The New Math

Conscious efforts to reduce the native population (through systematic abortion for convenience + hubristic junk science creating the impression that the hoi poli are killing the planet)

+

“gun control” that won’t do a thing to stop bad actors but WILL make it difficult or next to impossible for the average citizen to be legally armed

= new aristocracy with a population just big enough to serve but never big enough to be a threat.

Helen Keller could see this, and yet apparently we have rocket surgeons in the US Senate who can’t…or can they?

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A World That Never Needed Him More…

I hope each of you get to consider the meaning of this day.

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Saturday Morning Shower Thoughts

Somewhere between the shampoo and the soap, I was pondering Sheriff Slow Joe Biden’s remarks about the Administration’s current gun control push and the President’s laughable remarks about “shaming” those who oppose further infringements on the right to bear arms by a government that was explicitly prohibited from engaging in the infringements which already exist.

Putting aside the issue of someone spending our money to have his children vacation at lavish resorts in the Bahamas and in Sun Valley when the economy is still in the tank and millions of American families can afford no vacation at all, let alone separate vacations for their children, I couldn’t help but consider that we have hundreds of “gun control” laws on the books now that simply aren’t being enforced.  I realize that our leftist betters who are always considering new ways of justifying the Federal government’s various attempts to circumvent the restrictions that the Constitution clearly places on it would justify these past ineffective measures as tacit decisions by “We the people” to allow the government the authority to infringe where no infringement was allowed.  I can even accept that there may be a measure of truth to this, as some people certainly would have been willing to surrender a measure of liberty for the illusion of security, much in the same way that the frog doesn’t really consider that the water he’s in just got a little hotter.  However, I’m not sure that we should accept the idea that liberty ensured by restrictions on Federal authority can be conceded by means of a “passive” waiver, that is to say, by not enforcing that restriction when a clearly prohibited authority is clearly usurped, when that act of usurpation in and of itself is not so onerous as to warrant an immediate, and vehement denial.  Such a belief cannot be logically defended, and if accepted, would fundamentally change the relationship between “We the people” and our government, and for the same reasons, the Federal government should be equally denied from arguing laches as a defense to any attempt to reassert the restrictions that have never been Constitutionally relaxed or rescinded.

Even the “Constitutional Scholar-In-Chief” understands that the Constitution ensures liberty by restricting what the Federal Government can and cannot do, even if he cannot help but to reveal his bias against that by referring to it by calling it a “charter of negative liberties” and lamenting that it prevents the Federal government from doing certain things for us.  (One of the inherent flaws in this viewpoint being revealed when you consider that when he is talking about “us” he only means some of “us”.)  If we were to accept that infringements that were enacted in another time were now acceptable, and allowed the Federal government the authority to enact even more infringements as long as it could justify them as “reasonable”, then all those who want an all-powerful state have to do is have a strategic long-term plan, and the will to carry it out in a creeping incrementalism over a period of decades in which emotionalism is used to justify the nibbles being taken from individual liberty, while at the same time, it can be asserted as the picture takes shape, that continuing infringements can be justified because it was allowed in the past…or because the Courts refused to uphold past challenges.  Essentially, such a philosophy fosters an adversarial relationship between the state and those who would be governed by it, because the state could, in time remove all restrictions lawfully imposed on it by the nation’s bylaws without ever calling for an upfront and open national referendum on the restriction itself.  As long as the state succeeds with its initial usurpation of that which was deliberately withheld from it, no further usurpation can ever be stopped; as long as they get away with it once, they would legally be allowed to get away with it again, while those who believe that they have been guaranteed such rights are slowly stripped of them, and rendered powerless to prevent it because their rights were not asserted from the start.  To allow this to either our representatives, or to nine (really less than nine) unelected men and women who are not in any way accountable for such extrajudicial activity is completely contrary to the idea of limited government on which this nation was founded, and encourages those who seek power, those of malicious intent, and those who are jealous of individual liberty, and the disparate impact that results from people being free to make their own choices about how they live, to subvert this founding principle at every opportunity.  Ultimately, it isn’t about safety, it is about control.

