The Nature of Reality

Sometimes, I get all philosophical and plunge deep into metaphysics.



But, if I am creating my reality, why is it in such a mess? Who dreamed up these gun jerkoffs?

Three Possible Courses of Action

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."


The above quote comes from a prominent journalist and social critic whose work (in short snippets and excerpts) I've enjoyed reading over the years.

This person actually was the most influential literary and social critic of his time (the Roaring '20s was his heyday) and he made household names of such now-reknowned authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Conrad, and James M. Cain.

He wrote on food and drink, music, philosophy, politics, religion and a myriad other topics... and always with an iconoclastic flair, which is obviously why I resonate with things he "said".

But, despite his vast influence on American letters, H.L. Mencken is virtually unknown to most American readers today.

Like the person who I should thank for reviving my awareness of him (kudos, Doug Casey, for bringing him up), we both think Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956) is a hero and a genius.

Recently, Doug Casey — an investment newsletter writer — made reference to another free-thinking intellectual... a man named Murray N. Rothbard (1926 - 1995).

Rothbard, arguably the greatest Libertarian theorist of the 20th Century, was refererncing some of Mencken's ideas in an article he wrote about government oppression, economics, and individual choices.

Yep, can you see how this is the making of one big circle of fellas who understand that ideas do matter?

Well, maybe you will, when I get in on the act too :)

Below is an excerpt from Rothbard's article, and in between are some quick thoughts from yours truly.

"Any man who is an individualist and a Libertarian in this day and age has a difficult row to hoe. He finds himself in a world marked, if not dominated, by folly, fraud, and tyranny. He has, if he is a reflecting man, three possible courses of action open to him:

"(1) he may retire from the social and political world into his private occupation: in the case of Mencken's early partner, George Jean Nathan, he can retire into a world of purely esthetic contemplation;

Barry's Note: Sadly, something a great many fanatical spiritual-growth enthusiasts DO in excessive amounts, even as they're trying to get a leg up in a world that requires them to add value by producing something for... well, for the world to obtain or use. More on that here...

"(2) he can set about to try to change the world for the better, or at least to formulate and propagate his views with such an ultimate hope in mind; or,

Barry's Note: Yes, sometimes the quest does seem so futile. Then again, when we see the masses with their heads in the sand, and very few public forms for people to engage in in order to consider new mindsets, toss around different ideas, and tweak perspectives, we're thrilled to be giving "outer world change" a good ol' fashioned college try.
Hey, speaking of that: is formal education cranking out a bunch of linear-minded, rule-following robots, or something better? Find out here...

"(3) he can stay in the world, enjoying himself immensely at this spectacle of folly.

"To take this third route requires a special type of personality with a special type of judgment about the world. He must, on the one hand, be an individualist with a serene and unquenchable sense of self-confidence; he must be supremely 'inner-directed' with no inner shame or quaking at going against the judgment of the herd.

"He must, secondly, have a supreme zest for enjoying life and the spectacle it affords; he must be an individualist who cares deeply about liberty and individual excellence, but who can — from that same dedication to truth and liberty — enjoy and lampoon a society that has turned its back on the best that it can achieve.

"And he must, thirdly, be deeply pessimistic about any possibility of changing and reforming the ideas and actions of the vast majority of his fellow-men. He must believe that boobus Americanus is doomed to be boobus Americanus forevermore."

"Put these qualities together, and we are a long way toward explaining the route taken by Henry Louis Mencken."

From: Murray N. Rothbard, H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian, The New Individualist Review, vol. 2, no. 2, Summer 1962, pp. 15–27.

An Interesting take on healthcare

I'll be the first to say that there should have been some form of single payer health care in the US for a long time. Not having health care has been an economic drain that I would say has contributed to the collapse of the US economy along with the debt based economic system.



I have to admit a great frustration with US politics. It seems that the lunatics have taken over. Although, I would argue that happened with the reaction to the Revenue Act of 1764.

The United States is a Democracy in the most perjorative form of the word.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, 22 Nov 1787

Rep. Barney Frank addressed this situation quite eloquently "it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."

Frustrate their politics!

Gun accessories don't kill people....

Yeah, Eric Thompson's company, TGSCOM Inc., sold a 30 round high-capacity ammunition magazine to George Sodini, the bloke who killed 3 women and wounded 9 others before killing himself at the LA Fitness gym outside of Pittsburgh on the fourth of August. Eric also sold accessories to the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 students and professors on April 16th, 2007 , and the Northern Illinois University shooter, Steven Kazmierczak, who killed 6 students before turning a gun on himself on Feb. 14th, 2008.

Yeah, gun accessories really don't kill people, but....

Now, I said in a previous post that he should look into selling something non-violent, but Eric still keeps with the mantra that guns are necessary.

In my checkered past, I worked on projects that involved WMD, in particular nerve gasses of various forms and atomic weapons. While I never actually saw the stuff, it was around our facility. I remember walking into one building and seeing a sign that said there were nerve agents present if the red lamp was on.

And hurried out of the building.

I never actually used any of these devices or materials, and they have never been used, but...

There is still a lot of bad karma in having those things out there. I've been trying to be good for 25 years now just for my small part in the possibility of mass murder.

If Eric wants the bad karma on his head, that's his business. But, he might want to take stock on how much karmic garbage he's racking up there.

Before he shows up in the news again.

Banned X-Box ad

I betcha that this was banned because it was "anti-gun".

Spread the word.

Untrained civvies shouldn't be walking around with loaded guns.

Watching the media...

I have to admit a fair distrust in the media: especially the US media since it is pretty much run by corporate bosses (even NPR). The Beeb may be slightly more trustworthy, but I think the average journo is basically a frustrated PR person.

The problem is that the media and PR has far exceeded just giving me information. I have made a few posts about how there is a lot of disinformation out there in the political arena.

I also mentioned how PR firms can be used to flood out opposition. Then this piece comes out about Fake Grassroots Letters Oppose Climate Bill. It seems that PR firms were sending out forged letters in the name of the Hispanic advocacy group Creciendo Juntos and the local branch of the NAACP opposing a climate bill. Fortunately, they were caught out.

I found this super list of sites where you can check out the media
http://ahwoo.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!A63DC3F437782D49!1105.entry?sa=930637252

This is a list of resources you can use in order to cross-check and reference topical news stories from around the world, so as to try and get a picture of what’s truth and what’s agenda driven reporting. Even with this list, you’ll have to educate your brain to discriminate between the lines, but it may help. Good luck and remember one thing – at the end of the day we’re all just puppets of that big ole PR machine in the sky.

All that glitters...

I have to admit that I am musing on the topic of money and economics lately. Not just fiat money, you know, the folding stuff in your wallet that you spend. I am considering why gold has value.

There are two commonly held views as to why money has value:

1. Social convention--People are willing to accept it as payment.
2. Government decree--The government says so (Fiat money).

The first reason, that being that money has value because people are willing to accept it as payment is nothing more than a circular argument. It states that money has value because it is accepted. Why is it accepted? ...because it has value!

The second belief is also false. As history reveals, there are many country currencies that have suffered through hyperinflation or complete collapse click here.

Right now we are witnessing the collapse of the world economic system which is causing great grief to governments. The problem is what is going to replace it. Not to mention there is fierce resistance from the "haves" who see their power waning as their wealth becomes worthless.

