Apologia
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Politics

Some of you, if you actually see this, might wonder why there is over a year between the last two posts. The answer is patience. I'd said what needed to be said, and my voice was not the only one speaking. I left it to the congress to try to clean up the mess the out going lame turkey had left us. But true to form they allowed themselves to get embroiled in yet another of his schemes to destroy this country. His parting blow being the rescue/stimulus package.

It was clear that Obama was not what he pretended, but I seriously had my doubts that the American people who used death threats and extortion to keep Joe Lieberman and a celebrated General Officer like Colin Powell out of the running, would have the will to elect a black man to office.

Really they didn't. Estranged Kenyan father, Indonesian step father, white mother and a childhood spent living abroad -- what connection does this man really have to "the black experience." I don't doubt he is capable, intelligent and motivated. But it's disengenuous for him to pretend a shared identity with the man who was born to black American parents and raised in the racial cook pot Illinois of circa 1970. But that is a topic for another discussion.

I have been waiting for the dust to settle and for the hooplah to die down, while the congress made a show of investigating the Bush Administration. But as usual it's been all show and no go. A No Va like GM. But imagine my dismay to find that some of the most outspoken opponents of Bush's, and honestly the Repulican Party's, illegal wire tapping, torture and attempts to deny the right to privacy (and yes the Supreme Court has upheld The Fourth Amedment as garaunteeing privacy) have turned about and are now proposing a national MEDICAL ID. In place of the miserable Real ID and the E-Verify, which they wisely pummeled with the stimulus package, the Democrats have simply substituted a series of studies that culminate in mandatory participation in medical tracking and the warehousing of your private medical records in a central database, where they can be perused at leisure by the federal government.

Sadly one of the Authors of this bill had the gall to ask, "What's so bad about wanting to save some money." That's like Captain Kramer (Commandant of Belsin) saying, "what's wrong with a little target practice and dog walking." Mister Obey it's how you do it that matters. Saving money by refusing to treat people because some actuarial table says they will die soon is murder. And the people drafting the bill, and yes that means you, are directly responsible for the suffering and death that will inevitably occur. You sir, are no better than and not signifiantly different from Alberto Gonzales. You seem to be a sincre man, and in the past you've clearly sought to promote the House Rules and perform in a manner that is fiscally and ethically upright. But this one bill is enough to outweigh any good you've ever done and unless you lead a movement to overturn the "Medical Information Technology" and "Medical Cost Savings" provisions of this bill you won't ever recover your integrity. But perhaps that doesn't trouble you.

I thought they were the party of change and new direction. This is reactionism to the politics and doctrines of the Tories under George III. Now I know the revolutionary war is not a hot-bed topic for most of us, and the fake-newsies would mock. But then they mocked us about torture in Cuba and about secret prisons and about a host of other issues where the Bush Administration mirrored that of Adolf Hitler. That is, until US Senators appearing as guests on their shows confirmed these issues on National Television. It really does take a slap stick to the temple to make Mr. Stewart really notice what he's mocking, and to make Mr. Colbert really think past his smug Characatures.

Don't mock. THINK! Our mutual future depends on watching washington more closely and actually acting to hinder the agendi of BOTH political parties. I'm not being alarmist, when the president that everyone in the media is so in love with that he can do no wrong, uses that love fest to sneak National ID and government funded Euthenasia Targeted primarily at the aged, through a congress that proudly proclaims its determination to be compassionate and reverse the totolitarian trend in US Government.

So I don't know if I'll be having cause to blog more often. I hope and pray that in the very near future the people will surprise me by waking up and taking back the power they've given into the hands of incompetents and maliscious politicos. If that were to happen then likely this blog -- designed to stir people to take back the reigns of power and change government from rule by the Corporations, for the Subcultural Minority and of the Wealthy Minority; to the fabulous vision that Lincoln espoused on that dolorus day in Gettesberg -- would likely become irrelevant. But it's a very thin hope. In an Era of "strict constructionist" judges, we have a federal circuit court daring to hear a case and go so far as to make a ruling on a properly drafted and legally implemented amendment to a State Constitution. The hope that the people govern themselves and Democracy (rule by the simple majority) is fading far to quickly.

The shot ignored round the world.
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Politics

In his opening salvo President Obama is seeking to eliminate the last remaining one out of the three forms of privacy garaunteed by the fourth amendment of the US Constitution. While republicans and democrats alike grind away at the question of methods and idologies regarding economic stimulus, the real business of the new stimulus package is to remove our last civil right. Our last civil right, because this particular attack on privacy quashes our Right to Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness.

Included in the draconian depths of the stimulus package bills before the two houses are provisions for "studies" to evaluate the feasibility of euthenizing the elderly by preventing medical practicioners from providing health care to those who will likely not have a long life span. Make no mistake. It specifically includes authority for the Department of Health and Human Services to use federal law enforcement and military to enforce these measures.

