What Does It Mean To Have Rights?

***Feb 27,2007*** Someone from England Googled into this and it has been a regular archive hit since it was written. I don't think it will seem dated today.

I will start with a disclaimer, an entire library could be written on this subject and I'm not going to.

The US government recognizes some rights, the basic documents of our form of government set some out. These documents begin officially with the Declaration of Independence, there are preceding documents, but this one is officially American. The Declaration sets out two ideas that form this nation's soul, that certain rights precede all forms of government and that when a government no longer serves its people they have the right to change it, violently if needed.

The Revolutionaries fought a long, bitter war against a government they previously had every reason to believe was their own. This experience taught them that their belief in inherent rights could come into conflict with a government's interests and that a government might not represent its citizenry. They had no interest in repeating the experience and tried to pre-empt such a thing's recurrence. They argued long and hard about the Constitution, having failed with the Articles of Confederation to create stability, in order to make a system which was strong enough to withstand the competing interests of its citizenry and flexible enough to meet those interests. Some things like Habeas Corpus they considered basic enough in Law to survive mention in the basic document, the Constitution, others were not so well codified and yet considered of great import. These others composed the Bill of Rights, a formal recognition of rights that were not derived from government, or created by government, but actually superior to government. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were given codification or enumeration.

The things that they had declared in embarking on war with the most powerful nation in the world was now set out in definite wording. These men never intended that these rights superseded responsibility in action nor that a right allowed the destruction of our fellows, they assumed that simple humanity required an end point to the exercise of a right. They also were more inclined to err on the side of the individual's sense than the government's interests. It is important to remember that these individuals were primarily of English descent or of English Law culture and had watched and finally fought the disintegration of their relationship with their government over a clash of interests. They knew these issues first hand.

When you accept the idea of rights that are superior to and precede governance you have set a high ideal. You put your government out of business in areas where it has almost always interfered. These are areas that the citizenry has strong feelings and beliefs about, areas that governments have always used or suppressed in service to their interests. No one can deny that religion, as an example, is an issue that is of tremendous import to members of society and that its co-option by government is a powerful tool. It is extraordinarily dangerous to government to let it loose for free expression, government takes a large blow to its interests. Each of the rights that were enumerated is similarly debilitating to government and dangerous in the hands of individuals. The Framers were engaging in a risky course of action.

That brings us to us. We are engaged in a risky enterprise, the exercise of rights that all previous governments restricted in one way or another. The government cannot tell us to only praise it with our words, it also cannot tell us not to say mean hurtful things. It cannot tell us that to say one group is unfit to be within society is wrong and forbidden, it must allow us to go our own way. We can say that our elected officials are liars and cheats in the service of unelected elite interests. This creates a possible source of chaos that the government is forbidden to interfere with. The very few limitations the government is allowed to attempt to enforce are those that involve direct deliberate harm to other's rights. Virtually the only protection offered the government is in the transmittal of government secrets. Even in this arena the government treads on very thin ice, it has of late asserted privileges that it may find are specious. Just in the narrow limits of free speech and free press the situation is fraught with risk to order and civility and particularly to government.

It is easy in our modern world to become comfortable and believe we have safe and secure lives and it is a mistake. We live in a system that encourages and supports dissidence, and finally places the tools of rebellion firmly in the citizenry's hands. This systemic deprivation of power of governance is so deep and broad that its beneficiaries often are not aware of it. The tools of sedition range from speaking and gathering together, to having the arms to fight, and protections from governmental investigations. Every direction the government turns it is constrained. This is not the recipe for quiet sedate life if the people do not wish it and frequently despite their wishes it is not.

Because government, the enforcer of societal order, is so constrained it falls on the citizenry to exercise its rights in manners that do not create harm to their fellows. It falls to the citizenry to make informed and reasoned votes for those who represent them. It falls to the citizenry to be responsible for a government that allows and encourages cooperative society. The onus for failure of the system and violent reaction falls on those who have the very things that so constrain their government. There are those who would place restrictions on rights in the name of order and security, they would attempt to undo the system because its own members are failing it. This is misplaced responsibility, if a situation requires redressing it is not because rights are too broad, it is a failure of those responsible for the structuring of our relationships, which is finally the citizens.

We have the most glorious of opportunities, a government restrained and citizenry empowered and that is where we start. Almost a quarter millennia ago we put into operation the most daring and audacious experiment in history and we stand or fall on our own. We cannot blame the hamstrung and hobbled government, we are the power. Let us take ahold with both hands and move this forward, not fall back into the decay and decadence that is all previous governments.

Vindicate My Faith

John McCain doesn't like the expression Obama used regarding Iowa in the Primaries and used on several occassions, since. He stated that he's never needed that. Never. That's a rather large chunk to take in on one statement. This is a nation that counted slaves as 3/5ths a person in its Constitution, this is a nation that practiced Jim Crow, this is a nation that abrogated one treaty after another with American Indians and practiced not only physical but sprititual genocide on them, this nation imprisoned most of the Japanese American population on the West Coast, this nation fought a Civil War essentially over the issue of Slavery, this nation allowed blacks to go untreated for syphillis as an experiment, subjected US soldiers to radiation from atomic bombs as an experiment, this nation had states with the Confederate flag as a State flag, which J McM approved of when politically expedient, this nation treats gays as second class citizens, the federal government has tortured people in out custody, John McCain bombed on behalf of one of the most despicable despots in our association, under his watch the POW/MIA issue was never resolved, under his watch a very nearly historical redistribution of wealth up resulting in nearly historical disparity of wealth occured.

I can think of a few times, evidently, that this nation has not lived up to its ideals nor its promise. Under the McCain model demonstrated here you are either for the government or a traitor. Whateve John might get up to, if you oppose him as President you are questionable, he's not. I'll be damned if I want to live in his version of the USA, and I won't goddam move to avoid it. You have absolutely got to understand the jingoistic nature of this rhetoric. It plays to the uninformed in McCain/Palin rallies and plays on Faux News and the right wing blogosphere. It is corrosive in the extreme, it actually means the death of liberty. The liberty the Republicans so fondly reference is one of the first casualties of their jingoism.

This is not some slip of the tongue, accidental tie in made by a lefty blogger - it is endemic to that Party. GWB and Cheney used it. Sarah Palin is so completely into that bag that despite having some kind of journalism degree (majoring in teleprompter?) she had this to say about the media and the 1st Amendment:

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

If I call her a mean mouthed ignorant hick as I advocate her poltical extinction I am not being particularly responsible, but I am indulging in my First Amendment rights. Now I am completely unclear how it is that she mentally redefines her statements about Obama as something other than negatice or how the media is supposed to call it something else. Obama has certainly run attacks on McCain, linking him to Pres GWB in this climate isn't a compliment.

The media is traitor for not redefining Palin's campaign, the Obamas are traitors for not thinking everything has always been just ducky in the US. I take the Bill of Rights pretty seriously, evidently more so than these Faux patriots. These are the people who reinforce my belief in the importance of the Second Amendment. This is where tyrrany comes from my lefty friends.

FISA Foul Mood

Some more nails are being busily driven into the coffin of the 4th Amendment. I have, over time, yowled about previous depredations but this one drives me past that into essentially silence. It isn't really the immunity that's done it, that is civil immunity not criminal, it is the rest of the package. If I didn't see a handful of Senators, including my own - Wyden, opposing this I'd just quit politics.

House FISA Cave And Outrage

I had held hope that the most public connected piece of Congress, the House, had some nerve regarding FISA, George II, telecoms. Turns out it was limited to an approaching General Election and looking weak on - of all things - terror. The left is in deep dungeon about this, fury that is redounding to the discredit of Sen Barack Obama. Simply put, I'm damned unhappy about it.