Money originally started out as a commodity. Originally, people exchanged goods according to their wants and needs with one another. Examples of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange include gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, candy, barley etc. These items were sometimes used in a metric of perceived value in conjunction to one another, in various commodity valuation or price system economies. The problem is that it makes trade difficult, so along came a medium of exchange that eventually became money.

Money has to fulfill three things to be useful:

1. It is a medium of exchange.
2. It is a store of value.
3. It is a unit of account.

Now the real hitch is value. The title of this comes from the fact that I read that gold has no real value. I read somewhere that gold's value is subjective. That is

1) The item is useful in satisfying human wants, therefore it is desirable
2) There is a limited supply to satisfy demand.
3) We are told it is valuable even though it can't be eaten, worn, or very useful.

There are actually three types of value in economics, Objective, Subjective, and relative. Objective value is a value set by a marketplace such as a commodities exchange and is otherwise known as market value. It's a bit like the social convention that says "gold is valuable because people find value in gold". Relative value is the attractiveness measured in terms of utility for a given instrument of exchange.

Although value in general is relative. That is even if gold has a market value (Objective), it doesn't matter whether you think it's valuable or not (subjective), it does not affect its objective value. However, the situation in which the gold is supposed to be of value does matter, because value in general is relative to individual and circumstances. For instance to person X, who happens to be stranded on a desert island, gold is not valuable. Its value to him is still objective. That is it won't all of a sudden change price because he decides so, that's a market force. But relative to him the value of gold is, objectively, zero since it isn't useful for exchange. That is there is no utilty to gold.

So, in a situation where the currency has colapsed and one needs food, which is more valuable to the person with food: gold or something they need?

I like to quote the TV show "Jute City": Money in of itself isn't evil, its when people take it from a medium of exchange and make it into a commodity that it becomes evil. Probably more of a paraphrase than a quote, but you get the idea. There is a cruder version of this which is "money is like shit, it's useless unless it's spread around."

Part of the problem is that people have been wanting to accumulate far more money and things than they need. That means the rest of us are stuck in an economic form of musical chairs since the economy is really based upon debt. I know, I just did a literary no-no by introducing debt into this mix about money and value. But really the fiat money has been backed by debt and not by value for some time now. That is the reason for the seeming economic fluctuations. Although to be quite honest, the economy has been in recovery for quite some time now: at least since Reagan-Thatcher came into office.

Why are so many people having trouble making ends meet given the economic recoveries?

Actually, the economic situation is like a game of musical chairs and the recoveries have just been changes of songs.

But the real gist of this is that the gold out there is worthless if it can't be spent. It's nice to think something has value until you try to sell it.

Then you really see the market forces kick in.

Right wing astro-turf, or why nothing ever really gets done

There is a phenonmenon called astro-turfing by politicians. This is the practise of creating a fake grass roots effect. The Gun Rights/RKBA crowd are notorious for this since they tend to appear like flies to shit when someone makes any sort of comment that some form of regulation is needed regarding the purchase and ownership of firearms.

Their funniest statment usually runs along that there are loads of gun laws on the books right now, why don't we enforce them?

Because these gun laws are toothless due to the fact that the legislators are scared shitless of the "gun rights" lobby. Quite frankly, they aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

And even more foolishness, the agency tasked with enforcing these laws, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF, ATF) is vilified by the gun rights crowd. This agency has no power or funding because the gun rights crowd don't like them. In fact, the gun rights crowd does everything possible to make sure gun laws aren't (a) enforcable or (b) enforced while saying the gun laws on the books need to be enforced!

So, go figure!

From the Center for Responsive Politics's OpenSecrets.org website:

If lawmakers are guilty of tiptoeing around gun control issues, it is because the NRA and other gun rights groups wield an enormous amount of influence in Washington. The source of that influence is money. Gun rights groups have given more than $17 million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees since 1989. Nearly $15 million, or 85 percent of the total, has gone to Republicans. The National Rifle Association is by far the gun rights lobby's biggest donor, having contributed more than $14 million over the past 15 years. Gun control advocates, meanwhile, contribute far less money than their rivals -- a total of nearly $1.7 million since 1989, of which 94 percent went to Democrats. The leading contributor among gun control advocates is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly known as Handgun Control, which has given $1.5 million over the past 15 years.

If gun rights groups have a substantial advantage in campaign contributions, they dominate gun control advocates in the area of lobbying. The NRA alone spent nearly $11 million lobbying elected and government officials from 1997 to 2003. But it wasn't the gun rights lobby's biggest spender. That was Gun Owners of America, which spent more than $18 million on lobbing over the same period. By contrast, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence spent under $2 million on lobbying from 1997 to 2003, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence spent $580,000.

The National Rifle Association has an additional advantage over all other groups in the debate. As a membership organization, the NRA can spend unlimited funds on communications to its 4 million members that identify pro-gun candidates. Those members also contribute millions of dollars in limited donations to the NRA's political action committee, which runs ads aimed at the general public that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate. Since 1989, the NRA has spent more than $22 million on communications costs and independent expenditures, with more than $18 million spent in support of Republican candidates.

So, what we are seeing isn't really the popular voice, but the voice of money talking and influencing politics. In fact, Most of the "Second Amendment Scholarship" that has come out in recent years has been funded by the NRA! For example, Nelson Lund is the Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at the George Mason University School of Law. This position was created thanks to a one million dollar commitment to GMU School of Law by the National Rifle Association Foundation announced in 2003.

The Academics for the Second Amendment is funded in part by the National Rifle Association. Academics for the Second Amendment isn't exactly a collection of academic gun nuts--most of its more than 500 members aren't academics! The organization is engaged in a genteel lobbying effort to popularize what many liberals consider the gun nut's view of the Second Amendment: that it confers an individual right to bear arms, not just the right to bear arms in a well-regulated militia. Since it was founded in 1992 by Joseph E. Olson of the Hamline University School of Law, who was on the NRA's National Board of Directors, Academics for the Second Amendment has held by-invitation-only seminars for academics who share its beliefs about the Second Amendment--or might be persuaded to adopt them.

Strangely enough, Academics for the Second Amendment doesn't have a website, but it does have a blog!

In fact, it's fairly hard to find information on this group, but I would put that it does have an incredibly strong connection to the NRA given the lobbying efforts of the "gun rights" crowd. Funny though that Academics for the Second Amendment doesn't give out any info on who belongs to it. The most I could find was this:

A2A is a tax-exempt educational organization recognized under IRC §501(c)(3) [that makes your contributions tax-deductible]. Our primary goal is to give the “right to keep and bear arms” enshrined in the Bill of Rights its proper, prominent place in Constitutional discourse and analysis.

A2A was formed in 1992 by a number of present and former law school teachers, joined by historians, political scientists, and philosophers of government, who believe it is time to stand and be counted in support of a complete Bill of Rights which includes an individual right under the Second Amendment. The organization seeks to foster intellectually honest discourse on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and, of course, the environment in which academics, judges, politicians, and the public place the rights preserved by the Second Amendment.

Now, wouldn't an organisation with such noble goals work in the open?