 Another pernicious attack on the American People is a provision requiring that ALL persons resident in the US be compelled, by any federal means including military and Law enforcement, to submit to being documented in a central MEDICAL datbase by 2014.

Simply put, after testing competing methods and systems on military personnel and medicare/medicaide recipients, and our nation's veterans -- the federal government will construct a central medical database of all persons and you will be compelled to submit. Even persons whose sincere religious faith prevents them from using western Medicine will be compelled. Alternatively, if those persons are aged, they will be compelled to register, only to be promptly denied health care.

Amish, and other traditional cultures will be compelled, potentially at gun point. YOUR representitives are creating this. And Barack Obama is the most vocal spin doctor promoting it. Tom Daschel is the devil who conceived it. If you doubt me, read his book

Those of you who are Republican, your representitives have failed you, because they can't be bothered to deal with the civil rights issue that would have sickened men like Dwight Eisenhower and even Ronald Reagan. All we hear from them is, "look how much money is being spent." But there's no mention of the end of the privacy that was instituted to protect dissent and religious freedom.

This bill will end civil rights in the US, not with a warcry but with a whimper. But you go back to your TV and don't worry your head about it. After all, it's not your responsibility to watch your representatives... Is it?

 Fred

Institutional Voyeurs
Mood:  flirty
Topic: Politics

All these issues that have been raised in the current debate over Iraq are old issues. These are the issues that caused Article I and Article II as well as the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 14th Amendments to be written. Taken as a whole there is no way a reasoning individual could possibly see these activities of the government as legal.

I say legal because the constitution is the codified or "made into law" will of the people. We can change our minds, but when the government does something that we have told them explicitly they cannot do or if they don't do something we have explicitly commanded them to do, they forfeit their legitimacy and become felons.

It's not some magic rite that makes them felons and it doesn't require a court to declare it. Courts are needed to sort out the issues and mete out the penalties, but convicted or not the objective reality of guilt remains. A person who has sworn to uphold the constitution and doesn't is forsworn, a traitor to the United States, and a felon. The fact will affect them even if they are exonerated or pardoned. Nothing can really ever rehabilitate such a person.

 But the latest bout in the dialogue has been the issue of the fourth amendment. This is a simple one and written in simple language. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now the word warrants is capitalized so it has been seen to mean a legal document. This needn't be the case though as the word warranted means justified. The likely meaning at the time it was written was a court order, but one that simply affirmed the inherent authority in the peace officer or other persons. Why does that matter? Simply because there is no such thing as a legal but warrantless search. If the search is legal then it is warranted, if not it isn't.

What this means when reduced, is that NO search OR seizure is legal when performed by agents of any branch of the US Government at any level unless:

1) a finding of fact by a court demonstrates a crime has been committed

2) an oath has been sworn (or affirmation by those who do not take oaths on religious grounds) by the searchers certifying on penalty of perjury that there is reasonable cause to believe that the persons who control the property to be searched are probably guilty of that crime

3) that the places to be searched are limited in scope and probative locations

4) that the things or persons to be seized are explicitly named prior to the search or arrest 

The "warrantless" searches being conducted are illegal and unconstitutional by virtue of the fact the authorities engaging in the searches and directing the agents have admitted to their warrantless nature. To declare ANY search as warrantless and then conduct that search shows a guilty mind. It is a felony confession.

Another tack commonly taken is the "reasonableness" issue. The text says no unreasonable searches, therefore the agency insists it is reasonable to search financial transactions and simple purchases and rented properties and the list goes on interminably.

The constant wheedling away at the constitution is disastrous. But don't me duck that question. Reasonableness is vague. It was intentionally vague because the framers were afraid they might be creating a guarantee that would prevent law enforcement. They left it to the people to decide what was reasonable. Reasonableness can drift from generation to generation. And while it offends most of us to think it, it is culturally and historically bound.

This is why the oversight by a court has been mandated. Judges in most areas are elected. For this reason, they must be sensitive to the cultural and historical context that determines reasonableness. Ergo the vagaries are eliminated when the legislation by congress and the executive orders of the president are curtailed by constitutional constraints.

Much of the body of law allowing hot pursuit is illegal law, because it defies the constitutionally mandated oversight in favor of expediency. The Supreme Court has often erroneously held that unconstitutional activities are constitutional because political agendas have swayed them to interpret the constitution instead of interpreting the laws as is mandated by the constitution.

This sort of bending the constitution to fit the statute instead of bending the statute to fit the constitution is born out of the desperate expediency of trying avoid protracted exchanges where bills are passed only to be overturned by the court. This dialogue is seen as too time consuming when vital issues of crime and national security weigh in the balance. 

