“There are currently no vaccines available to protect against human Coronaviruses…”1
Won’t hurt a bit
I am fresh from my son’s orthodontist appointment where a stern faced dental hygienist, hidden behind a lab coat, oversized gauzy surgical mask, and opaque gloves confronted us before a locked door. As we began up the steps, she waved a spray bottle back and forth like a crazed gunman yelling something unintelligible. Seeing my lack of comprehension, she stabbed a Latex coated finger at a sign jutting from a flowerbed like an East German prison guard. Words in red letters ordered us to return to our car, telephone the orthodontist to announce our arrival, and then wait until we received a callback summons for my son to enter. Can I not tell you we are here, I asked. She shook her head and yelled “no”! We must follow the system. My response in English questioned the intelligence of this process but a phrase in French crossed my mind.
This is a polemic but not necessarily a dissertation on the science of Red China’s2 virus. After all, what exactly is the science? Is it the proclamations of government mouthpieces or the opinions of scientists censored by Face Book and other social media platforms? Claims to having the “science” are like moles popping up from numerous holes, no two alike. Science? My high school’s government course included a required unit on AIDS. On the one hand, teachers were to scare the bejabbers out of kids over how easy it was to contract AIDS so they would practice “safe sex”. I was relieved no one asked me to differentiate safe from unsafe sex. I thought it had to do with rhinestone cowboy boots, a unicycle, a giant kite, and a rope bridge spanning an Andean gorge. On the other hand, teachers were to stress how difficult it was to get AIDS in order to relieve homosexuals of further stigma. Science? Yeah, public education. Regardless of what the “science” is, reactions by Americans to China’s virus has been a revelation.
From the nation’s experts: politicians, movie stars, entertainers, and professional athletes, comes the rallying cry, “We’re all in this together”! What a joke. Who is this “we”? How are they suffering? If anything, the frenzied manner in which greedy grubby fingered savages ravage store shelves, hogging up the product de jour, demonstrates it is really, every man for himself. And it’s not even Black Friday. Reaction by the Great Unwashed provide us a peek as to how they will react in the face of a greater crisis.
In the very early days of the Wuhan Pandemic, American officials raced breathlessly to microphones announcing the virus did not originate from a laboratory nor had Commie scientists biologically modified or weaponized an existing virus. These premature declarations reminded me of government officials, following an explosion, mass shooting, or rental truck mowing citizens down in a city center, racing before news cameras to announce, “It’s not terrorism” even before the names of the injured or suspects were known. Okay, what did they say was its origin? It came from Chinese raw bat eaters who coughed on Chinese raw baby Koala bear eaters in Wuhan, China. Make’s sense, doesn’t it? Like ripples from a rock thrown in a pond, Red China’s virus continues to have reverberating consequences.
No Tourists
Years as policeman and teacher left me with a lifelong need to decompress. Peace and quiet in the outdoors, far from Thomas Harding’s Madding Crowd, has proven the best medicament. I spend a fair amount of time in the wild especially winter, my favorite season. For any outdoorsman/woman, the attraction is nature’s beauty, aroma of wild flowering plants, animals, birds, and the sound of wind rushing through branches absent the strident cacophony of civilization. All was good until government lockdowns spawned disastrous levels of people practicing unprotected tourism in the woods and along once tranquil trails.
New to the outdoors, CoronaTourists tend to be loud, obnoxious, and display self-centered ignorance with respect to trail etiquette (yield trails to runners and the mountain bikers who built them). They don jackets, coats, hats, and mittens to brave frigid 60-degree temperatures. Millennial CoronaTourists seem to drag every vestige of civilization along with them. Blaring radios, clouds of marijuana, screaming children, tampons, fast foot wrappers, baby binkies, Big Gulp cups, Happy Meal toys, condoms, cigarettes, Band Aids, undergarments, and beer cans are now parts of the “regular” landscape. For Pete’s sake, shouldn’t these people be crowding into stores fighting over the last roll of toilet paper and box of 9mm ammunition? With respect to Touristbasms, winter has proven the only effective disinfectant to clean them out of the woods.