This is why despite having an entire Federal agency, with what would be an awesome name for a store, devoted to enforcing the infringements on the Second Amendment that previous generations mistakenly permitted, we still have crimes committed  with guns in this country.  It is why despite the fact that we have hundreds of laws criminalizing the ownership of certain firearms, and relating to the transfer, and use of firearms in crimes, crimes are still committed with guns in this country.  It is why, despite clear evidence of many of these crimes being broken in a manner that reveals itself to these Federal minders who are so empowered for our “safety” and “security” that the prosecution for these violations is shockingly, dare I say criminally low.  Against this stew of contradictions, and the constant drumbeat for more laws that the Federal government is still specifically prohibited from engaging in in the first place, one can only conclude that this drive is about control, and the ability to, through selective enforcement, prosecute certain people for engaging in activities that by the letter and the spirit of the organic law of this nation, remains, and always has been perfectly legal.

We need to say “NO!”  “HELL NO!”, and “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” until our self-appointed betters either come by the power they keep trying to assume for themselves honestly, by amending the bylaws, so that EVERYONE gets a say in the process, or until they get the message.

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Damn That Constitution!

Gun-fearing wussies and overbearing government control freaks continue to see an asterisk where none exists, in a determined effort to make the Constitution their own personal stumbling block like the living stone Peter wrote about in the second chapter of his first epistle.

First, we have New Jersey Police and CPS officials who executed a late-night, warrantless raid on the home of Shawn Moore, an NRA-Certified firearms instructor and range safety officer, who also teaches hunter education courses for the state of New Jersey this past Saturday night.   What could warrant such extraordinary action?  He posted a picture of his 11-year-old son, posing with a .22 caliber hunting rifle on Facebook.  His son has a New Jersey hunting license.  The authority’s excuse for trampling on Mr. Moore’s Fourth Amendment rights was an anonymous call to CPS as a result of the photo.  Apparently this was such a great indicator of child abuse that it caused the authorities to run out on a Saturday night to conduct this raid in such a hurry, that they forgot to get a warrant!  Thankfully, Mr. Moore’s attorney didn’t forget about the Fourth Amendment, and when the authorities demanded to get inside Mr. Moore’s gun safe “to see if all his weapons were properly registered” (registration isn’t required in New Jersey), Mr. Moore’s attorney reminded them that if they didn’t have a warrant, they could go pound sand.  The authorities were undeterred, attempting their typical “if you don’t cooperate with us, it looks suspicious” coercion, but Mr. Moore was having none of it.  It is reported that the Moores are considering suing the authorities.  I suggest a Section 1983 Civil Rights suit…the kind that carries personal liability for the offenders.  It’s well-past time to send a message to these people that they do not get to intimidate and harass law-abiding citizens who are simply exercising their rights.

Second is this “opinion” piece from the Los Angeles Times posted on Facebook by my friend and fellow patriot, Gary Graham.  It contains the same tired leftist lily-guilding casting people who believe that rights worth having are rights worth defending as “belligerently ignorant” and “filled with intractable hatred”, despite the fact that people who spout such nonsense in attempts to infringe or restrict the legitimate Constitutional rights of others are the ones most often proving themselves “belligerently ignorant” and so full of hate for others who engage in activity that they do not approve of…a trait so serendipitously displayed by this line from the story:

What can be done to reverse this tide of belligerent ignorance? Not much. The typical patriot acts within his free-speech and 2nd Amendment rights, and in fact most patriot activity consists of venting steam by meeting with like-minded Neanderthals and firing off blog posts threatening civil war. Yet such blather tends to get under the skin of the Timothy McVeighs of the world. These groups should be closely monitored, with resources adequate to the task, even if it means shifting some homeland security money from the hunt for foreign terrorists.

The contempt they have for the document drips off of the statement I bolded there.  And the bit about “getting under the skin of the Timothy McVeighs of the world” strikes me as a dangerous and determined flirtation with irony poisoning, considering that they are the local paper for an industry that makes its money from peddling all manner of violence, with firearms and without, and studiously deflecting any suggestion that its product might in some way contribute to the senseless violence that some claim is epidemic in our society.  But again, to the minds of these rocket surgeons, this is but another problem to be solved by an expansion of domestic government surveillance, because everyone knows that the way to save a free society is to curtail its freedoms whenever possible.

Some days, there is NEVER enough facepalm for the inconsistencies and illogical pontificating that pass for thinking.  Ambassador Soval would certainly raise an eyebrow.

 

 

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Is It Finally Time For Term Limits?

You cannot conceive how much I hate this idea.

We’re talking “hate with the heat of a thousand suns”.

