Our rights do not originate with government, but they are to be "secured" by government.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Do Gun Control Laws Work?

Results of 20th Century government gun control efforts

1929, USSR established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938, and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

Now ask the Russians how they fared in Afghanistan – where with tools no better than what you can get in the Sears catalog kept themselves armed, they were able to keep the Russians with far superior technology etc. at bay for years, eventually winning against what was the world’s second greatest military.

Yes gun control works; it makes it easier to oppress people.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Why America is un-civil, and why Obama fundamentally cannot “save” the USA.

Obama’s State of the Union Speech, was the clearest demonstration of why he cannot save America, and why so many people oppose him. His unmemorable oratory offered a clear insight to his vision and belief system. His vision and belief does not match nor agree with the vision most Americans have, and is fundamentally opposed to the vision our forefathers had.

During the SOTUS he Obama said, "We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -- the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny." That is a far cry from the reasoning described in our Declaration of Independence, where our forefathers decreed that as Americans “We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Our Declaration of Independence declared Americans to be free, and the people the source of government authority, and that the rights people have did not come from the government but from a Creator. The faith of our forefathers was not in themselves, or in the people, but in God. Anybody who takes the time to read what our forefathers had to say, clearly understand that they put into place a system of governance based on the idea that government is not to be trusted, so must have checks and balances to minimize its power. They did not believe the government was a “force of good” but a “necessary evil” to be caged and guarded against.

Obama’s faith is not God but in ideas of communal unity dependent upon government; "We believe that in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people." and later "We'll also work to rebuild people's faith in the institution of government."

The idea that people’s faith is in government is so contrary to what most people believe that we cannot even have rational discussions. When Obama talks of “Investments” he is not talking the same language as most of the working people in this country. His idea of investments is the government spending taxpayer dollars, not private enterprise investing in new or expanding private enterprise. Obama’s mentioned the story of America as "the story of ordinary people who dare to dream." But does not recognize the reason we dare to dream is as individuals we can be rewarded for our hard work and that our rights come from our creator and we instituted a government to protect those rights. Obama never recognized any rights in his speech, only emphasized what the government should be the source of our salvation.

Our fundamental values are not the same as Obama’s, we must recognize that, For America to have real solutions to our problems, we cannot allow our government to tax all the productive people and business to death; we cannot supply every need for every person. What our government can do and was instituted to do was to provide the rule of law, and equal protection, by protecting our rights, so that all individuals have the chance to make their lives better; that’s called “the pursuit of happiness.” It is not the job or duty of government to make sure everybody is successful in that pursuit.

The fundamental idea that our nation was founded on were no were articulated in Obama’s SOTUS, in fact he has never mentioned them. Our nation was founded on the ideas that no ruler nor government is above the law; that government is to be constrained; that it is instated to protect the rights of individuals; that it is the servant of the people; and that the it only governs at the consent of the people. Unless we can agree on the fundamental purpose of our government, we cannot and will not be “bound together as one people." Since Obama and liberals who follow him do not believe or value the founding principles of this country and are working for “fundamental change,” he and the liberals who follow him will only divide further divide this country, because most of the people do believe in unalienable rights and limited government. The only “hope” we have to keep our liberty is that his reign is short.

GOP to Betray TEA Party

Don’t expect liberty or promises to be kept by Republicans. They have within their power the ability right now to reduce the size of government and stop the expansive spending of Obama. They won’t and will betray the TEA Party. All they have to do is refuse to vote to raise the federal debt ceiling. That one act will put a stop to new spending, and force both parties to find ways to reduce the size and scope of government. The difference between the GOP and Democrats is slight, and although the GOP was elected to a majority in the House of Representatives, they will abandon the people who put them there and vote to expand government (and their power).

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

John Stossel: State of the Union

My State of the Union address
By John Stossel
Posted: January 26, 2011

President Obama fulfilled his constitutional duty and gave his report on the state of the union last night. Here's mine:

We're in deep trouble.

You know why. Our debt has passed $14 trillion, and yet our current spending plans will make that worse. The U.S. debt will reach Greek levels in just 10 years.

But do not despair. If we make reasonable cuts to what government spends, our economy can grow us out of our debt. Cutting doesn't just make economic sense, it is also the moral thing to do. Henry David Thoreau had it right when he "accepted(ed) the motto ... that government is best which governs least."

So what should we get rid of?

We start by closing the Department of Education, which saves $100 billion a year. Education ought to be in the free market. It's insane to take money from states only to launder it through Washington and then return it to states.

Next, we should close the Department of Housing and Urban Development: $41 billion. We had plenty of housing in America before a department was created. Let's get government out of that business.