That unhappiness is tempered by something, the clause "unreasonable search and seizure" has been around for quite awhile, since it is number 4 in the list of the Bill of Rights, and the concept of unreasonable has been pretty thoroughly kicked around previously. There was a little abortion of a bill termed the RICO Act that was instituted to battle organized crime, specifically the Mafia, that poisoned the well very completely. Since this idea applied only to a despised minority - the Mob - it was pretty well ignored but here is the part that gets all the way into your face; it means all of us. The deal is this, the simple accusation of criminal enterprise involving more than yourself allows the government to take your stuff as a part of or the results of criminal activity. I didn't say proven activity, many cases never go to trial or verdict, but the stuff is gone. Stolen. You can, of course, sue to get it back - if after your assets are gone you can afford an attorney to get back what is yours and if you can get the Federal government to allow you to sue. Oddly, there is also the issue that the agency responsible for taking your stuff also profits from it. Would that encourage misbehavior? Under this Act you are treated as guilty before proven so.

There's little doubt the telecoms knew spying for George was illegal and that he told them not to worry he'd cover it and any attorney worth spit told them - it doesn't work that way. There's scant doubt George and his minions broke Federal Law. There's even less doubt that our wannabe kinglet is a dickhead. Do you want to make a bet how many Americans are pissed off that he might have heard them telling their spouse they'd be late? If you're in doubt tell me about all the times you've heard people foaming at the mouth about RICO.

Not too long ago it became public knowledge that the FBI had prowled a Portland, OR lawyer's home without a warrant looking for evidence to support a warrant. I seem to remember a complete lack of riots in the streets. It did make a news cycle. It is still considered to be OK.

You're really pissed about FISA. I'm kinda pissed, that's because I look at Civil Liberties as a whole, as my natural rights guaranteed by the government, not granted by them. I've watched the steady erosion of those Rights by people who should know better and supported by the same people who are kicking up a storm now. When I note that the same people screeching about FISA also tell me that the right to keep and bear arms is optional I get kind of dubious about their sincerity. One of the reasons I own things that go bang is because if you break into my house I'll blow a hole through you and if you happen to be a warrantless FBI it'll be rough on your health. A pretty far fetched idea, but so are a lot of things, like the Fed spying on phone calls without a warrant.

If the unpopular one, GWB, visits your neighborhood there'll be designated free speech areas. Now I'm unsure about all the rest, but I figure my free speech zone consists of where I'm standing at the moment I decide to exercise it. You'll tolerate something different? Why? Because some SS (Secret Service) officer tells you to? Will you tell him to fuck off? Really now, will you?

As long as most of America occupies the political segment of right wing today referred to as centrist, this crap will continue to happen because those hapless people in Congress want to get re-elected and those are the votes that will do it. The Senate has been in the tank for FISA from the beginning so expecting wonders from that august body is...unlikely. If you think there'll be an uprising of popular sentiment over you being spied on, burgled by authority, or your stuff stolen by police agencies you're deluded. People, in general, don't care because that stuff happens to those others.

The actual motivating impulse of government is to accrue power to itself, it will sell this as the good of the people - behind a smirk. It will continue to happen, just as it has - The Alien and Sedition Act was Madison's idea, flat out despotry from a Revolutionary. HUAC and Senate Subversives Committee are from my childhood, flat out despotry. Nixon and his agents provocateurs are from some of your childhoods. It goes on and on and the fires of freedom remain banked - and frankly will continue to remain banked. You're expecting a lot to expect the American public to arise over philosophical issues, you might have some problems with shutting down churches or grabbing guns, maybe.

So, here's the deal, I'll join in on the outrage when you tell me you'll join in with my outrage over the entire mess, the entire damned Constitution becomes a fighting word. When you get out an poke your neighbors over every Civil Liberties issue - no matter whether you've a dog in the fight nor not. Sure, I'll call your House Representatives rat bastards for being in the 293 who voted yea, my Oregon Democratic delegation unanimously voted nay, naturally opposed by our rat bastard Republican Greg Walden (R-OR2)((I hang my head - my district)). {head hanging mitigated by my having run in the contest to replace him}

I made the protection of all Civil Liberties a center piece of my campaign, it was worth 11% of a crappy turn out. If you think I exaggerate, go back in the archives of this blog to 2006 Primary season. I've spent your money, my money, and a boatload of my time and effort on this issue in as serious a manner as I can think of, to little effect beyond having a handful of regular readers and credibility to bitch about about the non-response leading up to this.

T Jefferson once made a statement about the tree of liberty needing the periodic nourishing of the blood of patriots, sucker is pretty malnourished now and likely to become much more so in the future. This is why I play in Party politics, trying to avoid the necessity of that blood.

Why the Revolution Isn't Happening

My apologies to regular readers who've been wondering what happened to posting on a regular basis; I've been ill. It is actually a bit more than illness, it also has a bit to do with my having a temper. By the time I had finished watching our Senate hand George II another piece of our rights and our protection from corporate misdeeds I was furious. The fact that the House let the FISA mess expire didn't assuage the boil over. I am ordinarily quite capable of expressing my outrage without losing my mind but the combination of a rather rude flu bug and the steady Congressionally approved erosion of American liberty finally short-circuited my thinking processes. I found myself looking at the screen and keyboard with disbelief, amazement, and fury; and no words. Just stalled and stuck in place.

It might have been mitigated if either Democratic candidate had gotten up on their hind legs and said something...anything, really. It didn't help in the least that friends I like were also losing their minds, it isn't the least calming to hear, "I guess we'll just have to meet on the village green." As furious as I am, this one just pokes all the wrong buttons. As an adamant supporter of the Second Amendment I have looked carefully at the intentions behind it and the current societal conditions and the results are not calming.

While there are side benefits to hunting and other sporting activities involved in the Second Amendment, and noted at the time of the framing debate, the purposes are the defense of a "free state." The expression "free state" was a deliberate usage, it is a universal concept rather than the narrow one of, for example, 'the United States' or 'the nation' or 'the free states.' In this usage "state" is not a geographical concept but rather one of condition, the condition of all people though most particularly the citizens of the US. That there could even be discussion of this concept, much less heated debate, makes rather definite statement about the state of the American citizenry. We all abhor the pointless lawless violence the is perpetrated in our schools, malls, streets, and homes; but a large percentage of the population seems to have forgotten that life is a very risky proposition and liberty increases the risks.

Murder and mayhem are scarcely new phenomenons in this country, for a large portion of our history it was the everyday norm for many. The frontier history is more recent for those of us in the West, but the frontier started at the Atlantic Ocean at one point. The states of Ohio and Kentucky were scenes of incredibly brutal violence, primarily between settlers and Native Americans but also including the French, later the British, and even between the settlers themselves. These conditions played out in varied degrees from ocean to ocean and the institution of law enforcement (civil or military) did not cause a cessation. Being on the leading edge of human condition is an incredibly dangerous situation.

The mistake people make is in thinking that law was and is the operative concept, it is human behavior that is in operation. Giving human beings liberty is not a safe sort of thing to do, humans are incredibly variable in behavior as a species. They are given to all kinds of extremes and law does no more than punish the behaviors. Laws do not stop behaviors, moral and ethical judgements do. The judgement may come down to no more than a weighing of possible consequences, but legal sanctions are only an add on, not the determinant. Committing robbery, for example, has always had possible negative consequences which may in fact have been more serious and more sure in the absence of law. It is a fallacy to believe that the law stops people who are willing to ignore consequences. The Framers decided that the benefits to the citizenry far outweighed the risks, risks they were fully aware of.

Today, many believe that we are or should be much more secure and safe now than then. Why people believe that armed bands of depredation have disappeared or would disappear simply in the face of Law is an odd question. Behavior is linked to much more than simple legal consequences, those considerations are really at the end of the line of behavioral determinants. This attitude of safeness leads to considerable outrage when it is proven unfounded. Certainly we would rather be safe than at risk, but druthers have little to do with reality, and this is aggravated by our Founders ideas.

