Category Archives: Politics

If you find you are riding a dead horse, dismount

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This is another When Prophecy Fails example.

Joyce Lee Malcom is a history professor and has been beating up on the British about their weapons control laws for a long time now.  She wacked them pretty hard again yesterday about people getting prosecuted for defending themselves.  The following is just the start.

There is an old Navajo saying,

“If you find you are riding a dead horse, dismount”.

But public outrage over the prosecution of householders who injure burglars and one of the highest levels of violent crime of any industrial country, don’t seem to have convinced Tony Blair’s “tough on crime” government to switch horses. They find dismounting unnecessary and risky; the horse is fine, the spectators are over-reacting. All that is needed is a slight shifting of the saddle bags, clearer signals to the horse, a check-up by its chief veterinarian, and the public will find they were mistaken. Unfortunately, this blinkered approach will not bring the horse back to life, or, more importantly, protect law-abiding people.

I’m proud of my F+ grade

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Actually, it’s my state, Idaho, that got the F+.  The Brady bunch released the 2004 Report Card.  Someone else will probably beat me to it or I would do a correlation between the grades of states and their violent crime rate.  Correlation doesn’t prove causation (gun control may not cause crime), but if the correlation doesn’t exist you can be pretty sure there isn’t a causation (lack of gun control does cause crime).

You would think that it would eventually sink in to these people that weapons restrictions don’t make people safer.  But that’s not the way it works.  This is just another When Prophecy Fails example.  If certain conditions exist when you are proven wrong you will become an even greater advocate for your failed ideas.  This model for human behavior is so powerful the book, or at least the model, should be required teaching material for all kids in about the 8th grade.

Quote of the day–David Crockett

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As related here.  Attributed to The Life Of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward S. Ellis, published by Porter & Coates in 1884.

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.

“The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them.

“So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags, and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow, when I asked him if he could give me a chew of tobacco.

“‘Yes,’ said he,’such as we make and use in this part of the country; but it may not suit your taste, as you are probably in the habit of using better.’

“With that he pulled out of his pocket part of a twist in its natural state, and handed it to me. I took a chew, and handed it back to him. He turned to his plow, and was about to start off. I said to him:’Don’t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted,’ He replied:

“‘I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.’

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and—‘

“‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdologer. I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence. I had seen enough of them to know there is a way to reach them, and was satisfied that if I could get him to talk to me I would soon have him straight. But this was entirely a different bundle of sticks. He knew me, had voted for me before, and did not intend to do it again. Something must be the matter; I could not imagine what it was. I had heard of no complaints against me, except that some of the dandies about the village ridiculed some of the wild and foolish things that I too often say and do, and said that I was not enough of a gentleman to go to Congress. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.’

“‘Thank you for that, but you find fault with only one vote. You know the story of Henry Clay, the old huntsman and the rifle; you wouldn’t break your gun for one snap.’

“‘No, nor for a dozen. As the story goes, that tack served Mr. Clay’s purpose admirably, though it really had nothing to do with the case. I would not break the gun, nor would I discard an honest representative for a mistake in judgment as a mere matter of policy. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“‘I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’

“‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!’

“‘Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with.’

“‘Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!’

“Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:

“‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’

“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.’

“I have given you,” continued Crockett, “an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:

“‘So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'”

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it, than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.’

David Crockett

Quote of the day–Woodrow Wilson

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Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
U.S. Democratic politician, president.
Speech, 9 Sept. 1912, New York Press Club.

Democrats on the run

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I’m not a big fan of Republicans but I’m certainly an opponent of the Democrats.  It’s with great pleasure that I see the Democrats lost seats in both houses of congress.  It appears Kerry will loose his bid for the White House.  And with 94% of the SD votes counted it appears that Daschle will lose.  With Daschle being booted out they lose their most powerful player in politics.

The impact of this could be major.  The Democrats have to be incredibly demoralized.  Their agenda is increasingly rejected.  After the 1994 ‘revolution’ in the House there were Democrat representatives that switched parties so they could be in the majority.  What will happen this time?  How much energy will they have for fighting essentially a delaying action for the Republican agenda?  Can we find a roadmap to drive this party into extinction?  My fantasy now is to have the second party in this country be the Libertarians.  To have to choose between the Libertarians and the Republicans would be a much more pleasant choice than what the realistic choices are now.