Then we eliminate the Commerce Department: $9 billion. A government that can't count the votes accurately should not try to negotiate trade. Trade should be free. Free trade creates prosperity. And since trade should be free, we should eliminate all corporate welfare and all subsidies. That means: agriculture subsidies, green energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies and subsidies for public broadcasting. None of these is needed.

I propose selling Amtrak. Taxpayers will save money, and riders will get better service. Why is government in the transportation business? Let's have private companies compete to run the trains.

And we must finally stop one of the biggest assaults on freedom and our pocketbook, the war on drugs. The drug war is really a war on our own people. The ends do not justify the means.

Now the biggest cuts. Republicans propose to cut discretionary nonmilitary spending. Good. But why stop there? That's only 15 percent of our budget. We must cut more. That means cutting Medicare, Social Security and the military.

I know. Medicare and Social Security are popular, but they are unsustainable. We must privatize Social Security and slowly replace Medicare with vouchers.

And that brings me to Obamacare. The only way to cut costs and still have medical innovation is to free the market. So I propose that we repeal Obamacare immediately. Then we must do more: We must repeal all government interference in the medical and insurance industries, including licensing. All that impedes competition.

Now, military spending. Do you recall what candidate Obama said about the war in Iraq?

"I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don't be confused."

But I am confused. We're two years past 2009, but we still have 48,000 troops in Iraq. We must shrink the military's mission to truly national defense. That means pulling our troops out of Germany, Japan, Italy and dozens of other countries. America cannot and should not try to police the entire world. We can't afford it, and it's not right.

Those cuts will put America on the road to solvency. But that's not enough. We also need economic growth.

Our growth has stalled because millions of pages of regulations make businesses too fearful to invest. Entrepreneurs don't know what the rules – or taxes – will be tomorrow. This discourages hiring.

All destructive laws must go. I again propose the Stossel Rule: For every new law passed, we must repeal two old ones.

We need to progress to an America that cherishes individual freedom. That means a government limited by the Constitution, one that protects our shores and our persons but otherwise stays out of our way. We should take seriously the words of another president, Thomas Jefferson, and embrace "a wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government."

That's my State of the Union address.


originally posted at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=255649#ixzz1C8zNTnb5

Monday, January 17, 2011

The Tree of Liberty

The below is reposted in it's entirety, repeated here hoping to get as many people to read it as possible, because it is meaningful to our republic.

The tree of liberty
Posted: January 17, 2011
By VoxDay © 2011

In the aftermath of the lethal Arizona shootings by Jared Loughner, the media have been caught up in an emotional orgy of sanctimonious worship of the state and its representatives. We have seen the ritual calls for more gun bans, the requisite quotes from the freedom-hating Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and Republican Rep. Peter King has even announced plans for new legislation creating an anointed class of legal aristocrats, in whose presence no weapons shall be tolerated.

Or presumably, as we have already seen in the arrest of Ms. Theresa Cao, verbal dissent.

It seems Rep. King is still debating whether the full Byzantine proskynesis will be required when American plebs are so honored as to find themselves in the vicinity of the sacred patrician presence or whether a mere kowtow in the Chinese imperial fashion will be sufficient.

King is the modern personification of the ancient Greek political tradition, which believes that morality resides in the polis rather than the person and that the individual is therefore subservient in all respects to the state. As a representative of the state and its honor rather than of the people who elected him to office, King views himself and his colleagues as elite guardians whose primary responsibility is to keep the unruly people from unduly exercising their will in any manner that might contradict the greater glory of their government.

This is very different than the Roman and medieval traditions of individual morality, which the Founding Fathers preferred to the Greek one. It is also unwise, for as even the pro-Optimate Cicero recognized, "It is not easy to oppose the power of the people if you give them little or nothing in the way of legal rights." The Founding Fathers further expanded upon the Roman tradition and asserted that sovereignty was vested in the people and their rights were endowed by their Creator God. The people gave the power to the government. The government did not give power to the people.

Rep. King has forgotten this basic fact of American history. If his claims of widespread Republican support for his mobile gun-free zones are true, so have many of his colleagues. It appears that many common Americans have forgotten it as well. CBS News announced a poll last week in which "three in four Americans say violence against the government is never justified, 16 percent say it can be justified – the same percentage that said as much in April."