The Constitution sets out a framework of how to govern, the Bill of Rights sets out specified human conditions that government is not allowed to trespass on, specifically prohibited governmental behaviors because these states of being are assumed to be precedent to government. Not allowing the government to attempt to interfere in these areas was at the time the leading edge of political science, it was essentially untried and acknowledged as dangerous. It is still the leading edge of political science, there is no government on the face of the earth with stronger prohibitions of interference with human rights. There is a reason this is true, it is damned dangerous. And we're throwing it away in search of illusionary security.

This is the populace of today, the one that is willing to ignore the simple language of the Bill of Rights in order to secure the non-existent safety promised by political organizations. Contrast that desire with the at any cost defense of liberty and see which is most prevalent. The idea that Revolution could now occur on the basis of the intangibles of the Bill of Rights is awfully optimistic. The simple reason the Second Amendment is within the Bill of Rights is the ability to secure a free state of being, the ability to withstand foreign or domestic assaults on that state of being. In the face of a national military, the final ends are personal security from others and citizen security from our own government's depredations.

Inherent in the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitutional document is the acknowledgement of governmental inclination to abridge the natural rights of citizens and its final dissuasion is the right to keep and bear arms. You have to look at the entire document to understand that it is essentially a blueprint for Revolution. Freedom of religion, speech, and press allow the breeding of and dissemination of Revolutionary thought. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure allows the infrastructure of Revolution. The keeping and bearing of arms allows the physical means of Revolution. Follow on through the Bill of Rights with this state of reasoning and each will reveal a tool of rebellion, and why not? These were the instigators of a Rebellion against a lawfully constituted government to whom they had historical and societal ties, deep ties. We were given all the tools needed to physically "throw the rascals out."

This is what the government is in the process of dismantling to limited citizen outcry. There is good reason why the outcry is limited, it is natural to crave security and materialistic success. Those cravings are exactly what is at risk with the form of Liberty the Framers envisioned and we are so far from the obvious frontier requirements of personal responsibility and risk that the depredation of Liberty goes almost unnoticed. This is the citizenry that we could expect to hold responsible for their own Liberty? One of the reasons guns become such a flash point is that they are an actual physical and materialistic expression of liberty, it is easier to hold in your hands a Colt than it is to wrap your mind around governmental snooping, or the funding of chosen religions. The immediate bark of a Winchester is more obvious than the whimper of corporate media in the face of governmental misdeeds. But that does not a Revolution make.

The American people sat on their hands when RICO was passed, it was not a matter of their house payments or grocery bill, even though the depredation on the Fourth Amendment was clear. It was touted as a tool applicable to the Mafia, a feared and despised minority. The problem is that however feared and despised and nastily criminal the Mafia is, they are also by definition, us. What is applicable to the Mafia is equally applicable to ordinary citizens, if the government doesn't like what you and some associates are up to you can easily find yourselves designated a criminal conspiracy and subject to some truly draconian outcomes. All it takes is a few more little baby steps like The Patriot Act or Military Commission Act to make it so. In the time of the Framers, instigators of actions allowed by RICO would have found themselves at best tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail, and today almost nobody notices. This is the bunch somebody expects to build a Revolution on?

The political appellation of authoritarianism is not Party determined, it is an outlook and desire for a type of political action. The mindset seems more prevalent in the Republican Party, but that is, perhaps, due to the more heated rhetoric of the extremes of the Party and the out of control just past Republican Congress. RICO was passed by a Democratic Congress, and the more egregious offenses on the Second have been at the hands of primarily Democrats. The current Democratic Presidential candidates are both notorious gun banners and supporters of blatantly un-Constitutional gun activities. It is not a Party affiliation that is dangerous to this nation's Liberty, it is the mindset of those we elect and our refusal to hold them accountable. Authoritarians should be opposed at every pass, at every opportunity, whether their stated ends match our own or not. That is not the case, not for the ordinary gun owners, press, religions, or even speech advocates, they ignore what does not impact their pet idea. This is what Revolutionary thought has to contend with, figure a considerably larger chance if the issue was economic and materialistic. Short of another Great Depression or the grinding plutocracy of the Robber Barons expect more of the same. Toilet paper and the Constitution's parts respecting Liberty have a lot in common, in DC, Statehouses, and your houses.

Reid Talks Tough ?

Maybe; at the National Press Club in a speech previewing the State of the Union speech Harry Reid said,

"The president has to make a decision. He's either going to extend the law, or he will...which is temporary in nature, or there will be no wiretapping.

We have worked very hard to try to come up with a way to proceed on this but it's up to the President. The amendments that were offered in the Senate ... they would have passed. The majority of the senate favored these amendments.

They refused to allow us to vote on what we call "Title 1' which is a procedural aspect of this, and then they never even dreamed of our going to the second part, which is the retroactive immunity. Which is...there is real controversy over that and there should be a vote in the United States Senate as to whether or not there should be retroactive immunity. They won't give us one.

So again, it's up to the president. He can either continue the present law for an extended period of time, we would agree to two weeks, we would agree to a month, and we would agree to a longer period of time than that.

But it is up to the president. Does he want the law? It's up to him.

If it fails, he can give all the speeches he wants, including the State of the Union, about how we've stopped things, if he does that, it's disingenuous, and it's not true."

Reid has said he opposes retroactive immunity for telecoms, this speech has some of the red meat Democrats would want to hear, the question is what happens on the Senate floor. Those who are so hot on the idea that this FISA update will keep us safe need to answer the question, is it about telecoms or wiretaps? It is important to note that not all telecoms went along with this nonsense, Qwest was one, so it isn't like the ones who did couldn't have refused and aren't without culpability. What promises the Administration made to them may be informative.

Gun's, Parks & Whose Rights?

One would expect the NYT to not disappoint with a chance to be wrong about guns, and this Editorial doesn't disappoint. Forty seven US Senators wrote the Dept Interior to ask them to lift the ban on ready to fire guns in National Parks and Refuges. The NYT, naturally, thinks this is ludicrous and backs their assertions up with misleading or inaccurate (lying?) statements.

There is nothing confusing about the distinction between federal lands where hunting is allowed and national parks, where hunting is not. (Nor should someone who is confused by the difference be carrying a loaded weapon.) It is also no burden to unload a rifle and slip it into a case before, say, driving through Yellowstone.

Apparently, they've never been anywhere, it is pretty simple to tell Central Parks ends at the skyscrapers, that is not the case where refuges and parks abut unregulated Federal land, which is much more the rule than the exception. This piece is about inadvertent violations, since the NYT doesn't like guns it would fit their agenda to have your firearm confiscated and you charged for crossing an unmarked border in the wilds. That isn't what it's really about, the Senator's letter states, "... this rule infringes on gun owners’ rights and is “confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.” The NYT's view is:

The senators who signed this letter — led by Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat — insist that the federal government is infringing upon the gun-carrying rights granted by some states. As so often happens when guns are in question, the senators have forgotten to insist upon the rights of the vast majority of citizens, who choose not to carry guns.

They also appear to have forgotten that national parks and refuges are federal lands, set aside as peaceful preserves for all the species that enjoy them, including humans. Ready-to-fire guns have no place in them.

Now, I've read the BOR and I cannot find a guarantee of the right to not see guns, in fact I can't find anything that assures anyone any rights about arms other than the Second Amendment. Where hunting is banned or otherwise regulated doing something else is illegal, you face sanctions you won't like. If you start shooting up cans or something where recreational shooting is banned, you have a legal problem. As for "peaceful preserves" the NYT either hasn't watched one of the nature shows or the news, these are not your public library animals are busy doing animal things - some quite dangerous to humans - and some humans can't seem to manage ethics or law. A packed away or disabled firearm is not self-protection - it's luggage.

