Some years ago I stumbled upon a website that just plain cheered me up. In fact, I could not stop laughing. Now, what with Al Gore winning a Nobel Prize, the Denver Bronco’s going on self destruct mode, and my shotgun busting a spring, I decided to roll out, once again, the 213 things that Skippy can no longer do in the Army.
SOURCE: http://skippyslist.com/?page_id=3
Edited so Skippy can be happy again; Just follow the link.
“There is no vice… so contemptible; he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual…” —Thomas Jefferson
Regular readers are aware that, since The Patriot’s founding a decade ago, we’ve included a short section within Friday’s Digest called, “The BIG Lie.” It’s a section we’ve reserved for egregious examples of Leftist disinformation.
There is an old maxim that if one repeats a lie often and loud enough, it will eventually be perceived as the truth.
Adolf Hitler defined that dictum in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf, writing that a big lie must be so “colossal” that the public would be confident that no national leaders “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
After Hitler became the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, used the Third Reich’s big-lie apparatus to fortify the Nazi campaign against Jews. Goebbels blamed the Jews for Germany’s inability to recover from World War I, and this big lie led to the Holocaust—the wholesale murder of some six million men, women and children.
After Germany’s WWII defeat, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and subsequent Communist leaders perfected the big-lie propaganda machine with media “dezinformatsia” campaigns. The primary organ for disseminating this disinformation was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Pravda, which in English means “the truth.” Even the name is a big lie.
Here in the U.S. , the organs of Leftist disinformation have assumed equally impressive identities: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NPR, and the list goes on. (For a weekly recounting of the MSM’s biggest whoppers, please see the “Dezinformatsia” section of our Wednesday Chronicle.)
Most recently, the Democrats’ dezinformatsia machines were running overtime to discredit Gen. David Petraeus, commander of our Armed Forces in Iraq. In advance of his congressional testimony about the progress of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Leftmedia gave endless play to those Demo-gogues who have bet their 2008 electoral prospects on failure in and retreat from Iraq.
On the morning of Gen. Petraeus’s testimony, the Democrats’ most effective web-based organ of disinformation, MoveOn.org, was given a deep discount by the Democrats’ most effective print-based organ of disinformation, The New York Times, to run an appalling full-page lie under the heading, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”
Democrats and the George Soros-funded MoveOn thought they could, with impunity, brand one of our nation’s most distinguished warriors a traitor. By extension, they branded as traitors all American forces fighting jihadi terrorists in Iraq and around the world. However, Leftist politicos and MoveOn grossly underestimated the new media’s ability to expose such a colossal lie and grossly overestimated the public’s tolerance for such accusations once brought to their attention.
In short, the Left got caught in a big lie and was severely rebuked.
In an effort to offset that rebuke, Democrats and their radical cadre have fabricated another big lie—this one targeting Rush Limbaugh.
Rush, of course, is the arch-nemesis of the Left. He broke ground for conservative perspective on the radio, much as Fox News did for television and The Patriot did for the Web.
To recap: Rush had been responding to an on-air caller who noted that the MSM has continually dredged up a handful of troops—some real, some fake—to provide antiwar statements to support the Demos’ desire for defeat and retreat. Rush agreed, noting that some of these anti-warriors, in particular Jesse MacBeth, have flat-out lied about their military service. He rightly dubbed them “phony soldiers.”
For the record, Jesse MacBeth, the prototypical anti-OIF poster boy, was in fact born Jesse Al-Zaid. Al-Zaid claimed to have served in Iraq, even receiving a Purple Heart after being shot. He claimed to have witnessed atrocities committed by “fellow soldiers.” But it turns out that Al-Zaid never completed boot camp, being discharged after 44 days because of his “entry level performance and conduct.” He was not a Green Beret, never in Special Ops, never in Iraq—though he even attempted to defraud the VA of more than $10,000 for “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Al-Zaid, whose protest diatribes have been circulating for several years, is indeed a phony soldier.
