Setting Things Straight: Who Owns Who...

"A man may have to die for his country, but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country.

He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself."

-- C. S. Lewis

The Thrill of Discovery

I was poking around on the web this morning and discovered Pro Libertate - the blog of William Norman Grigg, who wields a mighty keyboard. I have some reading to do! Pro Libertate is now linked from here.

A taste of recent gems, to whet the appetite:

"The desire for power frequently begets petty hypocrisy, which is among the world's most tragically abundant resources."

"The following year, Sitting Bull and his allies annihilated Custer's force at the Battle of Greasy Grass, an engagement the losers refer to as the Battle of the Little Bighorn. That Sioux triumph is the last victory won by any Americans in an armed struggle for freedom prior to the Branch Davidians' successful defense of their home against the ATF's criminal assault in February 1993. Alas, both of those triumphs proved to be tragically reversible."

"In fact, when former federal judge Andrew Napolitano observed that state legislatures have the authority to enact health freedom measures intended to nullify Obama's proposed "health care" legislation, Neiwert's reflexive response was to traduce the judge as a proto-Klansman, rather than to engage his argument in the fashion of a practicing adult. (In a moderated debate with Judge Napolitano, Neiwert would be whipped more thoroughly than a pint of heavy cream in a French pastry shop.)"

More of Me

So, as I said - my thinking is coalescing at a rapid clip. Where I'm ending up is that Liberty (freedom) must be absolute. (If it's less than absolute, we need to come up with a new name for it. This is obvious, of course, but it takes a while to pull one's head far enough out of the Matrix that this becomes clear, and I just arrived!) Private property is the cornerstone of Liberty, so it must be sacrosanct. No mandatory assessment of any kind can be tolerated. None. (Give 'em an inch and you know happens. Remember - these clowns who want "just an inch" run the Good Intentions Paving Company...)

Here's a thought: "The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." F. Bastiat

Damn straight. And yet in every election we vote on our pet version of that exact fiction. It's actually not voting at all, and we should no longer call it that. We're merely bidding at auction for our neighbors property, and we're each bidding to buy the politician who promises us what we want - whether it's cradle to grave health care and 20 weeks of paid vacation or a cop behind every tree and a military that will obliterate Islam once and for all. Doesn't matter, because either vote - any vote - is predicated on the notion that the cost will largely be borne by others.

Yep. I've realized that voting is actually worse than a waste of time. It's ratifying theft (by surrogates) on a societal level. It would be much more honest (and efficient) if we'd merely steal each others cars!

Once we accept that Liberty cannot coexist with sanctioned theft, and when no politically viable candidate stands for Liberty, it's stupid to vote.

(Yes, I know Ron Paul was refreshing, but he was not politically viable. The machine saw to that. A vote for Paul was symbolic, and taking satisfaction from such a vote requires the delusion that someone in power cares about your symbolism. They don't. All I can say is they're pretty smug when, instead of shooting them, you do something completely pointless like voting and then go home feeling good about yourself. It was the likes of George Washington who last made a difference, and he wasn't much for symbolic acts!)

The simple truth is that the act of voting for any of these current scum is morally wrong, no matter how much we like what they promise. It's actually always been morally wrong to hire people to rob our neighbors in the guise of the common good, but it's particularly naive to do so at this late stage - even the village idiot can see that the government is only serving itself.

"The first law of economics is, there isn't enough to do everything. The first law of politics is to repeal the first law of economics." - T. Sowell

Yep. We've pretended we could repeal basic laws of economics, and we've spent so damn much that it's no longer mathematically possible to pay off the debt. We just bought two automakers, a giant insurance company, protection for countless Wall Street thieves & lying politicians and about ten million overpriced homes. True to form, we whipped out the Federal credit card and charged it all to our children, grandchildren, etc., etc., etc.

That's outright theft from the future just to pretend for a few more months that all this is ok and Obama really loves us, which brings me to my last quote:

"TANSTAAFL" (If, for God's sake, you don't know what this stands for, look it up.)

At this point, ANY vote ratifies the continuation of this thoroughly corrupt system. Voting constitutes consent, and our consent needs to be withdrawn in every possible way. NOT voting accomplishes two important things psychologically: 1) it's a personal acknowledgment of the scope of the problem and our complicity in it (to stop doing something bad is a moral act) and 2) it's physically refusing to play along. It may be scary, but you'll feel so much better when you reclaim your honesty...