Anyway, I plan on delving deeper into the topic of paid "scholarship" and the Second Amendment, but the real point I am making here is that there isn't an "intellectually honest discourse" going on here--especially since money is talking the loudest. In fact, money is drowning out any real discourse or action.

So, I don't need to mention that there was yet another mass shooting near Pittsburgh, PA since even more inactivity will come of it. I might have even been flooded with comments if I allowed them.

Where were the SAS when we really could have used them?

This is a reference to Operation Flavius, the incident where SAS troopers shot and killed three terrorists on Gibraltar which was characterised as an 'execution' with no attempt to arrest the IRA members by the ITV programme Death on the Rock. There are allegations that the SAS had a shoot to kill policy against IRA terrorists.

Now, thinking about it, the entire idea that there was a right to armed self-defence is silly if we think about the armed thugs who called themselves "patriots" that existed at the time of the War for American Independence who ran around destroying property or tarring and feathering British Officials who were just doing their jobs. I mean shouldn't a British Tax collector who had legal authority have some sort of firearm for self-defence in this type of situation? Wouldn't they be justified in using them when they were being attacked by an angry mob?

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case! Take for example:

The Boston Massacre which was an incident that led to the deaths of five "civilians" (actually rioters) at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770. 7 British squaddies and their officer were surrounded by a lawless, angry, and violent mob intent on harm. The soldiers were simply keeping guard and trying to keep the peace. One of the riotous attackers threw a club at private Hugh Montgomery, knocking him off his feet. Rising, Montgomery fired a shot into the air. He was stricken again with a club and Montgomery had no choice but to point his gun at the attacker, Richard Palmes who quickly fled. At the same time another soldier Private Matthew Killroy pointed his musket at the other two attackers, Edward Langford and Samuel Gray. “God damn you, don’t fire!” Gray called out.The anger and the fear of being beaten by a club like his fellow solder, private Killroy pulled the trigger and mortally wounded Gray. More shots were fired and more rioters fell to the ground wounded or dead, leaving the aftermath of 5 dead and 6 wounded civilians.

Gray deserved to be shot! The soldiers fired in self-defense. The thugs threw stones, bricks, and oyster-shells at the soldiers. A club-wielding man knocked down one of the soldiers. The soldiers were in fear of serious bodily injury or death, they had a right to fire their weapons.

Guess what, the British soldiers found themselves on trial because the use of a firearm against an attacker, even an armed and violently riotous one, was excessive force. Despite this fact, any possibility of a fair trial in Boston was impossible. Josiah Quincy and John Adams (yes, that John Adams) took it upon themselves to defend the soldiers. The justice prevailed and the jury vindicated the British regulars. Preston and his four men were fully acquitted and the other two solders were found guilty of lesser charges and sent back to England.

Now if they had CS gas back in 1770...

Likewise, 3 years later, a merchant vessel carrying tea was left unguarded in the same town and country with its reputation for mob violence. Now, wouldn't any self-respecting merchant have an armed crew, or even better either something like the 18th Century equivalent of Blackwater (or XE as it is now known) guarding his vessel knowing that the inhabitants of Boston were far from "law abiding"? Nope. Again, a gang of a hundred or so thugs violently deprived their countrymen of access to desirable goods to which the gang had not the slightest claim of ownership.

Again, you could imagine the screams if the law abiding merchant or his employees pulled a Harry Bennett and opened fire on the hooligans! Even better if they could have done so with machineguns as did Bennett! Not that the hooligans wouldn't have deserved getting shot for their illegal activites. In fact, the uppity locals would have been much better behaved if the British and Loyalists had fought back more frequently, let alone would have shot and killed the useless rebels.

Anyway, here is what those wimpy patriots had to say in their silly "Declaration of Independence" even without proper enforcement of the law by the systematic killing of the useless thugs who fashioned themselved "Patriots" by armed Loyalist hit squads:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

I mean, really, think of the screams if there had been something like the SAS to asassinate the likes of Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine (the most deserving of a bullet to the skull), and so on! Although, I am sure most of these people (Paine, a professional agitator excepted) would be easily converted if they were able to see the nation that resulted from their foolishness. They would be appalled by what this country has become with RKBA and teabagging ninnies (although Franklin would like teabagging of the sexual kind).

Seriously, here is a rebellious mob complaining about "plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people". I mean, seriously, they were fighting lawful authority. They had it coming to them.

I mean if there was ever a case for self-defence by law abiding citizens loyal to the King, the War for American Independence was it! This was a case of terrorism and the "patriots" should have been treated like the terrorists they were.

More political beer

I tend to like a brew called Lord Chesterfield Ale brewed by Yuengling. Rather an interesting name for an beer brewed in the United States. I've been trying to figure out how it received its name. Yuengling wasn't very helpful since they said the owner knew Lord Chesterfield. Although the beer is named for Named for Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (22 September 1694 – 24 March 1773).

According to Yuengling's write up:

One of our distinct classic beers brewed since 1829, Yuengling Lord Chesterfield Ale has as much rich heritage as it does flavor and appeal. Crafted in a unique two-stage European brewing style for enhanced bitterness, it utilizes both conventional kettle hopping and dry hopping after fermentation resulting in a dry sharp finish. Brewed with select hops, its distinct robust flavor is derived from a delicate combination of sweet maltiness and lingering herbal bitterness. Lord Chesterfield Ale's bright gold color is complemented by a lightly laced foam head and fragrant zesty aroma. This fine Ale compares with the very best crafty-style beers. It pairs flawlessly with many foods including seafood dishes and fine cheeses.

A nice inexpensive alternative to British beers if I am stuck in the colonies. However, given the dates between Chesterfield's death and when the beer was first brewed, I doubt the Yuengling account for the name is correct. Perhaps it has something to do with Chesterfield's service as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

I have to admit that I like the name given its royalist-monarchistic bent.

There is this fantasy that Sam Adams would have the same connotation as Young's Old Nick in my ideal world: A treasonably good ale. Loyalists viewed Adams as a sinister figure. Peter Oliver, the exiled chief justice of Massachusetts, characterized him as devious Machiavellian with a "cloven Foot". I guess there is some hope as there were negative assessments of Adams in the first half of the 20th century where he was portrayed as a master of propaganda who provoked mob violence to achieve his goals.

If you can't beat--them wear them out...

I have been wanting to write a piece about professional keyboard warriors since I've heard that there are actually professional keyboard warriors out there who will flood blogs of people whom you disagree with obnoxious comments. That is a major reason I cut comments on my blog.

Sorry, but I am correct that the Second Amendment's purpose was to ensure the efficacy of the militia organised under article I, Section 8. There is no personal appplication other than being able to serve in such a body, which is what most Second Amendment/RKBA types don't understand. No, out of context, incomplete misquotation will persuade me otherwise. But that is a digression.

This post isn't about your comments, it's about the type of thing that had me blocked for a few hours--using tricks to flood the internet with one's opinions.The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed. These people promote affiliated websites and/or increase the search engine rankings of associated sites and make repetitive posts of the same item.

So, there is a reason that any search on "Second Amendment" comes up with shitloads of "RKBA" material, but one has to really dig to find the opposing viewpoint.

I found it interesting that Vol, er he who should not be named, wrote his comment to the white supremecists at StormFront in an article on Search Engine Optimisation Tutorial for Website Owners! To be quite honest, the "RKBA crowd" know their computer technology far better than they know their history or law.