But the truth never deters the Left’s big lies.
Their so-called “watchdog group,” Media Matters for America, removed from context the two words “phony soldiers” and blast-broadcasted the big lie that Rush had branded that label on the handful of anti-OIF protestors who actually served in Iraq. In lock step, that smear was dutifully regurgitated by the MSM and then picked up by opportunistic Demo-gogues in Congress, desperately seeking a reversal of charges after their disastrous attempt to question the patriotism of Gen. Petraeus.
Chief among the most despicable of those propagating this dezinformatsia campaign from their Senate soapboxes are John Kerry and Tom Harkin.
Kerry, like Jesse Al-Zaid, embellished his military record and then used his “hero status” as a platform to falsely accuse ground troops in Vietnam of all manner of atrocities. (He is the target of a national petition to indict him for acts of treason, which now has more than 200,000 signers.)
Kerry’s most notable commentary on Iraq in the past year was his assertion that American service personnel are “stuck in Iraq” because they are too stupid to get a better job.
This week he led the charge against Rush, saying, “In a single moment on his show, Limbaugh managed to question the patriotism of men and women in uniform who have put their lives on the line and many who died for his right to sit safely in his air conditioned studio peddling hate.”
This is the same Jean-Francois Kerry who, back in 2005, accused U.S. forces in Iraq of “going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, uh, uh, uh, you know, women…”
Iowa Demo Sen. Tom Harkin, who also falsified his military record by claiming to have been a Vietnam combat pilot when he actually flew repaired aircraft from Japan to U.S. bases in Vietnam, perpetuated the lie, saying, “I must say that as a veteran, I find it offensive that Rush Limbaugh would attack the patriotism and the dedication of any soldier fighting in Iraq… I also find it disturbing that his offensive comments have not been condemned by our Republican colleagues or by the Commander in Chief, all of whom are so quick to condemn a similar personal attack on General Petraeus several weeks ago.”
Of course, as Limbaugh said in response, “Why should they condemn something that wasn’t said? You know what ought to be condemned here is [the Left’s] wanton inability to find the truth.”
Further perpetuating the big lie—and further wasting the taxpayers’ hard-earned money—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his cadre of MoveOn Demos sent a letter to Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications, which broadcasts Rush’s program via more than 1,200 stations. The letter demanded that Mays condemn “Limbaugh’s hateful and unpatriotic” remarks.
Further, former Democrat presidential wannabe, General Wesley Clark, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, is demanding that Rush be removed from the Armed Forces Radio network.
In the House, Lefty Mark Udall introduced a big-lie resolution condemning Limbaugh, and 26 Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors.
And what of Media Matters, the propaganda organ that launched the lie?
My colleague, National Review essayist Byron York, offered this analysis: “Media Matters is much more than a traditional media-watchdog group. Indeed, it is probably more accurate to view Media Matters as part of the constellation of groups that have come together on the left in the last year or so, all aimed at electing a Democratic President. Their [donors list] reads like a Who’s Who of those who have financed the new activist Left.”
“Constellation of groups”? In other words, a Socialist propaganda network that would make even Goebbels blush with pride!
source: The Patriot Post
“Courage… is the universal virtue of all those who choose to do the right thing over the expedient thing. It is the common currency of all those who do what they are supposed to do in a time of conflict, crisis and confusion.” —Florence Nightengale
And then we have people like Charles Murtha. Need I say more?
And them we have Tom Tancredo. I think that he more closely fits the quotation.
[Some people] have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times.
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [1835]
As Senate Reconvenes… Veterans Disarmament Bill Offers False Hopes
Of Relief For Gun Owners
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the
lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but
by the past. — Patrick Henry, in his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me
Death” speech of March 23, 1775
Patrick Henry had it right. Forget the past, and you’re destined to
make the same mistakes in the future.
Gun control has been an absolute failure. Whether it’s a total gun
ban or mere background checks, gun control has FAILED to keep guns
out of the hands of criminals.
