anger

So much for Amendment the First…

OpenMarket.org advises us of yet another behind the scenes move by the current administration to control more stuff.

This time it’s blogging…

First Amendment Menace: Obama Administration to Expand Americans with Disabilities Act over Websites?

by HANS BADER

♫ Sunshine Go Away Today…♫

♫…I don’t feel much like dancin’…♫

Kent McManigal shares with us an essay regarding the essence of personal liberty, freedom and individual rights in this Constitutional Republic.

I find it sad that whenever someone wants to do something, the first question most people ask is whether government allows it, requires a license, or forbids it.

There is so much that isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the business of government.  Most personal conflicts are attached to an understood contract between individuals in the free marketplace – If you don’t like guns, don’t buy one; if that head of lettuce is bad too soon, don’t buy them there, anymore; don’t like illegal drugs, don’t use them.

There are remedies before getting the government involved.  That shouldn’t be our go-to choice.  It should be the last resort.

This isn’t a pointless philosophical debate. On May 5, President Obama warned Ohio State University graduates to reject the warnings people like me are passing along, and to simply trust government.

My motivation is that I trust you to run your own life, and I want you to understand liberty and experience it in all its glory.

What might his motivation be?

If you can be fooled into asking the wrong questions, the answers don’t matter.

This should be our (libertarian’s) anthem. – Guffaw

h/t Kent’s “Hooligan Libertarian” Blog

I used to know a guy…

…who was a friend, a mentor, a good guy.  A gun guy, Gunsite graduate.  A libertarian.  Sadly, we are no longer in touch.

He used to say he’d not know how he’d react if things got so bad in this country, that if he was stopped and asked, “Papiere, bitte!” “PAPERS, PLEASE!”, what he might do?

I’m sorry to say, Bud, that day has come.

Here’s hoping none of us loses their cool if asked.

h/t/ wirecutter, John

Doing Wrong To Prevent Wrong – NSFW

(What follows has some language that is Not-Safe-For-Work.  I thought it best not to edit or censor it, to give it it’s full impact - Guffaw)

This is the crux of the libertarian, Constitutional argument.  Why are we so against all these ubiquitous encroachments on our civil liberties?  And why we should continue to be.

Every time I see something like this, be it use of a no-knock warrant (or no warrant at all), surveillance cameras everywhere, GPS on modern cell phones that we cannot disconnect, institutionalized warrantless searches at airports (and elsewhere) or beating a confession out of a suspect, I recognize we have lost something beyond price.  And, I know we probably won’t get these liberties back without a fight.

Kent’s “Hooligan Libertarian” Blog touches on the most recent of these issues.  The lock-down and methodical search of an entire city to locate a terrorism suspect.  He says, in part:

The same goes for imposing a police state and illegally/unethically/immorally locking down a city and invading homes to catch a suspect.  Every cop who entered any property without the explicit permission of the owner/renter deserved to be shot dead.  Immediately.  Good thing for those stormtroopers that the “people” there gave up their responsibility and guns long ago, and are cheering fans of Big Brother.  Makes me furious to even think about.

Follow this up with Lurking Rhythmically’s screed regarding some folks disdain for an individual’s natural rights.  She says, in part:

From a comment on my previous post:

You know, I like most of what you post, and followed you even though I disagreed with you on your position on so-called “gun rights”.

Oooh. Isn’t that just delicious contempt ? It’s so thick and creamy you could drizzle it on a pancake. I especially like the one-two punch of  so-called and the scare quotes. They aren’t rights, they’re “rights”.  That’s quality passive-aggression right there.

Here’s the lovely thing about rights:  They aren’t up for a vote. That’s why they’re rights.

Let’s put it another way:

• your so-called “suffrage”
• your so-called “emancipation”
• your so-called “integration”
• your so-called “religious freedom”
• your so-called “freedom of speech”
• your so-called “right to due process”

Are you offended yet? You should be. You should be screamingly furious that anyone would diminish these rights with the phrase “so-called”.

And yet my inalienable right to defend myself with the most effective means possible is threatened because one, ONE asshole out of 10 million law-abiding gun owners decided to commit a raft of crimes that another law would not have stopped.

You say, “Compromise.”  I say, ”Fuck you, you mewling cowards. I will not embrace victimhood. I will not willingly disarm. If you demand I give up my life just to make you feel better, you are selfish on a level that is beyond comprehension.”

I believe this is how most of us feel, even if we can’t quite put our feelings into words.  Individual rights are individual rights.  Whether ‘natural’ or ‘derived from our Creator’, it doesn’t matter.  They are not up for debate or vote.  Period.

And to allow them to be voted on is yet another encroachment.

Go and read the entire Declaration of Independence, and then the two links above.  Then look at the news, and read what we accept as a normal course of government business every day.