Expeditious and efficient governance is tyranny. We do live in a high speed society. We do have sophisticated people committing crime. But it was never the intention that the federal, state or local government have the power to prevent crime. The tools they should be limited to are catching the perpetrator AFTER the fact or in the act. Crime prevention is the sole purview of the potential victim. Security guards and defense of property against trespass, robbery, theft or vandalism are the right of the people.

The US Government has long been in the process of disarming the public in the name of public safety. In fact, a disarmed public has no security from predatory persons. But more importantly they have no security such as that named in the 4th amendment, namely security in the face of tyranny. Security from arrest, or the seizure of property or business, medical and financial records is the Security that the president is mandated to protect. Yet our current president and his token legislature are the greatest threat to this security that we have faced since the Victorian policy state invaded us and burned the white house.

 I'm not advocating a particular course of action, other than legal reform which reverts these powers to the people as they were intended and which leads to the incarceration and/or execution of those persons who have been engaged in illegally circumventing fully half the articles and amendments to the constitution.

In Denmark, every able bodied man owns an assault rifle and amazingly they don't have a lot of murder and violent crime. If the criminal has to concern himself with the fact that he may be justifiably killed by his intended victim for illegal entry, or attempted robbery, crime drops. Criminals are first and foremost, risk management specialists. If the risk is too high in relation to the potential gain they back off.

This is the reason the first amendment guarantees the inherent right to bear arms. The intention was that a rogue agency of the government or a violent criminal on the prowl would be forced to consider the possibility that any given citizen might be better armed and trained. Both types of security threat are equally deleterious to the peace and public safety and should rightly be at risk at all times from the ordinary citizen.

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference. They deserve a place of honor with all that is good.

-George Washington 

A one legged man at. politics and religion.
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Politics
If you grew up in an English speaking country, you probably have heard some variation on the tired simile, "Its like a one leg'ed man at an arse kicking contest". I recognize it's crude, in fact it probably is more popular the cruder your environment, with military or naval service being the most avid consumer. Why bring up tired and oafish (Oeffischer?) idiom? Simple. I've seen an upsurge of just the sort of anti-intellectual absurdity that this saying intends to illustrate.

The rise of outspoken anti-religious figures has been a disturbing trend in the media. I say anti religion because their methodology is clearly an attempt to replace and therby erradicate religion rather than having a reasoned discussion. One spokesman actually stated that unless a religious community is willing to allow dissenting opinions to be expressed from the religion's own venues, then that religion should be subject to persecution and concerted attack.

In other words, he claims a church of scientology should invite pentecostals to speak against scientology from the platform in a church of scientology. He claims a synogogue must be willing to allow klansmen to present religious discussions regarding the God given inferiority of other races to themselves.

But mostly his claim (and I think he would agree on this point) is a transparent attempt to intimidate the theistic majority into allowing him a bully pulpit wherein to attack and slander their God and their faith. He would characterize strong polemic as reasoned discussion rather than slander. But a polemic that asserts a falsehood about another person, God for instance, such as "he does exist", is slander. (identity theft?)

The amazing thing was that this demogogue was so openly candid about this intention. Hitler was similarly candid and no-one gave him real credibility regarding his intentions until it was too late.

Bearing in mind that the majority of the 6 or so odd billion people on earth are ardently religious, this can be nothing less than an elitist minority trying to shape and dominate the population through propaganda. Or, baring that, the short sighted attempts at social planning that have caused every war since 1890 -- are once again attempting to mold people against their will.

Either way, it is a disturbing tend that can only end in global conflict, and this time we don't need nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to destroy the environment. Carpet bombing and the application of aerial and conventional weapons can sufficiently wreck the ecosphere. Who needs nukes when you have the sixth fleet and a couple of virus ridden, friendly firing Halifax cruisers?

Okay we've gone from crude idiom to world war III. Is that rational. Yeah it is and it comes back to that proverbial one legged man. Who's the unipelagaic? (palagian?) Answer: The atheistic spokesmen who are being called on to comment on so called "fundamentalists".

Fundamentalist is a pejorative. The ever so enlightened social planners who claim to be trying to build an egalitarian world through enlightened atheism are in fact tainting their movement by it's use. How can one claim to be reforming the inner city if they are constantly using the terms spic, chink, wasp, cracker, beaner and nigger. It "ain't" gonna happen that way.

Beyond that, the term fundamentalist or even protestant is only properly used when referring to those who are theologically linked with the Dutch Reformed or Calvinist Christian churches. Made up terms like "Muslim Fundamentalist" are born in the same ignorance that spawned gems like wigga and zebra.