Gimme shelter
Following a recent hike, I crossed a rural road to the above shelter perched in a lonely field surrounded by woods. A sign announced the shelter is closed. The incongruity of closing an outdoor shelter, in the middle of nowhere, in the wind, fresh air, and sunlight, as opposed to people cooped up in homes, apartments, and buildings rebreathing the same air, is unfathomable. County officials cannot trust people to limit gatherings to ten or less so, they closed the shelter. One size fits all rules with no appeal to common sense permitted. Typical bureaucrats. Suppose more than ten people gather beneath the shelter to commemorate a War Veteran’s passing, a child’s birthday, or a teen’s graduation. Who would know out there, unless someone snitched? Probably liberals. Would the Coronastapo come and round up these malefactors? Prior to all this, I accepted lockdowns, quarantines, and that millions of us were going to die. However, these incongruities caused me to begin asking questions about the efficacy and legality of the government’s response to the viral outbreak.
If only two people are in a store, one healthy and one infected with the virus, and the latter coughs on the former, the healthy person is now likely infected. Suppose there are two hundred people in the same store, and none infected, and those with a dry throat cough on others, how many will be infected with the virus? None. Stay with me now. Healthy people cannot transmit what they do not have. Why quarantine masses of healthy people? Why is it “safe” for ten or less people to congregate but add one more, and now they are all doomed? It makes no sense. There is one possible explanation however implausible. The Wuhan virus is super-intelligent and someone has taught it arithmetic. Loathing humans, nevertheless, it can tolerate up to ten people but if one more comes along, Red China’s virus goes berserk.
I began asking more questions. Before long, I discovered many Americans have so fallen in line with the government’s talking points that to ask questions makes them go berserk.
I texted a friend about a humorous incident. I found a surgical mask on a trail that is no more than a sliver of dirt, boot width wide, bisecting a large field. Facing the woods from the gravel parking lot, the field extends approximately one hundred yards to the left and a half-mile to the right of the trail. It is always windy out there. Instead of seeing the humor in the situation, like bicyclers and people in cars wearing surgical masks, my friend was outraged. He denounced people who do not wear masks and practice social distancing as “disgusting”, lacking in “proper education” who had probably been “born and lived under a rock” and needed hit over the head by one. He was ecstatic that our governor, Maryland Republican Larry Hogan, had “taken the bull by the horns” implementing “strict enforceable guidelines” and thanked G-d we had a governor with “insight and fortitude”. Considering Hogan is a RHINO, called a “closet Democrat” by the ultra-liberal Baltimore Sun,3 I thought he was joking. I asked if this was sarcasm and he replied with an emphatic “no”. I replied, “I’m sorry to say, I see it a bit differently”. His demand to know why was more emphatic than his no. We had never discussed politics and, not wanting to step on toes, I tread lightly.
Instead of specific arguments, I listed categories; lockdowns based on debunked models, Constitutional problems, and the efficacy of quarantining entire populations. I observed it was remarkable Governors closed down gun stores and churches but deemed pot shops, liquor stores, and abortion mills essential. That was it. My friend’s responses came so rapid fire I could not keep up. I was answering question one but he was on number four. I tried to explain the government based its rationale for shutting down entire countries first on Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College-London computer model predicting two-million dead and then the University of Washington’s model claiming several hundred thousand dead by sometime in April. Reality and the subsequent work by scientists obviated the need for shutdowns when they debunked both models.4 Ignoring this, my friend declared medical emergencies superseded my “constitutional theory” adding that the Constitution had been amended many times. I noted the Constitution was the law of the land and superseded by nothing. Uncertain as to the relevance of counting amendments, I pointed out it has been amended only seventeen times since 1792. I added no amendment had abolished the Bill of Rights or principle of federalism. He became angry and told me to pass an amendment overruling the virus. I asked, what is the rationale for shutting the country down for three weeks, why not four, and why six as opposed to seven? I asked how long should we be in lockdown and what was the rationale for his answer. What should happen if, when the government lets Americans out again, there is a spike in viral infections? Do we all go back into lockdown? Refusing to answer my questions, he instead accused me of treating him like a student in one of my classes and called me a “pompous ass”. It went downhill from there. Hoping we could emerge still friends, I did not descend into ad hominin attacks. Had he not ended the conversation abruptly, I would have explained this; the Constitution is a contract between government and the people. It lists specifically what governments, state and federal, may or may not do. It bars the federal government from engaging in any activity not authorized by the Constitution. The Constitution is also a restraining order against government to protect the people’s rights from infringement. If people accept an “exception” to the law in but one case, it establishes precedent for future exceptions made by those in power. Exceptions to one’s Bill of Rights. Witness now how quickly people rush to snitch on those daring to exercise their Bill of Rights. Google how many states are hiring folks to execute contact tracing surveillance schemes. Will the government and schools create National Antiviral Zealous Informer Youth Leagues to Narc on people, even their own parents?
