Government of—not by—the people

Given the turnout for recent elections, it may be presumed that Americans don't care much about their freedom either. A great majority choose to leave governing to others and do not vote, leaving one to assume they don't care how they are governed as long as someone else does it.

The majority of the ones that do vote, complain that their views are not adequately represented yet consistently vote for the same representatives that they complain about. Generally because it is just too much trouble to do anything other than vote for the candidates that are presented to them. Again leaving one to assume that they don't care who governs them as long as someone else does it.

The Democrat and Republican parties are two sides of the same coin. Both seek power to govern the many for the benefit of the few. Neither wishes to represent the interests of the voters, instead, they wish the voters to embrace the interests of the party. And then go away while the government pursues policies that benefit the supporters of the party in power.

By supporters, I mean financial supporters. There are two kinds of votes in this country, everybody has one that they cast on election day. But those are not the "voters" that are represented. It is the "vote" of the monetary contributor that speaks the loudest and those "voters" are the ones whose interests are represented.

The monetary vote can be trumped by real voters refusing to vote for the candidates that are presented. But refusing to cast a vote for the major parties is not enough. The vote still has to be case for someone to have any weight. Vote for who you know, even if it is your neighbor or best friend. Write in their name. Write in votes are still legal and must be counted.

One way or another, we are responsible for the government we have. If it is going to change, we have to change it ourselves with our votes, not hope someone else will and wait for it to happen.

What it means to wear a gun in public

"Bringing a weapon to a rally isn't about exercising your own rights -- it's about threatening other people's rights"

Oh, really? If we are going to be consistant with Supreme Court interpretation of the 1st Amendment, bringing a gun to a political rally in the manner described in the Salon article is an exercise in freedom of expression, a protected derivative of the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. That the expression takes the form of an exercise of another Constitutionally guaranteed right seems to be at issue.

The author claims that such an exercise is a terrorist act intended to intimidation. That is true oOnly true if one chooses to be intimidated and as no will to resist. That some of our fellow citizens have made such a choice does not give them the right to require that response from the rest of us. The oft-quoted phrase, "The pen is mightier than the sword." has also been stated as, "Words are more powerful than bullets." If so, then the author is guilty of exactly what he is accusing gun-toting protesters of. Articles supporting gun control really aren't about exercising your own rights -- they are about threatening other people's rights. But worse, rather than to protest an unpopular action, the sole purpose of such articles is to threaten other people's rights. Too bad. A major reason why the rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment are so powerful is that they are protected by the right guaranteed by the 2nd. Without the latter, the former would have been lost long ago. Symbolic as it may seem to some, the threat presented by an armed citizenry is the primary fear of tyrants and despots, and removing it is an early step on their path to uncontested power.


The danger today is that too many of my fellow citizens appear willing to surrender all rights to self expression and self protection in the mistaken believe that doing so somehow contributes to a common good. It doesn't, if anything, it encourages common evil. The tyranny of the majority threatens everyone, as do the despotic actions of an all-powerful elite. The Constitution exists because the founders knew that people needed to be protected from government and therefore created a government subject to the will of the people, not vice versa. The will of people can be expressed only as long as we have freedom of speech. And we will have freedom of speech for only as long as we have access to the means to protect it.

A pointed response:

"It is time to water the tree of liberty" -- a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote promising violence.

No, not a promise of violence. Jefferson's statement was "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.". A reference to the sacrifice necessary to preserve one's liberty. So what the sign signified was a willingness of the protester to die in defense of all citizens rights; not a threat to his fellow citizens, but a willingness to fight for them.

And this past week, 12 armed men -- including one with an assault rifle -- not only showed off their firearms at Obama's Arizona speech, but broadcast a YouTube video threatening to "forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority."

First, it was not an assault rifle. The rifle carried was a semi-automatic. An assault rifle is a fully automatic, selective fire weapon and carrying such weapons in public has been prohibited by Federal law for more than 70 years.

The tyranny of the majority -- the willingness of a majority to impose its will in disregard of the rights of the minority -- is the weakness of a democracy. It is something our form of government is designed to avoid. And it is something worth resisting with force if the Constitution is ignored.

These and other similar examples are accurately summarized with the same language federal law employs to describe domestic terrorism. Generating maximum media attention, the weapons-brandishing displays are "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population."

Maximum media attention? Like MSNBC's coverage of the Arizona rally? MSNBC showed a very tight shot of the man with the rifle and suggested -- no, stated -- that this demonstrated a very real threat of angry whites trying to assassinate a black president. Unfortunately, they had to use such a tight shot to avoid showing that the man carrying the rifle was black. It would have destroyed their sensationalized story which was clearly "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." Who is really the terrorist here?

Like the noose in the Jim Crow South, its symbolic message is clear: If you dare engage in the democratic process, you risk bodily harm.

With that implicit threat, the incessant arguments about gun ownership have been supplanted by a more significant debate over which should take precedence: The Constitution's First or Second Amendment?

Based on America's history, the Founders' answer to that question clearly lies in the Bill of Rights' deliberate sequencing.

Of course, he has to play the race card by referencing Jim Crow, then infer an implicit threat where none really exists. As to sequencing, the author's opinion is not supported by the discussion in The Federalist Papers or by the Constitution itself. Yes, the freedom of speech is a fundamental right, and it is certainly arguable that it is of prime importance. So much so that the Constitution, after guaranteeing thatr right, guarantees the means of protecting that right by first stating that an armed populace is necessary to a free state (that freedom being guaranteed by the 1st Amendment) and therefore the people's right to be armed is guaranteed as well.