I'm a Christian. I'm not Roman Catholic, I am from a Western Traditional Christian movement, I'm not a protestant, and I'm not Eastern Orthodox. Does that leave me with no choices? Sorry, that belief only holds for those who let the news media or behavioral science professors think for them.

This leads us back to the brilliant atheist who feels "lead" (by whom?) to become a critic or analyst of religion. Goodness, who could be less qualified. By definition, when talking about religion we are talking about things that are esoteric at their most mundane. They are truly mystical in some of the more extreme expressions.

In order to BE a commentator on any subject, you have to have be capable of empathizing with the subject of the commentary. While, it's true a sort of clinical objectivity is needed to be a good commentator, at the same time no non human would be able to adequately comment on the human condition. Only we know what it's like to feel human, and to experience life as a human.

This principle translates nicley to the question of religion. Only an initiate can adequately comment on the ins and outs of a given religion. Some objective tests may give the outside observer an inkling, but only the initiate can truly comprehend and comment on religion. Now sectarianism aside, it's clear that only a theist can comment on the experience of a theist. Hiring an atheist to comment on Christianity or Islam, is like being that one leg'ed man.

Hiring an atheist commentator on religion and philosophy is roughly like hiring a blind makeup artist for CNN. While certain bow-tie bedecked male commentators look at times like they do in fact have a blind makeup artist, it's not a likelihood.

Entrapment on Black Ice
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Politics
In the beginning they told us 9-11 was an expected but unpredictable eventuality. Then we found that it was preventable but no one tried. Then we were told the only means of preventing a recurrence was to institute national ID cards, traveling papers and a Gestapo.

After people began to SLOWLY wake to the insanity of these measures and their requisite destruction of American Civil Rights, we were told the scale and scope of these measures would be reduced and only known terrorists would be targeted.

When the issue of using FISA came up, we were told that all civilian and joint operations would be run through FISA but purely security related issues would go through a set of secret operations that are only the purview of military intelligence acting under the authority of the commander in chief and that it would never entail criminal prosecution. (except it would first go through FISA then get renamed criminal after the searches, seizures and incarceration had already been an accomplished fact and the fruit of the poison tree was extant)

Then we hear that the new greatest evil is child molestation and we have to suspend the constitution to get pedophiles. No one except a pedophile wants to be associated with a pedophile and, certainly, NO one else would want to defend their crimes. But here lies the sticky margin of the proverbial slippery slope.

If one crime can be singled out for peculiar measures, and then a second more heinous crime can be singled out for peculiar measures, then inertia can begin to drag the whole country into the cesspit of National Socialism or effective oligarchy. One step at a time, it?s dragging us down to a point where people are imprisoned in there own homes just as they were in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

The Postal inspectors were heard on CSPAN telling us that "preemptive searches" had been upheld in court as being constitutional. Now the thing to remember is that the only court with the authority to judge a law, regulation or practice as being constitutional is the Supreme Court of the United States. Whatever court they went to, it hadn't the requisite authority to TELL them they were OK.

The other issue is that a lot of people are telling us, the American people, a lot of things that the American People object to are constitutional. This is the most troubling trend of all. The constitution is the written down (codified) will of the people made into the highest law of the land. This law stands supreme above treaty law, Federal Law, UCMJ, State Law, and County and Municipal Codes, and verbal or written orders of the executive or of a lawful military superior. There is no higher law, except perhaps canon law, governing the lives of American Citizens and any Rights that we have not specifically ceded to the Federal Government or the State government in writing belong to us as individuals and corporately. Another way of saying that is, you have the right to do ANYTHING unless your constitution or state constitution expressly forbids it.

Now, the constitution was framed as a way of protecting the people from the ravages of big government and of organized movements. And it was framed in the common language instead of legalese. The ever expanding US Service Code and the ever expanding body of Executive Orders and departmental regulations are at odds with the purpose and lawful function of the Government.

The People, not their Representatives or their president, are the ultimate arbiters of policy. And when Policy opposes the will of the people it is a crime. Some would argue that the will of the people is in line with the activities of the government today.

"No one likes childmolestors. No one likes a 'terrorist'"

But really the threat of terrorism is not new. It was here in the seventies. In fact in the 1970's communists were constantly hijacking aircraft and going to Havana for coffee. The fact is, the current hysteria over terrorism and over child protection is nothing more than a ploy used to disarm the American People of their greatest weapon for self preservation: conscious will.

By splashing the Media and Internet with a constant flow of propaganda and lies, the government has left the people fearful and feral. In that state, people are willing to accept measures that are insanely beyond the pail of OUR Constitutional WILL.

The founding fathers insisted that the people be able to rise up with weapons and militia, not only to defend the country from invaders and terrorists, but also to defend against the formation of Gestapos and the imposition of taxation without representation (for example British Sales Tax on liquor and cloth).

Fred