Unlike NYC, I live in a 3,000 square mile county that is over 50% Federal lands and it is not a peaceful safe environment. There are bears, cougars, coyotes, and probably some wolves, none of whom seem particularly concerned with the NYT's ideas of peaceful and some humans find it a friendly environment for illegal activity - something they protect with weaponry. I am always armed in those circumstances, though in twenty years of carrying I've never had reason to take out the gun. There are places you cannot shoot, no Parks, that are near facilities, which is only reasonable - though I'd violate that in a second rather than have a fist fight with a bear.

Do you suppose that if their little daughter were being mauled they'd ask me not to shoot? In the interest of the peaceful environment and National Park's regulations? I'm sure they'd be happy for me to stand by as a disinterested spectator...while they did what? Tell the critter that it's not nice to chew on a human? At that point it is way too late to try noise makers or safe camping or hiking practices, it's down to brute force and a gun trumps a stick.

It is a simple enough matter to regulate hunting and shooting, it's been done for quite some time and seems to be pretty effective, regulating carry in the wild is another issue altogether. One that NYT apparently is incompetent to speak to, though their First Amendment right doesn't allow for disqualifying them for stupidity, funny how that works.

NY Times And Civil Liberties

The NYT is a vocal proponent of the protection of civil liberties, the ones they like. The fact that I also like the ones they like only means just so much. You see, the NYT has what you might call selective approval, they pick and choose and mangle whatever is convenient for mangling at the moment. The NYT is currently pretty hot on the 4th Amendment, they believe the government has now overstepped the bounds, a good question might be, "where were you on RICO?" Since they are the press, one shouldn't be too surprised that they wish to protect their corporate welfare and since that's rolled into one Amendment they don't want any messing about, though the strength of their support for "freedom of assembly" got pretty weak during the '04 RNC Convention in their fair city. They were pretty muted on the issue of the government paying religious organizations for "social work," (the quotes are intended).

When the Appeals Court overturned the DC gun ban, the NYT finished their Editorial with this paragraph:

A lot has changed since the nation’s founding, when people kept muskets to be ready for militia service. What has not changed is the actual language of the Constitution. To get past the first limiting clauses of the Second Amendment to find an unalienable individual right to bear arms seems to require creative editing.

Beyond grappling with fairly esoteric arguments about the Second Amendment, the justices need to responsibly confront modern-day reality. A decision that upends needed gun controls currently in place around the country would imperil the lives of Americans.

One is tempted to ask questions about the NYT's editing process and whether words mean what the dictionary says or if it is a matter of personal preference, their latest OpEd piece by Adam Freedman has more in common with the fiction he writes than law.

The decision invalidating the district’s gun ban, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, cites the second comma (the one after “state”) as proof that the Second Amendment does not merely protect the “collective” right of states to maintain their militias, but endows each citizen with an “individual” right to carry a gun, regardless of membership in the local militia.

How does a mere comma do that? According to the court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses: one “prefatory” and the other “operative.” On this reading, the bit about a well-regulated militia is just preliminary throat clearing; the framers don’t really get down to business until they start talking about “the right of the people ... shall not be infringed.”

This gets to the guts of his argument, he's unhappy about the comma, and commas were pretty much optional tag ons at the time. He has a solution for this awkward piece of punctuation.

The best way to make sense of the Second Amendment is to take away all the commas (which, I know, means that only outlaws will have commas). Without the distracting commas, one can focus on the grammar of the sentence.

Now that we've dispensed with that comma we can get down to the business of dismantling the Second Amendment:

Likewise, when the justices finish diagramming the Second Amendment, they should end up with something that expresses a causal link, like: “Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, the amendment is really about protecting militias, notwithstanding the originalist arguments to the contrary.

Advocates of both gun rights and gun control are making a tactical mistake by focusing on the commas of the Second Amendment. After all, couldn’t one just as easily obsess about the founders’ odd use of capitalization? Perhaps the next amicus brief will find the true intent of the amendment by pointing out that “militia” and “state” are capitalized in the original, whereas “people” is not.

That seems pretty clear, we take out that nasty comma and things are all fixed up. We've got it all covered, um, except for a couple points, there's the little matter of the definition of militia and even worse is that adjective in front of state - free - which tilts things a tad. So far maybe this seems like legalese hair splitting, but then there is the absolute kicker, people, the word does not appear in the Second alone and it turns the BOR into a diagram for repression if people means State, which it does not.

The Bill of Rights is not about the government giving people rights, that is a commonly played card of immense falsehood, it is about rights that pre-exist the formation of the government and the government's guarantee that it will stay out of them. A state has no rights other than those conferred on it by its citizens. It has a presumed "right to self-defense" just as the citizenry has the right to smash it as King George III found (not to be confused with the American wannabe kinglet George II). The people are the people, always, to attempt to confuse the word with an organization is only argumentation back from a preconceived point - they are something different because my argument only works if I change a word. Had the Founders meant the word to mean militia they would have used the word militia rather than people, there is absolutely no grammatical reason to use people in place of militia, there is no sense of his meaning that requires people in that part of a sentence. In point of fact, there were people excluded from the militia by law at that time, the words are not interchangeable. They are not equal with or without the comma, the comma only makes that abundantly clear.

The NYT's editors seem to believe that because some things belong within a group, all similar things belong, Because robbers are human and people are human works in this sense - all robbers are people - but it does not work at all in this sense - all people are robbers. Nobody in their right mind tries the latter - well, the NYT certainly does.

This sort of intellectual dishonesty, the re-framing of definitions and class inclusions makes one wonder just how accurate the NYT's reporting really is...

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

It has been since 1939 that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Second Amendment case, that one was US vs. Miller regarding a sawed off shotgun. The case had been decided against Miller in appeals court and the Supremes agreed to hear it, Miller in the mean time died, leaving no appellant, a moot case. The Court has aggressively avoided hearing cases involving the 2nd, and for the most part firearms rights organizations have preferred legislative fights. This has of course lead to quite a bit of speculation regarding why this issue has stayed out of Court for so long. The Washington DC case may end this long dry spell.

A lawsuit sponsored by Robert A Levy was filed against Washington DC by Dick Anthony Heller a security guard at a building which houses the federal judiciary administrative offices. Heller carries a handgun at work, he had applied for and was denied a permit to keep the gun at home. This denial gave him legal standing as an appellant to contest an arbitrary denial of 2nd Amendment rights. The lawsuit alleged that the Second Amendment is an individual right while Washington DC takes the stance that the Second only applies to state militia service, that the limitations only apply to the federal government, and finally that a handgun ban is a reasonable restriction in the interest of public safety and health. The three judge US Court of Appeals for DC disagreed 2/1, asserting that the 2nd is an individual right which allows for reasonable restrictions on people such as felons but that DC's outright prohibition and refusal to grant permits is unconstitutional.

Both sides have been spoiling for this fight, now the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case or not, known now as District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The Second Amendment:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Framer's attempt to keep things simple with a single sentence did not anticipate the narrow arguments around language that has changed over the years and changes in culture. At the time the population could be described as primarily rural, in today's world most of the urban areas of the time would be regarded as rural, having a distinct effect on cultural outlooks. Another cultural aspect was the recent history of the Revolution and the rule of George III. The populace was quite familiar with the concept of a government expected to behave in one manner usurping the "ancient rights" of Englishmen. What the language of the time meant, what the writings surrounding ratification say, and what the English law antecedents say are not much in debate, the debate around the Second devolves into modern interpretation and agenda. This is a case where the use of specific language has caused confusion and the use of grammar rules well understood now opens the door to revisionism.