The President’s powers are found in Article II of the Constitution and comprise but three paragraphs. Other than exercise of military powers in time of war, appointing listed government officials, and granting pardons, his/her only other function is to ensure “the laws be faithfully executed”.5 No mention is made of executive orders. At most, one could argue presidents may issue an executive order in furtherance of a constitutionally legal law or bill passed by the Congress. However, no such order could create law, directives, regulations, restrictions, and so forth, as those are the sole functions of the legislative branch. The Constitution does not authorize the president to shut down commercial businesses, confine people to their homes, restrict any legal activity, dictate what people must wear in public, social-distancing, or send taxpayer’s money as bailouts to businesses and individuals. Therefore, these activities are illegal. If true, cannot Congress do all this?
The Constitution lists the powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8, known as the Enumerated Powers. Seven of the eighteen deal with the military. The others cover land set aside for the capital, laws regulating immigration, post offices, coining of money, creation of federal courts, copyrights, punishing pirates, trade, and taxing and borrowing money to fund the above.6 Congress has no power, under the Declaration or Constitution, to shut down commercial establishments, schools, or confine people to their residences. It has no authority to appropriate the wealth of Americans and transfer it to others for any purpose whatsoever. Nor do Governors. These are grotesque violations of the Constitution. Regardless of what people, mostly liberals, say, there are no “for the public safety” or “for the common good” exceptions to the Constitution. America’s Constitution is over the government. The subordinate cannot overrule its superior. Does anyone care? No doubt, enemies of the Constitution will argue the Commerce Clause grants Congress authority to engage in illegal activities.
At the time [1787] delegates meeting in Philadelphia drafted and debated the proposed Constitution, States had established trade barriers against sister states. They taxed goods crossing their borders. Coastal states with ports added additional tariffs on goods from abroad. This led to a great deal of conflict between states. Delegates wrote the Commerce Clause to deny states the power to restrict interstate commerce in any way. Liberals disguise and lie about Congress’s power to “regulate commerce”7 by ignoring its 18th century common use meaning in favor of their redefinition. Regulate did not mean control, supervise, or make rules in any way. Regulate meant to keep “regular”. If states enacted taxes and tariffs restricting the flow of commerce across their borders, Congress had the power to knock them down. Congress has no authority to control any commercial activity simply because it crosses state lines. It has no authority to direct, regulate, restrict, or control commercial activity within any state whatsoever.8 American ignorance with respect to their own Constitution is appalling. Even a conservative Baptist preacher with whom I’m acquainted texted church members saying he had to obey the government’s order to close the church based on Romans 13: 1-2; (1) “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from G-d. (2) “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of G-d; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves”.9 I wanted to ask him what he would say to America’s Founding Fathers who rebelled against George III, King of England, King of the English Empire, King of the colonies, and Head of the Church of England. I held my peace.
