Brilliant

“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say ‘what should be the reward of such sacrifices?’ Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

Samuel Adams said that.

I – and you – and everyone of us has a moral debt, whether we acknowledge it or not, to those who sacrificed, fought, and died to preserve and protect our country, our Constitution and our freedom. If we do not preserve our freedom, we do not deserve it. If you and I don’t preserve our freedom, we give our children’s children a world of slavery. Now is the tipping point; the borrower is slave to the lender and we borrow and borrow without regard, and each time the chains of slavery wind tighter around our future. We must be done with this socialism, done with the nanny state. Find a way and fight it; don’t go with this subreptitious flow.

Wikipedia Founder Disinformed

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia said in a recent interview, “But for basic factual information, I think having an open public dialogue and debate and democratic process, seems to be very powerful.” Basic factual information, as anyone knows, depends not one whit on public dialogue and debate, nor on the democratic process. What’s he thinking? Facts are facts, and no amount of talking will change them. What he’s talking about is truth. He’s talking about the internet, and particularly his Wikipedia, as becoming the incarnation of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Truth, however, is not the same as fact. Truth is a quality of language, not a quality of the world. Facts are qualities of the world; truth is what we say about them. Or rather, in some of the things we say about them. But I get the feeling Wales really isn’t talking about basic factual information. That he’s not really talking about basic or factual, but just about information; and moreover, about information being truth. Or, to put it in the form of the well-known modern leftist lie: perception is reality.

Now I don’t know this man’s politics, and I’m not accusing him of any. But I do know the fog of leftism is everywhere. It clouds peoples thinking even when they’re not aware of it. Leftist ideas are like cow patties in the sun – looks dry on the outside, but step in it and you’ll literally step in it. And Wales idea steps in it. All it takes to change from accurate, truthful information to disinformation are efforts like this one. Suppose it’s to the advantage of some cabal that Doc Holiday is proven to be a Clanton mole. Just get enough people to edit wikis, to write blogs, to challenge any other interpretations, and after enough of this the people will think it’s the truth. Get enough people to think that we work backwards from information to basic facts, or rather from disinformation to basic facts, and you change people’s perception of reality (regardless that you haven’t changed reality). And because of this they become endangered and dependent on the disinformer – how to create power the leftist way. Isn’t that just what Jimmy claimed, that such a method “seems to be very powerful?”

Government Has No Rights

Government has no rights. It only has responsibilities. That is, it has no innate rights. Only people have innate rights. The government is responsible to the people, not the other way around. If government does have rights, it is only secondarily, as a product of its responsibilities. Obama apparently doesn’t grasp this basic concept. He says, “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you.” Does he want the government to be able to do things to us? The government has absolutely no liberty to do anything to you (although it may have a responsibility). It acts for you; particularly at the Federal level. The uniqueness of America, and thus its exceptionalism, is because in America the citizens are above the government, not vice versa. The Constitution that he can’t seem to understand begins with the words “We, the People . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.” That seems pretty clearly to put the people first. Jughead also apparently doesn’t think the Constitution says what the government must do for us, either: “But it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.” But if he’d just read the ellipsis, he’d see that it does: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Apparently, mission statements are beyond him. What a maroon! If he either doesn’t understand this simple but eloquent statement or if he rejects it on principle, he is incapable of upholding the Oath of Office which he will take if elected. And he called himself a Constitutional scholar when he said those things! We’re laughing all the way to the polls.

Socialism Is Unconstitutional

Not that it makes any difference, the Constitution lies dying in a pool of its own blood, but socialism, which is what the liberal left and the Democrat party have brought us ever since FDR, is unconstitutional. Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution guarantees a republican form of government, not a democratic one (I’m referring here to types of government, not political parties), nor a socialistic one.

The difference between these is this: some people don’t have a clear idea of what a republican form of government is, even though they might say things to the effect that our country is a republic, not a pure democracy. The word republic comes from Latin res publica, which simply means the public things. Socialism, and democracy, and all flavors of social engineers, believe that all things are public things. Nothing is private under socialism. All is the subject of government. Thus, under socialism, you will have no private life, no privacy rights, no option not to participate in government programming. This switch from the public things to all things clearly denies the Constitution. But it was dead, anyway.

Good luck, America. I hope you like it.

Predictable Irrationality

Following up on this, just a couple of short comments. The book is readable, and some of Ariely’s insights are interesting. But you just know somehow that a lot of our tax dollars funded some of it, and it’s not really profound enough to make you think it justifies that. Ariely makes observations of various behaviors, and then examines the rationality behind them to uncover a more irrational basis. To do this, he sets up tests. These tests, while sometimes revealing, can hardly be described as scientific experiments, and many are biased in such a way as to confirm his conjectures. All in all, that makes for so much witch doctory. It’s an interesting book, but don’t confuse it with authentic science.