"Well regulated" was a military term meaning well equipped and turned out, today the term no longer is used in regard to military units, in fact only a single word "regulated" is used and that is in regard to bureaucratic rules being applied. Language has changed. The section of the 2nd regarding militias is a dependent clause which is used as a descriptive or explanatory phrase in a sentence regarding the independent clause which is the definitive meaning of the sentence. This usage is still recognized as proper grammar usage and sentence structure. This has not stopped the argument from being made that the dependent clause gives the states the right to arm their militia - the National Guard. Disregarding the incorrect grammatical interpretation of this clause as the operative wording this stance also ignores the definition of militia which was nearly all able-bodied free white men, not a State sanctioned military unit.

Over the years the Supreme Court has managed to avoid ruling on the Second, Miller was sent back to the Appeals Court and stood with the narrow definition of the Second being that the arms were of military utility and denying that a sawed off shotgun was such. Congress sidestepped the issue regarding full automatic weapons by passing a law which required a tax stamp, issued on payment and the meeting of essentially background check and also allowing Federal inspection of the weapon at the government's discretion - essentially a voluntary surrender of 4th Amendment rights. While this law is a discouragement to the ownership of that sort of firearm it is also not an infringement in the sense that an absolute ban is. An uncomfortable status quo was achieved. Firearm rights groups avoided having to take a criminal case to the Supremes, such a case has legal standing but would come to the Court from an uncomfortable direction, the current case involves a sympathetic appellant with legal standing.

The Supreme Court is now in a difficult position, if it refuses to hear the case the Appeals Court ruling stands and DC's handgun ban is overthrown, if it hears the case it must rule on the issue of individual right which has been the gun ban lobby's one refuge, unless the Supremes are willing to rule that public health and safety is so universally and inevitably at risk so as to trump a Constitutional guarantee. That is an extremely high hurdle to make and a demonstration that legal ownership is such a threat will be statistically very difficult. This is not a venue where the gun banners' media fueled emotional appeal based on the small percentages of devastation wreaked by legal possessors will carry much weight. This has obviously worked within legislative bodies and with a fair sized segment of the general population, but the Supreme Court is a bit different.

There are a multitude of reasons the Court has avoided this issue, public opinion and the interference with legislative bodies are all dissuasive reasons and rulings on very basic rights are of tremendous import, not ground the Supremes really care to tread. This is going to be interesting, and the fallout will be even more interesting.

Rep Jane Harman Says BushCo Lied About FISA

Rep Jane Harman has stated that the White House provided known bogus intelligence to scare Congress into its pre-recess approval of wire-tap expansions. I guess that provides me with two opportunities to rant.

This administration's penchant for playing politics with fear is scarcely news worthy, novel, or otherwise other than ordinary run of business for them. That they are not held in lower esteem for it is noteworthy, that any grown up falls for it - repeatedly - is sad, that Congress is so stupid as to take this bunch at their word is appalling. But, Congress did - again.

Now here is where the real crunch comes, we all know that GWB's oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States is meaningless, now we find that in Congress it only holds true if somebody doesn't tell you a scary story. Seriously, we'll just willy-nilly abrogate Constitutional guarantees if the White House tell us to, the heck with asking to see the facts, the data, nah, just tell us it's so and it's done. Is there some particular reason to have a Congress? GeorgeII can just say what is so, the Courts say oh yes, and when we get sick of it we can treat him to another George's fate, except he's on this side of the ocean, in which case a Louis would be more appropriate.

You have to start to wonder if the idea of principle is entirely foreign to most of that body, if the concept of a basic rule of law called the Constitution has any meaning at all. I've commented that Washingtonians have a primary regarding Rep Baird, I've just decided that a whole whacking bunch of states have meaningful Democratic Primaries. I'll admit to having a bunch of grey areas with Oregon's Democratic delegation, but overall I've been OK with that, it is politics. But I've had this. I'll be damned if I'll bend a knee to GeorgeII - I'd bend him over my knee...but this unending fear smitten behavior in our Congress is enough. Let's see who voted Aye on this and take them to task.

The bill earned the support of 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 Democrats in the House. Yeas:
Bayh, Evan; Carper, Tom; Casey, Bob; Conrad, Kent; Feinstein, Diane; Inouye, Daniel; Klobuchar, Amy; Landieu, Mary; Lincoln, Blanche; McCaskill, Claire; Mikulski, Barbara; Nelson, Ben; Nelson, Bill; Pryor, Mark; Salazar, Ken; Webb, James - Senators all, our deliberative body.

Altmire, Jason; Barrow, John; Bean, Melissa; Boren David; Boswell, Leonard; Boyd, F; Carney, Christopher; Chandler, Albert; Cooper, Jim; Costa, Jim; Cramer, Robert; Cuellar, Henry; Davis, Artur; Davis, Lincoln; Donnelly, Joe; Ellsworth, Brad; Etheridge, Bob; Gordon, Bart; Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie; Higgins, Brian; Hills, Baron; Lampson, Nick; Lipinski, Daniel; Marshall, James; Matheson, Jim; McIntyre, Mike; Malancon, Charlie; Mitchell, Harry; Peterson, Collin; Pomeroy, Earl; Rodriguez, Ciro; Salazar, John; Shuler, Heath; Snyder, Vic; Space, Zachary; Tanner, John, Taylor, Gene; Walz, Timothy; Wilson, Charles - The People's House.

You will note that there is not the name of a single one of Oregon's Congressional Democrats. Not one. And that is 5 Democrats out of 7 total members. You will note, please, that Walden (R - OR 02) and Smith (R-OR) vote BushCo Yea. A couple Republicans actually voted nay, I can't be bothered to list them; the other Party can.

A Hall of Shame for Democrats, and a couple names it's really too bad to see there, oh well, they need to go. Bye, Bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out...

Rule of Law and Sheepskinned Stupidity

Let's assume that some university granted you a diploma that somehow qualified you to be the William R Kenan Professor of Government at Harvard University, that would seem to indicate that you had some understanding of US government and its foundational document - The Constitution. Harvey C. Mansfield has those credentials and an astonishing level of stupidity backed by a lot of inapplicable references to other governments' crassness of power hunger backing The Case For the Strong Executive in the WSJ. He opens his argument with a disdain for the term "Imperial Presidency" being applied critically to the BushCo regime, 'apologizes' for what he's about to promote by stating that under other circumstances he would be "defending the rule of law." This statement alone should scare the snot out of any American.

Somehow Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, and Cromwell get rung into a discussion of the Republic created by our Constitution and how that underpinning law is inadequate to circumstances outside of those of peace. The argument begins and ends with the proposition that the ends justify the means. The Bill of Rights becomes optional in his scheme, in fact that there is a mistaken liberal opinion assuming "that civil liberties have the status of natural liberties; and are inalienable." An odd appellation for something written down by the Framers and referred to repeatedly in discussions regarding the BOR at the time. Under his scheme the Constitution becomes a guide subject to convenient revision at any time it is inconvenient to the exercise of an energetic executive.

You would think that a Harvard professor of government would be aware of the bad end Cromwell came to and might avoid using the very arguments that brought it about. Nope, he is a paragon of governance and what he saw as utilitarian is some brought forward from England's parliamentary form of government into out own. Locke is touted as a "wiser liberal" as he promotes the idea of "doing the public good without a rule." What part of Revolutionary War is it that Mansfield doesn't get? These yahoos were messing about quite a while previous to that little dust-up in Monarchical/Civil War England.

I don't deny any of these people their due in the understanding of the evolution of governance, but to bring in their completely alien experiences to a discussion of disregarding the further evolution of governing called the Constitution is simply academic posturing, as is the liberal sprinkling of Machiavelli's Italian. You are to ignore the simple equation he is proposing, rule of law is subordinate to rule of personality (man) in uncertain times. Now, Machiavelli was a creature of the rule of personality, Cromwell was a ruler of that philosophy, George III carried it onto America's back, and later America bled copiously to defeat: Hitler, Mussolini, et al - all examples of the rule of man in uncertain times.

