Category Archives: Freedom

That’s not the way it works

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As you might have gathered from reading Prince Law Office’s blog or what Sebastian had to say the ATF recently ruled that non-incorporated trusts are not considered a “person”. A careful reading of the law regarding machine guns then becomes very interesting:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.
(2) This subsection does not apply with respect to–
(A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or
(B) any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect.

Because it is only unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a machinegun and a trust is not a person then your trust can now purchase machine guns. If the law means what it says.

But that isn’t the way thing work in our country anymore. The way things work is that many or most of the politicians and judges dispense “justice” which means not what the law says but what they want it to mean at this particular time and place. We are long past the time when the law really means what it says. You don’t believe me? Review the history on Obamacare in the last few months. Or try getting a prosecutor to bring charges against someone using 18 USC 241 or 18 USC 242 for infringing upon the rights of people exercising the right to keep and bear arms.

And they are proud of the way they dispense “justice” so don’t expect anything to change anytime soon.

Mixed feelings

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I approve of the end result but I wish we had got there via the legislature rather than the courts:

A federal judge has issued an injunction Tuesday blocking enforcement of Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying it is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Magistrate Candy Dale issued the ruling in the case of four same-sex couples who challenged the constitutionality of Idaho’s marriage laws, which voters approved as an amendment to the state constitution in 2006.

In her decision, Dale wrote that Idaho’s laws barring same-sex marriage unconstitutionally deny gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry.

I see marriage law as being in the domain of the state legislatures. I haven’t read the court decisions but it would seem to be a stretch to find a fundamental right for same sex couples to marry in the U.S. Constitution, common law, or natural law and yet there be some question about the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms being protected.

Enforcing the Second Amendment

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I have been advocating this for quite a while and I’m glad to see someone else is advocating for it as well:

We have this legal tool on our side to arrest and prosecute anyone, of any office, who violates our constitutional rights. The time is now. Enforce Title 18, USC, Section 241. We just need to agree now on an orderly procedure for carrying this out.

Quote of the day—Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

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And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) page 13, footnote 5.
[I agree with this review on Amazon:

The writing style is captivating. To some extent, it has been a series of references about how certain people or groups of people were arrested and/or executed. All too easy how people disappeared without a trace and no one even missed them and couldn’t do anything if they wanted to. And the petty, heartless, political and bureaucratic reasons people were arrested makes one closely reconsider his day-to-day activities.

Chilling, as you can see the roots of this activity growing in our country daily.

It will take a while to finish all 3 volumes, but I plan on gradually finishing. It’s hard to read too much at once as your jaw gets tired of dropping constantly and your brain can only take so much astonishment at once.

I am only about a quarter of the way through the first volume (of three) so there may be other things that strike me more profoundly. But so far it is that nearly all believed “in the system”. That once “they” got things straightened out the arrestees would be set free and they would go home. This was even in cases where the NKVD was arresting 25% of an entire town. The NKVD had quotas to meet. And there was always multiple laws they had broken and would be charged with. Just as there are in our country today.

Because of this belief in the system they not only did not resist—they cooperated. At the request of the arresting NKVD they would even tiptoe out of their apartments so as to not wake their neighbors.

I would like to believe that if a similar situation came about in our country that my only attempts to be quiet would involve the use of a sound suppressor for my firearms.—Joe]

Privacy is tough

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Very interesting stuff:

The signals produced by smartphones turn out to be so identifiable that it may never be possible to use one anonymously. Even basic privacy may be difficult to achieve.

Despite all the standardization and quality control that go into accelerometers and other sensors built into smartphones, each sensor contains enough tiny, unique imperfections to identify, not only the physical component, but also the data it records, researchers from the University of Illinois, the University of South Carolina, and Zhejiang University report.

“Even if you erase the app in the phone, or even erase and reinstall all software the fingerprint still stays inherent,” Romit Roy Choudhury, the UI associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science who led the team, said in a press release. “That’s a serious threat.”

By analyzing data from the accelerometers from more than 100 devices, the team was able to determine that tiny differences in the data recorded by the accelerometers were unique to the sensor itself, rather than reflecting flaws or differences in materials or environment from a particular plant of production line.

…

It’s not even necessary to get that specific or interact that much with one smartphone to identify it as unique. In June 2013, researchers at Technical University of Dresden published a paper that said variations in the performance of the power amplifiers, oscillators, signal mixers, and other components of a cellphone radio transmitter leave patterns in the analog radio signal that become a uniquely identifiable pattern of errors after the signal is converted from analog to digital.

That makes it possible to identify and track individual phones passively by their radio “fingerprints” without doing anything but listen to it, and to identify a specific phone even if the SIM card has been replaced or its unique identifying numbers have been altered, according to Jakob Hasse, lead researcher for the paper, which was presented at an ACM Workshop.

“Our method does not send anything to the mobile phones. It works completely passively and just listens to the ongoing transmissions of a mobile phone — it cannot be detected,” Hasse told New Scientist.