Their strategy is to outnumber the opposition, And it seems the strategy is two pronged: Flood the internet with posts filled with their opinions and frustrate the opposition into silence.

I can't pin the blame solely on the RKBA crowd as the pro-Israel crowd also does the same thing as I am sure other special interest groups do as well. In fact, they are more likely to use hired hands (I wish I had the cite for that). The RKBA crowd is fervant enough to do their thing without too much encouragement.

Many of these virtually anonymous keyboard warriors are dispatched for the sole purpose of proliferating propaganda. They repeat the same cliche soundbites which I don't need to repeat and use the same discredited surveys. All these people bring to the discussion is an assumed nomenclature designed to create a false image of power and popularity in the mind of readers of their comments. But people are becoming hip to this political subterfuge making its continuation is a waste of time.

Still there are people who want auto-posting software for newsgroups, such as this person:

I need a software that will automatically make comments on other peoples blogs so that they will want to come see my blog.

Or this one:

I have a guy that was building a blog bot for me that would extract the urls of other blog pages and then comment on those blog pages. Some blog places have a capcha code so his bot would intergrate with decaptcher.com so the capcha codes are entered by humans.

Supposedly this software does exist and failing that, people do the following:

-Detect blogs with the tags that you want.
-Post comments with the username, url, email and comment that you want. (will be able to randomly choose from as many as comment templates you want to add)

The problem is that any comment on the Second Amendment that dares raise that it isn't about self-defence or personal ownership of firearms outside the militia context is swamped with comments.

Bryan Miller said it pretty well in one of his commentaries:

For my pro-gun pals, who delight at filling up the Comments section that follows each of my entries with hostile and emotional admonitions under the banner of so-called 'rational discourse' (I hope readers will take a look at some of their incestuous craziness)...chill. Whatever apoplexy this entry may cause you, it ain't worth splitting a gut over - we'll all survive, whatever. But, keep those cards and letters coming, nonetheless.

Sorry, but the best way to defeat tyranny isn't by buying a gun, it's by writing and getting ideas out there. That's why the First Amendment covers freedom of expression and any dissident knows that words are far more powerful than bullets.

Truth can withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who do not want to examine their ideas too deeply. Or others to have the tools to scrutinise their ideas and see opposing opinions.

So, they try to shout down the opposition.

Blocked

For some reason Blogger decided to block this blog as spam.

Your blog is marked as spam

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on August 3, 2009. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

IT seems this is a problem for Google Blogs for some reason, probably to do with search engine optimisation and getting your site a higher ranking.

Hey, Google get yer shit together as this is not a spam blog. Sure I link, especially when I make a highly controversial comment such as the Second Amendment is a dead letter.

You bet your ass I am going to link to my sources because that is an open invitation to the all the keyboard warriors out there if I don't back up what I say with FACTS.

And unlike certain folk, such as Eugene Vol, er he who should not be named, I don't play that game. Those people want to flood the internet with their junk opinions. I would prefer to keep as low a profile as possible. If I am getting high search engine ratings, I hope it is because I am offering quality commentary: not using SEO tricks.

I mean I say a supreme court justice is ignorant in one of my posts for chrissake. Not just in it, but the title of it. I have a good reason to want some anonymity here!

But, I passed your capcha and this will pass your capcha.

On the other hand, I may move to Wordpress.

I thought you people didn't believe in censorship!

I want this!

Well, the Brennan JB7 just came to my attention. It's a "CD jukebox" in that it is a CD player with a hard drive. From their info:

* JB7 holds your entire CD collection on a hard disk to give you instant access to any of your music and play unbroken music for as long as you want.
* You can choose and play an album or track without getting out of your chair.
* You get to see what is playing from across a room.
* One button plays your entire music collection at random - another turns it off - its what you need when its late and you just want to unwind.

I have been messing about with other media players such as the Argosy and Iomega, but they are slow and not really meant for music. What I am looking for is an "mp3 player" with a huge hard drive. At this point, the best bet is a large USB drive and media monkey software on my computer. Media Monkey is the best music management program I have found for a large music collection.

Nice feature, the JB7 backs up to a USB hard drive. I assume it can also copy from one as well. The big problem is how my music has gotten screwed up over time (track numbering, genres, etc.) if I make the move. The genres are the real piss off as I hate it when the track is something like Beethoven's fifth symphony and it gets tagged as blues!

A good feature is that the Brennan JB7 uses the Freedb CD database, one of the better music DBs out there.

Anyway, features are:

* Stores 1200/2500/5000 CDs on 80/160/320G (high compression typical CD)
* Stores 600/1200/2500 CDs on 80/160/320G (normal compression worst case CD)
* Total 60W RMS
* 32 key credit card remote
* 2.4 million album database - update on CD
* Text Search for Track or Album by remote control or front panel
* Segue - blends one track into the next
* 180 x 32 soft scrolling graphic vacuum fluorescent display
* Compact 4.8 x 16 x 22 cm
* 1.6kg steel and aluminium construction
* One touch startup - relax let JB7 pick the tracks
* One touch rip - transfer a CD track to MP3 player
* One touch record - convert vinyl to MP3s
* Loads CDs to hard disk at 12x - play music while loading
* Battery backed up clock with alarm
* MP3 encode at 128k, 192k or 320k - done automatically
* USB 2.0 Full Speed 12 Mbits / sec - compatible with USB Mass storage class devices formatted with FAT16 or FAT32 - USB memory sticks, Ipods, MP3 players, USB hard drives. Not MP4 players and Touch iPods.
* Rear connectors - loudspeakers, line in, line out, headphone, 24V DC
* Backup music and playlists to external USB hard disk for safe keeping
* 400MHz Blackfin processor with Dual MAC
* Find and play MP3s on MP3 players and USB drives as if they were internal
* Transfer MP3s to and from USB
* External laptop computer style 24V power supply / AC adaptor - included - works from 110V to 240V. Size 3cm x 6cm x 13cm. 3m overall lead length.
* Loudpeakers 22cm (H) x 14.5cm (W) x 18cm (D)

Price is a bit much at £339 to £409 (septics can go here for currency conversion).

OK, there may be some downsides, but I am waiting for a time when this type of device is much more common and at a better price point. Although, it does have some really nice features that pretty much outweigh any downsides I've read about.

You can read a couple of good reviews of it here and here.

Oh, yeah, and a plus for non-Euros, the JB7 runs on a switching external power supply, meaning it works anywhere in the world.

The Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party was a turning point in colonial reaction to British rule. By 1773 the tax issue was becoming obscure. Both parties were moving toward war.

American postage stamps have depicted the Boston Tea Party as a glorious act of defying British colonialism. Most people believe it was a protest against British taxes on tea, but this is not true. American tea merchants had been boycotting British tea for five years. Smuggled Dutch tea was used throughout the colonies. In response, the British government decided to remove the duties on East Indies tea when it arrived in Britain so it could be sold in America at a price cheaper than smuggled Dutch tea. In addition, a monopoly on this cheap tea was given to loyal British merchants in the colonies. American tea smugglers would be put out of business. The Crown's plan was based on the assumption that American consumers would not boycott low-priced English tea, but would purchase it rather than the higher-priced, smuggled Dutch product.