By the way, the problems in Iraq "arise from having wished to leave too much to the Iraqis, thus from a sense of inhibition rather than imperialism."

If you do not understand my insistence that the 2nd Amendment is meaningful today, you should go read this tripe passed off as a serious discussion of the future of American law and liberties and reflect on where it came from and who ascribes to it. In shorter words - these people are scary; and frankly, treasonous.

They Gave Assurances

Sen John Sununu (R-NH) said,
“They gave us assurances that when we raised concerns about civil liberties that they have strong procedures and checks in place for issuing national security letters, and all of those assurances have proven to be unfounded,” about bills he strongly supported, Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act. Does anybody other than me see a problem with this statement?

Who the hell are "They"? The Constitution is clear you dimwitted Republican thug, it's not your damn business to get assurances from anybody about our civil liberties. You DO NOT give them to us, we have them despite your ilk. You jump around and squeal about how the terrorists are going to kill us while you strangle our democracy, you cowardly lying BushCo shill and then have the nerve to say, "well they said they wouldn't." You are more dangerous than all the Bin Ladins in the world.

Maybe in your fear induced state of coma you can't realize just how close to the dictatorial rule of personality you've pushed this country. Yes John Sununu, YOU. In your comatose state you neglected one of the basics of power politics, all power seeks power and the grant of power assures it will be used. Every school yard bully knows this one and a US Senator doesn't?

Harsh language? I'll tell you what's harsh, torture, disappearances, renditions, no day in court, secret testimony, governmental burglary and eavesdropping, domestic spying, letters of marque for federal police. Let me be plain and clear, once you've removed the barriers and people can no longer trust having their day in a fair court, why should they allow you to take them alive? What possible reason is there to not have it out, then and there, before the manacles go on? The law enforcement officer who comes has the misfortune to represent a criminal lawless enterprise stripped of all pretence to any more than physical force, he is therefore, a criminal. You and your pals are stupid thugs if you can't realize that outcome and think you get away with it.

I think my head's going to explode. I cannot fathom the depths of that kind of stupidity, "they gave assurances," for pete's sake, 'oooh, I was concerned about civil liberties...' If you're concerned then the answer is no, don't do that. How simple is that? No. But oh boy, you had control of Congress, the Executive, and a big chunk of the Judicial branches so you just thought, what?? That your kind of people were soooo good nothing could go wrong? That's what that "assurances" bull hockey is about, you do understand that my fine readers, denizens of the great unwashed, the good people in the Republican eternal majority will look out for your best interests because they're sooo special and sooo nice. Much too nice to take bribes, sell influence, try to bugger kids, or stomp on your freedom. Oh no, they wouldn't hide you from lawyers, deny you a hearing, torture you (unless your name happened to be Padilla), they certainly wouldn't burgle a Portland Oregon lawyer's home and hold him with NO evidence, no, nothing can go wrong.

Every Congressman that voted for those pieces of garbage needs to go in 08, Republicans and Democrats. The operative word is treason. Every member of this Congress that does not take a hand in cleaning this mess up needs to go. No ifs, no buts, do it or get the heck out. Any District that returns them deserves the iron boot on their neck that these weasels perpetrated on this country. Barring that, it falls on the responsible citizenry to demand redress of these grievances and a document signed in 1776 states clearly to what lengths that demand can be taken.

F*** you John Sununu and your assurances. Oh, same to you DOJ, FBI, NSA, and BushCo.

Take Your Allies Where You Find Them, AFA

Awhile back I posted about the formation of the American Freedom Agenda and said that I would find out what I could. You will find the AFA website here . Do not think that Barr, Keene, or Viguerie have changed their political stripes, they are Conservatives. Yes, with a capital 'C.' On social and economic issues our paths may coincide infrequently, our ideas about the role of government in those arenas is quite different, but here we are in complete agreement. I am going to directly copy and paste their 10 point agenda, so there is no mistaking my words or wishes with theirs :

Prohibit military commissions whose verdicts are suspect except in places of active hostilities where a battlefield tribunal is necessary to obtain fresh testimony or to prevent anarchy;

Prohibit the use of secret evidence or evidence obtained by torture or coercion in military or civilian tribunals;

Prohibit the detention of American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants without proof of criminal activity on the President’s say-so;

Restore habeas corpus for alleged alien enemy combatants, i.e., non-citizens who have allegedly participated in active hostilities against the United States, to protect the innocent;

Prohibit the National Security Agency from intercepting phone conversations or emails or breaking and entering homes on the President’s say-so in violation of federal law;

Empower the House of Representatives and the Senate collectively to challenge in the Supreme Court the constitutionality of signing statements that declare the intent of the President to disregard duly enacted provisions of bills he has signed into law because he maintains they are unconstitutional;

Prohibit the executive from invoking the state secrets privilege to deny justice to victims of constitutional violations perpetrated by government officers or agents; and, establish legislative-executive committees in the House and Senate to adjudicate the withholding of information from Congress based on executive privilege that obstructs oversight and government in the sunshine;

Prohibit the President from kidnapping, detaining, and torturing persons abroad in collaboration with foreign governments;

Amend the Espionage Act to permit journalists to report on classified national security matters without fear of prosecution; and;

Prohibit the listing of individuals or organizations with a presence in the United States as global terrorists or global terrorist organizations based on secret evidence.

Since their roll-out was March 20th the website is a little bare yet, but you should see it for yourself to ensure you know what I'm talking about. I am under no illusions about the differences in our Party affiliations, I also am under no illusions as to whether these matters supersede those affiliations. What is at stake is so basic to the structure of the US that our disagreements amount to small change. There is absolutely no point in trying to advance Democratic agenda absent our basic structure of government and law. That amounts to no more than spitting into the wind. The DOJ fight marks a beginning of Congressional interest in this, but is not any more than a first baby step.

The AFA has a Freedom Pledge for candidates, which is at least something. I am interested, but only in concrete pressure our public representatives to redress these grievances. Posturing bores me, quite plainly there is an ass kicking over due and it needs to be an enthusiastic one. This stance will put more stress on the politics of Republicans than Democrats for the obvious reason that Democrats didn't instigate this mess, though the amount of their kicking and screaming about it left quite a bit to be desired.

A little over 200 hundred years ago the instigators of this Constitutional mess would have been taken out and hanged for trying it. Today generating something close to discontent is difficult. It takes no more than the latest details of the affairs of a deceased blond to distract our attention. I will point out that in the face of all the BushCo crap, a NY Democratic Representative has the temerity to bring forward an assault weapons ban just to add to the insult and injury inflicted by the Republicans. Sometimes I really wonder just exactly how such stupid and asinine people manage to get themselves elected and if we really do deserve the kind of government the Framers put together.

Eight years ago I'd have fallen out laughing my butt off if somebody had suggested to me that Bob Barr could be an ally. I ain't laughing, I ain't smiling, I'm flat out pissed off and I'll take his hand, gladly. If you can't, maybe you'd better think over what kind of country you want to live in.

The First 100, So What?

OK folks, now you've passed your pet bills and dealt with stuff that has been clogged for some time. I'm sure you feel virtuous and accomplished. So What?

Yes the half-assed minimum wage bill you passed is at least something, too little, too late, and strung out too long; but you did do it.

So how about taking care of that Constitution you swore to uphold? You know the one, it says things about Habeas Corpus, trials, warrants, cruel and unusual punishment, the stuff the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act undo. Some of you sat in that Congress, some of you to your eternal discredit voted for that crap. You're going to turn right back around and ask for votes from us again. You're going to do that in the face of complete dereliction of duty. YOU asked for those seats, you came to us. Maybe it is time you did your jobs, the ones you swore to do. I don't care if George II vetoes you, do it again. Then if he wants to play kinglet you quit funding him. Completely. Shut the White House down. If the government is out of control, you make it stop. Every funding bill has a Patriot Act/Military Commissions Act repeal attached to it. No money moves anywhere without it. He thinks he's a badass and Mr Imperial Presidency, you can show him different.