Government is fake. Nothing about it is what they say it is. It's theatre. It's pretend. Someone needs to be the first to stop pretending, and they sure won't. It's up to us. The good news is - this is like any other bad play in theatrical history - it'll stop running just as soon as we quit buying tickets to the show.

No voting under this regime - this is the first thing.

There'll be more...

Superior Minds...

"Superior minds are concerned with ideas,
average minds are concerned with events,
inferior minds are concerned with personalities."

- Jeff Cooper

It's no accident that the mainstream media is suffused with event and personality oriented news and programming. They don't want you dwelling in the realm of ideas. The act of thinking could (and should) endanger the entire American power structure - virtually all of which is immoral, illogical, mathematically unsustainable and (if you care) unconstitutional.

Moral: It's more critical than ever that you don't allow yourself to be distracted, and the idea you should focus on is this: no one else has any legitimate claim on your labor.

Not even if you're a doctor.

Richard Feynman on the Deficit

Shortly after I figured out that the Federal Reserve wasn't federal and didn't have any reserves, I concluded that the true laws of economics were essentially laws of physics. In the economics parallel to the laws of thermodynamics, you can't actually create money out of thin air. Sure, you can fake it, but there isn't anything of actual value there and your creation will ultimately collapse. Thinking that way, I was charmed when I stumbled on this quote from physicist Richard Feynman:

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number, but it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit!

We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

Feynman is one of my heroes. Among my most prized books are his lectures on physics. He was the "Joe Lunchbucket" of the elite theoretical physicists. When the space shuttle Challenger's solid rocket booster failed, Feynman ended up on the Rogers Commission investigating the accident. At one point he sent someone out out of the room for a c-clamp which he tightened onto a sample of the seal. He dropped this assembly into his glass of ice water, let it chill for a few minutes and then showed everyone how the seal lost it's flexibility and resilience at low temperatures.

It's a sign of true genius when the brightest guy in the room comes up with a demonstration so simple that even the politicians get it. He was a real thorn in the side of the bureaucrats, saying - among other things - that "NASA had overestimated the reliability of the shuttle to the point of fantasy" and "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

Feynman's wry humor and penchant for simple demonstration would have been a real hit in this age of you tube. One has to love this way of criticizing government spending. Sure, the numbers seem rather quaint at this point, and Feynman himself would surely mourn how much worse they are now.

Why I'm a Gun Owner

Here's one popular line of thinking:

"One man with a gun can control 100 without one"
-- Vladimir Lenin, dictator

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"
-- Mao Tse-tung, dictator

"History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms prepared their own downfall"
-- Adolph Hitler, dictator

"So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion"
-- Barack Obama, dictator, showing his contempt for the First and Second Amendment

Such attitudes are the mark of tyrants. Here's another way of thinking, which maturity and wisdom prefers:

"No king or civil power can take away nature's birthright of self defense from any man or community of men"
-- Samuel Rutherford, theologian

"When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense, to fight the government"
-- Alexander Hamilton

The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the government got too powerful and overstepped it's authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms."
-- James Madison

"all men... ...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty... ...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"
-- The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights is a moral statement. It protects unalienable human rights that by definition predate, supersede and outlive any system of government instituted by man. This is the meaning of Liberty!

Keyes: Obama is a Radical Communist

Alan Keyes again, weighing in on President Obama, the law of the land and the destruction thereof:

The Enemy Within

There was a day when the folks who made up our government actually spoke like this:

"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. -- From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy."
-- Daniel Webster

What's more, the people listened! Those were the good old days!

The Rush Limbaugh Flap

Hypocrisy knows no bounds. Forgetting their actions over the previous eight years, the leftists are suddenly quite exercised at the notion that "Rush wants Obama to fail." Of course, that's not what Rush said - he just wants Obama's ideas and policies to fail, in order for America to succeed. Not letting a little truth like that get in the way of a calculated propaganda ploy, they've made Rush the poster boy for the "hated opposition" and the putative leader of the Republican Party.

An old saying comes to mind: "superior minds are concerned with ideas, average minds are concerned with events and inferior minds are concerned with personalities" Doesn't reflect well on the Dems, does it? In truth, it reflects no better on the Republicans. They display nothing different in the arena of ideas, so Rush and the Repubs don't actually offer any real alternative to Obama. When it comes to government, a choice between bigger and biggest is no choice at all. Rush is (at best) just managed opposition.

Here's the perspective of a guy who actually has some ideas, like sound money, free markets and individual liberty (!):

Class Envy...