Historian and theologian David Barton writes that the pastor’s opinion gave birth to the principle of “Divine Right of Kings”; the notion G-d selected every ruler who ruled, a principle eagerly embraced by monarchs and emperors. Regardless of how arbitrary, capricious, and tyrannical, people have to obey these rulers. French theologian Philippe du Plessis Mornay wrote in 1579 [Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants] the government ordained by G-d referred to “the general institution of government” not each and every distinct form of government. G-d’s purpose expressed in Romans 13 was to oppose anarchy. Dissolution of society leads to lawlessness ending in rebellion against and ultimately rejection of G-d and His law. Therefore, G-d opposes rebellion if it leads to anarchy and chaos. Otherwise, people would have to obey the dictates of murderous Communist regimes.10 Another way to look at is this; if presidents, Congresses, and Governors violate their own Constitutions and state laws, are they preserving G-d’s order or provoking resistance? If the acts of political officials in violation of the law become so egregious, it sparks rebellion, whose actions then are leading toward anarchy, those of political leaders, or those of people attempting to restore the rule of law?
Red China unleashing yet another Coronavirus has revealed much. If government officials can scare enough people with claims a crisis menaces the United States, (global warming, murder hornets, viruses, etc.) then people will do what they are told without question even if to do so violates the Bill of Rights. If these officials can convince them it is their patriotic duty to obey, they will turn against their neighbors reporting those who do not comply. There is no longer a “we”. In a crisis, it is every man for himself. As Tucker Carlson would say, “I have to live in the same country as these people”? Finally, people who lust for power will always stoke fear, panic, and anarchy in order to promote their personal agenda that, throughout history, has always been to rule over others.
22 As a high school government teacher, during a “discussion” with colleagues over certain countries hosting symposiums on education (Cuba, Communist Vietnam, and Communist China) Jenny, a liberal colleague at a sister high school, became incensed over my use of the term “Red China”. After all Jenny said with rage, she had adopted two children from China and that made me a racist. Why would adopting children negate the nature of their country’s government of origin? I have no idea. Jenny had a map in her classroom with South America at the top and North America at the bottom stating the current north/south designation was “racist”. She also had pro-Obama posters hanging prominently. A few years later, one of my government students was telling me about the District sponsored student trip to China. She revealed that Jenny had personally attacked me, in front of the students, in China. My student thought my reaction would be anger. On the contrary. I smiled the remainder of the day basking in the glory of having been trashed out, by name, in a Communist Country!
88 Randy E. Barnett, “The Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause”, University of Chicago Law Review (Winter 2001), at http://www.law.edu/rbarnett/origins.html. See also Brion McClanahan, The Founding Father’s Guide tothe Constitution, (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2012), 38, 50, 54-56, 86. James Madison, The Federalists #42 Clinton Rossiter, Editor (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book, New American Library, 1961), 267-68. John Taylor of Caroline Virginia, James McClellan, Editor New Views of the Constitution of the United States (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1823/2000), 328-30.
99 Editors, New American Standard Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 1995), 1081.
Jackson, Mississippi MayorKingChokwe Antar Lumumba posted videos on YouTube announcing an executive order “suspending” the state open carry law, in violation of Mississippi Code § 45-9-51, the state firearms preemption law.
Amusingly — in a morbid way — the first video cited as his “authority” a nonexistent code: § 45-7-17. That video was deleted after ridicule and questions. Fortunately, I saved a copy. It was replaced with a second video (also saved) with almost the same script, save that he omitted the spoken reference to the fake code, and included a screenshot of § 45-17-7, which does not give any such magical power.
The King declined to respond to questions about the order. Nor does the order yet appear on the city web site.
Only after the story was reported by The Truth About Guns, and was the subject of many social media posts, did any local news outlet pick it up. WJTV simply reported it unquestioningly as a good thing. But they did have a copy of the order.
Note that while the King’s video cites § 45-17-7, the actual order cites no authority for this whatsoever. He did it because he believes he’s all-powerful. One might wonder what other laws he’ll decide to unilaterally “suspend” indefinitely. Concealed carry? Firearm ownership? The Second Amendment? The entire Bill of Rights?
Cities can’t usurp the authority of the State’s elected Legislature and violate the Constitutional rights of the people. I support the 2nd Amendment and will enforce the laws of this State.
