Conservative Libertarian Outpost

Stolen from the Patriot Post Volume 6 #34

“Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ‘emergency’. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And ‘emergency’ became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.” —Herbert Hoover

Think about it. How many “emergencies” are behind the laws that have been passed, and are being passed in these United States?

I will coin a term here that I will use as applied to this sort of thing; “Emergency thinking.”

Emergency thinking drives the Gun Control debate, never mind that it is driven by victims of hopolophobia. Never mind that firearms have saved many more lives than all the gun control laws on the books in every country on earth. It was firearms that destroyed the Nazi regime and made the world safe from Hitler and Mussolini’s Fascist’s.

Emergency thinking all to often drives the “need” for higher taxes. An emergency demands more money for education, roads, public transportation, jails to house miscreants or prisons to house those that desperately need to be separated from society.

Emergencies drive the need to protect others from themselves. Higher taxes on tobacco products. Higher taxes on alcohol. Higher taxes to hunt and fish disguised as license fees.

Emergencies drive the need to increase the pay of government officials so that the best of the best will “serve the public,” and not retire to the private sector and earn a living in social competition like the rest of us.

Emergency thinking has become the norm. Few have the courage and determination to require of themselves the ability to care for themselves. They rely on government to take care of them from cradle to grave. How many actually do time serving our nation as a percentage of the population? How many become members of the Military, or the Fire Service, Emergency Medical Services, or Law Enforcement either as a career or by volunteering? How many fail even to vote?

I was asked in another forum “and just what the hell is a Conservative Libertarian anyways..?

Conservative Libertarians believe that the Constitution never died. It needs no new interpetations. It was written for the common man to be able to understand. No, you do not need a degree of any kind to know, and understand it. The entire concept of a “Living Constitution” is abhorant to us. It’s DNA has never changed.

Conservative Libertarians believe in Free Markets and that restrictions on the market should be as minimal as possible.

Conservative Libertarians believe that the government has no business being in bed with you and your chosen partner.

Conservative Libertarians believe that human life begins at conception, and that destroying a beginning life is wrong. There may be arguable exceptions, granted. But the basic concept never changes.

Conservative Libertarians believe that personal responsibility far out weighs government mandates.

Conservative Libertarians believe that you should be responsible for your own effective defense, that of your family, and your nation.

Conservative Libertarians believe that with rights come responsibilities. Have a child, care for that child. Own a firearm, use it wisely. Join the Armed Forces serve with honor.

This should be enough to get a basic understanding of the term. 

There are those, such as Dangerous Dan that believe that the Second Amendment has no place in todays world. That the Founding Fathers never envisioned what firearms would evolve into. Those folks, while well intentioned, miss the piont by more than a country mile.

The Ultimate Check

IntroductionMany believe resistance by citizens with nothing but small arms against a tyrannical government in possession of high-tech helicopters, fighter planes, tanks, and nuclear weapons would be futile. Recent history suggests otherwise.

Presentation

The following is excerpted from Rabkin, Jeremy, “Constitutional Firepower” The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern, University, School of Law, Fall 1995, p. 245.

The arguments of earlier times may seem most remote in their insistence that private gun ownership is a necessary check on government opponents. Certainly, the “imagination recoils” at the thought of armed struggle by American citizens against their own government at the end of the twentieth century or decades into the next century. But even on this point, the wisdom of the past should not be dismissed too quickly. The truth is that Parliament triumphed in the English Civil War not with citizen militias but with a drilled “new model army” of professional soldiers. James II was not induced to abandon his throne by citizen militias but by a professional army under William of Orange. Even the American colonists could not have secured their decisive victory over the British at Yorktown without extensive assistance from the professional army and the sizable navy of France. Enthusiasm for armed citizens was not, even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, based on the notion that such citizens could defeat professional armies on their own. The serious argument was always that armed citizens could raise the cost of tyrannical abuse–enough, at least, to give second thought to would-be tyrants.Clearly, armed citizens continue to give pause to far better armed governments even in the age of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles. The most advanced and powerful arsenal in the worlds was insufficient to provide the United States government with confidence to keep its troops in the field against armed civilians in Somalia. Britain was forced to the negotiating table with terrorists in Northern Ireland and the government of Israel felt obliged to enter the negotiations with the terrorist P.L.O., not because these governments could not win an all out war against armed civilians but because they did not wish to continue paying the costs of containing their violence.