Here's the deal, though. He's counting on your spinelessness to continue on his merry way. You do realize that he's right? He laughs at your little game playing, Karl Rove tells him how it will go. Karl is an amoral idiot but he does know something about political will, and he knows for sure you bunch don't have it.

Oh sure, I just think everything is so simple, well, you make it way too complicated. Pick what has to be funded, no military, no Justice Dept, no White House, no State Dept, none of George's levers. You're pussies. That wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't that everybody except you knows it.

Gun Violence

In a comment in the Zumbo article I stated that I wanted to move a discussion about gun violence to another forum and then emailed my thoughts. It was rightfully pointed out to me that much of these discussions is carried on out of sight. So I've put it up. I thought this format leads to long delays and missed communications, particularly since I'm ordinarily unavailable most of the day. We'll try it.

Regarding gun violence, that’s not what we’re actually talking about, we’re talking about violence committed with a deadly weapon, violence by a human being. You can pass all the laws in the world and not affect a gun; it will just lay there doing nothing. The problem is that people pick things up and do things to other people, guns, knives, bats, chains, hammers, etc and that’s what needs to be addressed. We will lock up dopers for long terms and kick loose people who’ve used weapons, this is ridiculous. I have no sense of humor about people who commit crimes with weapons, remember this, I shoot and I hunt; I do postmortems (field dressing and butchering) on large animals killed with gun shots. I know exactly what exploded lungs, shot off limbs, etc look like; it’s no joke. I’m an advocate of long hard time for crimes of that nature, murder or not. We let it go, and then we blame a thing for what we do. What do we tell the criminal world when it’s worse to get caught dealing than to shoot somebody? The law is an idiot.

There is not a single statistic that makes gun owning more dangerous than owning a swimming pool, doctors will kill more people than guns this year (not just die on them, kill them). (Docs against guns got real quiet after those numbers came out) We talk about a thing, we don’t do education, we don’t do actual have a real job, we don’t do punishment, and we don’t do rehabilitation. We don’t do shit about people. Take away all guns and drive-bys will get pretty rare, but up close and personal stuff, nope. Knives are wickedly fast and lethal, and so are a number of other things. It takes time and premeditation to use a gun in a crime, you have to get one and then you have to use it, it’s not a case of just snapping – that involves a beating almost always.

There’s nothing to say people can’t disagree about things, and treat each other with respect. But it pays to remember that gun owners aren’t trying to do something to other people, gun banners are. I can take the most hardcore staunch 2nd A stance and not be trying to do anything to anyone, the reverse cannot be said about even “reasonable” people. What does this current government think is dangerous? The 1st Amendment is dangerous to your security, that’s exactly the same argument broached regarding the 2nd. The government doesn’t get to piss around with the BOR, it’s not their rights, and we have them despite the government. Any other road is counter to the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the Constitution and those guys understood exactly what it means. They’d just fought a war, they knew how dangerous to government these ideas are, and that’s what they wanted. They fought a bloody war against their natural government, the government they’d known all their lives and for generations and had every reason to believe was their own and they set our government up to be overthrown. That’s the meaning of the BOR, we get to have our freedom despite our government, we can preach, write, yell, get together, and finally shoot them if they don’t get it. It’s a dangerous set up. It’s supposed to be dangerous, just getting to shoot off your mouth is a dangerous idea, back it up with all the rest and you’ve got a hell of a deal.

Safety is a goddamn illusion, here’s how I’m so sure. I was 16 and to take my DL test on Monday, Sunday I’d asked my Dad to let me drive the family home from our boat, he thought about it, said another time, and we set off on our 2 ½ hr drive. Fifteen minutes from home a Semi crossed the center line and hit us, 60 mph each. I was sitting behind the driver’s seat, asleep, with my head against the headliner. For some reason I woke and saw the truck jump the line, it hit the car behind the front wheel well and started coming in, I’d moved my head about 6 inches and the bumper missed it by about an inch. I ate all kinds of glass and impact and body crush. I was minding my own business, asleep, my Dad was driving perfectly reasonably, so was the trucker, he had a mechanical failure at just the right moment to get us. Everybody did everything right and I got to see death from 1 inch, because I woke up, still asleep – dead. If I’d been driving we wouldn’t have been there. It’s not safe, no matter what, it isn’t. Yes you can invite bad things, but you don’t have to and it’s still risky business. People refuse to admit it.

There are criminals in the world, they will be criminal, they won’t care about laws, they’ll do what they want to and find ways to do it. There are guns all over NYNY in the hands of criminals; hell the city licenses criminals (money and influence talks). The who doesn’t have guns is law abiding citizens. That’s how it works; if you don’t care or have money and power you’ll have a gun. Same thing happens in DC.

The government and its enablers will prey on fear and insecurity to have their way with you. I don’t care if it is a D or R Admin, the risk remains. Power and influence are what they are and some are susceptible to it, always have been and always will be. Never ever give unmitigated power to another entity.

*Ok, if you've got something to say please do. But don't troll, you'll waste your time because I'll trash it. Please give yourself a name or handle, Anyoldmouse gets tough after a couple.*

Tired Of A Name ?

I've made it pretty clear the I'd have preferred Hillary Clinton to have remained a NY Senator, period. They have their ideas and they seem to like her, since they elected her, but that's it, they like her. Well, NY and the Corporate Media minus Faux like her and even Faux has been going on forever about how she's a lock. She sure does have two things, money and name recognition. How about a voting record Democrats would like? I don't even mean the "looney left" like me, I mean Democrats.

I'll start off with the derailed locomotive of politics, Iraq, some folks have admitted to making a mistake there, some folks never made a mistake there, and Hillary? Try tracking the national polls on the subject and setting those beside her stands right afterward. I can barely get along with the idea that intelligent well-informed people went for the lies, shortly thereafter the lies became transparent, not Hillary.

Civil liberties rank a touch higher in my considerations, not because I minimize death and destruction, but because you'll play holy hell getting them back once the government has gotten hold of them, but I'm playing this card second. Check Mrs Clinton's votes in this regard. Not so hot. Then toss in her public statements regarding gun control, she'd like very much to stomp a mud hole in that particular civil liberty. For those of you enamoured of that stance, I'll just point out to you, once again, that BushCo's arguments and yours are identical and that should inform your philosophy. (if you feel insulted, ask yourself why)

Regarding guns and elections, Kerry would have won with a decent chunk of the middle politics gun owners. He didn't get it, Hillary won't either.

This is the lady who took such a beating over health care, but take a look at her stances regarding corporate advantages. Let's just take a look at her stance on illegal immigration amnesty and just how interested she is in holding employers to the law regarding hiring, can you get any deeper in the corporate pocket? Fine, lose the rest of the picture, but who do you think has been making money hand over fist off the backs of the serfs? She and her allies aren't trying to be nice to the poor oppressed brown people, they're playing to their corporate sponsors, if you get sucked along for the ride, that's wonderful for them.

On the topic of the health care debacle, she didn't get her head handed to her for working on health care so much as she got whacked for doing it in secret. There's a road I want to go down again. The loon right has its opinions on the matter, but the wide spread push back was over the secrecy. You are conveniently supposed to forget this stuff.

If you're on this page the chances that you're a fan of the DLC are pretty small. She's their darling. If you're wondering a little about that comment, consider where the dust up with DNC and DLC started and think a little about why it started. Hmmm, who is the corporate wing of Democratic politics? Just to pile on DLC a little harder, they try to take credit for the '06 election results, but a close check of election results makes that claim entirely specious.