But gun control fanatics still want to redouble their efforts, even
when their endeavors have not worked. Congress is full of fanatics
who want to expand the failed Brady Law to such an extent that
millions of law-abiding citizens will no longer be able to own or buy
guns.
For months, GOA has been warning gun owners about the McCarthy-Leahy
bill — named after Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Sen. Patrick
Leahy (D-VT). These anti-gun legislators have teamed up to introduce
a bill that will expand the 1993 Brady Law and disarm hundreds of
thousands of combat veterans — and other Americans. (While McCarthy
and Leahy are this year’s primary sponsors, the notorious Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York was a sponsor of this legislation in years
past.)
Proponents of the bill tell us that it will bring relief for many gun
owners. But to swallow this, one must first ignore the fact that gun
owners would NOT NEED RELIEF in the first place if some gun owners
(and gun groups) had not thrown their support behind the Brady bill
that passed in 1993 and were not pushing the Veterans Disarmament
Bill now.
Law-abiding Americans need relief because we were sold a bill of
goods in 1993. The Brady Law has allowed government bureaucrats to
screen law-abiding citizens before they exercise their
constitutionally protected rights — and that has opened the door to
all kinds of abuses.
The McCarthy-Leahy bill will open the door to many more abuses.
After all, do we really think that notorious anti-gunners like
McCarthy and Leahy had the best interests of gun owners in mind when
they introduced this Veterans Disarmament Bill? The question
answers itself.
TRADE-OFF TO HURT GUN OWNERS
Proponents want us to think this measure will benefit many gun
owners. But what sort of trade off is it to create potentially
millions of new prohibited persons — under this legislation — and
then tell them that they need to spend thousands of dollars to regain
the rights THAT WERE NOT THREATENED before this bill was passed?
Do you see the irony? Gun control gets passed. The laws don’t stop
criminals from getting guns, but they invariably affect law-abiding
folks. So instead of repealing the dumb laws, the fanatics argue
that we need even more gun control (like the Veterans Disarmament
Bill) to fix the problem!!!
So more people lose their rights, even while they’re promised a very
limited recourse for restoring those rights — rights which they
never would lose, save for the McCarthy-Leahy bill.
The legislation threatens to disqualify millions of new gun owners
who are not a threat to society. If this bill is signed into law:
* As many as a quarter to a third of returning Iraq veterans could be
prohibited from owning firearms — based solely on a diagnosis of
post-traumatic stress disorder;
* Your ailing grandfather could have his entire gun collection
seized, based only on a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s (and there goes the
family inheritance);
* Your kid could be permanently banned from owning a gun, based on a
diagnosis under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Patrick Henry said he knew of “no way of judging of the future but by
the past.” The past has taught us that gun control fanatics and
bureaucrats are continually looking for loopholes in the law to deny
guns to as many people as possible.
GUN CONTROL’S ABOMINABLE RECORD
A government report in 1996 found that the Brady Law had prevented a
significant number of Americans from buying guns because of
outstanding traffic tickets and errors. The General Accounting
Office said that more than 50% of denials under the Brady Law were
for administrative snafus, traffic violations, or reasons other than
felony convictions.
Press reports over the years have also shown gun owners
inconvenienced by NICS computer system crashes — especially when
those crashes happen on the weekends (affecting gun shows).
Right now, gun owners in Pennsylvania are justifiably up in arms
because the police scheduled a routine maintenance (and shut-down) of
their state computer system on the opening days of hunting season
this year. The shut-down, by the way, has taken three days — which
is illegal.
And then there’s the BATFE’s dastardly conduct in the state of
Wyoming. The anti-gun agency took the state to court after
legislators figured out a way to restore people’s ability to buy
firearms — people who had been disarmed by the Lautenberg gun ban of
1996.
Gun Owners Foundation has been involved in this Wyoming case, and has
seen up close how the BATFE has TOTALLY DISREGARDED a Supreme Court
opinion which allows this state to do what they did. In Caron v.