We’re talking about repugnant to the very idea of a republic, and the fact that I have recently come to revisit the idea is yet another sign of just how sad our society has become, and yet when I look at the Federal Government in general, and the Senate specifically, I see the combination of aging hippies acting badly and people who have so overstayed their welcome that they have either lost focus or never had it, and have turned a stint in public service into a lucrative sinecure, and an exercise in the centralization and usurpation of power.  It doesn’t really matter if we’re discussing Juan McCain and Lindsey Graham and their constant efforts to be the beautiful losers of the Senate, or Diane Feinstein, and her fundamental mistrust of Americans’ ability to exercise their rights unmolested by a top-heavy, control-freaky government hell-bent on removing the teeth of the Constitution so that the coup can be completed.

I first seriously encountered the idea when I read George Will’s Restoration in the early 90s.  At that time, I recall being irritated because I felt that Will had not given sufficient consideration to the way that Congress works, or how to replace it.   The entire idea was like a beautiful clock.  I could admire how it looked, and how it made me feel, but when I turned it over, I could see no works behind the facade.  I may go and dig out of the boxes in the garage just to see if I, or George have gotten any smarter in the last two decades.

But after watching the Old Guard’s shameful response to the New GOP members like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, with the cries of “Wacko Birds!” and the general condescension in response to reminding the Executive Branch that it is NOT an Imperial Branch, and the unwillingness to participate in actions that they do not seem capable of even comprehending the significance of, I see tired “leaders” who lack either the good sense or the self discipline to realize that they have overstayed their welcome, and that perhaps they would be happier set out to pasture, where they could still get plenty of Lapdog Media airtime offering their meaningless “conservative” opinions that aren’t to those who are happy to take an incremental approach to the compromise of liberty, because any time they get a piece of it, they win.  These are the same people who think that it “mavericky” to offer up a mealy-mouthed and insincere apology for their gross miscalculation of the importance of something that it never occurred to them to do in the first place.

Then this week came the exchange between Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Ted Cruz, in which she felt “patronized”, and proclaimed that she has been “up close and personal with the Constitution”, as if that somehow validated her attempts to void the Second Amendment.  Assassins often get “up close and personal” with their intended targets, usually when they are getting ready to slip the knife in between the victim’s ribs.

I’ve heard the exchange.  I’ve read the exchange.  The Senatrix from Sillyfornia wasn’t patronized…  but she should have been.  A good way to start would have been to ask her “What part of “…shall not be infringed.” is it that you’re having so much trouble grokking?” And when she devolved into her dubious reading of Heller as her justification for inserting The Asterisk where none exists, the proper response would have been “And is the Supreme Court always correct?”  If she was dumb enough to say “Yes, of course.”, then to say “Roger Taney thanks you for your validation.  700,000+ Civil War dead are unavailable for comment, however.”  As for her appeal to emotion regarding her role in the Harvey Milk killings, it has been noted by Michael Walsh that the gun used in those murders, a police service revolver, is NOT on the list of firearms that she is excited to infringe upon.  When taken in total, I can only conclude that it is about the exercise of power for power’s sake.  In invoking Heller in the manner in which she did, she shows her hand.  Her premise is not to start at the Constitution, and determine if it gives the authority for the power she clearly wants to exercise; it is to start at what she perceives to be the limitation on the Constitution, which is a very different concept.  Her incredulity at Cruz pointing out that limitations on the other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights demonstrates that she knows the obvious nature of the contradiction she seeks, and knows exactly why it is so important to neuter this right first.

The sad fact is that we have too many elected officials who are too concerned with being liked, or with passing laws because they think they can, and not enough who do not automatically accept the status quo of compromising liberty and assuming that there is no power forbidden to the Federal Government.  I see that changing when I see Cruz, Paul, Amash, and others…especially when they start talking about spending and budgets in current terms, rather than pushing them out to Congresses that they may or may not be part of in ten years or more.  It feels like a freshening wind, and for Juan McCain, Lindsey Graham, and DiFi, a song:

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Entitlements Aren’t Just the Programs Killing the Republic, They Are the Attitudes Killing It Too.

Two weeks ago, I was reading on a professional list serv hosted through the state bar association about a new case that applied Washington’s Consumer Protection Act in a manner in which it had not been applied before, that would be useful to elder law practitioners state-wide.  About a day later, one of the older attorneys on the list serv (I’m in my 40s) posted a comment about our shameful treatment of the “greatest generation”, and how awful it is that they have to become paupers before the can make the rest of us pay for their nursing home/end-of-life care, and how they can’t leave their wealth to their kids and grandkids like we promised them in our “contract” with them, and carrying on about the immorality of it, and how awful it was that we were now contemplating cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs put in place in the sixties.