...is sick. Envy is one of the least becoming human traits, and by way of intellectual laziness we have allowed it to become a sharp sword for the political left.

Fact is, there isn't a person out there who wouldn't be thrilled to strike it rich or to win the lottery and thereby join "the rich." Even those few who would reject the lifestyle would happily take the money for the good (or ill) they could do with it.

Wealth is morally neutral. Wealth is also one of the natural outcomes of Liberty and should be revered as such. Class envy - class baiting, if you will - is no more respectable than any other kind of baiting or envy. It's not bank balance but the content of one's character that should occupy us.

This is one of those things that embarrasses the left, when we bother to hold it up for honest examination. Let's do exactly that!

Go Forth and Nullify!

It was Edmund Burke who observed that "Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny." It's easy to see the course we're on in America - a path of very bad laws and even worse tyranny - which means we, the people need to step our game in every way we can.

When laws turn against our Liberty, it's unpatriotic to obey them. This quote from Thomas Jefferson says it best: "A strict observance of written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The law of necessity, of self preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

Just this week another friend mentioned that she had been summoned to jury duty - a chore that meets with almost universal scorn these days. She had originally intended to try to get out of serving, but I think she changed her mind as we talked. I spent a few minutes teaching what I understood about the role of the juror, and particularly the juror's power to nullify bad laws. She had never heard of the concept of jury nullification, but promised to Google the subject and to go in and serve.

I searched the topic myself and came up with this, right from our own Federal Appellate Court: "If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if it's verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence. If the jury feels that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision." - From a ruling by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals (US v. Moylan, 417 F.2d 1006, 1969)

I e-mailed that ruling, along with this quote: "The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by government." Think about this, and say a prayer of thanks that the Founders gave us this priceless means of holding government accountable.

Anyway, I pointed out to her that it's a tyrannical abuse of power to post artificially low speed limits, then hide in bushes and write costly speeding tickets to people who are doing nothing unsafe. She agreed, and recounted a couple other recent instances of local petty tyranny that had bothered her. I then told her that ALL gun laws are unconstitutional, as they ALL infringe on our right to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms, and that if we need permission to exercise our rights, to in effect be free, then we're not! She saw the point. We'll see how she does next Tuesday! If there's anything noteworthy, I'll report back.

We should serve on juries at every opportunity, and we should spread the word about this power of the people over the government. They're rapidly seeing to it that we'll ALL be criminals, so we'd best ALL become wise jurors! That, of course, would lead them to try to modify or eliminate our right to jury trial, which is another inviolable line in the sand. There's a lot of power in forcing them to declare themselves in ways like this!

Here are our choices: We either serve as citizens in annoying and inconvenient little ways such as jury duty, or we serve as serfs in the New World Order. Those are our options...

I learned a lot at The Fully Informed Jury Association and you will too.

Go forth and nullify!

Revenge of the Octogenarians

Little did I know what awaited this afternoon as I stopped at a local hardware store to have a key made. Two old guys were standing just outside the door, and as I walked past one was saying "I have enough ammo to shoot every Democrat I know." He was so angry he was shaking.

An American! I'd stumbled on an American! I felt the thrill of discovery and such a wave of relief that I almost burst out laughing...

They were gone when I came back out. Crud! I would have bought them both coffee just to revel in their company for a few minutes. As I drove away I reflected on the experiences those old guys had lived through - from the Great Depression to World War II, the atomic bomb, the 60's, Viet Nam, Carter, the Reagan years, then through Clinton and now the Obamanation - from raising kids, to grandkids and probably great grandkids to watching the country they loved - and no doubt fought for - now being destroyed.

Poignant. Really poignant. I'm not ashamed to admit started to tear up a little at the thought. After all, this was America, which was once a free country. No wonder he was so pissed...

Forget the garden-variety democrats and save your ammo for the blue helmets - and may God bless you! You made my day, you old coot!!

John F. Kennedy

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"

A Rock'n'Roller's Thoughts on Government...

"Five Year Plans and New Deals,
Wrapped in golden chains,
And I wonder, still I wonder
Who'll stop the rain?"

- John Fogerty, Creedence Clearwater Revival

This song sparked a political awakening in me at a rather tender age. When I first heard it, I asked my dad what five year plans and new deals were. He laughed. I bought the record and played the song for him. He smiled that wise smile of his and said "let me tell you how the world works..." Which he did. It fascinated me that people could be fooled over and over again like that.