United States (1998), the U.S. Supreme Court said that any conviction
which has been set aside or expunged at the state level “shall not be
considered a conviction,” under federal law, for the purposes of
owning or buying guns. But the BATFE has ignored this Court ruling,
and is bent on preventing states like Wyoming from restoring people’s
gun rights.
Not surprisingly, the BATFE has issued new 4473s which ASSUME the
McCarthy-Leahy bill has already passed. The bill has not even been
enacted into law yet, and the BATFE is already using the provisions
of that bill to keep more people from buying guns.
The new language on the 4473 form asks:
Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes
a determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful
authority that you are a danger to yourself or to others or are
incompetent to manage your own affairs)….
Notice the words “determination” and “other lawful
authority.”
Relying on a DETERMINATION is broader than just relying on a court
“ruling,” and the words OTHER LAWFUL AUTHORITY are not limited to
judges. In other words, the definition above would allow a VA
psychologist or a school shrink to take away your gun rights.
This is what McCarthy and Leahy are trying to accomplish, but the
BATFE has now been emboldened to go ahead and do it anyway. This
means that military vets could potentially commit a felony by buying
a gun WITHOUT disclosing that they have Post Traumatic Stress
Syndrome because a “lawful authority” has decreed that they are a
potential danger to themselves or others.
No wonder the Military Order of the Purple Heart is opposed to the
McCarthy-Leahy bill. On June 18 of this year, the group stated, “For
the first time the legislation, if enacted, would statutorily impose
a lifetime gun ban on battle-scarred veterans.”
MORE RESTRICTIONS, NOT RELIEF
Supporters, like the NRA, say that they were able to win compromises
from the Dark Side — compromises that will benefit gun owners. Does
the bill really make it easier to get your gun rights restored —
even after spending lots of time and money in court? Well, that’s
VERY debatable, and GOA has grappled this question in a very lengthy
piece entitled, “Point-by-Point Response to Proponents of HR 2640,”
which can be read at http://www.gunowners.org/ne0702.htm on the GOA
website.
In brief, the McClure-Volkmer of 1986 created a path for restoring
the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons. But given that
Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which
has defunded this procedure since the 1990s (without significant
opposition), it is certainly not too difficult for some anti-gun
congressman like Schumer to bar the funding of any new procedure for
relief that follows from the McCarthy-Leahy bill.
Incidentally, even before Schumer blocked the procedure, the ability
to get “relief from disabilities” under section 925(c) was
always an
expensive long shot. Presumably, the new procedures in the Veterans
Disarmament Act will be the same.
Isn’t that always the record from Washington? You compromise with
the devil and then get lots of bad, but very little good. Look at
the immigration debate. Compromises over the last two decades have
provided amnesty for illegal aliens, while promising border security.
The country got lots of the former, but very little of the latter.
If the Veterans Disarmament Bill passes, don’t hold your breath
waiting for the promised relief.
ACTION: Please use the letter below to contact your Senator. You
can use the pre-written message below and send it as an e-mail by
visiting the GOA Legislative Action Center at
http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm (where phone and fax numbers
are also available).
—– Pre-written letter —–
Dear Senator:
While the NRA does some good work in the areas of shooting
competitions, firearms training, etc., THEY DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME when
they support the so-called School Safety Act, sponsored by Patrick
Leahy in the Senate and Carolyn McCarthy in the House (HR 2640).
Gun owners don’t support this legislation, better known as the
Veterans Disarmament Act. The Military Order of the Purple Heart is
opposed to it, having stated on June 18 of this year, that “For the
first time the legislation, if enacted, would statutorily impose a
lifetime gun ban on battle-scarred veterans.” Gun owners don’t want
to expand the Brady Instant Check, we want to repeal it. It is
simply un-American to penalize individuals (like veterans) with no
due process by assuming they are guilty until proven innocent.
Anti-gun zealots are always looking to expand the number of citizens
who are prohibited from exercising their Second Amendment rights. I
don’t believe that this bill will provide the relief that supporters
are promising.