The implication of this to American merchants was frightening. If a monopoly could be granted for tea, it could be granted for other products as well. Economic sanctions of this kind could destroy American merchants. In protest, Bostonian merchants disguised themselves as Indians, boarded merchant ships loaded with tea, and threw the tea into the harbor. This was a wanton destruction of private property in an age when private property was held in great esteem. The first obligation of any government is to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

The Boston Tea Party is a sobering event that raises difficult legal and moral issues. It is anything but the cause célèbre American historians have made of it. This wanton destruction of property was not well received in the colonies. Massachusetts was a known seedbed of hotheads and warmongers. Franklin was shocked and acknowledged that full restitution should be paid at once to the owners of the tea. Most Americans believed this way, but unfortunately the majority of Americans were to feel the heel of the British boot. A number of "Intolerable Acts" were adopted by the Crown and started the Revolutionary War. British warships and troops literally invaded the colonies. Oppressive revenue agents, no matter how bad, were to look kindly compared to fleets of warships and battalions of redcoats in battle array. Cannon, muskets, and bayonets replaced Writs of Assistance, seizures, and tax levies.

The Americans won the war after six years because the British found the logistics of supporting troops three thousand miles away in a hostile country too burdensome. The American army was ill-fed and seldom paid. This ragged bunch returned home to bankrupt farms and state governments. The burdens of taxation under the British were a pittance compared to the financial obligations they now faced. The war had to be paid for and taxes, even with representation, were going to be enormous.

Loyalists suffered most. Their property was seized, and tarring and feathering was common. A long stream of refugees moved north to Canada. Benjamin Franklin made a personal visit to Canada to persuade loyalists to join the United States, but the scars of war were deep and would not heal. Franklin had spent the war in Europe. If he had been home and witnessed the suffering of the loyalists he would have known that the last thing these people wanted was further association with the Americans. There was bitterness on both sides, but no atrocities. The loyalists, for all their suffering, were fortunate. In other times and places they would have been slaughtered.

The Americans conducted the war through the Continental Congress, which had become a joke by the end of the war, especially in the press.

It could not even pay the back-pay of combat veterans or interest on the war debt, yet it went forward and adopted a number of costly programs to rebuild the nation. Naturally, nothing was accomplished without money, but money required taxes, which was one of the powers the Congress did not have.

The British learned from the war. In 1778, two years after the Revolution began, Parliament enacted a law, approved by King George III, which declared "that the King and Parliament of Great Britain will not impose any duty, tax, or assessment for the purpose of raising a revenue in any of the colonies, provinces or plantations." This wise enactment, unfortunately, came too late. In the next 150 years Parliament continued to assert absolute sovereignty over its colonies, but when taxation was to be levied, local assemblies, in one form or another, had to give their consent.

God save the Queen!

God save the King/Queen

first publicly performed in London, 1745

1. God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the Queen!

2. O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!

3. Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign;
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen!

4. Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world over.

5. From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
God save the Queen!
O'er her thine arm extend,
For Britain's sake defend,
Our mother, prince, and friend,
God save the Queen!

6. Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!

This Text and Tune is often credited to Henry Carey, 1740, although there is controversy with many votes, including the British monarchy's, for anonymous. On official occasions, only the first verse is usually sung, and occasionally verse 3. The tune has been used by many countries for anthems and hymns.
According to the French encyclopaedia, Quid, the music is by Giam Battista Lulli (Jean-Baptiste Lully in the French form). It was loosely based on a hymn sung when the (French) king arrived at an event, Domine Salvum Fac Regem. When Louis XIV was scheduled to open the educational institution at St-Cyr (1686), his mistress (later, queen), the Marquise de Maintenon, commissioned Lully to write the tune to be sung by the pupils as Dieu Protège le Roi. The French, apparently, did not use it again until 1745 at which time the Old Pretender, claiming to be King James III of England, was organising his rebellion from France (he lived at St-Germain-de-Laye). Madame de Maintenon presented him with the words and music as his National Anthem. (It is not clear who wrote the English words but the implication is that Mme de Maintenon either wrote them herself or commissioned them.) The song was sung for the first time in Britain when Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland. There are apparently some legal testaments to this story.
BTW England has never officially adopted a national anthem even though this song was the first "national anthem" and the song that started the craze that other countries followed, first by translating the English text and later by getting more creative and writing original works.

If you want to contact me:

A crossword type clue to friend me:

Less common half of leader prime minister parodied we hear by a Devonshire (Burma?) rice wine Alice spied as the opposition Grosvenor is the place!

That will sort out the non-literary types and probably net me loads of political history buffs.

I remember one Times clue that was "she disrupts conversation" which I took to be "Thatcher" but was actually "Chatter". The above clue is sort of similar.


Oh come on, it can't be that hard since he was the first real Prime Minister.

...and if you're that determined to talk to me to figure this out (or know the answer): I would be more than happy to add you as a friend.

Editorial Comment: The fun thing is that I just learned that there are a couple of possibilities for one part of the clue up there, but only one proper answer for this...and there are more than enough pointers to the correct answer.

I was curious about this one

Eugene Vol, er he who should not be named, had a post in response to some linkage he didn't find very appealing:

NO, THANK YOU: Visitors from StormFront, which linked to this site as a sample of what Web logs are -- please go away. There's nothing technical I can do to stop you reading my page, but since you want to spread your "pro-white and anti-Jew message," would my being a Jew help persuade you to just close the window? That's right, Jew. In fact, of the nonanonymous bloggers on this site, the great majority are Jews, and the others -- well, they're only worse, because they're Aryans who seem to like Jews, no?

Look, if you're still reading, don't you get it? We call ourselves The Vol, er he who should not be named, Conspiracy. That's obviously an allusion to the International Jewish Conspiracy, no? One of the creators of the Internet was Leonard Kleinrock -- coincidence? I think not! We control the banks; we control the media; we're sleeping with your daughters; now we're controlling cyberspace. What's the point of resisting, really?

I have always thought the white pride crowd to be thick, but it's amusing they haven't caught that one. Even more amusing they haven't caught on about who ran DC v. Heller!

But if they are that dim...

Ach, sind sie Gesamtdummköpfe. Sie es shame weiß sein! Schlechter sprechen sie nicht Deutsches!

On Blaming White Folk For Slavery

On Blaming White Folk For Slavery
Written by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Dibia, Nigeria
Monday, 08 December 2008

It takes two parties for there to be a business transaction, a seller and a buyer. Africans sold their people and Arabs and Europeans bought them and used them as slaves.

Most people agree that the trafficking in human beings was wrong; if so, all parties to it were wrong.

White folk were guilty for buying and abusing African slaves; Arabs were guilty for buying and abusing African slaves.

By the same token, the Africans that sold their people into slavery were guilty for doing so.

In a manner of speaking, it is a greater sin to sell ones people than to buy those one considers not ones people. Arabs and whites did not see Africans as their people and one can understand them buying and using them as slaves without feeling guilty. On the other hand, the Africans that sold their people knew that they were selling their people and, as such, were guiltier for doing so!

It takes two to engage in business transactions but Africans somehow come to believe that only white folk are guilty for slavery. Indeed, they do not even blame Arabs for slavery; they only blame Europeans.