And finally I want to congratulate Stephanie Sailor (Libertarian and Boomershoot PR director) on getting 12% of the vote while spending 0 (yes ZERO) dollars on her campaign for U.S. Congress.  Roughly 27,000 people voted for her.

Why the election related violence?

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There is talk of riots if the Kerry-Edwards team doesn’t win.  There have been shootings and trashing of campaign offices.

On Monday, the Bush campaign provided a list of more than 40 examples it said had occurred since July, including the burglary from campaign offices of several items: two laptop computers in Seattle; a banner in Thousand Oaks; petty cash in Spokane, Wash.; as well as break-ins last Friday in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Cincinnati.

Also included were examples of lesser crimes including the defacement or theft of supporters’ lawn signs as well as broken windows, slashed tires, shots fired, bullet holes and thrown eggs at campaign offices.

In response to the Bush campaign’s incident list, Democrats countered with a list of 19 incidents aimed at the campaign of Sen. John Kerry, including a bullet that was fired into a supporter’s house, graffiti at campaign offices, the smashing of a mailbox bearing Kerry campaign stickers and the theft of a laptop in Norristown, Pa.

I don’t recall this happening on this scale before.  Is my memory off?  Or is something else going on?  I remember when I was involved on the no on I-676 campaign that there were lots of complaints of our yard signs being stolen (Boomershooter Steve M. was losing about three or four a week) but our offices were never broken into and there weren’t any reports of intimidation by either side.  But election violence, in other countries, is actually quite common according to what some people tell me.

So why the change in our country now?  My hypothesis is that people are getting violent because the government has more control than it used to.  It used to be the government stayed within the bounds of the constitution to a greater extent than now.  When the consequences of a change in power of the government was highly constrained it just didn’t matter that much who was in power.  But now that the Federal government is involved in so many things it didn’t use to have control over such as health care, education, firearm ownership, gay marriage, etc. the consequences of “your side” loosing are significant enough that people can justify, in their own minds, the violence.  This is just as people in other countries with few limits to government control can justify their violence.

It is my prediction that as the power of government increases the frequency and intensity of election related violence will increase.  Vote Libertarian and stop the violence.

Muslim child programming

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The video tapes found in Afganistan show kids holding rifles and talking of killing Jews, the book American Jihad tells of kids coloring books that show how to kill infidals, and now there is a television show that encourage kids to use an AK-47 to committ a massacre if someone (Israeli soldiers) cuts down a tree.

To win the “war on terrorism” (it really is a war against Islamic extremists) in the long term we need to destroy their culture.  As long as they raise their children to kill non-believers we will continue to be faced with the choice as given in the Qur’an, to convert to Islam, be killed, or kill the Muslim plotters and attackers.

My coat is on the front page of the Chicago Reader

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The October 15th issue of Chicago Reader has a picture of Stephanie Sailor shooting a Barrett .50 BMG at Boomershoot 2001.  She was wearing my coat at the time.

Barb’s brother, Dow, sent us three copies of the newspaper.  You can read the article here. 

As always, there are errors in the story. But it was reasonably positive.  Especially considering this is Chicago we are talking about.  Illinois and Chicago in particular are exceedingly anti-gun.  Stephanie is very pro-gun.  The article does not attempt to hide that part of her position, but the headline is a bit discomforting.  It’s not in the online version but it was the caption for the picture of Stephanie with the Barrett .50 BMG and said, “Can This Woman Take Down Jesse Jackson Jr.“ As Ry said, “I know it’s a good headline, but you know, perhaps they could have reworded it.“

National ID card is on its way

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The Liberty Committee just sent out an alert.  Anymore it is rare for me to urge people to send letter and contact their congress critters or other low life people, with power over them.  However this issue is one I am very passionate (and I believe rational) about.  Please read the alert and decide for yourself whether you want a national ID card and database.  Then do the appropriate thing.  The following was my confirmation and letter from my efforts on this.  Please also consider the contents of my web page on this issue.