Loonumba is an oathbreaking, dictatorial scumbag with no respect for the law, the US Constitution, or the Mississippi Constitution. I suspect people are already preparing lawsuits in reaction to this unlawful order. This will very likely cost the taxpayers of Jackson a pretty penny. Normally, I’d disapprove of the people suffering for the misdeeds of the government, but apparently those citizens elected their king by a 93% supermajority. They’re getting just what they deserve.
Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust remembrance day was April 20th, one day after the 77th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising on April 19th. I’ve got a few random thoughts this year.
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising actually had 3 different resistance groups that were fighting. Most know of ZOB with Mordechai Anielewicz, The Jewish Fighting Organization. Less well known was the communists and Bund also fought against the nazis, and the other group was right wing, the Zionist youth movement “Beitar” the “Jewish Military Union” (ZZW). Beitar sound familiar? It was established by Zev Jabostinsky. My puppy’s middle name is Zev, that’s appropriate as it means “wolf”. Most of the fighters were younger, and I’m guessing had seen their families hauled off and knew what was coming.
The Wuhan flu Zoo
Locked in a ghetto and told they aren’t allowed to leave without a permission slip. Possibly like the one I’m carrying in my purse along with my name badge which will get me through road blocks should the be instituted. I shamelessly swiped this from a friend of mine, who also apparently likes Mark Levin
How far are you willing to go with this?
If they told you to load your families onto train cars so that you could be taken to Virus Protection Facilities for your own safety, would you do it?
YES. Yes, you would. That much has become painfully obvious to me. And the whole time, you’d be shaking your finger and yelling at those of us who refused, accusing us of being “a danger to society” and “not caring if people die.”
But they don’t have to load you onto train cars and take you to Virus Protection Facilities or force you to comply, because you do that voluntarily. They control your mind. They control you through fear. They control you by convincing you that the world is a scary dangerous place, but they’re here to protect you, care for you, and keep you safe, just as long as you OBEY.
They know that as long as you’re locked inside your comfortable home with Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a cell phone while dangling a $1200 check in front of you like a carrot on a stick, you’ll comply. No force is necessary for the majority of the herd.
YOU ARE IMPRISONED, willingly, and you’re too blind to see it.
By Mark Levin
Our country has been locked down, and I think there are some lessons worth mulling over. Parents are being hauled off in handcuffs in front of their children because they took them to a park. A public park. I’ve covered some of these abuses in other columns. I’m guessing you know by now that while I do believe the virus is absolutely real, I also believe the reaction has been way overblown.
Corona worries?
Better safe than sorry? For whom? The 22 million people now out of work? The business owners that have lost or are losing a business because of what Doctors Fauci and Birx have urged? Honestly I have no idea why anyone would ever start a business now knowing it can be yanked away and your life’s work and savings down the drain at the whim of a government. Their employees that now may well face losing their homes and struggle with trying to support their families all the while the government is forcing farmers to dump milk, eggs and vegetables. I’m pretty sure the food banks could use them about now. Food like knowledge, is power. What will people do to feed their hungry children? Government is seizing power, no doubt. Some governors like the governor of South Dakota and Wyoming pretty much left their states open while others like the governor of Michigan took the power given by the federal government and then became a tin pot despot. What happened after that disturbs me even more. When people protested, she threatened them for speaking out by saying she might extend the lock down. Free speech not permitted. Along with freedom to assemble or to worship.
The following videos make several points, but the reason I’m putting them in are those listed above. This is going on all over the world. I have to tell you when I heard those German voices yelling “Ack-TUNG” and hauling people away I got nauseated. Beating people, using tear gas on them, explain to me how this keeps them safe? I mean, that’s what this is suppose to be about right? Saving lives from the Wuhan flu? Another friend of mine wrote this is response to something I had posted on facebook.
“When the State tells you it’s safe to go to Home Depot to buy a sponge but dangerous to go and buy a flower, it’s not about your health.
When the State shuts down millions of private businesses but doesn’t lay off a single government employee, it’s not about your health.
When the State bans dentists because it’s unsafe, but deems abortion visits are safe, it’s not about your health.
When the State prevents you from buying cucumber seeds because it’s dangerous, but allows in-person lottery ticket sales, it’s not about your health.