Actually, Arabs began buying African slaves before whites did, from around 900 AD, and are still doing so today in Sudan and Mauritania. Europeans got into the act of buying African slaves from around 1500 AD, six hundred years after the Arabs did!

Africans do not blame Arabs, the greater evil participants in the sordid business of enslaving human beings, instead, they blame Europeans. Europeans bought Africans from 1500 to1900AD. And they learned to do so by seeing Arabs using African slaves in their Indian Ocean plantations. When the Portuguese got to Brazil in 1500 they tried to use native Indians to do their plantation work for them and the later either died or fled into the forest. The Portuguese remembered that on their way to India they had seen Arabs using African slaves in their plantations and came back to West Africa to buy African slaves. That is to say that Europeans imitated Arabs in enslaving Africans, yet Africans blame Europeans not the original enslavers, Arabs!

Europeans enslaved Africans for about four hundred years. Arabs enslaved Africans for over one thousand years (900-1900 AD).

Given the length of Arab enslavement of Africans it is astonishing for Africans to blame whites, not Arabs, and for Africans not to blame Africans for their role in selling their people?

I think that what we have here is the original 419 Scamming. Apparently, Africans discovered that European Christians are prone to feeling guilty for their wrongs so they decided to manipulate that guilt feeling by blaming them for their role in slavery.

Apparently, Muslims do not feel guilty for slavery? Certainly, the Arabs that I know do not feel guilty for their role in buying Africans slaves. Therefore, Africans did not see any need to blame Arabs.

For manipulation of guilt to work the person you want to make to feel guilty must be willing to accept the guilt that you are assigning to him.

Apparently, Africans could not assign guilt to Arabs so they did not blame Arabs; they know that Christians are prone to guilt feeling so they blame European Christians and White Americans for buying African slaves hoping that in their accepting guilt they would be manipulated into exonerating Africans role in slavery and paying reparations to Africans! This is disingenuous behavior!

What is going on here is that African scam artists calling themselves scholars are setting white folk up to manipulate them, to relieve them of their money, as Nigerian 419 advance fee scam artists set white folk up to relieve them of their money!

Thus, African criminal leaders who exist to relieve their people of their money ask Europe and North America to pay reparation to Africa for slavery!

The criminals who sold their people into slavery do not feel guilty for their criminal action and further more attempt to make other persons to feel guilty for their behaviors and pay them for it. This is typical sociopathic thinking and behavior, behavior that shows lack of guilt and remorse feeling and heartless exploitation of other persons.

African leaders, apparently, do not feel guilty for selling their people in the past and in the present for robbing their people down.

What is the African leader but a criminal in politics? These criminals that ought to be in jail want other people to pay them reparation! This is the original scamming behavior. Apparently, many Africans have been scam artists for far longer than one thought. One thought that 419 advance fee scamming began in contemporary Nigeria; apparently, it has been a pattern of these people’s behaviors for a long time!

In my view, Europeans and white Americans should pay reparation to black Americans, to ex slaves. But so must Arabs and Africans.

African countries sold their people and should therefore pay reparations to black Americans. At least, five percent of African countries annual budgets ought to be given to blacks in the Diaspora, to make amends for the sin of selling them. This ought to be done for, at least, thirty four years, a generation.

Africans from Africa calling for white folk to pay them reparation for slavery are scam artists and ought not to be listened to or paid. They are criminals who do not feel guilty for selling their people and therefore ought to be punished rather than rewarded for their criminal activities. To pay them for their crime against their own people is treating them like children and make excuses for their criminal acts and in so doing perpetuate their tendency to criminal behavior.

White folk should not let these scam artists to make them feel guilty and allow themselves to be swindled out of their money. These thieves would say that they would use that money to help their people but would instead redirect it to their pockets and squander it in riotous living; not a penny they received from reparation would go to help their people. Who has ever heard of African leaders devoting their lives to helping their people, serving their people? No, they seem to exist to steal from their people.

For the purpose of driving my point that Africans participated in slavery home here is how the slavery business worked in my part of Africa, how some African criminals captured and sold their people and pretend to be innocent persons!

I am from Umuohiagu (where Owerri airport is). Until 1902 when Frederick Lugard stormed the market of Owere (which he mispronounced as Owerri hence the word Owerri) where slaves were sold, our people were routinely selling themselves into slavery.

Abam and Abriba (Igbo clans) and other such folk roamed our villages capturing children and women and marching them to the Coast and selling them to white men.

Our people organized themselves into age mate groups, from about age fourteen up. These age mates acted as militia and paraded the village looking for slave kidnappers. They walked with children to the village stream and walked women to their farms to protect them from been kidnapped by slavers who lurked in the bushes kidnapping their fellow Igbos and selling them to white men!

Slaves were sold at Owere market and from there marched to Igwe Ocha ( Port Harcourt) and then to Bonny where they were sold to the Portuguese, and later to other Europeans.

In our town an Aro priest was stationed; he urged the town folk to bring their conflicts to him to settle for them. Those who lost their cases were told to appeal them to Arochukwu itself. There, they were put through a tunnel and if they did not come out it was said that the Long Juju of Arochukwu had found them guilty and taken them. In actual fact, they were marched to the other end of the tunnel and sold to Efik slavers who marched them to Calaba and sold them to white men.

Lugard, a young captain in the British army, hired by the Royal Niger Company, heard about these nefarious activities and in 1902 used his mostly Hausa soldiers, called West African Frontier Army, to storm and destroy the so-called Arochukwu Oracle and thereafter marched through Igbo villages including destroying the slave market at Owere and thereafter decided to make Owerri the headquarters of his Owerri province and marched through my village (in his words, “pacifying the savages of the lower Niger”…see his Memoir, The Dual Mandate).

The point here is that Africans were selling their people to whites. Whites did not go into interior Africa to go buy Africans. They stayed at the coast and arranged with coastal Africans, in the case of Igbos, Efiks, Ijaws, to go inside the interior and capture and or buy and bring Africans to be sold to them.

The Aro arranged with the Efik (around 1600 AD) to bring Igbo slaves to them to be sold to whites, and used their phony religion to enact their evil; they employed the Abam and Abriba as mercenaries to carry out their nefarious business of capturing and selling their people.

Would any rational person say that what Africans did was right? Of course it was evil. By the same token, whites and Arabs committed evil in buying and enslaving Africans. If we must blame whites for their enslavement of our people in the Americas, and we must, we must also blame our people for selling their people to whites. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. I am not exonerating any one. It seems to me that Africans, Arabs and Europeans were all culprit in selling and enslaving our people.

Africans did not only sell their people to Arabs and whites but to themselves. In Alaigbo we had what was called Ohu. Here, poor folk sold themselves to rich folk for a period of time until they could pay off the money the buyers paid for them, which was almost always never, making them perpetual ohus (indentured servants).

We also had osus (slaves). Osus were folk sold to high priests and used for the high priests farm work. Later, the osu phenomenon was perverted into the belief that osus were god’s slaves. Many osus are still in Alaigbo; they are no longer osu though they are not allowed to interact with Dialas (freeborn).

Africans, Arabs and Europeans were equally guilty in enslaving Africans. All of them ought to make amends for their crime against humanity. It is not the case that only white folk were guilty for this criminal behavior.