Thank you for using The Liberty Committee Mail System

Message sent to the following recipients:
Mr. Otter
Message text follows:

Joe Huffman
[snip]
Moscow, ID 83843

October 22, 2004

[recipient address was inserted here]

Dear [recipient name was inserted here],

Please work to have the House-Senate conference committee remove the
provisions that will create a master database on every American (H.R. 10,
section 2173) and the provision that will “standardize” or nationalize the
issuing of state driver’s licenses — an action which takes the final step
in creation a national ID (H.R. 10, section 3052).

I am a senior research scientist for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
with a very high level security clearance [deleted on May 18, 2005 in an
attempt to please PNNL management].  I recognize the threat we are
facing from the Muslim extremists, but giving up these freedoms does not
make us safer in the long run.  Please do what you can to kill this
national ID proposal.  Please also see the web page I have created
addressing this threat to our freedoms.

https://www.joehuffman.org/Freedom/IDCardFlaws.htm

Sincerely,

Joe Huffman
208-301-4254

Gun crime is up so ban toy guns

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In the U.K. they have already banned real guns.  But crimes committed with guns is way up so the only thing left to do is ban imitation guns which is what these morons have proposed now.  This really should be a post for when prophecy fails.  I’ll get around to that later.

Complete article follows:

Greens call for tougher gun control

22nd Oct 2004

Conference proposes restrictions on imitation firearms

In response to rising levels of gun crime (1), the Green Party’s autumn conference, currently taking place in Weston-Super-Mare has endorsed tough new proposals on gun control.

The Green Party backs restrictions on the sale and ownership of imitation weapons and decommissioned weapons in response to the massive rise in their use in crimes.

Green Party Chairperson and Home affairs spokesperson Hugo Charlton commented;

“These measures are urgently required in order to combat the growing problem of crimes committed using imitation weapons. These replicas are dangerous; they are used in a growing number of crimes; they must be taken off our streets.”

“Our proposals on the licensing of active firearms will put public safety above the convenience of shooters: those applying for gun licences will bear the cost of the necessary psychological tests; they will be required to produce character references; they will be made to bear the cost that

Charles Bailey, founder of the “Don’t shoot” campaign, endorsed the Green Party?s position: “The Greens are taking the issue of gun crime seriously. They are putting forward policies that will really stop the incidence of gun crime on London’s streets.”

(1) Yesterday the Home Office released figures showing a 3% annual rise in gun crime over the past year. The figures also show a 35% rise in crimes involving imitation.

Keep doing things that don’t work

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What was that again?  Insanity is expecting a different result when nothing has changed?  Well, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence must be insane then.  This is a recent press release of theirs:

For more than 25 years, the District’s handgun and assault weapon bans have helped reduce the risk of deadly handgun violence. The citizens of the District support these laws and should be permitted to determine for themselves the policies that govern their homes, streets, and workplaces. This attempted repeal is being brought by members of Congress who don’t represent DC and who don’t care about public safety.

For years D.C. has been the murder capital, or very close, of the U.S.   Just a stone’s throw away in Virginia where it’s legal to use the best available defensive tools the murder rate is much lower.  These lunatics want to continue with the proven failures of victim disarmament.

Pathetic anti-gun turnout

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Time after time I have seen this happen.  But this is one of the few times I have seen it mentioned in the news.  I’ve been a counter protester when the pro-freedom people outnumbered the anti-freedom people 10:1.  A “gun violence educational” (it really was a group of people wanting to register and ban guns) presentation where all the people in the audience were firearms instructors.  This time the paper gives them lots of coverage as usual but also mentioned they only had nine people show up.  They pointed out that there was a big sign saying they didn’t want any input from the pro-freedom side, and they include information in the article that shows they aren’t even consistent — are these military weapons as the speaker says?  Or are they different as an anti-gun web site (correctly) says.

NEW PORT RICHEY – Art Hayhoe can’t fathom why a 10- year ban on semiautomatic weapons was allowed to expire this month.

…

“Who in God’s name wants to sell civilians fully militarized weapons of war that are designed to kill as many people [as possible] as fast as possible?” he said to an audience of nine.

According to information distributed by the Violence Policy Center, semiautomatic weapons are more accurate than machine guns and military assault weapons. The center is a national nonprofit organization that works to establish policies that reduce “gun-related death and injury.”

Unlike machine guns and military assault weapons, which can fire bullets as long as the trigger is pulled and the ammunition lasts, triggers of semiautomatic weapons must be pulled every time a round is fired, according to the Violence Policy Center.

