rant

“Then they came for the reporters, and someone noticed!”

SO…

It took the Federal Government taking Associated Press telephone records to FINALLY get the attention of the Fifth Estate that THIS Administration is up to no good.  Guess they know where their bread is buttered.

• Not Benghazi or the ensuing cover up.
• Not selling radical Islamic fundamentalist government folks in Egypt our fighter jets, and giving them the monies to overthrow the previous dictator in the first place.  While ignoring government-sponsored wholesale murder of Christians there!  And abuse of women (Sorry, not supposed to mention that, because they’re allowed to have their own culture, you know.)
• Not Fast & Furious aka Gunwalker and deaths of their own agents directly attributed to government-sponsored ‘walked’ guns.
• Not the continuing and ongoing assault on The Bill of Rights, especially the First, Second and Fourth Amendments.
• Not labeling the Fort Hood mass-murderer as ‘workplace violence’.  After all, witnesses have testified he was yelling Allahu Akhbar while killing his fellow soldiers.  Must be an OSHA violation.
• Not giving tacit approval to the OWS movement and the New Black Panthers to do as they wish, including mayhem, destruction of property and voter intimidation, while branding the Tea Party folks racist, on scant evidence.
• Not the IRS targeting conservative groups for ‘special attention’, whilst ignoring ‘community organizations’  and unions friendly to the President, like ACORN and SEIU.
• Not demanding we citizens have a National I.D. Card and health insurance, while claiming illegal aliens undocumented workers being asked to produce voter identification is racist. 

I could go on, but, I would overdose on my antacids.  And that would probably bring me to the attention of the FDA…

And I wouldn’t want THAT.

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.

There’s a point here…

So…

Initial investigation has determined that there were two individuals proximately responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings.  They later shot and killed a police officer.  One of the suspects was DRT*.  (Reportedly run over by the other suspect during his escape!)

The two suspects are of Chechen origin, and have lived in the United States for 10 years.  They are reportedly Muslim (as are many Chechens) and brothers.  I’ll not grant them any more fame by posting their names or photos here.

It’s been reported by family members that the two brothers never assimilated into American Culture, and had no American friends.  After 10 years (!)

“…never assimilated into American Culture” 

The point of the information reported is not that the suspects are Chechen, or Muslim, or brothers.  It’s that they lived here TEN YEARS and did not assimilate.  Period.

I’ve no problem with folks legally migrating to the United Stated and retaining connections with their home country and culture.  Hell, I’m part German and part Irish stock – have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and Octoberfest.  But, I’m an American.

It used to be if folks came to America, it was to find the freedom here – to become American.  I used to know an Italian family who owned a pizza place.  Tiny Italian and American flags all over the restaurant, coupled with a picture of the President and the Pope on the back wall.  And they had many friends and customers of all ethnicities and nationalities.

I don’t know if these guys were home-grown terrorists, turned by a radical Muslim/Chechen faction, or part of a sleeper cell.  Perhaps we’ll never know.

But, I do know if they’d assimilated, there’d have been less of a chance of violence used against us.

I wonder if the families of the Mexican kids who tore down the American Flag at their high school and ran up a Mexican flag understand this?

Come here to be part of American culture – or stay home.

*dead right there – thanks to John Farnham

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!

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.

Polling our RIGHTS!

I don’t know about you, but with the now-ubiquitous attempts to deprive us of our natural rights to assemble, access the Internet (or tax it – a vote TODAY! Call D.C.!), speak freely, worship (or choose not to), keep the constabulary from our homes without benefit of warrant, eat unhealthy food and of course, deprive us of the right to keep and bear arms, there seems to be more and more of a movement on the part of the Fourth Estate to POLL US with these concerns:

• Should we ban (insert offensive machine here)?
• Should we prohibit (insert offensive content) from the Internet?
• Should the government monitor all our Internet accesses and emails?
• Should free enterprise and marketplace be disallowed with regard to commerce in firearms?

I’m sick of seeing such polls.  I don’t care if the entire population of New York votes en masse to prohibit me from having a soft drink larger than 16 oz., or a firearm magazine greater then 7 round capacity, or a poll in USA Today (the primary coloring book of newspapers) supports such a vote.

My rights are my individual rights.  Period.  Guaranteed.  And no attempt at ‘democracy’ (tyranny of the majority) will convince me otherwise.

Take your polls elsewhere, about other things.  Like a preference for apple or cherry pie.

Is There No One?

Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away reports about a D.C. Council member recommending legislation that would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance.

The Council Member is Mary M. Cheh, a constitutional law professor!

Is there no one out there, no constitutional law professor who actually has read and understands the U.S. Constitution?  All of them appear to be progressive folks pushing their dystopian agenda on us, under the guise of constitutional law?

Then there was that constitutional law professor a while back who proposed scrapping the Constitution.

Or are they all like this ‘professor’, cut from the same cloth as another ‘constitutional law professor’, the President?

Someone needs to look up the phrase shall not be infringed.

Where are you?  They’re giving constitutional law professors a bad name!

Revisionist History

I’m tired of revisionist history!

The Fabian Socialists communists progressives (whatever they call themselves this week!) just keep pumping it out.  Slow and steady wins the race.

As with so many other movements, this one began in an effort to improve society.  Now, we all know with what the road to Hell is paved?

Pick up most modern public school textbooks and thumb through them.  An suggested title for them might be We Apologize For The Republic!

Washington, Jefferson and company were damn near terrorists.  (Of course, I guess they were).  All colonialists hated the Blacks and the Indians (oops, Native Americans).  And all supported slavery and having sex with their slaves.  These are the kinds of messages our children are getting.  (Jean Jacques Rousseau is being force-fed to our youth!  Noble Savage my a** – they were living in the Third Stone Age when we arrived, killing and enslaving each other.)