If folk are going to pay reparations it must be Africans in Africa, Arabs and whites, all of them making payments to the blacks in the Diaspora, not to African scam artists calling themselves politicians, trying to make white folk feel guilty and give them money, money that they would squander in foolish living and not use it to help their people.

DISCUSSION

I must admit that one of my goals is to get Africans to feel guilty for their heinous crime of selling their people and make amends for it. I am sick and tired of Africans not feeling guilty for their part in selling their people and, instead, pointing accusatory fingers at white folks. One is not excusing white folk’s role in buying and abusing Africans; one is just not willing to accuse one party in a criminal transaction and not the other.

If the world allows Africans to continue not feeling guilty and remorse for their criminal behavior in selling their people, Africans would keep on not feeling guilty and remorse for their present antisocial behaviors when they steal from their peoples national treasuries. The world would be reinforcing criminality in Africans hence they remain criminals who steal from their people rather than serve them.

To produce good governance in Africa we must make Africans start feeling guilty, depressed, for their antisocial and criminal behaviors.

CONCLUSION

I tend to be misunderstood. Thus some Africans see me as hating Africans. I do not hate Africans; I am interested in the truth. The truth requires us to accept that Europeans, Arabs and Africans did wrong in selling and buying slaves. All three parties ought to be made to pay a price for their evil, so as to prevent them from engaging in further evil.

I know that Africans self esteems are fragile. They were recently colonized by Europeans and, therefore, feel inferior to whites. Therefore men of goodwill are motivated to protect Africans fragile egos by telling them that they were innocent persons that white folk exploited.

This seeming understanding of Africans and making excuses for them is condescending behavior. It is treating Africans as if they are children. It perpetuates their tendency to be childish.

We must start treating Africans as if they are adults, for they are adults! This entails telling Africans that they were guilty in selling their people.

Guilt feeling makes folk depressed. To avoid depression folk deny guilt and in doing so become paranoid.

As any mental health professional knows, Africans tend to be more paranoid than depressed.

William Meissner pointed out that paranoid persons tend to be less emotionally developed than depressed persons.

If what it takes to make Africans to become adults is to make them depressed, so be it.

What concerns me is stating the truth, as I see it. As I see it, Africans participated in selling their people and, therefore, were as culpable as those who bought them. The seller and buyer of slaves must make amends for their criminal behaviors.

Grading the Heller Decisions

I have been wanting to do this for a while. I am taking the point of view that these are my students in a tutorial on the Second Amendment in US Constutional law at a British University.

Let's start with Stephen Breyer:

Steve--Interesting ideas, but not really constitutional or even germane. You're focusing a bit more on policy than law here. This isn't PPE or French, we're studying law here. OK, I am being far harsher than I should on you since you are choosing to defer to the legislature which isn't a bad position. Although see my comments to John R about leadership It's just that you are going out on a limb with this approach. Unique, but I am not sure the founders would have really been too thrilled with this approach or what they would have made of it. Cribbing John S's argument is what saved you from Nino and John R's fate here. Well, at least you didn't write an essay like Nino's since I hate giving "F"s. I know the Second Amendment is pretty confusing. Also, I don't agree that the protection the Amendment provides is not absolute--I mean it does use "shall". I was tempted to give you a D+, but you're getting a C- since I know you can do better. My question is why you didn't? Were you at the Union drinking with the lads when you wrote this figuring that cribbing John's essay would get you off the hook and a better grade? Are you ticked off that John made the cadet corps and not you?

Sorry, not much I can do for you on that front.

John--the best of the "three" essays since the other John cribbed Nino. Although I am really disappointed that you didn't deal with some other aspects of this issue, such as the insurrectionist theory or self-defence being an anachronism aspect. I would have loved to have seen your take on that. You also have a slam dunk with the "legislative intent" aspect from the ratification debates that you failed to address in detail. Other than that, you addressed the issue in pretty much a concise, thorough, and conservative manner. Sorry, but you get an A- because it wasn't perfect. As I said, I would have liked a bit more from you. Did you think that Nino was going to get an A for pure creativity?

Nino--Where did you come up with this? First off, you give stare decisis extremely short shrift. Not to mention your essay was a real surprise for me given all this talk about originalism and trying to decipher the founders' intent in the tutorials. You did everything but that. First off, your concept of legislative interpretation does not gibe with your desire to use the Common Law and the Bill of Rights as a source. Where did you come up with that idea anyway? You take Blackstone and totally misunderstand him in this essay. Instead of using his legislative analysis, you use something from a law review article from 1996! What about Marbury V. Madison as well--how could you have forgotten that one? Another thing, you use an idea of self-defence which originated well after the period in which the Bill of Rights was drafted. To top it off, you neglect any of the material from the ratification debates which show that the right was to protect the Article I, Section 8 militias.

You get an F since it probably won't hurt you in the long run. Sometimes original is just not good. Remember, "because everybody believes it" is a fallacy and does not make a concept correct.

Well, at least you didn't advocate the insurrectionist theory, then I would have really wondered what was going on. I would fail you in this course if you had done that.

Anyway, Nino, you need to reread John's essay as he has a pretty good grasp of the concepts here.

John R--You're supposed to be a leader. There are many responsibilities that come with leadership, one of which is not following. The other is setting a good example. Leadership is a position of trust and belief that requires experience. Additionally, one must make unpopular decisions when one is a leader. You cannot be afraid of controversy, especially if you know that the position you will take is the correct one. I had many reservations when I heard you were made a cadet for that reason, but it's a bit late for me to have you removed from the Corps. That said, I was hoping you would come up with something like the other John's essay especially after the comment during the tutorial about "not wanting the Second Amendment to have baggage". Therefore, I am truly disappointed that you cribbed Nino's essay. You didn't have the decency to come up with your own version of an essay, which at least Steve had the decency to do.

F and I will talk to your regiment's commander about this poor show as it is not worthy of a leader.

Editorial comment--I was going to make the PPE be an in joke for "Steve", but am explaining it for the non-UK and those who haven't attended British Uni types

No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society

No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society by Richard Maxwell Brown

Product Description

In 1865, Wild Bill Hickok killed Dave Tutt in a Missouri public square in the West's first notable "walkdown." One hundred and twenty-nine years later, Bernhard Goetz shot four threatening young men in a New York subway car. Apart from gunfire, what could the two events possibly have in common? Goetz, writes Richard Maxwell Brown, was acquitted of wrongdoing in the spirit of a uniquely American view of self-defense, a view forged in frontier gunfights like Hickok's. When faced with a deadly threat, we have the right to stand our ground and fight. We have no duty to retreat.