I believe the anti-freedom people are falling apart along the with the left in general and the press is finally starting to realize they have been lied to and the anti-freedom people are morally bankrupt.  Our job is to keep up the pressure up and push these people into political extinction.

European Union seeks diplomatic solution to Islamic terrorism

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I had never really followed the EU much.  It was sort of, okay, whatever.  Others complain about them being a bunch of wimps and various other derogatory things.  I didn’t really have an opinion — then I read the following:

The European Union, already at odds with the Bush administration over pre-emptive military strikes, reacted warily to a warning from Moscow that it too reserved the right to neutralize terror threats anywhere in the world.

Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, said Wednesday that “we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world.”
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.
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The European Union argues that a policy of pre-emptive strikes is too risky. A security strategy paper approved by EU governments last year said emphasis should be placed on diplomatic and political solutions.

“Diplomatic and political solutions” often work if you are dealing with a nation state.  I think it was 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11/2001 were from Saudi Arabia.  Should we have started negotiations with Saudi Arabia to find out why they attacked us?  No?  Why is that?  Oh, because it was Osma bin Laden that was the top leader of that attack not the Saudi government.  So perhaps we should negotiate with him.  He sent us an open letter after the attack, clearly spelling out the conditions required before the attacks would stop.  I commented on this letter before so I don’t need to do that in depth here, but the bottom line is that we need to convert to Islam and stop the immorality and debauchery including fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest.  We need to rule ourselves under the laws of Shariah of Allah rather than invent our own laws.  If we fail to respond to all (emphasis added) these conditions then we will need to fight the Islamic Nation. 

Okay, so tell me how we can find a diplomatic solution to this position of our adversary?  Who wants to give up the U.S. Constitution and turn our justice system over to Islamic Clerics?  Maybe we could just reinstate prohibition and execute homosexuals.  Does anyone think that perhaps this would be sufficient to satisfy them? Does anyone think that is an acceptable compromise?  I don’t, and I’m not a homosexual and only very rarely drink any alcohol.  If those laws were passed it would only have the most minor of immediate effects on me and my lifestyle.  But it still is totally and completely unacceptable to me.  I would rather imprison and/or kill a hundred thousand Islamic extremists and loose another thousand U.S. lives than agree to that one point.  And what cost do you think we should be willing to pay to avoid the rule of “Shariah of Allah”?  I’d rather start up special pig (and web) farms for the Islamic terrorists we need to “process”.  As sad and as distasteful as it may be it would be better to run a million Islamic extremists through the pig farms than for the world to live under an Islamic theocratic rule.

So, IMHO, the EU is a bunch of totally clueless wimps.  If they want to “place emphasis on diplomatic and political solutions” then I would like to suggest they pursue that path with the Russians.  I think perhaps the Russians would agree to let the EU leaders shovel their pig manual.

Islamic extremist activities

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Reading news.google.com today I find mention of Twin Suicide Bombings on Israeli Buses, Moscow Suicide Bomer Kills 10, Injures 51, Video Claims to Show Hostages Being Killed, France Pushes to Save Hostages in Iraq, and Darfur Conditions Said Worse, Talks Resume.  And that’s just a single snapshot of the current situation.  That doesn’t include the two planes that were taken down in Russia or the Italian journalist killed last week.  From a quick glance it would appear we have a world wide war on our hands.  The Islamic extremists versus the non-Muslims. 

This is consistent with this post I made and with Bin Laden’s open letter to America.  Ry and I were talking about this a few weeks ago and didn’t come up with anything much better than what Bush is already trying to do in Iraq.  Provide a “shining beacon” of non-religious prosperity and tolerance to the Islamic world in their own backyard.  Then capture or kill anyone that tries to destroy our example or us.  Short term we will draw them to the people best able to deal with them — our soldiers in armored vehicles and airborne gunships.  As long as they are drawn to the fighting in Iraq they aren’t bringing down our civilian airplanes, commercial buildings, or blowing up our buses.  Long term we need to destroy the culture that breeds these type of intolerant people.  We have been doing that, but unintentionally, which is part of the reason they hate us so.  Their young people see the sex, recreational drugs (including alcohol), and general decadent lifestyle (gambling, women with exposed skin, etc) and fail to have an interest in the Spartan religious life.  We have been destroying their culture through subversion of their youth with our culture for decades.  As our communication and culture propagates around the globe they see the “end of the line” for their way of life and their religion.