I've run for office, it's a really trying exercise. There are a lot of aspects to it that aren't much of any fun at all, you have to do them, but nobody in their right mind would like it. Getting out and meeting people and having your say are actually the fun though defending yourself from preconceived notions and false claims are aggravating. The point is that this is a lot of hard difficult work and requires a real drive to win at it, so what's at the bottom of that drive? Is it to take a real good shot at improving your fellow citizens' lives or is just the ego thing about power? If playing in that league involves a policy agenda then you're going to have to push hard for it, no matter what you try, it is going to get watered down and compromised in some form before it gets through. If you start out the process most of the way over to the "other guy's side" that diluting process is still going to happen, triangulation is nonsense, that's what happens by the time it's done, not where you start. Hillary is proud of her triangulation, she should be ashamed of it.

If you're wondering who is a good model for triangulation, look no farther than GWB circa 2000. He worked that really hard, remember "compassionate conservative" and "uniter" as mantras? What we've found is that the citizenry can go screw itself, power and plutocracy are the name of his game. People noted that GeorgeII had good Conservative credentials and a good record of working with TX Dems, and Hillary seems to be getting the play of good liberal credentials and working with R's. BushCo wasn't Conservative, he was a small "c" theocrat and big "C" corporatist and in the end, a power junkie. What exactly are Hillary's liberal credentials? They don't exist as a record, they exist as an image.

As a hard working DPO I'll make myself clear, if she wins this Primary I might vote for her, depending on what kind of idiot the RNC runs, but I won't knock on a single door, pick up the telephone, or cough up $0.02 for her. I'll work my butt off for OR candidates, but that piece of political work can go hang. If you're wondering, I'm DPO and I wouldn't work against her in a General Election. Oh; about the name, that's a stupid reason to vote for or not, almost as meaningful as her gender.

Another Milestone?

The sitemeter went on at the end of August 2006, by December 12, 2006 it recorded the 1,000th hit. Some time Sunday January 21, 2007 it will hit 2,000. The sitemeter claims a daily average of 37 hits, I generally look - I like to know where you folks are coming in from and what you seem to care about. I'll address those things, though I write about what I care about. The main blog is hit most often, but so my lefty readers know, the second most hit is from word search for "stagecoach shotgun," and third is - for some odd reason - "fancy words." I addressed the poor pictures and light writing regarding stagecoach shotgun, but I have not a clue what "fancy words" is all about. I did a Google, there's not much, a couple writing style pages and me. I'm pretty darn sure my article isn't what they're looking for, so? And worst, this one's really international, I'm disappointing people from all over the world.

Maybe I should give a prize to 2,000, I don't know. Sitemeter is an odd affair anyhow, I know it doesn't register hits that came from a server with the site cached and there seem to be some other ways in that don't register. Makes little difference, what it says to me is that some people get enough out of what I write to stop back in, that's gratifying. I'll be honest, the stuff that takes you two minutes to read took a lot longer to put together, I'll look up at a clock and realize that a few paragraphs have eaten an hour, not all writing, checking source materials, re-reads for stupid constructions (yes, I miss them sometimes), and finally to determine that I actually meant what I wrote, sometimes an article is just a total loss and goes away. There are a few that I've read again after a couple weeks that should've gone and didn't - oh well - you get this free.

I don't get puffed up, there are plenty of sites that do thousands per day, there are plenty with better writing, and there are plenty that are better sourced. I'm ranked 649,000th or something like that in links, so I'm not changing the face of the "blogosphere" or even registering on it. But, you know what, this is fun for me. I get to practice at something I like for a live audience that can't throw rotten veggies at me. I don't know that I've ever persuaded anybody, but maybe I've provided a little jog to their thinking or at least some amusement for a few minutes. I get to have a say about things, I get to publicly push back without having to stand on a box in the park, and jeez, somebody pays attention. No, 2000 isn't a big meaningful deal, but it does give me a chance to thank you folks for the validation of showing up. THANKS

Ideological Purity

David Sirota writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that there is a real problem with people in power not owning what they said about the Iraq War, this is certainly true. He holds John Edwards up as an example of how it should be done - I made a mistake and I regret it. He goes on to note that there definitely is a massive case of CYA going on. This is where it gets sticky, why is this going on?

We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.

The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.

Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.

Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.

The Brady Bunch

If you're big into anti-gun stuff or support the Bill of Rights and would like to see what your opponents like to say HuffPo has Paul Helmke's review of Private Guns, Public Health up for your perusal, I think the comments section is better reading. This Brady Campaign/Center to Prevent Handgun Violence shill, excuse me-President- gets his knickers in a knot telling us about the public health costs of firearms. They're going to address this public health menace...well how exactly isn't real clear. You don't suppose they'll do something about medical misadventures do you? I mean, after all, those licensed physicians kill more people than guns do, no I don't mean people have a tendency to die under a doctor's care, I mean they out and out kill them. He even mentions swimming pools, nicely done, you're more likely to die from having a swimming pool than a gun. He doesn't like Gary Kleck - he's unfair - oh for pete's sake, Brady classes 25 year old males as children to make their stats work and they call unfair?

There are some of the old tired ideas, gun registration - that magically makes guns safe? Or, I like this one, licensing. Let's hang these ideas on the First Amendment and see how it works out, you have to register your religious preferences or your mouth or paper in order to have one, then you need to have a license to use them. Now that certainly wouldn't have a dampening effect on freedom of speech, religion, press, or assembly would it? Wouldn't that have a certain tendency to let the government regulate those things and find the people doing it in a way the government doesn't care for? Maybe make them disappear?

I don't care if you want to own a gun or not, if you do, for pete's sake learn how to use and keep it safely and become proficient with it. And yes, doing that makes you a patriot to the ideals of America, just remember that the folks who set those up weren't the safe low key type.

The article is typical garbage from that Brady Bunch, we're all five years old and they'll take care of us, but the comments are illuminating, and they're not right wingers or even odd ball lefties like me. No, I didn't comment, they don't like me. And you can guess what they can do with that...

Regarding Your Civil Liberties

I'm always astonished to find myself in a position of having to remind folks just what this is all about. I'm not going to deal with all the ancillary literature regarding rights, just with the official stand of the United States.

The stand of the United States in official proclamations begins with the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration speaks of certain "inalienable rights" with which we are endowed by our Creator. Following on through the Constitution and into the Bill of Rights is this concept of rights that exist outside government. This is an important distinction, that rights exist which are not conferred by government on its citizens. While this concept is neither original to the Founders nor unique in philosophy to them, what was novel was its codification into a form of government. That is the crux of the matter, it was unheard of for government to recognize that its standing in some matters was precluded by pre-existing Rights. Governments let people do things, they allowed it, this was totally new. It still is an almost outrageous concept, one that is ignored frequently by the beneficiaries of its existence.

The government does not allow me free speech, I have it, I have it by virtue of existence as an individual human being, the government's role is limited to guaranteeing that I have it, in the face of government's own desires or interests. To the degree that right is protected is the degree of success of our government. This is true of the entire Bill of Rights, how successful our government is can be directly derived from the degree to which it fulfills its guarantees. The entire government of the United States of America is founded on that principle, that certain rights exist outside its purview. The entire construct is built around that concept, the entire mechanism of governance is designed to function in that manner.

These people were primarily of English descent, almost entirely sociologically English in their concept of law and yet they committed the treasonous act of Rebellion against their lawful Sovereign. What they set in place of that previous government is not to be taken lightly nor to be misunderstood by distance of time, language, and culture. The concept of a government that exists beside individual rights and guarantees them is not to be cast aside in the name of security, prosperity, or any other consideration. It cannot be so and still be that form of government. And finally, no act of government, no act of Representatives can remove those rights, they exist outside the reach of government and are morally and ethically supported by any level of force necessary to sustain them.

You can find the entire Bill of Rights in November Archives under "Once Upon a Time..."