"political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

It certainly does -- especially if an unarmed populace has no means to resist -- or the will.

The American Way

In an Op-Ed column titled "The American Way" in today's New York Times", Bob Herbert says,

"Murderous gunfire claims many more victims than those who are actually felled by the bullets. But all the expressions of horror at the violence and pity for the dead and those who loved them ring hollow in a society that is neither mature nor civilized enough to do anything about it."

What rings hollow is Herbert's reference to a mature and civilized society. The beginning of maturity is the recognition and acknowledgement of reality. What Herbert doesn't understand is that we don't live in a mature and civilized society. We never have. The most consistent thing in human history is mans' inhumanity to man. This is why those of us who are mature enough to recognize the reality of the shortcomings of our so-called civilized society choose to arm ourselves in self-defense. Fortunately, the right to do so is the American way.

Restored rights for felons?

In a post over on Alphecca, among the comments is one by AndyA. suggesting that felons who commited non-violent felonies such as political corruption or financial mismanagement should have their rights restored (so they can vote and own guns among other things). A simple reason comes to mind: The loss of rights is one of the consequences of committing a felony. It is one of the things that sets felonies apart from misdemeanors. In this era of plea bargaining, probation and parole, it is often the only thing.

Limits to freedom

Back in 2003, there were a number of folks upset with how the Secret Service was dealing with protesters at Pres. Bush's public appearances, Blogcritics.org among them. You can read the whole thing here, but this passage jumped out at me:

In the letter to Ashcroft recently released, the members of Congress called the prosecution of Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone "a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending."

"As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way the President finds politically amenable ... We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms...

No interest in zoning Constitutional freedoms? Since when? It looks to me as if someone decided to interpret the Constitution with some consistancy for a change and read the First Amendment the same way the Second Amendment has been read for many years.

But they are actually right. There are no zones of Constitutional freedoms. Per the First Amendment, the entire United States is a free speech zone. And per the Second, it is a free to bear arms zone as well.

As we read the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free to bear arms zone.' In the United States, the individual right to keep and bear arms is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to bear arms do not depend on their doing it in a way that Sarah Brady or anyone else finds politically acceptable.

We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.

-- Francois Fenelon

If the world is wrong, right your ownself.

-- "Brother" Dave Gardner

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know we don't know.

--Donald H. Rumsfield (attributed)

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
--Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago

"You can be in my dream if I can be in yours."
--Bob Dylan, The Talking WWIII Blues, 1962

"You can be on my page if I can be on yours."
--The WorldWideWeb, 1995

"How much you gonna pay?."
--The WorldWideWeb, 1998

---

Some people do everything "by the book", even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book!

---

Don't worry about what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying about what you are thinking about them.

---

Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand wrong answers.

---

You can lead a mind to knowledge, but you can't always make it think

---

An individual is a free citizen. An isolated individual, in contact with no other person, has unlimited and unrestricted liberty. Anything and everything is permissible, though not everything is possible and certainly not everything is profitable.

When one free individual comes in contact with another free individual, something has to be worked out between the two so that there is mutual respect for each other's rights to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". If the two are to live together in harmony, they must mutually agree to allow their individual liberties to be restricted to some extent.

If a large number of individual are involved, the agreements and compromises may be codified and a system set up whereby the agreements may be administered fairly and justly. For example, a Constitution that establishes a constitutional government.

Since the individual is inherently free, All governmental authority derives from the authority that the individuals give to the government. The government exists and governs by the consent of the governed. Government therefore can never give anything to the people, it can only take from them, and then it can only take what it is allowed to take.

One major problem we have today is that too many people seem to think that government is the implement of an all-powerful entity known as "society" and that everything flows from the government to the individual. Many have been taught that this is the way it works, and many find it convenient to believe because such belief absolves them of any personal responsibility.

This is not the case. A society is made up of individuals, and the action of a society is the sum total of the actions of the individual members. Society can't force the individuals to comply with arbitrary rules and regulations, though society may make it easier for the individual to choose to comply rather than resist. It is still a matter of individual choice: No one ever does anything that they do not choose to do even though they may not be aware of making the choice.

As long as a significant majority of the individuals that make up a society hold the same or similar beliefs, the actions of the society will reflect those beliefs and the society will assume that the rectitude of those beliefs is obvious. However, problems arise when these beliefs are based on false premises. For example, the belief that society as a whole is inherently responsible for the welfare of individuals. Society may assume this responsibility as a result of the belief of its members, but since a society exists only because it has been formed by like-minded individuals, it is the individuals that are inherently responsible for the welfare of the society, not the other way around. The society will flourish only when the individuals that comprise it accept that responsibility.

---

"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth." --Börne Ludwig, (1786-1837)

"The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers together all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come... "--Umberto Eco

"Some minds are led into error through truths; some, happier, pass through every error and come upon the great truth." --Joubert

---

You will save yourself a lot of needless worry if you don't burn your bridges until you come to them.

---

Hotels are hollow (at least most of them are). That is why they can get so many people inside.

---

Alcohol is a good solvent for ball-point pen ink, but don't try using it to dissolve the rest of your troubles.

That said, I still like a good single-malt scotch occasionally.

---

A bird in hand is safer than one overhead.