So… it appears to Ry and I they have a sensitive spot they are responding to with violent action.  That must mean they want us to stop.  I do not believe they will ever willingly stop their war on our culture.  We have been in a culture war with them for 1500 years or so.  It’s not going to stop in the next five or ten years.  Our only course of action that will guarantee this war will stop is to finish the job.  Their culture must be destroyed.  Don’t we have sufficient evidence that they want nothing less than our total destruction?  If you don’t think that is true then take a look at Bin Laden’s letter again.  So… given that we must destroy their culture then we should expend more effort in accomplishing this task.  The question is how do we do this?  One of Ry’s suggestions was dropping porn magazine out of airplanes over Muslim population centers.  How about air dropping samples of wine, beer, cards (gambling), and dice?  Or even just putting free internet access in their cities?  They apparently have a “soft spot” in the minds of their youth.  We should take advantage of it.  Long term it is our only acceptable solution.  The visible alternatives are not acceptable.

Lawmakers in California are afraid of toy guns

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The California Legislature banned toy guns (probably requires that you register) in public. Okay, they sort of have a rational basis for it.  I’m all for letting Darwin take care of the problem but in a Nanny state you can’t expect that. But what really got to me was that some of the legislators reaction to the toys brought into chambers. They were told they were toy guns before they were brought into the chambers but they still were so afraid they moved away.

Before Spitzer began speaking in favor of the measure on the Assembly floor, lawmakers were told he had permission from Democratic and Republican leaders to bring replicas to the chamber. Still, the sight of realistic-looking firearms — an M60 assault weapon and a 9mm handgun replica supplied by the Department of Justice — upset some lawmakers, a few of whom moved away from Spitzer and formally objected.

Is there a way to get these people some psychiatric help? People this sick should be removed from public office.

Philosophy Question for the Winter of ’98*

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Q: What are the proper limits to government?  Can it be determined by popular vote?  Or are there limits that absolutely must be respected?

By this I mean, suppose that 90% of the people voted to kill all but 2% of the male babies at birth and just keep those few around for breeding stock.  Would it be acceptable to do so?  90% is more that enough to get a constitutional amendment through to overcome any sort of impediment like that.  So what if 10% of the people didn’t want most of their male children killed at birth.   The majority rules right?  What if it was blacks, native Americans, whites, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, or some other racial/religious group that was being exterminated by popular vote?  How is it that we should determine just what our inalienable rights are?  Some people think the Bill of Rights in the US constitution are a pretty good enumeration.  But then there are those that have a problem with the Second Amendment.   And a few that have a problem with the fourth — due process sort of gets in the way occasionally in the “War on Drugs”.  But just a little, we have overlooked it for the most part.

I see our Bill of Rights under extreme attack from our government.  Is it essential to freedom?  Or just a bunch of loopholes for criminals to make a mockery of our laws?

Send me email. I want to know. If you say it’s okay, I’ll publish your response here.

*This originally appear on a web page of mine. I am moving it here for better visibility and archival.—Joe November 5, 2010

Philosophy Question for the Month of July ’97*

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Question: When, if ever, is it morally justifiable to disobey the law?

This is a 4th of July question, Boston Tea Party, and that sort of thing. And also, I think this is particularly relevant at this time because of the Timothy McVeigh trial. In the most general case I think it is possible that some people (certainly McVeigh and Terry Nichols, assuming they did it) do not think a bombing of this type is necessarily wrong.