When the State tells you it’s dangerous to go golf alone, fish alone or be in a motorboat alone, but the Governor can get his stage make up done, and hair done for 5 TV appearances a week, it’s not about your health.
When the state puts you IN a jail cell for walking in a park with your child because it’s too dangerous but lets criminals OUT of jail cells for their health- It’s not about YOUR health!
When the state tells you it’s too dangerous to get treated by a doctor of chiropractic or physical therapy treatments yet deems a liquor store essential- It’s not about your health!
When the State lets you go to the grocery store or hardware store but is demanding mail-in voting, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH.
WAKE UP PEOPLE — If you think this is all about your health you’re mistaken! Please open your eyes! Stop being lead like blind sheep.
I should probably mention this was originally one video, YouTube censored it and someone else put it up in three parts, so hopefully you can still see it.
And these protests to open the states back up are going on all over the country. Who decides the value of a life? I take death very seriously. When people get towards the end of life, one of the things one often does is to give an “Advance Directive” meaning they state what they consider to be an acceptable quality of life, and if something medically happens they can not do those things they do not want heroic measures done to save them. Quality of life counts. At what point do we begin to care about the 22 million that have been forced out of work due to flawed models designed by a man who has yet to get one right.
Wuhan Flu we will survive, but this government seizure of power? When has government ever handed back power once it’s been seized? Your rights are suspended. I keep hearing that line from the video. How much further will it go? Who knows. Just like the left are hypocrites about guns denying citizens the right to defend themselves and their families all the while having armed guards they are out of touch with the pain the lock down is causing. Yes, I know it’s a Trump ad, but it still sums it up really well.
And the new paradigm is set. Had a Democrat been president, I shudder because Democrats are communist now. Power and control, never enough. What will happen the next time there is a “crisis” be it in the fall or next year? I heard another great video from a politician named Paul Curtman who has written a couple of books Don’t Tread On Me and Don’t Tread On Me! The Constitution and State Soverneignty. Paul’s video was talking about the role of government. He said people have the misconception the role of government is to keep your safe. It is not, the proper role of government is to keep you free. And while you chew that over, I will give you the Partisans Song, because I honor those that resisted and fought against the tyranny.
וגם בעברית
In his most recent radio program Phantom Nation, host Sha’i ben-Tekoa talked about how some criticize and look down on the Jews in Germany who didn’t fight back. But he asked the question if you have a young man of 20, who has a wife and maybe a couple of kids what realistically could he have done when they heard that forceful knock on the door at midnight and opened it to find 5 nazis with guns at the ready?
The best answer I can give is to not let things get to that point. To recognize the signs, see people clearly, especially politicians and vote accordingly. We can still vote in this country perhaps. Some of the actions are familiar from the past, but is history going to repeat?
The Wuhan Flu madness continues. But I’m seeing additional deterioration of our society I think. You might want to grab a cup of coffee for this one.
We are in the middle days of Pesach, the festival we celebrate and re-live being taken out of slavery and bondage by the strong arm of G-d. We didn’t know the land we were going to live in, we didn’t know how we were going to get there and we had been living as slaves for a few hundred years so living as a free and just society was all new. Self-governance? What’s that? But we had G-d and his appointed leaders, so we had the courage and faith to leave Egypt מצרים . The word narrow is צרים see how similar they look? And if you put a Mem מ in front of it that means “from”. So I guess you could say we left “from narrows”, slavery.
Plagues, and seclusion, sounding familiar?
But what I am seeing that is totally new, to me at least, is the astonishing amount of fear and blatant attempts of people to seize power. The power-crazed Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer has banned the sale of baby car seats, vegetable seeds, certain things in Home Depot are ok, others aren’t. Travel between residences is no longer allowed, so forget taking food to elderly neighbors or family that can’t get out. She has a whole host of other demands while the sale of pot and alcohol are still essential and fine. All at Queen Gretchen’s whim. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered license plate numbers to be collected on christians who attended church in their cars, parked a distance apart and the service was over a loud speaker. Each would be getting a $500 fine, as would the pastor. Unbelievable. Oh wait, they are both Demoncrats, so I guess not.