I was gobsmacked.  Here was an officer of the court, someone who is supposed to understand the law, and to think logically, proposing that it was immoral to expect people to pay for their own care if they had the means to do so, and suggesting that they had every right to pass their accumulated wealth on to their kids and grandkids, and make the peers of those kids and grandkids pay for their care.  As one of the people stuck with the bill according to this plan, and as someone with children whose own expectations are considerably diminished by this kind of thinking, I was angry.  As a practitioner, who can clearly see that the logic of this doesn’t work anyway, because those kids and grandkids will still be paying for the care of grandpa and grandma’s peers, I was livid.  I had to ask about the morality of presuming that this was owed to anyone, and how the mortgaging of future generations was in anyway a moral way to pay for it.  I then went on to ask how it was that the federal government had the lawful authority to engage in such largesse to begin with. 

To my relief, there were a few responses that were supportive of this view.  There were a few older members who, to their discredit, avoided the question of legal authority, and instead, somewhat condescendingly, waxed poetic about the views they held when they were “the masters of the world” back in the sixties, when they tried to change the world for the better.  I have been guilty in the past of joking about aging hippies behaving badly when discussing certain people in politics, but I had never seen generational hubris so baldly manifested.

Finally, a lawyer took up my question of the legal authority for the federal government’s largesse in this matter.  She assured me that it was found in the general welfare clause…of the preamble of the Constitution (and not in Article I, Section 8!).  I pointed out to her that it was her own unique translation, but Madison, who was one of the principal architects had a very different take which he articulated in the Federalist 41, in part in answer to the Anti-Federalist Brutus, in his paper, VI, in which he warned that its inclusion would lead to men of lesser character in succeeding generations deciding that anything and everything was “general welfare”, to the detriment of society as a whole.

Her response back to me asked “So what do we do in the alternative?”

At this point, I decided to learn more about her.  Among other things, she had been an aide to Senator George Mitchell for a very long time, and had written legislation here in Washington as well.  No doubt, she had been firmly indoctrinated to the idea that there is nothing that the federal government could not and should not do.  Therefore, while I could say “Gee, I dunno.  How about a return to limited government, in which we get its boot off our necks and its hand out of our back pockets?”, I felt reasonably certain that given her belief in the “Good and Plenty Clause” interpretation of the Constitution, it would have simply registered like a whale popping up in front of her, speaking in Russian and Mandarin.  Instead, between the utter disappointment I felt at such a manifest failure to understand our organic law in too many of my fellow lawyers, and the size of my workload, I simply chose to not respond at all, and I simply quit keeping track of the thread.

The head of that state bar section finally commented late this week about the “political” discussion that arose in that thread, and how she had been informed by the state bar that membership in that list serv fell off sharply due to the number of comments and the nature of the opinions discussed, and she asked that the thread be declared “over”, and that such “political” discussions be avoided in the future.

For my part, I didn’t see any reason to continue.  I saw a lot of supposedly intelligent people who are focused on treating symptoms, and who couldn’t be bothered with the idea of actually treating the disease, largely because they refuse to comprehend that there are limits to the compassion that they can engage in with other people’s money.  I’m afraid that we are sailing this ship of state right over the rocks and the falls beyond them, and that too many aboard are in denial about the whitewater ahead.

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I Found Something That Can Be Cut From the Budget…

I was driving home from work the other day, listening to Mark Levin, and an ad came on that had a father helping his little girl learn how to tie her shoes.  After she did it, Tom Selleck came on, and said “Sometimes, the smallest things make the biggest impact in our children’s lives.  Take time to be a Dad.  This message brought to you by fatherhood.gov.”

I couldn’t believe it.  FATHERHOOD.GOV???  It had to be a joke. 

Sadly, it wasn’t. 

I came home and typed www.fatherhood.gov into my computer’s web browser.

One of the graphics I saw was the one above.  Another had a picture of the President with his daughters, and the message below invited me to take the fatherhood pledge.  I paused, choking down the irony of a man who’s only political stands of any import before becoming the President were centered around maintaining abortion, and resisting palliative care for children who survived their mother’s attempts to murder them pressing me to “Take the Fatherhood Pledge”.

Then I scrolled to the bottom of the website, and saw these words:

This is an official U.S. Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The agency that DEMANDS employers provide abortion, abortifacients, and birth control, even when doing so goes against their religious beliefs, and which persists in the fantasy that giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood helps poor and low-income women get mammograms actually sponsors a website purporting to teach American men to be better dads.

