respondent
[This one is for Lyle. Who, rightly so, says safety is irrelevant to the constitutionality issue.–Joe]

More evidence of security theater

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Breda conclusively demonstrates TSA is nothing but security theater. As conclusive as that story is I could tell better stories than that–but the statute of limitations hasn’t expired yet.


TSA, it’s A Security Theater.

Safety Shmafety

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We in the pro-freedom camp (Americans) spend too much time arguing about safety.  Or rather, we argue safety far too often in the terms laid down by our enemies– the enemies of liberty.  Though the statistics are often on our side, we’re granting the basis for the argument (that government exists to promote the physical safety of the individual) to the enemy.


Wrong premise.


Too many police departments, for example, call themselves Departments of Public Safety and the like.  That’s not their function, per se.  Their proper function is to enforce the law and the primary purpose of law, in the uniquely American sense at least, is to promote and protect your rights.  That this function has been corrupted over the years does not change the original intent.


The American Revolution was indeed fought for safety, but the safety so dearly bought therein was a rather different kind of safety from that promoted by the neo-Fascists.  It wasn’t the kind of safety taught at your local public school.  It wasn’t the kind of safety we’re training for in a fire drill or in a drivers’ education class.  That kind of safety is properly the responsibility of the individual or of private interests.


The kind of safety for which the Revolution was fought and for which the constitution was written is safety from government interference– safety from the enemies of liberty both foreign and domestic.


Historically, out-of-control governments have presented a danger to public safety far greater than all common criminal activity and standard physical danger combined.  Some government or left-wing hack asserting that we need more government intrusion as a means of promoting “safety” is a bit like advocating mass sex orgies for the promotion of abstinence.


When we’re arguing safety and public policy then, we need to make it clear beforehand which particular kind of safety we’re discussing– the safety of subjects owned by the government (the safety of tyrants and sycophants) or the safety of a free people.  They are near polar opposites.

Things could be worse

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I complain about the lack of freedom and the almost daily new encroachments on our freedoms but things could be worse. We could be living in China where things like this happen–apparently without even a hearing or any sort of due process:



This investment turned out to be as risky as it was risque. A sex theme park that featured explicit exhibits of genitalia and sexual culture is being demolished before it can even open, a government spokesman in southwestern China said Monday.


The park, christened “Love Land” by its owners, went under the wrecking ball over the weekend in the city of Chongqing, said the spokesman, who like many Chinese bureaucrats would give only his surname, Yang.


Yang refused to give the reason for the demolition or other details. However, photographs of the adult-only park had circulated widely on the Internet over the weekend, prompting widespread mockery and condemnation.


Exhibits had included giant-sized reproductions of male and female anatomy, dissertations on how the topic of sex is treated in various cultures and what the official China Daily newspaper called “sex technique workshops.”


The park’s main investor, Lu Xiaoqing, had earlier claimed that the attractions sought only to boost sexual awareness and improve people’s sex-lives.


The demolition highlights conflicted views on sex in modern China, where a prudish attitude toward discussion of sexuality is paired with an almost clinical approach to its physical aspects.


It was just day before yesterday I said I might want to visit.

Quote of the day–Kurt Hofmann

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The citizen disarmament advocates may indeed eventually get their “terrorist” incident.  The question is this: are they trying to forestall that, or to provoke it?  At some point, some concerned patriot is going to wonder if it’s time to paraphrase Patrick Henry (one of the original “right-wing extremists”): “If this be terrorism, make the most of it.”


Kurt Hofmann
May 15, 3:56 AM
How to disarm the citizenry in 3 easy steps
[Patrick Henry may not have actually said this, but Hofmann does ask a good question.–Joe]

Quote of the day–PCV-Scott

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One of the first things I learned as a prosecutor is that ethics required me to seek justice, not merely convictions. The actions of the prosecutor in this case plainly violate that rule. It is because of unethical violations like this that I finally resigned from the bar in disgust.


PCV-Scott
May 13, 2009
US prosecutor admits error, hopes for 2d chance
[The prosecutor admitted the “error” of withholding evidence from the defense attorney but the judge says the entire Boston office has a “dismal history of intentional and inadvertent violations”. In my fight with PNNL my ignorant belief that lawyers would behave ethically was quickly smashed. Even my lawyer, with over a decade of law practice, was surprised at some of the stuff they did. In the Weaver/Harris case the prosecutors withheld and tampered with evidence and the jurors believed they destroyed evidence. This is in addition to telling Weaver the court date was a month later than it was actually scheduled. But they were caught at least twice in that case and the defendants were found not guilty. Who knows how many times they got away with it in that case and others? We know that a tremendous amount of evidence was deliberately destroyed in the Waco case. David has more comments on the Boston case and other examples of prosecutor misconduct. And I, like him, will now shut up before I say something I would regret.–Joe]

A Security Theater

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A report from Breda who gets the rubber glove treatment because of her leg prosthesis.


I commented and gave her a link to What TSA really stand for and then I noticed that TSA is improving their security procedures:



Prepare yourself for airport security to get a little more personal. It’s the first publicly noticeable step in a multi-phase government plan to help keep air travel safe. New rules for air travelers.

Starting today, in addition to handing over a boarding pass and ID in the security line, passengers making reservations will have to provide their full name, just as it appears on the government ID they plan to use when boarding the plane.

Travel agent Nancy Nemecek said “when you make your reservation you need to give your name exactly, and that means first name, middle name, if that’s what’s on your ID, and your last name.”

It’s part of a Transportation Security Administration program being phased in called Secure Flight.


“Secure Flight”? You have to use your full name on the ticket and that makes the flight secure? Yeah, right.


But the TSA is good for something. Penn and Teller can play with them.

Quote of the day–Oscar van den Boogaard

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I am not a warrior, but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.

 

Oscar van den Boogaard
April 2009
From an interview with the Belgian paper De Standaard.
[I learned that lesson when the Feds were killing women and children a few miles from my home when I lived in Sandpoint Idaho. I bought my first gun a few months later when Bill Clinton was elected President. Things have changed since then.

 

H/T to Kevin for the pointer.–Joe]