Is is unthinkable that these facts might have relevance to American circumstances? One hopes so. But as the deadly assault on the Branch Dividian compound in Waco, Texas illustrates, even American governments can be tragically reckless in resorting to force when the costs are not carefully calculated. Earlier generations would have taken it for granted that giving government officials more reason to take caution is not a bad thing. It is hard to prove that this reasoning has become entirely anachronistic.

The following comments are excepted from:

Bursor, Scott, Toward a Functional Framework for Interpreting the Second Amendment.

Is the view of an armed populace embodied in the Second Amendment still valid in a society with professional military and police forces? Is an armed populace still capable of performing the functions detailed above? Many have argued that it cannot and thus, that the private ownership of arms is an anachronism inapplicable to our current circumstances. These arguments rest on empirical assertions that are highly debatable to say the least.Commentators often attack the vitality of the military and political functions of the militia concept with the argument that they can no longer be performed by a militia. Simply stated, the argument is that an armed citizenry cannot restrain a domestic tyrant or deter a foreign conqueror backed by a modern army. This empirical assertion is frequently made by lawyers, politicians, or other advocates who offer neither argument nor authority for the proposition. And while this assertion may be true in some limited number of circumstances, as a categorical assertion it is demonstrably false.

Consider some recent examples. The Vietnam War demonstrated that a modern military power can be resisted by guerilla fighters bearing only small arms. This lesson has not been forgotten. In 1992, the United States declined to intervene in the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina after an aide to General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised the Senate Armed Services Committee that the widespread ownership of arms in the former Yugoslav republic made even limited intervention “perilous and deadly.” The deterrent effect of an armed populace was emphasized by Canadian Major General Lewis Mackenzie, who led United Nations peace keeping troops in Sarajevo for five months. Despite the tremendous capabilities of the United States Armed Forces, he explained, the prevalence of arms ownership in the area caused him to believe that if American forces were to be sent to Bosnia, “Americans [would be] killed…. You can’t isolate it, make it nice and sanitary.”

The validity of these concerns has also been demonstrated in the current conflict in Chechnya where “[m]ore than 40,000 soldiers from the Russian army … have quickly been humbled by a few thousand urban guerrillas who mostly live at home, wear jeans, use castoff weapons and have almost no coherent battle plans or organization.” The Russian army’s nuclear capability apparently has not translated into a tactical advantage in the streets of Chechnya.

In addition to these anecdotal examples, there is further evidence of the military practicality of an armed citizenry. The 1966 Arthur D. Little, Inc. Report (“the Little Report”), commissioned by the United States Department of the Army, concluded that in spite of recent technological developments in the modes of waging war, a modern war will almost certainly be a “shooting war” in which the basic individual weapon of combat will be the rifle. The Little Report does more than refute the notion that riflemen are militarily obsolete in the nuclear era. It offers an additional insight into the military value of armed citizens: they make better soldiers when they enter the service. They are significantly better marksmen than those who did not own arms prior to enlistment (even when marksmanship is measured after military training) and are more confident in their ability to perform effectively in combat. Furthermore, gun owners are more likely to enlist, to prefer combat outfits, and to become marksmanship instructors.