After all, the McClure-Volkmer of 1986 created a path for restoring
the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons. But given that
Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which
has defunded this procedure since the 1990s (without significant
opposition), it is certainly not too difficult for some anti-gun
congressman like Schumer to bar the funding of any new procedure for
relief that follows from the McCarthy-Leahy bill.
The Leahy bill is gun control, pure and simple, and voting for it
tells me you don’t care about a little thing known as the
Constitution.
Sincerely,
Once again, The Patriot Post nails an issue to the wall.
“National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.” —John Adams
In our democratic republic, we charge our elected representatives with the conduct of vigorous debate about issues both foreign and domestic. In doing so, we expect them to uphold their oaths to protect and defend our Constitution.
However, politicians often posture and pretend in order to line up constituencies that perpetuate their tenure in office, regardless of constitutional constraints.
Such political posturing is a disingenuous breach of trust at best. When this deceit extends to matters of national security, especially when we are at war and continue to face formidable threats from Jihadi terrorists, it is downright traitorous.
The Democrat Party was, in a bygone era, populated by statesmen. Until JFK (that’s J.F. Kennedy not J.F. Kerry), Democrat leaders, understood the projection of force to protect America’s security and vital interests abroad.
Now, this once-proud political party is infested with hypocritical, nescient, duplicitous, reprehensible, half-witted, asinine, obsequious, meretricious, pusillanimous, indolent, imbecilic, pompous, retromingent, ignominious, ungrateful, sycophantic prevaricators (did I leave anything out?), who flippantly exploit Operation Iraqi Freedom as political fodder for their next campaign.
Truth be told, most Democrats know that the fate of the entire Middle East (and, by extension, much of the free world) depends on the establishment of a stable government in Iraq. They know that Fourth Generation Warfare in the Second Nuclear Age leaves us no choice but to confront Jihadistan on the Iraqi front. After all, if not Iraq now, then where and when?
They also know that much of what is reported in the American media reflects not only the propaganda machines of the Left, but also that of our Jihadi adversaries. This is because these cutthroats understand that our mainstream media is friendly terrain for undermining American will.
Unfortunately, petty party politics prevail, with little regard for the inconvenient truth that Leftist defeatism merely emboldens our enemy and further endangers our troops in Iraq.
Now, however, there is a confluence of analysis from the warfront in Iraq that OIF has turned a corner. Clearly, such news will have significant consequences for those Leftists who have staked their political fortunes on America’s failure, surrender and retreat from Iraq.
In the New York Times this week, two noted and vocal critics of OIF, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, analysts with the Left-leaning Brookings Institution, published an op-ed entitled “A War We Just Might Win.”
Having just returned from a fact-finding tour of Iraq, their op-ed notes, “After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. Today, morale is high. The soldiers and Marines… feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.”
On the politics of Iraq, O’Hanlon and Pollack write, “Viewed from Iraq… the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.”
Their analysis continues: “Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”
Also this week, retired Army General Jack Keane testified before the House Armed Services Committee, telling them in no uncertain words, “Your actions here in the Congress appear to be in direct conflict with the realities on the ground where the trends are up and progress is being made. We are on the offensive and we have the momentum.”
That news was so distressing to Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) that she walked out of the committee hearings during General Keane’s testimony, lamenting later that there was “only so much [she could tolerate] after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.” She continued, “Those kinds of [encouraging] comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, ‘Here’s the reality of the problem’.”
Of course, reality in the alternate universe of the Left dictates that down is up, in is out, left is right, black is white, falsehood is truth, pride is humility, red is blue and, particularly in the case of Iraq, good news is bad.
Adding insult to injury, more bad news for Demos: Marine General Jim Jones conducted a congressionally mandated study of Iraq’s security forces and returned with a favorable report.
This report, combined with the continuing decline of American and Iraqi casualties, has Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid very concerned that their “defeat and retreat” political folly may backfire.