No Duty to Retreat offers an engrossing account of how this idea of self-defense emerged, focusing in particular on the gunfights of the frontier and their impact on our legal traditions. The right to stand one's ground, Brown tells us, appeared relatively recently. Under English common law, the threatened party had a legal duty to retreat "to the wall" before fighting back. But from the nineteenth century on, such authorities as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rejected this doctrine as unsuited to both the American mind and the age of firearms. Brown sketches the influence of frontier violence, demonstrating the tremendous impact of the famous gunmen and the prevalence of what he calls "grassroots gunfighters"--unsung men who resorted to their guns at a moment's notice. These duels, ambushes, and firefights, he writes, were more than personal vendettas: They were part of a "Western Civil War of Incorporation," pitting gunmen--usually Republicans and Unionists, who sided with the expanding banks, railroads, and businesses--against cowboys and independent farmers, who were often Democrats sympathizing with the Confederacy. Brown examines the gunfight near the O.K. Corral in this light, showing how it was a climax of tensions between Tombstone's Republican businessmen (represented by Wyatt Earp) and the county's cowboys (led by the Clantons and McLaurys). He also looks at such lesser-known battles as the Mussel Slough war, in which resisting farmers, imbued with the no-retreat ethic, fought for their independent lifestyle against encroaching rail barons. This Civil War of Incorporation fed the violence of the West and reinforced the legal doctrine of "no duty to retreat."

The frontier days are long past, but Brown shows how the ethic of no retreat continues to shape everything from our entertainment to our foreign policy (including President Bush's "line drawn in the sand") to our politics to cases like that of Bernhard Goetz. Though challenged as never before by the values of peace and social activism, it remains a central theme in American thought and character.

Again, any duty to not retreat would come much later than the time of the drafting of the US Bill of Rights. Dave Kopel's self-defence cases date from 1893 to 1896, over 100 years after the US Bill of Rights was drafted.

Interesting how these cases come in the period after the US Civil War as that is the period that Michael Bellesisles claims the US gun culture "began".

Yet another funny RKBA quote

From Is there Contrary Evidence of an Individual Right?

Historian Garry Wills has made an attempt at claiming the above. An online article, from the gun control group Join Together, reports Wills as writing "any claims that the Constitution ensures an armed citizenry as a bulwark against the potential tyranny of government is a myth. 'You can't read the amendment apart from the body of the Constitution,' he wrote, 'and the body of the Constitution defines taking up arms against the United States as treason.' " [quoting Wills from his book, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (1999)]

A myth? Not according to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison in 1811)--at least in the Guncite article author's opinion

No myth

Article III, Section 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

Treason is the only crime mentioned in the Constitution. Actaully, one should read and quote the relevant section in Story's Commentaries, which are those relating to Article III, Section iii.

Somehow, I don't see Story's quote in the guncite article as contradicting the US Constution: do you?

Anyway and again, the whole passage from Joseph Story-Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. 3 at pp. 746-747 (1833):

"§ 1889. The next amendment is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

"§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. [FN1] And yet, thought this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How is it practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights. [FN2]

"§ 1891. A similar provision in favour of protestants (for to them it is confined) is to be found in the [English] Bill of Rights of 1688, it being declared, "that the subjects, which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law." [FN3] But under various pretences the effect of this provision has been greatly narrowed; and it is at present in England more nominal than real, as a defensive privilege."

Note that Story is talking about the institution of the Militia in relation to the Second Amendment, not personal ownership of firearms, lamenting "How is it practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization". The problem is that the Militia was pretty much dead at the time Story was writing, which he mourns in this passage. In fact, the militia was a still birth.

I mean if the Second Amendment were truly vibrant, there wouldn't be the large military budget since:

It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.

Again, from Story's Commentaries regarding Article III, Section iii of Constitution:

§ 1292. The propriety of investing the national government with authority to punish the crime of treason against the United States could never become a question with any persons, who deemed the national government worthy of creation, or preservation. If the power had not been expressly granted, it must have been implied, unless all the powers of the national government might be put at defiance, and prostrated with impunity. Two motives, probably, concurred in introducing it, as an express power. One was, not to leave it open to implication, whether it was to be exclusively punishable with death according to the known rule of the common law, and with the barbarous accompaniments pointed out by it; but to confide the punishment to the discretion of congress. The other was, to impose some limitation upon the nature and extent of the punishment, so that it should not work corruption of blood or forfeiture beyond the life of the offender.

Another point, Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951) puts paid to the insurrectionist theory:

The obvious purpose of the statute is to protect existing Government, not from change by peaceable, lawful and constitutional means, but from change by violence, revolution and terrorism. That it is within the power of the Congress to protect the Government of the United States from armed rebellion is a proposition which requires little discussion. Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a "right" to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change. We reject any principle of governmental helplessness in the face of preparation for revolution, which principle, carried to its logical conclusion, must lead to anarchy. No one could conceive that it is not within the power of Congress to prohibit acts intended to overthrow the Government by force and violence. The question with which we are concerned here is not whether Congress has such power, but whether the means which it has employed conflict with the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

What? No mention of the Second Amendment in that passage??? Again, the Second Amendment cannot be construed as allowing treason or "change by violence, revolution and terrorism" since armed revolt is unconstitutional under Article III, Section iii.

How original is Scalia?

Since Scalia bases a good portion of his Second Amendment analysis in DC v. Heller on the first clause being "prefatory"--

Nelson Lund, for example, helped shift the focus of Second Amendment interpretation by characterizing its first clause as “prefatory” and its second clause as “operative” — and received a Second Amendment chair funded by the NRA for his work. A Hein Online search for the terms “operative,” “prefatory,” and “second amendment” suggests that Nelson Lund was the first academic to introduce this terminology into the Second Amendment literature. See Nelson Lund, The Past and Future of the Individual’s Right to Arms, 31 GA. L. REV. 1 (1996). Nelson Lund is the Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at the George Mason University School of Law. This position was created thanks to a one million dollar commitment to GMU School of Law by the National Rifle Association Foundation announced in 2003. Press Release, $1 Million Endows Professorship at George Mason University (Jan. 28, 2003). Justice Scalia relies on the distinction between “prefatory” and “operative” in describing the relationship of the amendment’s first and second clause. See, e.g., Heller, 128 S.Ct. at 2789 (“The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause.”).

The problems is that, as has been pointed out, Scalia also uses Blackstone's commentaries on the Laws of England and is bound by the language of Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803):

The subsequent part of the section is mere surplusage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the construction...It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.

Blackstone would look to the proeme (the "prefatory clause") for guidance in interpreting the language (see previous post and this).

So, the idea of "prefatory" and "operative" came about over 200 years after the drafting of the Bill of Rights (1996).

Hardly original.

The loudest shouts of freedom come from the drovers of slaves

Don’t forget the great irony that a country settled by puritans who were not allowed to cruelly enforce their code on their country men, and by criminals who could not abide the rule of law, came across the sea to live in a land where they rose up to be slaveowners who yearned to be free (of the British). There were a few great spokesmen and thinkers to be sure, and some of their deeds were heroic, but if we are to judge them by the company they keep and their actions alone, from a truly outside perspective, it is difficult to find much that is admirable about the founding fathers.

When Did the Trouble Start?

What about the Declaration itself? How libertarian is it? Well, let's just take a few choice parts:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

--Well, yes, except for Africans and women, and young men who don't want to be drafted or executed for desertion, and probably atheists and witches.

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,

This is not the reason governments form--to secure our rights. This is just a sales job for the criminal state.

deriving their just powers

This falsely implies the state can have just powers. It cannot.

from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,

This implies government does not necessarily become destructive--that good goverment is possible. It's not.

it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,

But not to have no government, right? Why does it deny us the right to get rid of the state altogether?

laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

In other words, they should be free to try one utopian experiment after another.

Mather Byles said it all in 1770: Which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?

We have met the enemy, and he is us.