At what point would YOU decide to disobey the law if the laws and the government enforcing them depart from your beliefs in regard to morality? For example, would you have been willing to hide Jews in Germany in the late ’30s? Would you be willing to take up arms and shoot at the Gestapo as they dragged the Jews who lived next door away? Or if the Gestapo (or what ever it might be called in your time and place) were about to drag you and your family away? Or help runaway slaves during the 1850’s and early 1860’s in the US? Or would you as a member of the US army fired upon Native American women and children after being ordered to? Or what if our government required everyone to have an electronic identification device imbedded in his or her skull? Or your SSN tattooed on your wrist? Or required that you (as a non-criminal — until now) register with the police every time you left one jurisdiction and entered a new police jurisdiction (it could made easy with today’s technology — magnetic encoded credit card like badges at the county lines and town borders — that sort of thing)? Or required that you show positive ID for every purchase you made (makes it hard to conceal your feeding the family of ‘Jews’ living in your attic). Or what if the police start making “routine checks” of your vehicles for drugs, politically incorrect weapons (the UK has outlawed many types of knifes), and other contraband? What about registration of your firearms? Confiscation of your firearms? Possession of more than X rounds of ammunition? Or what if the government required that you obtained permission before having a child? Or required that your child be taught a version of history that you believed was incorrect? Or prohibited you from viewing certain materials? Or prohibited you from criticizing the government? Or prohibited you from private meetings (a public “watchdog” must be in attendance and the entire meeting video taped) of more than X people? Or declared that mere possession of explosive components was a crime (never mind that kitchen flour can be made to explode)? Or a tax on singles/gays/non-whites/whatever? Or (il)legal abortion? There are people who believe abortion is murder. Is their claim that much different than believing Jews are human and qualified to enjoy the same rights as other humans even though the law claims they are not (US law on abortion, compared to 1939 German laws regarding people of Jewish descent)? Would you break the law to stop someone from having a legal abortion? Others claim abortion is a right. If abortion was illegal in your state or country would you help someone to obtain one in another state or country even if such action were against the law?

Basically, at what point, if any, do you, as a freedom loving person, declare you are willing to disobey authority and potentially suffer the consequences? And further, at what point, if any, are you willing to use force to exercise that freedom or prevent the arrest and/or prosecution of people trying to exercise their freedoms? And if you are, at some point, willing to use force, what form would that force be?

Or perhaps you are one who says, “the law is the law”, or “peace at any cost”. And if so, what would you say to Patrick Henry, who declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Or to Samuel Adams who in 1776 said:

If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

And if so, what would you say to the families of the millions who fought the British, the Japanese, the Germans, and all the others and ended up giving their lives for your freedom? Would you tell them, “Freedom is just not that important to me?” Or, “I wouldn’t give it up to another government, but if my government takes it from me, that’s okay?”

Answers: As if there is a definitive answer. Heavy sigh. Okay, I read a bunch of books, still more to read so as I get more information on the subject that I think is worthwhile I’ll update this.

Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi said that under no circumstances should violence be used. In fact he did things such as call off exceedingly successful, peaceful, strikes because he wanted the authorities to be able to save face. Interesting technique, yes? Another thing he did, when he disobeyed the law he would tell the authorities exactly what he was going to do. He felt that time in prison was well spent, he got to rest, pray, and meditate. And Gandhi was enormously successful in getting changes in the laws. He also believed the Jews in Nazi Germany could “… score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity.” All without a single violent act on their part. Believable? Read on. This was first published in Harijan on November 11, 1938. I found it in Gandhi The Power of Pacifism, pages 146 and 147:

If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon…. And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription ere offered, he or they cannot be worse of than now…. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance for the race even at the hands of a tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no terror….

If I had to summarize Gandhi’s method in a way that most people could grasp just a glimmer of what he was talking about it would be as follows:

Gandhi’s philosophy was to have no fear. Fear of absolutely nothing. Not fines, nor loss of property, nor prison, nor torture, nor death. He acquired no property. He made his own clothes (for reasons related to the exploitation of factory workers) right down to the spinning of the yarn. When you are in that position, in many ways you make yourself nearly invulnerable to authority. They cannot successfully threaten you. They can only physically restrain you (death being the ultimate physical restraint). And even government authority has limits to its resources. How many people can they physically restrain at once?

Interesting, yes? You become powerful as you are stripped of all possessions — as long as you have no fear. There are hints that the Germans thought he was onto something, the same book, on page 146 claims, “After the publication … in 1938 …the Nazi press launched a fierce attack against Gandhi.”

What I have been unable to find from my readings of Gandhi is some method for objectively determining what laws should be disobeyed. There are vague things about injustice, and lots of examples of things he protested against, but nothing (yet) that helps answer the fundamental question.