The tone of the report suggested that CBS was disturbed that 16 percent of Americans say that violence against the government can be justified, but what is actually disturbing is that 84 percent of Americans say that it never can be. This is a belief that is absolutely antithetical to the letter, the spirit and the actions of the men who founded the nation. It was, after all, the author of the Declaration of Independence who wrote the following:

"[W]hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

Now, it is important to note that this should not be interpreted as an assertion that Jared Loughner was a patriot or that Rep. Giffords was a tyrant, much less as a defense of Loughner's attack on innocent Americans, most of whom did not belong to Rep. King's proposed legal aristocracy and had nothing to do with any level of government. As even the hyper-reactive left is beginning to understand to its dismay, the shootings at the Arizona Safeway were the act of a seriously disturbed young man with mental health problems. They were not the act of a political revolutionary. Loughner's lethal actions had far more in common with Klebold and Harris at Columbine than John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theater.

But it is even more vital to point out that Rep. King and others are attempting to use the tragedy in Arizona to increase the power of the state at the expense of the citizenry and to deny their efforts to attack the liberties of the American people. Violence against government is not always justified, but it is always justifiable in certain specific circumstances. To insist otherwise is not only a contemptible insult to the American revolutionaries who founded the nation and its government, it is an insult to the brave American soldiers who committed vast quantities of violence against the royal government of England, the National Socialist government of Germany, the military government of Imperial Japan and the murderous Baathist government of Saddam Hussein, among others.

It is impossible to assert that violence against the government can never be justified and still legitimately call oneself an American. For America is founded upon ideas, not geography, and one of those core ideas is that the healthy fear of violent retribution from the people forces governments to respect their rights and prevents them from descending into tyranny. This idea has been a quintessential and foundational principle of America from its very beginning as a violent revolution, and it is one that no genuine American can ever reject or forget.


About the Author:
Vox Day is a Christian libertarian opinion columnist and author of "The Return of the Great Depression." He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and IGDA, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his blog, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and spirited discussions open to all.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Duty to Confront Evil

When I grew up there was this quaint notion that part of growing up and becoming a man was accepting the duty to protect yourself, protect your family, and protect those around you who were smaller, weaker, and less able to protect themselves. This idea that as an adult, your security, and the security of those around you was your responsibility, is constantly being fought by those on the left. The idea that you have a duty to confront evil, to not run away, and to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves from evil, implied you had a duty to be prepared. Looking back the games, sports, and activities of my youth, they all seemed all to be preparation for that duty. From Boy Scouts, to games on the play ground, to competitive sports, to fishing and hunting, the Left has and is systematically attacking both this duty, and the activities that prepared young people for that duty. Consider the rules and consequences in school today. If a student sees a bully picking on an obviously weaker victim then steps in between the bully and his victim, physically stopping the attack, the result will be that the student protecting a weaker victim, because he was engaged in a fight, will be suspended and punished the same as the bully. There is zero tolerance for fighting, regardless of the reason. This codifies the idea that there is no evil, and teaches that taking responsibility for protecting yourself, or protecting those who are weaker is a punishable offense. Do we really want to teach our boys that if they see a man attacking a weaker woman to do nothing, allow the attack to continue, and call the police?

You’ll never hear it from a liberal, and rarely from an atheist, but there are evil people in this world. There always has been and always will be evil among us. In your local paper you will see acts of evil like murder, arson, rape, assault, robbery, and fraud every day. On a rare occasion you will see the evil act of an individual like that in Tuscon that grips our nation. On less rare occasions you will see the acts of people who believe in an evil ideology as recently happened in Pakistan, where the governor of Punjab was assassinated. His offense was opposing evil laws that carried a death penalty for blasphemy. Those who supported his assassination celebrated publicly and urged more such killings. There is a word for laws and ideology that calls for the execution of individual who don’t hold the same belief, that word is evil. What better word to describe the practice of stoning a rape victim to death for adultery than evil.

Whether it is a single murdering psychotic, or a group of people griped by an evil belief, we see that innocent Americans have been murdered at shopping malls, schools, restaurants, churches and courthouses, work, and even a grocery store parking lot. It should be plain that there is no safe place against evil. Worldwide subways, train stations, air flights, any place people gather are targets for evil people.

The evil that some people do, makes no logical sense. Trying to understand why psychotics commit evil acts is a waste of time. Limiting the actions of normal everyday people, because of the acts of evil is counterproductive, and will not eliminate or even reduce the carnage evil people commit.

If you look and read, you can find many stories of heroism where people didn’t run away from evil but ran to the shooting in Tucson to help and/or attempt to stop the evil being committed. There are many good people in this country that will not stand by while evil attacks. Well-known 18th century political philosopher Edmond Burk said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." What that means is that evil is not neutral; if you and/or society stop resisting evil, it will continue to grow and spread. It is a call to arms for people to stop being complacent. Evil is not neutral and there can be no neutrality exercised toward it. Anyone who is not against it is perforce in favor of it. The Left in America by its actions and words supports evil.