…

Nevertheless, the question of whether armed citizens can serve as an effective check on the state in our nuclear age is an important one. The belief that an armed citizenry would subdue aggressive rulers and keep them sensitive to the rights of the people was perhaps the most important motivation for the inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms in the Constitution. Thus, the continued vitality of an armed populace as a check on the modern state should have important implications on our interpretation of the Second Amendment. As I have noted above, there is little reason to dismiss the effectiveness of a modern militia. Much to the contrary, the Little Report and the conflicts in Vietnam, Bosnia, and Chechnya offer compelling evidence that armed citizens can restrain, deter, or repel a modern army.

Some, while acknowledging the effectiveness of an armed citizenry as a check on government, have questioned the prudence of such a scheme. Certainly, we ought not encourage or facilitate armed uprisings whenever a particular group feels shorted by the political process. Moreover, it is entirely legitimate for the government to punish insurrection. Can such punishment be consistent with a proper respect for the political function of the right to arms?

Of course it can. The Second Amendment does not guarantee immunity from punishment for insurrection; it merely guarantees the capacity for resistance. And that capacity, as a check on government, does not go unchecked itself. The Constitution explicitly affirms the validity of punishing insurrection, and the potential of punishment is a check on the armed populace. It strongly discourages armed resistance except in the cases of the most severe encroachments by the government. This idea is best expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed [or challenged] for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

source:http://www.guncite.com/index.html

These are people and organizations dedicated to destroying the Constitution of the United States. Although not listed here many are also affiliated with leftest organizations that have the destruction of the United States as we know it a primary goal.

“Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.” —Niccolo Machiavelli

“If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.” —Sir Winston Churchill

I have to believe that when so many of the great thinkers from the past believe as I do that I cannot be in such bad company. It seems in this day and age that a new law is the answer to anything. A law to stop the President from performing his duties as required by the Constitution. A law to stop Americans from having their Rights as defined by the Constitution. A law to ensure that medications are as pure as the driven snow. A law that decides when your son or daughter is, or is not a person. A law that says that you, as an individual cannot make your own liquor but you can if your family is connected politically. A law that defies human development. Where the hell will it end?

Subject: Learning Politics

Indian walks into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand pulling a male buffalo with
the other. He says
to the waiter, “Want coffee.” The waiter says, “Sure, Chief, coming right up.”
He gets the Indian
a tall mug of coffee. The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and
blasts the buffalo
with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter  everywhere, then just
walks out.

The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one hand pulling
another male buffalo
with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter, “Want
coffee.”  The waiter
says, “Whoa, Tonto! We’re still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was
all that about,
anyway?”

The Indian smiles and proudly says, “Training for position in United States
Congress: Come in, drink
coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of
day.”

Aint that the truth!

Freedom vs. Unlimited Majority Rule 

The concept of freedom rests on a government limited to the protection of individual rights, while the concept of democracy rests on a government run by unlimited majority rule; we need to stop confusing these two opposite ideas. 

By Peter Schwartz 

America’s foreign policy has led to a bizarre contradiction. President Bush claims to be pursuing freedom in the world, so that Americans will be safer. Yet this campaign’s results–a more zealous proponent of terrorism in the Palestinian Authority, and the prospect of theocracy in Iraq–are posing even greater threats to us. 

The cause of this failure is Mr. Bush’s hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by the holding of elections–a view stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy. 

Ask a typical American if there should be limits on what government may do, and he would answer: yes. He understands that each of us has rights which no law–regardless of how much public support it happens to attract–is entitled to breach. An advocate of democracy, however, would answer: no. 

The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the function of government is to implement the “will of the people.” It is the notion we are espousing when we tell the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of their new governments rests essentially on their being democratically approved.  

And it is the notion that was repudiated by the founding of the United States. 

America’s defining characteristic is freedom. Freedom exists when there are limitations on government, limitations imposed by the principle of individual rights. America was established as a republic, under which government is restricted to protecting our inalienable rights; this should not be called “democracy.” Thus, you are free to criticize your neighbors, your society, your government–no matter how many people wish to pass a law censoring you. But if “popular will” is the standard, then the individual has no rights–only temporary privileges, granted or withdrawn according to the mass sentiment of the moment. The Founders understood that the tyranny of the majority could be just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch. 