Katie

Katie, my wife’s sister-in-law is very much involved in Catholicism (she would be a priest if the religion would allow it). I asked about her thoughts on when it was morally justified to disobey the law. Again it was vague on the when and specific on the non-violence. Also of interest is that apparently the Church has made some fairly recent changes in their doctrine about war. There used to be a concept of a “just war”. If some specific conditions were met then a war could be considered “just” if it were waged in a proper manner (no action taken against civilians, that sort of thing). They no longer have such a doctrine. Something about nuclear weapons, fallout, etc. I asked about personal defense. Is it acceptable to use force to defend yourself or other innocent people against someone that is attempting to physically harm you. She said that was left up to the individual. It’s not a sin to do that. I found this odd. If an individual could use force to defend themselves, then wouldn’t it be acceptable for a group of people to use force? And if a group can use force to resist why can’t a government wage war against an aggressor? I didn’t have the opportunity to get into that with her, perhaps another time.

 

The Lawyer’s Second Amendment Society

The Lawyers Second Amendment Society (LSAS) recently had two articles  in The Liberty Pole about “Tripwires” (see My Tripwire and Ultimate Tripwire).  Great reading.  Basically, in My Tripwire the authors say censorship is the ultimate tripwire.  As long as we may speak, publish, and associate freely, we have the means to resist tyranny.  They claim firearms confiscation is easy to evade and therefore is only secondary in importance as a tripwire.   As long as we have the means to expose the truth we have the means to change the system.  They go on to say the basis of when to resist is as follows:

The enforcement of any laws–local,state or federal–that through the action or inaction of the courts makes nugatory the individual means of resisting tyranny, justifies resistance.

If you have to look up “nugatory” don’t feel bad.  I had to also — it means “Having no force, invalid”.  Thus, they claim, firearms confiscation may be a sufficient tripwire because it will make resistance impossible.

In Ultimate Tripwire a different author comments on the previous article and says:

… there are two additional and significant “tripwires:” (1) Positive Identification of the enemy, and (2) A strict constructionist leader.

This is because of his concern for anarchy.  Only if resistance is focused on the problem and a solution will resistance be preferable to the problem.

John Ross

Unintended Consequences by John Ross:  Another expression of basically the same viewpoint that I have heard expressed, most recently via an email discussion with someone, is put forth in the book Unintended Consequences.  Basically it is this: When one’s ability to resist is under assault, that is the time to fight to the teeth. One of the major characters in the book give the analogy of someone inviting you to ride with him in his van.  Perhaps even insisting that you take the ride with him.  When you get to the van he asks you to put handcuffs on that secure you to the van.  It might be entirely innocent, but can you take the chance?   If you accept the invitation you will be without significant recourse if it turns into a hostile situation.  You must resist while you still have the means.

Turner Diaries

How about The Turner Diaries? Check out my review of The Turner Diaries on Amazon.com.  Basically the main character “Earl Turner” joins the underground and violently resists the federal government when they arrest him for possession of a firearm.  He and the others in his organization blame their political situation on the Jews and non-whites — which must be exterminated.  Non-whites are sub humans and therefore are a genetic pollutant to the human race.  Laws which protect them are “racial treason”.   This author needs to do some thinking on my question for the fall of ’97 — How do you determine right from wrong? Truth from falsity? Because, if he still believes as the main characters in the book do, he doesn’t have a clue.

Joe Huffman

My thoughts are probably best described as a mixture of Gandhi and Ross.  Quite a combination huh?  There are injustices that demand action.  Those actions should be non-violent if at all possible.  But, there are cases when violence is fully justified.  I think Winston Churchill says it best for me:

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Email response

I think this person obtained this from someplace else, and I’m not sure he/she wants their name on it anyway, so I’ll leave it as anonymous.

Remember the lessons of the 20th Century:

Lesson No. 1:

If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don’t want to go because of who you are or what you think– kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant’s executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.

 

Lesson No. 2:

If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms– kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.

 

Lesson No. 3:

If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified– tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren’t on their list.

 

Lesson No. 4

Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is “democratically elected” doesn’t mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn’t mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn’t mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled “Showers” doesn’t necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of “is” is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants– but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.

*This originally appear on a web page of mine. I am moving it here for better visibility and archival.—Joe November 5, 2010