Asked about the political implications should commanding Gen. David Petraeus report significant progress during his scheduled congressional testimony in September, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) replied, “Well, that would be a real big problem for us, no question about that.”
Good news out of Iraq is “a real big problem”? Guess that depends upon whose side you’re on.
Myself, Texas Fred, and others have been saying pretty much the same thing about the Democrat’s for ages. We may not agree all the time about the war, but the theme is there.
“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character.” —Noah Webster
There is a story told that after leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was approached by a woman who asked what form of government the delegates had created. Franklin responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping a republic is indeed a difficult task. The ideas set forth in our Constitution and by our Founding Fathers are constantly under assault from the media, larger government and our own misguided decisions.
— James M. Rodney, “Freedom in Fiction” [July 12, 2007
LAW OF THE LAND
Trial will debate 2nd Amendment rights
Defendant is accused of having ‘militia’ weaponry
——————————————————————————–
Posted: January 6, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
A lawyer whose client is on trial for having “militia” weaponry says he’ll ask questions and raise arguments about the 2nd Amendment, and then let the judge rule whether or not the Bill of Rights can be discussed in a federal courtroom these days.
A federal prosecutor in the Arkansas case against Hollis Wayne Fincher, 60, who’s accused of having homemade and unregistered machine guns, has asked the judge to censor those arguments.
But lawyer Oscar Stilley told WND that he’ll go ahead with the arguments.
“I’m going to ask questions, what else can I say?” he said. “There is a 2nd Amendment, and it means something, I hope.”
“His (Fincher’s) position is that he had a legal right to bear arms that are suitable and customary to contribute to the common defense. If it’s a militia army, it’s what customarily would be used by the military suitable for the defense of the country,” Stilley said.
The objection to constitutional arguments came from Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Johnson, who filed a motion several days ago asking U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren to prevent Fincher and Stilley from raising any such issues.
“Yes, that is correct – the government does not want to allow the defense attorney to argue the law in Mr. Fincher’s defense,” Michael Gaddy wrote on Freedom Watch.
“If a defendant is not allowed to base his/her defense on the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, we are certainly doomed. If we allow these criminal acts perpetrated on law-abiding citizens to continue, we might as well turn in all our guns and scheduled a fitting for our chains,” he wrote.
“Yes, Hollis Wayne Fincher goes on trial on January 8th – but so does our Constitution, our Liberty and our right to own firearms. If Mr. Fincher loses this battle, we all lose,” he said.
Fincher, a lieutenant commander with the Militia of Washington County, is accused of having three unregistered machine guns and an unregistered sawed-off shotgun.
Stilley said his client believes no one has a right to use weapons to hurt somebody else, just as “you can’t use words to injure. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”
He said whether the gun is a .22 caliber used for “plinking,” or a cape buffalo killer, you cannot put it in a position where it’s pointed at someone and pull the trigger.
It’s about responsibilities that accompany the rights outlined in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, he said.
The motion seeking to suppress any constitutional arguments will be handled by making his arguments, and letting the government make its objections, and then letting the court rule.
The motion from the federal prosecution indicated the government believes Fincher wants to argue the gun charges are unconstitutional, but it is asking that the court keep such decisions out of the jury’s hands.
The government also demanded to know the items the defense intends to use as evidence, the results of any physical examinations of Fincher and all of the witnesses and their statements.
Fincher was arrested Nov. 8 and has been held in custody since then on a bond of $250,000 and other conditions that included posting the deed to his home with the court and electronic monitoring.
Police said two of the .308-caliber machine guns, homemade versions of a Browning model 1919, allegedly had Fincher’s name inscribed on them and said “Amendment 2 invoked.”
There have been laws since 1934 making it illegal for residents of the United States to own machine guns without special permission from the U.S. Treasury Department. Federal law allows the public to own machine guns made and registered before 1986 under certain conditions.
Comments posted online with an area newspaper offered some support for Fincher’s side of the case.