I forget who and when I was telling the following story to recently but it is my understanding that during the Vietnam war we had technology that could hear the radio emissions from the ignition systems from trucks many miles away. And because of variations in the ignition systems, such as worn spark plugs, dirty points, etc. the operators of that equipment learned to identify individual trucks.

I think the lesson to be learned is that if you leak electromagnetic radiation you can be tracked.

Atlas Shrugged 3 teaser trailer

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Nice. It will be released September 12, 2014.

At least read the book…

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…before you attempt to discredit Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Darwin’s theory is an excellent example of conroversy created out of nothing but gossip, speculation and misinformation.

Oleg Volk reintroduced me to Fred on Everything recently. Fred has some very good and provocative essays. This one however seems to have been written in a vacuum.

I think nearly every question or concern in the essay is addressed carefully and in detail in “On the Origin of Species”.

Also, Darwin was a religious man. I don’t understand the conflict between religion and science. It seems to me that they have the common goal (ostensibly at least) of furthering the cause of general understanding. The only way that conflict makes sense is if those individuals fomenting the conflict are more concerned with power and control than with the process of enlightenment (one cancels the other).

Quote of the day—Cliff Schecter

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LaPierre, of course, is never held responsible for this rhetoric, even though it is not too much of a stretch to say that its repetition in all of the NRA’s magazines, radio show, emails, newsletter, speeches, on Fox News, and on right-wing talk radio and beyond clearly contributes to the killing everyday American citizens and members of law enforcement.

Cliff Schecter
April 28, 2014
Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America
[And is Schecter ever “held responsible for this rhetoric” intended to promote the infringement of a specific enumerated right?

Imagine the outrage (and it would be appropriate) if Schecter had a similar screed about Muslims, women, blacks, or homosexuals. He would be (inappropriately)hounded out of a job if not investigated for hate speech.

As you can expect from anti-gun people they are all about the control of others but not of themselves.

As Sebastian said:

 

Don’t you find it telling that when he talks like this about the constitutionally protected class of gun owners you hear nothing but crickets from the those who claim to promote tolerance? This is just another data point that it’s not about tolerance. It’s about control. They want you either assimilated into the collective or banished to the gulags. It’s up to us to make sure there is at least a third option.

This is why there is Boomershoot.—Joe]

ATF cultural heritage

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I saw this tweet from the ATF this morning and the picture stuck with me.

What sour looking faces they have. Is it because they hate their jobs? Is it because they hate people who drink alcohol? Something else?

Whatever the reason I can’t help but wonder if the prohibitionist culture is still alive and well at the ATF. Alcohol and tobacco are still regarded by many as at least somewhat “sinful”. By lumping firearms in with them doesn’t that create some sort of “guilty by association”? The FBI and your local police force deal with people as potential problems. People commit crimes and are fined and/or sent to jail as needed to punish them.

If alcohol and tobacco are considered harmful substances and must be controlled then is any stretch to think it would better if they were banned? Certainly a ban on alcohol reached a critical mass in popularity during the early 20th Century. The “founding fathers” of the ATF were the enforcers of that ban. This Tweet could lead one to believe the some people in the current organization are proud of their “founding fathers”.

I remember discussions about potential bans on cigarettes in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. And handgun bans were certainly being discussed during the same time frame. Wouldn’t the agency charged with regulation of these “sins” attract people more inclined to them being banned?

They may have changed their name but I can’t help but wonder if culturally it still is the “Bureau of Prohibition”. Certainly their anti-gun supporters want them to be that and it would explain some of the nasty things they have done to gun sellers and owners.

Quote of the day—William Kent Suter

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What do these cases have in common? First, the government lost all four in unanimous decisions. Second, each case dealt with a government infringement on a fundamental right—freedom of religion, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, the right to enjoy private property and due process, and the right to compensation when the government takes your property.

It is rare for the executive branch to lose four cases dealing with fundamental rights in unanimous decisions in one term. Those who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law should feel uneasy about the administration’s positions in these cases.

William Kent Suter
April 22, 2014
Executive Power on Steroids
[H/T Glenn Reynolds.

“Uneasy”? How about outraged?

It’s clear the current administration wants to be tyrannical. It’s just not always successful in it’s efforts.—Joe]

The best American is a stupid, silent American

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(that is to paraphrase the radio show host, Michael Savage)

Teacher gets suspended for showing kids his tools. Via the Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org).

Properly, that school would have all of its funding suspended until it publicly apologizes to the teacher and agrees to allow tools in the classroom.

Seriously; who doesn’t think there’s been a war going on against individual capability, productivity and self sufficiency in this country? If people are aware, knowledgeable, strong, confident and self-sufficient, who’d need our current nanny style government, after all? That would put 90% of our government right out of business, and we can’t allow that, now can we? “Oh no, Preciousss….nassty kids musst bow to our greatnesss, yesss they mussst. Make them crawl, we will…”

ETA; I wish people would stop using that word (liberal) to describe authoritarians. We CAN take the language back. That would be a great first step. Just use words correctly. It’s easy. Authoritarian. There; I just did it. See? I wasn’t hit by lightning or anything. Don’t be afraid. Go on; try it. It doesn’t hurt a bit.