I’m also increasingly disturbed by some of the messages I see on facebook. One friend posted a article that the Gov of Texas is considering reopening the state, and she asked for thoughts. Two people responded how foolish, and another it was a big mistake. Everyone just needed to stay home. Anyone that didn’t was selfish and wanted people to die. Another friend re-posted and excellent opinion piece about what this Wuhan Flu is doing to our liberty. Someone commented under it as a doctor he should know better about viruses. Huh, I think he does, but I wonder about her medical training /snark. Yet another friend shared a photo that a friend of hers had put on a page. It was a handwritten note someone had left on her Mother’s door. Apparently family had dropped off some food for the woman for Easter. The nasty-gram read something about no family, no visitors, no people were allowed due to the coronavirus quarantine orders, and that next time they would call the police. Wow. Well, some places make it very easy. I used to hear people say “Oh we would never had called the police and informed on the Jews during the holocaust”. Got news, there are those that would that are alive and well and still dialing. Yep, you too can easily be a socialist.
We can get into the why in a bit. Because “why” and “motives” matter.
Let’s look at the number of Wuhan Flu deaths, and how they are calculated and how they are presented. You like charts? I like charts especially when they are easy to understand and make a good points.
But according to comments I read, if we don’t stay shut down as a country and everyone stay sequestered in their homes we are selfish fools exposing the rest of the world to our death wish. I did see a interesting graphic on facebook, it read “Quarantine is when you lock sick people away. When you lock healthy people away it’s tyranny”.
Data indicates there no material differences in fatalities between the three countries leading the casual observer to question why is the US killing its economy?
The US continues to prevent nearly all commerce from occurring to combat the China coronavirus. Many other countries are following suit. But some countries like Sweden and Brazil are keeping their countries open for business.
Data shows that the fatalities related to the coronavirus in these countries are very similar to those in the US.
In fact there is a twitter thread #FilmYourHospital going. It’s people driving by their local hospitals showing empty parking lots, some with those tent cities outside for the overflow of sick people, they too are empty. Some of the people filming the empty tents were told they had to leave and weren’t allowed to film. There are stories of healthcare workers being sent home, laid off and told not to report to work, they are just “on-call”. Yep, in the midst of this healthcare crisis healthcare workers are going without hours, which means without pay.
I heard a guest on the Ben Shapiro show saying how if/when we ever had another pandemic again we needed to have one policy across the US, none of this patchwork stuff of each state doing what they want. That there needs to be one policy and the CDC needs to be in charge. I’m thinking “OH HELL NO”. But then I’d already been gathering sources for this column.
Then there is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who was involved in the creation of Obamacare, who says this needs to go on another 18 months.
UNLESS there is a vaccine. Did you catch that? The MUST be a vaccine. Remember when I talked about the “why” of things matter? The motive matters. And here we go.
In concert with the ramp-up in death statistics, the government-steered vaccination industry has run an elaborate bureaucracy designed to hype vaccine use, as seen in a slide show presentation last April by Glen Nowak, the CDC’s spokesman for the National Immunization Program, to the American Medical Association. Here is the “Recipe that fosters influenza vaccine interest and demand,” in the truncated language that appears on his slides: “Medical experts and public health authorities [should] publicly (e.g. via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) – and urge influenza vaccination.” This “recipe,” the slide show indicated, would result in “A. Significant media interest and attention [and] B. Framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behaviour (e.g. as ‘very severe,’ ‘more severe than last or past years,’ ‘deadly’).” Other aspects of the CDC’s “Seven-Step Recipe for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination” includes “Continued reports (e.g., from health officials and media) that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people – helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.” and “Visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) and people getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce).”
That is from 2004, the CDC has been at this for awhile. The whole thing is worth reading.