“When the government decides that your spare bedroom [can be regulated] as greatly affecting interstate commerce and makes you put a homeless person or work release prisoner in that spare room, then you’ll understand why property not actually affecting interstate commerce should not be regulated on by the feds,” said Lawful Machine Gun Owner.
DKSuddeth noted that the commerce clause, cited as support for gun regulations, should be studied. “Take a very close read on how the commerce clause is used by congress and the decisions that the courts have made. You do realize that using the commerce clause, congress can regulate ANYTHING that you may wish to grow on your own personal property?”
Another observer cited the statements attributed to Tenche Coxe, a government official during the 1790s. “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? … Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.”
Another observer, this one a critic who called himself “Blah Blah Blah,” added the other perspective. “You give us a clear picture of why the government wants to limit arguments in the case. You guys cannot quit talking. And you insist on quoting every dead white guy in history.”
Fincher, in a letter from his jail cell that was published on a blog, said he was doing fine.
“I am doing OK here in jail. It’s not where I want to be, but it’s where I am and I try to make the best of it,” he wrote to family and friends. He said the conditions were tolerable.
“We can attend in house church a couple times a week, sometimes more. I talk to other prisoners about their need for Jesus to save them. Some take heed and are willing to listen and some go to their cells and pray,” he said.
Authorities said the arrest culminated an eight-month investigation that included having a undercover agent attend meetings of the militia. The investigation was collectively conducted by the ATF, FBI, Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Fayetteville Police Department, Springdale Police Department, Arkansas State Police, Arkansas State Bomb Squad and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.
According to criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, an estimated 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year, with one in six believing someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms.
The roots of liberty— “The unanimous Declaration…”
The roots of liberty and American government run deep—back to the year 1164 in Clarendon, England. At that time, the idea of democratic republicanism and the liberal state could hardly be imagined. The student of English history will remember this as the place and date of the Constitutions of Clarendon, which struck the decisive blow in the battle over royal prerogatives between Henry II, King of England, and Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Installed as a puppet, Becket had found true faith and refused to bow to the whims of a tyrannical king. Becket’s refusal to sign and submit to the Constitutions of Clarendon forced him into exile and, ultimately, led to his assassination at the hands of Henry’s knights—hardly a picture of democratic process.
Clarendon has been remembered as a loss of rights for the church, a triumph of the secular over the sacred. However true this interpretation of events may be, Clarendon’s significance for the movement toward the modern liberal state is equally important. With Clarendon, the English church would no longer be able to use excommunication to enforce its temporal demands over the subjects of the crown. Rather, trial by jury began to remove arbitrary justice from the hands of bishops and kings alike, replaced by justice dispensed under a code of law administered by fellow citizens. Despite Henry’s dubious intentions, Clarendon begins to delineate the modern relationship between church and state: Civil law, not Rome, would hereafter govern temporal affairs.
Half a century later, in 1215, the next major leap forward in modern liberal governance would be ushered in with Magna Carta, the “Great Charter,” issued by King John of England at the demand of his rebellious barons. Magna Carta was reissued several times and comes to us in its final form, issued in 1297 by Edward I, John’s grandson. Though the context for Magna Carta is a very different one, it is nonetheless an important corrective to the abuses of Clarendon, establishing the inviolable freedom of the Church of England from the English crown. If Clarendon protected the state from the church, Magna Carta protected the church from the intrusions of the state.
Far from limited to church-state relations, Magna Carta formalized the fundamental rights enjoyed by all citizens of the modern liberal state. Among others, Magna Carta codified the following: rights of inheritance, property rights, protections for debtors, the rights of localities to a degree of self-government, trade rights, retributive justice (designing punishments to fit the crime, as opposed to one punishment for all crimes), protections for citizens from the abuses of domestic authorities, requirements of witnesses to establish guilt, and the right to trial by one’s peers. Most important, however, was the heart of Magna Carta, which established the objective rule of law over and above the subjective rule of the king. Rex Lex (“The king is law”) was slowly being replaced by Lex Rex (“The law is king”). With Magna Carta, the king was bound under the law by a national covenant—a declaration of mutual obligations of the ruler and those ruled to one another.