This was the conversation that sparked my interest in history and my eventual passion for limited government. It occurs to me that most if not all thinking people must have an "a-ha" moment like this regarding government power at some point in their youth. The difference between folks like me and folks like our politicians is that upon figuring out what that power is I was repelled by it, whereas they changed course to pursue it.

Morality (or amorality) is something God must hardwire in us, because I was able to make the moral choice long before I really understood the other path. Morally, of course, such power shouldn't be available to anyone at all. That was the beauty of America back when it was a free country. History proves that mere mistrust of politicians isn't enough, either - fear is the healthy response!

It's obvious that we've come full circle in this country. We have a government that is disrespectful of the people in every way, and is now pursuing only further expansions of it's own power. If the Founders were alive today, George Washington would pick up his rifle and solve this problem (again) as Benjamin Franklin chided us about the Republic we couldn't keep.

"Rights" vs. "Power"

Words mean things. People are using these two words quite a bit lately, and they are not interchangeable.

I just heard, for the umpteenth time, someone say "the government doesn't have the right to do this." That's true. The government has no rights at all. What the government has is the POWER to do things, and far too much of it at that.

Under our laws, only the people have rights, as in "the right of the people". Rights are a good thing. The government has nothing but power, and those powers are supposed to be limited to just powers exercised at the consent of the governed. Power is a dangerous thing, and should be strictly limited.

"Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master" - George Washington

(This apt analogy explains that uneasy feeling you have that we're getting burned...)

Any addition to government power must by definition come at the expense of our rights. All increases in power are new paths to, and opportunities for corruption. It is becoming clearer and clearer that fear of government power is a healthy outlook. I would argue that it is the only possible outlook for those who wish to pass any semblance of liberty on to their kids and grandkids. (I would also argue that anyone who believes that unbridled government power can benefit society is mentally ill.)

In the context of Liberty, the word "rights" should bring a smile to our faces and the word "power" should strike fear. We used to understand these distinctions, and until we regain that understanding we cannot make our case effectively. Spread the word.

Just Call Him Senator Backbone...

...as Judd Gregg has displayed exactly that. The temptation of a cabinet post must loom rather large for any Senator, even when it's the cabinet of the enemy. Gregg placed principle ahead of power, which is laudable. (It almost goes without saying that when it's the Obama administration it takes very little principle to run aground. Those are shallow waters...) Still, a laudable act indeed.

I don't know a great deal about Gregg. He is weak on the Second Amendment, which is (regrettably) enough. Much as I'm repulsed by the intellectual laziness of litmus tests it's amazing how predictably folks who are weak in defense of Liberty's Teeth vacillate on so many other aspects of liberty along the way. (Perhaps if I refer to it as a barometer...)

The Republican Party is conspicuously overdue for a renaissance, and our prayers should go with him as he retakes his place in the Senate minority. Perhaps, from this fresh position of moral authority, he will be the one to find whatever the heck it takes to "lead his people out of the wilderness". (They say weight-bearing exercise builds bone density, so such leadership could benefit his own backbone as well. Usually does...)

All the same, don't hold your breath. As respectable as this decision makes him, a single act should never be confused with a trajectory - particularly in these desperate times. Seems like a nice guy, but he's no Reagan. That, and I'm really wondering if Republicans don't actually prefer the wilderness.

(Interestingly, Gregg's birthday is tomorrow - falling on Valentines Day and just three days before mine. It would have been fun to send up a shout to his e-mail inbox but in that inimitable way only government can cause brain damage, the form has so many required fields it would take several minutes and compel the disclosure of too much to just say "happy" and "thanks for the backbone." Imagine complicating e-mail like that. "We have the technology but we really don't want you to use it." I enjoyed it while it flickered, but that form was kinda hard on my nascent glimmer of hope. Way to stay in the dark, there, guys...)

What Could Have Been...

Thanks to WRSA (see blog links) I've learned that Alan Keyes has started a blog of his own, which is now linked here as well. (Dang, I'm in good company!!) Who is Alan Keyes, you ask? Read this humble servant's report from the front lines of the war for America's soul, and get to know an Illinois politician we can all respect:

"Civil War Disguised As Politics"

From Alan Keyes' Loyal to Liberty blog:

When I ran for the U.S. Senate against Barack Obama I did my best to speak the truth. I knew when I accepted the invitation of the Illinois Republicans that I stood little or no chance of victory. With few exceptions, everyone I consulted advised against it. Most thought it political suicide. But the facts convinced me that Obama is a dangerous left-wing extremist. When confronted with the proven depravity of his moral views, my faith and conscience convicted me as well. After years of telling audiences that we had to stand for right and truth no matter what the cost, I felt that the Lord would hold me accountable if I refused to walk the talk. Sometimes we are not called to victory, but to witness for truth, as Jesus did, even unto death.