Yes, we have the ability to vote, but that is not the yardstick by which freedom is measured. After all, even dictatorships hold official elections. It is only the context of liberty–in which individual rights may not be voted out of existence–that justifies, and gives meaning to, the ballot box. In a genuinely free country, voting pertains only to the particular means of safeguarding individual rights. There is no moral “right” to vote to destroy rights. 

Unfortunately, like Mr. Bush, most Americans use the antithetical concepts of “freedom” and “democracy” interchangeably. Sometimes our government upholds the primacy of individual rights and regards one’s life, liberty and property as inviolable. Many other times it negates rights by upholding the primacy of the majority’s wishes–from confiscating an individual’s property because the majority wants it for “public use,” to preventing a terminally ill individual from gaining assistance in ending his life because a majority finds suicide unpalatable. 

Today, our foreign policy upholds this latter position. We declare that our overriding goal in the Mideast is that people vote–regardless of whether they care about freedom. But then, if a Shiite, pro-Iranian majority imposes its theology on Iraq–or if Palestinian suicide-bombers execute their popular mandate by blowing up schoolchildren–on what basis can we object, since democracy is being faithfully served? As a spokesman for Hamas, following its electoral victory, correctly noted: “I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. . . . It’s not possible for the U.S. . . . to turn its back on an elected democracy.” The Palestinians abhor freedom–but have adopted democratic voting.  

The Iraqis may reject freedom, in which case military force alone–as dismally inadequate as our efforts in that realm have been so far–will have to ensure our safety against any threats from them.  But if we are going to try to replace tyranny with freedom there, we must at least demonstrate what freedom is. We should have been spreading the ideas and institutions of a free society, before allowing elections even to be considered. For example, we should have written the new constitution, as we did in post-WWII Japan. Instead, we deferred to the “will of the people”–people who do not understand individual rights–and endorsed a despotic constitution, which rejects intellectual freedom in favor of enforced obedience to the Koran, and which rejects economic freedom and private property in favor of “collective ownership.” The consequence: looming neo-tyranny in Iraq. 

We need to stop confusing democracy with freedom. Morally supporting freedom is always in our interests. But supporting unlimited majority rule is always destructive–to us, and to all who value the rights of the individual. 

Peter Schwartz is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand–author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. 

[b]I received that in an email/newsletter. Seems like a windy way of repeating what Franklin said about “Two wolves and a lamb deciding on dinner.” Could this be a root part of the contemporary problem here in the United States? Have we unknowingly slipped from a  representative republic into the morass of unfettered democracy?[/b] 

My own feelings are that the politicians ( with but a notable handful of rebels) have taken the nation to it’s very knees.  

There has been, in my opinion, a veritable silent revolution going on for decades, if not longer. Rampant feminism (political not ethical) has twisted the entire concept of life and liberty. The authoritarians within our society have issued blanket pronunciations that require one and all to conform to their ideas of so-called freedom. Those chicken littles that so love the earth more than their own children have strangled innovation to the point of causing serious gaps in national security. The resultant collective guilt of the populace has resulted in a lack of national pride that turns us against our own with subdued viciousness. 

I believe that the sole purpose of any government is to ensure the rights of the individual and that all legitimate uses of government power derives from that  basic sense of purposiveness. Hence the necessity of law, military forces and so on. 

I believe in opportunity for all through ones own resourcefulness, not by government fiat. I believe that in free markets the source of wealth can be found. 

I believe that the Constitution of these United States is the expression of the Declaration of Independence and that the concepts within have never changed, or left. Only the twisted interpetations of certain lawyers and politicians with the express purpose of personal gain. That the rights granted within the Constitution are inalieanable rights, that is God given, and cannot be subrogated by any man, or group of men.