John Locke would articulate this contractual vision of a government of laws existing to protect the liberties of its citizens in his Second Treatise on Government (1690). The context for Locke’s thought was the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the English Bill of Rights (1689), in which William and Mary of Orange affirmed the limits of government, protecting the liberties of its citizens and correcting the gross abuse of royal power under James II.
It is in this setting that Locke summarizes the purpose of the state. In Chapter 9 of his Second Treatise, “Of the Ends of Political Society and Government,” Locke writes on the preservation of property, concluding that men come together and subject themselves to laws. Governments exist to judge and enforce this rule of law. In this way men voluntarily covenant together to form governments, each surrendering some freedom in order to preserve the liberty of all. The one (the state) and the many (its members) thus mutually serve the cause of liberty.
When the Stamp Act was passed for the American colonies in 1765, when courts of admiralty enforced justice without trial by jury and a standing army held in the colonies during a time of peace, the purpose of government to guarantee the liberties of its citizens was foremost in the minds of many colonists.
The First Continental Congress met in October 1774 to seek redress for the colonies’ grievances. Their Declaration and Resolves laid claim to the rights that had evolved over the centuries, from Clarendon to the English Bill of Rights. The colonies are entitled, Congress declared, to “life, liberty and property,” and “they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.”
When the British crown and parliament refused to recognize the equal rights of the colonists as British citizens, the Americans seized upon another essential feature of the idea of government as covenant: If a government ceases to exist under its obligations to its citizens as the preserver of liberty, then the contract is broken and the citizens reserve the right to abjure that delinquent government. In other words, government is by consent of the governed.
Over the course of America’s struggle for independence, this theme would be rearticulated and expanded upon by some of the colonies’ greatest minds: Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, Thomas Jefferson’s Lockean forerunner to the colonies’ Declaration of Independence; Patrick Henry’s Resolutions of the Stamp Act (1765) and his later cry of, “;Give me liberty or give me death!” (1775); Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) and The Rights of Man (1792); and Samuel Adams’ speech at the statehouse in Philadelphia (1776), to name a few. Government is a covenant, they said, and a covenant cannot be broken without consequence.
Later, these Patriots would turn from justifications for their declaration of independence from the old government to articulations of what should replace it. The 12 years between the institution of the Articles of Confederation (1777), which maintained the maximal autonomy of the individual states, and the ratification and implementation of the United States Constitution (1789), which would turn a confederation of states into a federal republic, where punctuated by heated debate about the sustenance of liberty under any unified government.
Having thrown off one tyrannical government, federalists, who advocated a strong central government, and anti-federalists, who advocated states’ rights, were sharply divided as to the powers of the new government. Which model would better guarantee the objective of a government existing to preserve the liberties of its citizens?
The federalists won that debate, but two centuries later, it is clear that many of the elements of a “tyrannical government” have re-emerged, as predicted by anti-federalist protagonist Thomas Jefferson. Most notably, Jefferson warned that the judiciary would become a “;despotic branch” and that the Constitution would be “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
Indeed, the despotic branch has twisted and shaped our government’s foundational document into what in now called in common parlance, a “;Living Constitution”, effectively undermining “;Constitutional eisegesis”—the constructionist interpretation of the Constitution as written and ratified.
If the Constitution can be amended by judicial diktat rather than as prescribed by law, then we are a nation governed by men rather than the law, and the consequences are dire.
Where does that leave us today? Few who serve in the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches of our national government honor their oaths to “;support and defend” our Constitution.
Of course, the Constitution is subordinate to the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution’s author, James Madison, wrote Thomas Jefferson on 8 February 1825 these words concerning the supremacy of the Declaration of Independence over our nation’s Constitution: “On the distinctive principles of the Government… of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in… The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States.”
The Declaration elucidates “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It also records “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
Liberty is elusive, and awaits its next great leap forward.
source: The Patriot Post
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