  With OUR tax money. 

The same government which has managed to destroy the black family, (and has inflicted damage on all families) is now telling men how to be dads.  How is this acceptable?  How is it that the Federal government, even without everything it has done to destroy families, has the right to deign to tell men how to be fathers?  It isn’t the government’s job to tell me how to be a Dad…and the fact that it sees fit to do so with my money simply adds insult to injury.  The family is not the government’s sphere of influence, especially in light of the fact  that there is so little that the government can do efficiently.  This is the embodiment of the concept of government breaking your legs, then putting you in a cast and telling you how lucky you are to have it.  Add to the concept what government has done to make war on the family, and yes, erode parental authority, and there is simply no moral basis which government can stand on to defend this.  And in the meantime, I’m sure this extended middle finger to any parent with a brain is nowhere near the list of things to be cut in the miniscule curtailment in the growth of government known in the White House as SEQUESTERGEDDON!!!111!!!  Not when they can mess with airtravel instead….you know…for the CHIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDRRRREEEEENNNNNNNN!!!!!

I’m sure when my kids are still living in my house when they are 40, dreaming of the day when they can afford to move out to an 800 sq. ft. efficiency apartment all their own, I’m sure that they’ll thank Obama for the usurpation of authority never granted to the government and the deficit spending that make the offensive government lily-guilding like FATHERHOOD.GOV possible.  They’ll have a future full of much diminished prospects, but at least they’ll have the memory of Dad helping them learn to tie their shoes because government told him to do it.

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Because “MUSKETS!” and Other Inexcusably Stupid Excuses, Part 7

“As the greatest danger is that of disunion of the states, it is necessary to guard against it by sufficient powers to the common government; and as the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a good militia.”

James Madison —ELLIOTT, ED., 5 THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS 464 (1836, repr. 1941)

“Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going to far to say, that the state governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to their best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield in the United States an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. The these would be opposed a militia amounting to near a half million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best aquainted with the late successful resistance of this country against the the British arms will be the most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the peopleof almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military attachments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain that this aid alone [mere quiet private possession of ordinary personal firearms], they would not be able to shake off their yokes.“|

James Madison —THE FEDERALIST, NO. 46

Et tu, James?

It’s almost like they didn’t trust government, or something.

Oh well, I’m sure they didn’t know what they were talking about or anything, right?

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Because “MUSKETS!” and Other Inexcusably Stupid Excuses, Part 5

The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allured the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside…Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them;…the weak will become prey to the strong.

Thomas Paine— 1 WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 56 (Conway ed., 1894).

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

Thomas Jefferson— 8 PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 407 (J. Boyd, ed., 1953).

“[W]hat country can preserve it[]s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve their spirit of resistance? Let them take arms, the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is nature’s manure.”

Thomas Jefferson—   Id., vol. 2 at 344.

I used these quotes from “the Toms” today because of their uniquely contrarian natures.  Paine was a fairly astute observer of human nature, and because of it, he understood that society, and government were both necessary evils…neither to be wholly trusted, and both should meet with some limitations preserved by the individual.  While his keen perception was not enough to keep him from the hubristic belief that man is capable of becoming better based on his intellect and self-restraint alone, and the sad consequences that followed for him, he still understood that arms were and are the great equalizer, which allow those who want to be able to live in peace, from all who threaten it, to do so, some without ever having to rely on their actual use.

Jefferson had no illusions about arms.  As the primary author of the prose of the Declaration of Independence, he also understood that at times, it falls upon the governed to open the ears of those who would govern them, and that sometimes, sadly, that means using arms.  Clearly, he also understood that the right to bear arms was a pillar of liberty, as he knew firsthand that going to government, hat in hand, and asking “Please sir, may I have some more freedom?” is no more effective than a sternly worded letter to a member of Congress who is convinced that the august body of which he is a member does not have a spending problem.

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The High Blood Pressure Is A Sign I’m Not Dead Yet

Obama’s campaign is now a “social welfare group”, and for only $500,000.00, you too can have access to the President. Organizing for Action is doing all the things Obama claims to hate. But then, leading by example has never been Obama’s strong suit. Still, I think when even Chuck Todd thinks that it “looks bad”, you’ve probably pushed it too far. Read more at Sweetness and Light.

And now, your moment of truth that your dear leader doesn’t want you to know:

I think I need a cigarette. You?

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