No wonder we are raising generations of Americans who think we’ve all descended from the White Devil slavemasters!

(Oh, I forgot, they’re all athiests or deists, too!  Besides, we don’t discuss religion in school.)

The Civil War (correction – War Between The States or the recent unpleasantness) was all about slavery.  Vast increase of Federal government power had nothing to do with it.  Lincoln was a great hero.  After all he saved the Union!  Didn’t you see the movie?  ‘Freeing the slaves’ in the States in rebellion was hardly an enforceable act.  And who needs habeus corpus, anyway?  (Is rendition a NEW concept?  Now NDAA, anyone?)  AND, he got shot!

And how many Indians did he order hanged?

We used to speak of these United States, not the United States.  The Seventeenth Amendment further consolidated Federal power, eliminating State government input in choosing Senators 68 years after the war. (1913)

Funny how the Sixteenth Amendment gets glossed over in text books.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

This ‘power’ was deliberately left out of the Constitution – by those evil White guys!  But, it was sneaked* in later.

Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson (yecch!), Franklin Roosevelt (FOUR terms!  are you kidding me?  We call it the GREAT Depression – the rest of the World, just the Depression), LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Clinton.  The current administration?  Jack Kennedy would be considered a fiscal Republican by today’s standards.  He’s considered great largely because he had charisma, and didn’t duck!

Ask most anyone, and they’ll tell you it was those evil Republicans who kept us from passing Civil Rights legislation in the 40s, 50s and 60s.  Of course, if they looked deeper, they’d find it was the Democrats.  The same President LBJ who signed The Civil Rights Act was the same Senator LBJ who blocked it eight years earlier!

And how about McCarthy?  Seeing communists under our bed are we?  Of course, that was silly.  YES, he was a grandstanding a**h***e who climbed on the backs, careers and lives of others to get ahead.  Look up character assassin in a dictionary.  There’s his picture.  HOWEVER, it’s finally coming to light that many of his accusations were TRUE!  Many of those folks who were so-dramatically accused were indeed commie spies (or outside agitators (community organizers?))!!  BUT, truth doesn’t matter, now that ‘they’ve’ established the McCarthyism meme as conservative paranoia.  And no, there are no communists in government (Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Cass Sunstein et al).

And Richard Nixon.  (subliminal messaging WATERGATE)  He opened dialog and trade with the largest country in the World – The People’s Republic of China  (WATERGATE)  Without whom we probably wouldn’t have survived this long.  (WATERGATE)  (Instituted WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS)

They say the history books are written by the winners.  If that’s the case, we’ve already lost.

The Politics of COOL

Well, the Nation has re-elected the incumbent.  In spite of allegations of stealing tampering irregularities of votes (e.g. some voting districts in Ohio reportedly had 0% Republican turn out!) we got what we deserve.

Americans historically don’t like politics, and this time around is no different.  We suffered through 18 months of vile political attack ads, then went into the booth, held our respective noses and pulled the lever.

And what did we get for our trouble?  COOL.

After all, American Tradition shows us we vote for the coolest guy.  How many generals, admirals, war heroes and other military folk have run for President or Vice President, because for most of this country’s history such people were thought of as cool?  Does this mean they are qualified civilian administrators and policy makers?  Not necessarily.

The advent of modern telecommunication, computers, the Internet and email, coupled with the anti- (fill-in-the-blank) movement, another dimension has been added.  Just like cinema of the late 60s/early 70s reflected the counter-culture, so did politics.  And cool took on another facet.

Suddenly, the cool guy wasn’t the former Army General or the guy whose PT boat was sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer, it was the guy who reluctant served, or the guy who didn’t even serve at all.

The anti-hero.

Suddenly, it’s Dustin Hoffman instead of Audie Murphy; Peter Fonda instead of John Wayne.  William Jefferson Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama instead of George Bush (either one).

There was a time that American ideals meant a Norman Rockwell painting, not a poster from Mother Jones.  Suddenly it was okay to hold high office having admittedly done marijuana and cocaine in one’s youth.  Instead of just drinking.

And we got what we deserve.  The anti-hero.

Differences of Opinion

I used to be ‘on’ Facebook a lot more.  I located a number of long-lost friends there, and even connected with high school reunion (and junior high!) folks there.

But, as I became more of a blogger, my time there has been limited.  I usually stop by daily, just to check-in though.

While there is occasionally conflict or a difference of opinion in the blogosphere, my experience in FB has not been the same.  You see, persons of more diverse opinions tend to make theirs known on Facebook.  I’ve no problem with people not being on the same page.  That’s one of the things that makes life interesting.  I’ve posted about such friends (Ralph).  Life would be incredibly boring if we were all in lock-step.

My objection is people who aren’t even on the same planet or in the same universe.  These folks concern me.

As an example, I’ve known a guy for about 20 years.  We worked together @ TMCCC.  We had some similar interests.  I liked going all out for Halloween, so did he (for example).  But, we never really got political.  And he moved to Australia.  And back here.  And he visited me in the hospital after the accident – a good guy.  We’ve reconnected on Facebook, and he’s made noises about getting together for a drink, or lunch, or something.  A laudable idea.  But…

He obviously not only has no idea where I stand (he doesn’t read this blog); he (re)posts stuff on FB, without any knowledge of the subject, or researching it to see if it makes any sense. One (of many) examples:

This adjacent to a bunch of comments from like-minded folk also piling on, and not understanding either The Constitution or the subject matter.  Complete with ‘you don’t need a machine gun to deer hunt’ comments!

How can I possibly make nice with this guy?

I have friends who are liberal.  I have friends who are independent.  And we’ve had healthy, sometimes heated discussions.  I’m just not certain I can do so with this guy.  And that ticks me off, as he’s a friend.

sigh