Free Association

No man is good enough to be another man’s master. –George Bernard Shaw

The ways of music and of government are closely related. –from The Li Chi

A perfect argument does not employ words. –Chuang Tzu

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights. — Sir William Blackstone

Have you forgotten? –Brad Paisley

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. –Tacitus

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. –Emerson

Blood is a cleansing and sanctifying thing, and the nation that regards it as the final horror has lost its manhood … there are many things more horrible than bloodshed, and slavery is one of them! –Padraic Pearse

When a country is well governed, poverty and want are things to be ashamed of; when a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of. –Confucius

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. — Henry Brooks Adams

“Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?” someone asked the chaplain. “No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country.” — Edward Everett Hale

He brings disaster on his nation who never sows a seed, or lays a brick, or weaves a garment, but makes politics his occupation. –Gibran

How much easier to be generous than just. –Junius

The point to remember is that what the Government gives it must first take away. — John Caldwell

The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.– William Harvard

Politics: (noun) From Greek, poly, meaning many, and ticks, meaning bloodsuckers. — Anon

The American wage earner and the American housewife are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit. They know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald R. Ford

A man may not always eat and drink what is good for him; but it is better for him and less ignominious to die of the gout freely than to have a censor appointed over his diet, who after all could not render him immortal. –George Santayana

A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn’t own. — Frank Dane

The popular plan to gain freedom is to enslave others. –Elbert Hubble

It is the power of appearance that leads us astray. –Plato

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. — Mahatma Gandhi

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost. — Jean Jacques Rousseau

If you will help run our government in the American way, then there will never be danger of our government running America in the wrong way. — Omar N. Bradley

Fraud and Deceit are always in Haste. –Thomas Fuller

When the multitude detests a man, inquiry is necessary; when the multitude likes a man, inquiry is equally necessary. –Confucius

A hungry man is not a free man. — Adlai E. Stevenson

Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. –Chuang Tzu

No amount of artificial reinforcement can offset the natural inequalities of human individuals. — Henry P. Fairchild

Though the people support the government, the government should never support the people. –Grover Cleveland

Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. — Ambrose Bierce

Never before have so many been taken for so much and left with so little. –Van Panopoulos

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. — Nikita Khrushchev

Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence. — David Ben-Gurion

Many a person seems to think it isn’t enough for the government to guarantee him the pursuit of happiness. He insists it also run interference for him.
– Anonymous

Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: “No man should have so much.” The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: “All men should have as much.” –Phelps Adams

Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically, by popular vote. — William L. Shirer

The United States of America 1776-2008, RIP

A light has gone out in the world: the light of freedom. The USA is no longer. It is now the DSRA: the Democratic Socialist Republic of America. And even that, like all socialist words, is a lie. It is, and will be, neither democratic nor socialist, nor will it deal with just the public things (which is the meaning of republic). Those of you now in your twenties and younger have never known true freedom; at best you have smelled the smoke from the dying ashes. The next generation back (mine) saw the glow of the embers. The next, the so-called greatest generation, felt the heat of the dying fire. That fire was kindled by the real greatest generation in 1776, and socialism and greed for power has ever since been putting it out. It has finally succeeded. Oh, it won’t be dramatic, just the quick-step ticking of the clock. But the Constitution has been kicked to the curb, and all the fine words of our fathers now so much drivel.

The bailout bill, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, is one of the final nails in the coffin. Is it coincidence that murderers also wrap their victims in tarps? I have been reading this TARP in bits and pieces, and it gives sweeping new powers to the Secretary of the Treasury rivalling those of Congress or the President. In combination with the coming nationalization of health care (in one form or another), in combination with all sorts of well-meaning but ligaturing legislation, our public servant government has been changed into the-public-is-the-servant government. When democracies fall, as this one is doing, they fall into dictatorship of some form. This new TARP is a giant step towards the establishment of an American oligarchy, just as within its own wording it destroys the Constitution.

Where is the constitutional challenge to this law? (Not that that would stop it.) The Constitution limits any fiscal legislation to be originated in the House. The wording in this bill allowed it to originate in either chamber, and even though this wording should have been trumped by the Constitution, the Constitution is being ignored. And so it dies, not with a whimper, but with shouts of protest that shut the original House bill down. But it dies nevertheless.

What now? What happens to the United States? What happens to liberty? The law can only limit liberty. Constitutions cannot define or grant liberties to the people. The people have rights and liberties prior to any constitution or any form of government. They don’t need constitutions to get them. Constitutions can only attempt to rein in the vampires which all governments are prone to become. Now that our government operates outside the Constitution, in how many ways will it rape its own people in the name of doing good?