Then, perhaps become angry about the state of our Nation.  And cry a little.

Everyman, the Ostrich

Above, witness the Ostrich-man, in his natural habitat.

He is an American, but in name only.  More than likely, he identifies himself (herself?) as a(n) (fill-in-blank-with-ethnicity or religion) American.  Even if he is here illegally.  He probably doesn’t have a computer.  But if he does, it’s for gaming, word processing and perhaps porn.

He doesn’t like politics.  He believes all politicians are evil, corrupt, self-serving, lawyers (liars) – whose only function (as they see it) is to get re-elected and get more lobbyist’s ‘gifts’.  But, not many pay attention to the ‘issues’ or even vote.

He pays no attention to the state of the economy, or the news, or individual rights.  Or to the Constitution and it’s ubiquitous erosion.  He’s too busy working to make enough to pay the high taxes imposed to pay for everyone else’s (fill-in-the-blank-gov’t-program-handout).  He wears blinders when yet another infringement occurs – be it  the FBI’s COINTELPRO (1960s), airport metal detectors (1972), sobriety checkpoints (1986), random stop-and-frisks (2012), no-knock warrants (1970), shotgun microphones, FBI ‘administrative’ warrants (recently overturned-thank you!), The Patriot Act (2001), NDAA (2012), NSA monitoring of all cellular and Email traffic, cameras on every corner, black boxes in cars, locators in cell phones, warrantless GPS on cars, DHS claiming Christians and conservatives are radicals – but Islamic folks are just practicing their beliefs, The Fort Hood shooting is deemed ‘workplace violence’ (NOT terrorism)…

I could go on, but I’m already physically, emotionally and spiritually ill.

(I keep telling myself) WE (persons who participate on the Internet) are NOT EVERYMAN, and we DO participate  and WE DO pay attention, and WE DO write our congressmen and senators and presidents.

And we DO bitch to each other.  Sometimes, vociferously.

WE NEED TO KEEP COMPLAINING!  To anyone who will listen, and yes, to those crooked politicians, yet again.

If we stop, we’ll be joining the rest of our Nation, with our heads in the sand.  Or up some orifice.

And we’ll be in the perfect position for the next infringement.

BOHICA  -  Bend over, here it comes, again!

“So, aside from THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Part of my morning routine, after doing my blog post thing, is to peruse other blogs on my blogroll, The Gun Blog Black List, and elsewhere.  And I read the ‘news’ (such as it is.)  To search for blogfodder, jokes, and to see the state of the World.

I truly hope the following is another April Fool’s joke, like I fell for the other day.  If NOT, well…SIGH.

Monday, April 8, 2013

NY Gun Confiscation Underway – Citizens Told to Turn in Pistol Owner ID & Firearms

Via Steven Peter Yevchak, Sr.

 

Manasquan, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- Remember all those who denied that firearms confiscation as a result of New York’s new gun laws was too “insane” to even consider?

That it was strictly in the realm of paranoid conspiracy theorists and the “it cant happen here crowd”?

Those were and remain some of the standard replies to anyone who even thought about the possibility, let alone gave voice to it, despite the fact that Gov Cuomo and numerous other officials made public comments about such a plan, as I discussed in my article “Feinstein & Cuomo Admit Planning Australian Style Government Gun Buy Back” .

Elected Officials, the media, various Gun Control Groups and their zealous forced disarmament supporters, even some firearms owners themselves all insisted it was to crazy to even consider.

There’s just one huge problem it is happening now in New York State!

It seems those that tried desperately to warn of such an insidious plot had hit the bullseye with their warnings after all. News came from multiple NY State based firearms enthusiast websites late Friday that confiscations of Pistol Owner ID Cards, as well as firearms and accessories has commenced in NY under the provisions of the horribly flawed, draconian and blatantly unconstitutional NY SAFE Act.

Those folks having their weapons and FID cards confiscated  have been discovered to have been prescribed multiple different types of psychotropic drugs, such as those for Depression or Anxiety.

These are known as SSRI ( Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) class drugs and have the potential to cause serious and adverse side effects, something I wrote about extensively last week in an article that went viral in days and caused multiple Anti Gun and Progressive News Groups to initiate a concentrated denial of service hacker attack against Ammoland Shooting Sports News (see Daily KOS ” Keeping Track Of The RKBA Crowd” http://tiny.cc/ug67uw),  in an effort to keep the information from the public.
From NY http://tiny.cc/nyfirearms

“John Doe, an upstanding professional with no outstanding criminal convictions and no history of violent action received a letter from the Pistol Permit Department informing him that his license was immediately revoked upon information that he was seeing a therapist for anxiety and had been prescribed an anxiety drug. He was never suicidal, never violent, and has no criminal history. The New York State Department of Health is apparently conducting a search of medical records to determine who is being treated for anxiety drugs and using this as a basis for handgun license revocation.