So when I campaigned in Illinois I let no false ambition; no kind of blandishment or intimidation; and no whispers of political gain or loss distract me from speaking the truth. I talked about Obama's extremist support for abortion (including his unconscionable willingness to tolerate infanticide in Illinois hospitals); I described him as a hard line socialist, pointing out his uncompromising commitment to central government control of health care and education; I pointed to the contradiction between his professed support for traditional marriage and his consistent promotion of the homosexual agenda. I remember talking to people, including Republican leaders, and others who have built little empires and big reputations as leaders of the so-called "Christian right", (what I call more appropriately the moral conservatives).

Time and again I heard in response feckless mumblings about how moderate he seemed in his speech at the Democratic convention. Time and again I felt the implication that I was somehow exaggerating, imprudently "demonizing the opposition." They did little or nothing. And when the pro-abortion elements of the Illinois Republican Party openly went on the offensive against my refusal to back down from my stand for moral principle and real conservatism, in silence and inaction these leaders complied with their politically ruthless intention.

Meanwhile I and my family encountered from the Obama forces the ugliest indignities I have ever experienced in politics: Parades in which Obama's marshaled minions shouted curses and epithets almost every step of the way; and forums in which they rudely launched expletives with gestures just short of physical violence. At one such forum the environment they created was so ugly that my wife was visibly shaken, and my daughter in tears. Even on Election Day, when we went to the polling place to vote, a man there created a disturbance. He shouted insults. He acted in a physically threatening way. Nothing was done to stop him, and the pandering Illinois media breathed hardly a word about it in their so-called news coverage.

In all of this there was a hard edged disdain for decent civility that reminded me of the murderous invective Lenin launched against those who opposed the communist agenda. But it all took place behind a media fabricated façade of false hope and moderateness, like the propaganda screen behind which the totalitarians of the twentieth century hid their perpetration of atrocity.

Having felt the cutting edge of this reality, on election night I refused to engage in the nice ritual usually associated with the resolution of our political contests in America. Obama's people treated politics as war. But in war only gutless servility congratulates a ruthless opponent on the victory he has gained without civility. Mine was, to be sure, a silent protest but loud enough to have some so-called leaders, supposedly on my side, losing no opportunity to "apologize" for my behavior.

Since 2004 I have walked in the political wilderness. This walk is not without its burdens, but I am heartened when I remember whose footsteps I find there: those of people like Reagan and Winston Churchill who in their dedication to right refused to let ambition triumph over truth. Assaulted, ridiculed, caricatured, ignored, at times reduced to a small and almost covert band of like-minded adherents, they kept their faith. They witnessed the rising power of the evils they warned against. They witnessed the policies of appeasement, retreat and surrender practiced by unprincipled leaders in the face of those evils. They witnessed the day when hard experience finally forced those who had all but forgotten their existence to turn and make a stand against wickedness triumphant over freedom.

I have an ominous feeling about the years ahead. With Obama, we have crossed the line that separates civil politics from civil war disguised as politics. Occupying the White House is a man known for his support and association with people (like leftist Kenyan politician Raila Amollo Odinga) for whom that line appears never to have existed. I predict that American politics as we have known it is gone. And unless we Americans wake up, more than civil politics will end up dead. For there are other footsteps in this wilderness, left by leaders who opposed the Communists when they took over Eastern European countries in the late 1940s, or Asian countries in the fifties, or African countries in the sixties, or South American and South African countries in the eighties, and so on. Mostly we do not know their names, nor can we mark the spot where their lives were overtaken because their compatriots did not wake up in time.

But, with the Psalmist, I will fear no evil, for here, as everywhere, I see the footprints of the one who conquered death itself.

Wherever they lead, there is life renewed.

(God bless you, Alan. I'm reluctant to type, as there's nothing I could possibly add to these powerful words. However, I must ask all to read it again. Please. It would be so easy to categorize a black politician from Illinois now, wouldn't it? This is why we must judge each person by the content of their character. Also, please heed this prophetic warning, straight from someone who's seen the elephant. This voice of firsthand experience foretells what we can expect from the Obama administration - a civil war disguised as politics. We need our eyes open wide, for they are masterful deceivers. They are not in any way our friends, and they play for keeps. So go ahead - read it again!)