Just for starters, if the government owns your house (which is a result of this TARP law) and it also controls your health care, guess what? You’ll no longer have the privacy to act as you please in your own home. Excuse me, in the government’s home. That means, at a minimum, no smoking; but in all likelihood will also include the very types of food you have in your refrigerator. It could dicate the types of appliances and furnishings you have in the name of public health and safety. It may even go so far as to dictate the contents of your bookshelf. If you’re young, I know you think I’m crazy and blowing things out of proportion, but these are the least of what government will do in the name of doing the good and right thing. It’s the least of what it will do when it controls both the home you live in and your personal health care, and this is coming if not here already. If you are pregnant with a handicapped child, in the name of saving public expense you might be forced into an abortion. If you are old or disabled, no matter what your age, and if you are deemed to be a drain on society’s resources, you might become eligible for euthanasia. I’m not crazy, serious people will be led to this “unpalatable” conclusion, and will seriously suggest it, if not implement it. And it will go further. If you are pregnant with a boy (or girl) but a quota of boys (or girls) has been achieved already, you might face an abortion (look at China!). If DNA testing shows your baby will have a deformity or other defect, it might be aborted. Your home will no longer be your home. You will be required to comply with all manner of public safety and health regulations. The internet will be censored in the name of the public good. Look at China again. You won’t be able to get access to web sites the government deems unsafe, unhealthy, immoral or corrupt in some way. There might even be book-burnings to protect the public good. Political imprisonments will become more and more common. Speech will be limited to the politically correct, and violations handled by so-called re-education, which is no more than indoctrination and brain-washing. I’m not making this up. These things have happened wherever the government has gained control over the public good, and they will happen again. And stupid us, we’re asking the government to establish and protect our good.

Unfortunately, there’s almost nothing we can do to change this in the short term. It won’t matter if we elect one candidate or the other, or vote one party in and the other out. The tide of history sweeps all before it. Just like, though the stock market has its ups and downs, in the long view it always goes up, the forces in play will take history in an inevitable direction. There are only two things that can be done to change this. One is the slow and steady, bit-by-bit erosion of socialist principles in favor of slightly more libertarian ones. This is how a trickle of socialism a hundred and fifty years ago has turned into this unstoppable tide today. I really don’t give this method much chance of success, but we have to try. Those of us who remember liberty, who remember what it means and where it comes from, must pass on the knowledge as best we can, even in whispers if need be. Keep “freedom libraries” of libertarian thought, and keep them safe. It may be too late for us, but the hope of a return to sane government is with our children’s children, and their children. The yearning of the heart for freedom, let’s hope, will not be denied forever.

The other method is to change the flow of history by the flowing of blood. I think even today many would join this method, and more as time goes by, but I hold little hope for it, either. We have not a generation like Washington’s, and the world is a much smaller and vastly more dangerous place. Daniel Webster said, “If the American Constitution shall fall there will be anarchy throughout the world.” Well, it has fallen; and things will get worse before they get better.

The Anthropic Principle

This principle is no more than determinism in a dress, and it fails for the same reasons. Most notably, the laws of the universe are an outcome of the operation of the universe rather than vice versa. Anthropics says that it’s the laws of the universe operating on it which have created a universe wherein man lives. Sorry. It’s just more idealism. Play again.

The Natural Basis of a Constitution

Following up on the parenthetical comment in the previous post, which noted people and not citizens, the basis in natural law for a constitution needs to be explained.

If all men (it’s a universal, get over it!) are created equal, then they all have an equal share of natural rights – the rights to life, liberty, property, and so forth. So at this point, no man has a right to govern another. However, they do have a right to assemble in their common interest and form systems and governments for their mutual benefit – but not, importantly, for the exploitation of the natural rights of others. Even from assembly, those rights are inviolate. So there is nothing for anyone to be a citizen of until after a government is constituted. Until then, they are just people. That should explain it.

What Constitution Means

Liberal looney, Larry Sabato, writes in his book, A More Perfect Constitution, that the Constitution should include, in addition to a Bill of Rights, a Bill of Responsibilities. What a dufus!

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It can’t be argued any other way. It is certainly law, but it is a peculiar kind of law. All law is a restriction of liberty in one way or another, and laws are usually thought of as applying to everyone. But in the case of the Constitution, the law doesn’t apply to everyman; it applies only to the government. Liberals, progressives, and other misinformed people try to use the constitution to enforce restrictive law on the citizens, but not only is this not the purpose of the Constitution, it also degrades and confuses both that document and the rest of positive law. The Constitution is written by the people (note I didn’t say citizens) to construct the government, which then, following that constitution, writes the positive law. So the law which is the Constitution does not, and can not, apply to the everyday citizen; it applies solely to the government. Its proper use is to restrict the liberty of the government it creates. To use it any other way is to bludgeon your fellow man.