Those are the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.”

 More @ Ammoland

We’re in for a truly bumpy ride, folks!

h/t Brock Townsend

Well, Call Me A RACIST, Yet Again!

The NAACP.  The Vanguard of the Rights of the Negro, colored, , African-American, Black since when?  1909?  Over 100 years of service.  And thank you for much of it!

EXCEPT, in recent years, they’ve been compromised by a progressive political agenda.  No longer is it about the right to vote, or work, or use the same soda fountain, water fountain or restroom.  It’s about how much can we get from the government, and how much can we distort history toward this aim?  And further a progressive agenda.

To wit.  Weasel Zippers shares THIS with us.  (Hang on to your butts!)

Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal Nominated For NAACP’s “Unsung Hero” Award…

Veggie Farmers Home Breached in Drug Sweep

My Daily Kona shares with us the tale of a couple retired CIA employees (not agents), whose home was raided in a two State drug sweep, because they had the audacity to purchase hydroponic gardening equipment to raise an indoor veggie garden.

Is this EVER going to stop?

Obviously going after real criminal marijuana farmers (who are growing an illegal drug for profit) could be dangerous.  Let’s go after a retired couple; they’re less likely to shoot back!

Kinda like going after an uber-conservative religious type after brow beating him into cutting 1/2″ off a couple of shotgun barrels (Randy Weaver).  Or going after a major guitar company for using hardwood illegal in some foreign country (Gibson Guitars).  Or making folks sign their life away to buy a decongestant in personal use quantities (most folks in most States).

Or…

That’s enough, rant over.

Personally, I think marijuana should be legalized.  Just think, then the jack-booted-thugs would have to go after real criminals.  Assuming they could find any.

Violence never solved anything!

Really?

It’s amazing how the p****fication  of America continues.  I saw an article the other day regarding violence in the schools, and how there was a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for such things.  Including the phrase:

Violence never solved anything!

Certainly juveniles need to be taught how to solve their differences without physical conflict first, but, failing that, learn next how to pick and choose their battles, then to win them!  These last two elements seem to have been lost to the dustbin of history.

This can and should be extrapolated to relations between nations.  Speak softly and carry a big stick works for me, for the ‘street’ and the schoolyard (although most schoolyards prohibit sticks or their moral equivalent).

Certainly children emulate their parents, more than copy their words.  If you solve problems at home physically, your child is likely to copy you.  I saw a stair-step family in the mall one day, six or seven kids in a row, in diminishing height, accompanying their mother.  (side note – father was nowhere to be seen.)  One of the middle boys punched his sister in the arm – the mom spun around and cracked the boy full-palm across the face screaming “Don’t you hit your sister!”   I wonder where he learned such behavior?

I remember my daughter, after two years of karate, being harassed at her bus stop by a boy who was a head taller than she.  This was happening daily.  Obviously, the boy was repeating something he heard at home, something inappropriate for this venue or 6th Grade girls, which my daughter was.  She implored me, “Can I hit him?, Can I?”  I asked if he had touched her, she said no.  I advised we would deal with it (by speaking with the school).  But, I did tell her if he did touch her, yes, she could respond with force.  Fortunately, he was moved to another bus stop, and she didn’t have to do anything.  She’d have hurt him, significantly.

I’ve never been the victim of an armed robbery (knock-on-wood) but if I were and the opportunity presented itself, I’d respond with appropriate force.  Not inappropriate force, but force.  Violence.  If necessary.  I have been the victim of multiple burglaries (in my former neighborhood).  Had I walked in on the miscreants, responding with force concurrent with Arizona law would have been appropriate.  And certainly necessary.

I was attacked by a mentally unbalanced person with a knife once.  It’s fortunate I was unarmed, or she would be dead.  I did injure her to stop the attack.

Violence isn’t always a first choice, but sometimes it is a choice.  And sometimes it does solve problems.

Cheer Up!

I began writing this morning on today, the 18th anniversary of the loss of my 12 year old daughter, Molly.  And I started wallowing:

(redacted specifics re: the crap in my life and the lives of everyone I know)

I decided rather than wallow, to take a page from my dear friend Rev. Paul and lighten up.  All is not lost.  I still have friends and family who love me.  The Nation, while thought to be circling the drain in some circles, is still here.  As is her Constitution.

I know and believe this as fact:  All you can do is what you can do.  Fretting about the past or the future is pointless - be in the now.  And hold those you love close and tell them you love them, because you never know!  Do it now!

How can you look into that face above and not smile?

(I’ve chosen to make commentary unavailable on this post – go and hold your loved ones, instead!)