Quote of the day—Michael Snyder

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Did you know that the number of Americans getting benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million?  In other words, the number of people that are taking money out of the system is far greater than the number of people that are putting money into the system.  And did you know that nearly 70 percent of all of the money that the federal government spends goes toward entitlement and welfare programs?  When it comes to the transfer of wealth, nobody does it on a grander scale than the U.S. government.  Most of what the government does involves taking money from some people and giving it to other people.  In fact, at this point that is the primary function of the federal government.

Michael Snyder
April 17, 2014
18 Stats That Prove That Government Dependence Has Reached Epidemic Levels
[That’s an almost unbelievable number. But after paying my taxes last week it certainly seems plausible because they sure took a lot of money from me this year.

I can’t help but think the end is near.—Joe]

The Progressive’s prayer

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Our Government in Washington,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on all the U.S., as it is in Washington.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into responsibility,
but deliver us from the constitution.

Psalm of the Progressive

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Obama is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Government maketh me to lie down in green pastures: case-workers leadeth me beside the still waters.

Government restoreth my self-esteem: bureaucracy leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for its name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no tea-bagger: for government art with me; government’s rod and staff they comfort me.

Government preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: government anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely welfare checks and subsidies shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in public housing for ever.

(OK, now I feel kinda icky)

Others could do better with the wording, but you get the point.

The Bundys speak directly

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Interview here. Horse’s mouth and all (not that I’m calling anyone a horse).

Peaceful, cool-headed, principled resistance always works best, but it only works when backed by a substantial, credible force. Doubly so when you’re up against un-principled, arrogant foes. A thousand militia, just being there, will drain the sense of impunity right out of an aggressor. A was said elsewhere;

“No more free Wacos.”

I still don’t fully understand this particular conflict, but it is clear that these people and their supporters have grit, and that’s refreshing to see.

I hope the militia had night vision, some fifties, and some form of aerial surveillance. It’ll be needed next time. This is how the peace is kept.

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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The truth is that the left are the religious fanatics. It is they who excommunicate non-believers; it is they who shrilly denounce heretics; it is they who hold kangaroo courts where guilt and punishment are preordained.

Robert J. Avrech
April 7, 2014
Homo Fascism and the Mozilla Moment
[The left doesn’t have a monopoly on religious fanaticism but they certainly do have their share of true believers, crusaders, and history of persecutions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Glenn Reynolds

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Because they’ve decided that free debate isn’t a winner for the collective.

Glenn Reynolds
April 4, 2014
Welcome to the Collective: Justice Breyer turns the First Amendment on its head.
[This was in response to this question:

So why have the court’s “liberals” adopted a hostile attitude toward political speech, which has long been understood as being at the core of First Amendment protection? In his McCutcheon dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer elaborates the theory behind this odd development.

I suspect Reynolds is correct.

And as the situation worsens for the collective they will attempt to infringe more and more of our rights.—Joe]

The Land – a real playground

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An interesting article in The Atlantic Magazine. A “junk yard” playground that is very popular. Apparently the story is making the rounds in my kid’s school district. I doubt it will change anything, but it’s a start. It’s similar to one from Kiwi Land.

Upshot of the two: more reasonable risk-taking, fewer rules, more natural consequences are better for kids than bubble-wrap and bureaucracy. Well, duh!

Right in line with your memories of the dump, Lyle.

Quote of the day—Robert Riversong

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There are no “natural rights” any more than “God-given rights”. All rights are created by social consensus and protected by law.

Robert Riversong
February 2014
Comment to Supreme Court rejects NRA appeals
[It’s true this is merely the ranting of someone ignorant of history and legal precedent but he has a lot of people on his side. At one time our government did not recognize the right to be free of bondage and people like him perpetuated that condition. There have been many times throughout history when “the law” demanded that “certain types” of people be murdered by the thousands or millions. People who thought like Mr. Riversong enabled that. That makes him and his kind extremely dangerous.

People who believe in natural rights put Riversong’s historical compatriots on trial for crimes against humanity. I look forward to him being on trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—ChrisFu1

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Most of these tech workers make too much money anyway. The only issue I have is that instead of that saved money being taxed and given to the poor, it’s being kept by the company. It’s time we limit all wages to $32,000/yr for everyone.

ChrisFu1
March 22, 2014
Comment to Revealed: Apple and Google’s wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees
[Once you had maxed out your wages what would be the point of getting more training or coming up with new ideas that might save the company money, or starting a new business?

Communists/socialists/liberals/whatever. He/she might as well have said, “From everyone according to their ability.” I would like to invite them to North Korea so as to enjoy a much closer approximation to equality for a short time in extreme poverty until they reach true equality in death.—Joe]