The utopian idea that if we educate everybody and just make them “understand,” will end oppression and we will all get along is a fantasy. Whether it is the anarchists voluntary “stateless society,” or socialists “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” leftist views disregard the idea that there is evil and are naive. It is also naive belief that we can keep the tools for doing evil from lunatics by creating laws that make the tools illegal for everybody, or attempting to confiscate the tools of destruction.

Sadly, another lunatic or zealot of evil ideology will commit more mass carnage. Maybe tomorrow, next week or next year, it will happen again. Just as the twin towers were brought down, innocents shot while enjoying dinner in the Texas Luby’s Cafeteria, or the recent massacre in Tucson, evil will attack again. Knowing this, rather than restrict and neuter the innocent, prudence dictates that we should be prepared. It is our duty and responsibility to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and the friends in our communities from evil. We as individuals cannot depend on the brave and earnest officers of the law to be everywhere at all times and unerringly protect us from all evil. We can nolonger disconnect ourselves from the evil in the world around us, the idea that you can go to the mall, out to eat, travel, blissfully unaware are over. As citizens in our communities, not just self-centered individuals, it is incumbent to be ready to fight evil if we are to survive as a free people. We do not have to go around scared, uncomfortable, looking over our shoulders all the time, but we must mentally prepare ourselves and stay tuned into our environment.

The Left is trying to use the action of a crazed evil man, to enact anti-liberty legislation of all sorts. The Left has always been and continues to be the enemy of freedom and liberty. They generally want to silence any opposition, and control everybody, rather than allow the common man to speak his mind and control of himself. The Left lost its monopoly on the US Media years ago, and since then continuously tires to suppress speech it doesn’t like. They are using the actions of evil, to silence everybody. As an example consider US Representative from South Carolina, Democrat Clyburn, reporting that he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or that incites violence against a federal official or member of Congress. Interesting how the legislation doesn’t protect the same use language or symbols if used by congressmen against political parties, unelected candidates, etc. So language and symbols perceived as threatening by a congressman to target, attack, or defuse the Tea Party, the NRA, or an individual not associated with the government will still be protected.

The Left is claiming that it is the “violent rhetoric” of conservatives that contributed or caused the tragedy Tucson. Not a single American politician, nor significant segment of any political movement, nor statistically identifiable share of the American people, has made a serious threat or call for the violent death of its political opponents. For every example of a conservative who has used a militaristic or violent metaphor the Left has used to “prove” their position, the pundits, bloggers, and chatters have found multiple examples of more atrocious violent rhetoric by the Left. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. and the instant availability of information that the internet has made for everybody is a bane to the Left. They no longer control the availability information to the public, hence they call for “Net Neutrality” and more government control of the internet.

The Left is again calling for the failed policies of gun control. The dire predictions of gunfights in the streets, and increased violence, wherever gun rights are restored never materialize and are as rare or rarer than with restrictions on gun rights. Never mind the fact that since the Brady Bill expired in 2004 gun ownership has increased dramatically and all violent crime, including murders, has gone down. The truly evil mass murders of the last century, where hundreds of millions of people were murdered, all occurred where the government disarmed the people then murdered them (Germany, China, USSR, Cambodia, etc). Reason on logic does not play a part in the Left’s push to some unrealistic utopian fantasy. Rather than recognize and prepare against evil, which includes good people having the tools to protect themselves and their loved ones, the Left uses the heinous but rare evil acts of a lunatic to try and validate their attacks on rights, liberty, and freedom.

The failure to recognize evil and accept that evil exists will only make things easier for those who support evil ideology or who are just plain evil. We need not walk in fear of evil, but we must be prepared at all times to respond to evil. It is still each person’s duty to provide for their own protection, the protection of their loved ones and their communities, from murdering psychotic monsters. As part of being prepared we must fight the reasonless idea that restricting the natural rights of everybody is necessary to stop evil.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Gun Control is Racist

Jeff Knox wrote a very good article Oh, What Those 'Other People' Might Do noting how "Throughout history "those other people" have been the impetus for free people to empower tyranny and adopt chains."

Virtually every discussion I have with gun control zealots involves some form of them using the gun deaths in inner cities as a reason to further restrict everybody's access to guns. Always ignoring that the places they use to prove we need more gun restrictions already have draconian gun restrictions, they just want those same or similar restrictions on the places that don't have high levels of gun violence. The fact is they fear and want to keep "those people" un-armed. Note the examples most used gun control zealots are minorities, usually blacks. Gun laws in this country that restrict access to guns are are generally far more draconian in places that have high minority (black) populations. What gun control zealots are saying is No Guns for Negros.

Please take the time to watch this very powerful movie, and then think about the motives behind restrictive gun laws.



Link to original please share



Link to original please share