Flu results in “about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths” worldwide, Wikipedia tells us. “The typical estimate is 36,000 [deaths] a year in the United States,” reports NBC, citing the Centers for Disease Control. “Somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 Canadians a year die of influenza and its related complications, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the Globe and Mail says, adding that “Those numbers are controversial because they are estimates.”
snippety snip snip
According to the National Vital Statistics System in the U.S., for example, annual flu deaths in 2010 amounted to just 500 per year — fewer than deaths from ulcers (2,977), hernias (1,832) and pregnancy and childbirth (825), and a far cry from the big killers such as heart disease (597,689) and cancers (574,743). The story is similar in Canada, where unlikely killers likewise dwarf Statistics Canada’s count of flu deaths.
Even that 500 figure for the U.S. could be too high, according to analyses in authoritative journals such as the American Journal of Public Health and the British Medical Journal. Only about 15-20 per cent of people who come down with flu-like symptoms have the influenza virus — the other 80-85 per cent actually caught rhinovirus or other germs that are indistinguishable from the true flu without laboratory tests, which are rarely done. In 2001, a year in which death certificates listed 257 Americans as having died of flu, only 18 were positively identified as true flus. The other 239 were simply assumed to be flus and most likely had few true flus among them.
So why?
The CDC’s decision to play up flu deaths dates back a decade, when it realized the public wasn’t following its advice on the flu vaccine. During the 2003 flu season “the manufacturers were telling us that they weren’t receiving a lot of orders for vaccine,”Dr. Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at CDC’s National Immunization Program, told National Public Radio. “It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot.”
The implication is this: when a new vaccine is invented then mass produced, it will not necessarily be mandatory, but everything else in your life, such as work, school, community, and sociality, will all become privileges granted by the state under the condition that you take the new vaccine.
Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India’s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. In 2017, the World Health Organization reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is coming from Gates’ Vaccine Program. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to Gates’ vaccines. By 2018, ¾ of global polio cases were from Gates’ vaccines.
In 2014, the #GatesFoundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a trial of a GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,049 children.
During Gates 2002 MenAfriVac Campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Between 50-500 children developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for drug makers”
Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philantropic practices as “ruthless” and “immoral”.
In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines. A month later Gates told a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a phony “tetanus” vaccine campaign.
Independent labs found the sterility formula in every vaccine tested.
After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade.
Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines.
A 2017 study (Morgensen et.Al.2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP is killing more African than the disease it pretends to prevent. Vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of unvaccinated children.
Gates and the WHO refused to recall the lethal vaccine which WHO forces upon millions of African children annually.
Some might even say his track record is criminal. Go back to the first link on Gates thinking vaccines are extremely important and look at the financial conflicts of interest. The stock he owns in pharmaceutical companies. Also interesting is
Perhaps a gold star? We can’t travel, work, see a doctor or shop without it?
But hey, Bill Gates has that covered too, no need for a gold star. That’s so 1940s. Nope, digital implants.
“Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it,” the Microsoft founder had speculated.
Snippty snip snip
However, as outlined in a December 2019 Scientific American article, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded Massachusetts Institute of Technology research that suggested embedding vaccine records “directly into the skin” of children: “Along with the vaccine, a child would be injected with a bit of dye that is invisible to the naked eye but easily seen with a special cell-phone filter, combined with an app that shines near-infrared light onto the skin. The dye would be expected to last up to five years, according to tests on pig and rat skin and human skin in a dish.”
Through his foundation, Gates has invested billions of dollars in vaccines.
Attorney General Bill Barr is skeptical of Gates’ idea to tag people with these mark-of-the-beast implants. He said he is concerned about “the tracking of people and so forth, generally, especially going forward over a long period of time.” Barr also said that he is “very concerned about the slippery slope in terms of continuing encroachments on personal liberty.”
However, Barr said he did feel like “appropriate, reasonable steps are fine.” This leaves the door open for some sort of government action in order to enforce vaccine compliance.
If you want to know even more about this, there is a doctor, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai who is running for the Senate in Massachusetts and he has been weighing in on the Wuhan flu debacle. He’s a very bright man, 4 degrees from MIT. Here’s a youtube, he talks about Wuhan Flu, your immune system and the massive fraud being foisted upon us.
So, who or W.H.O. gets to decide what is reasonable and appropriate? The government? The panicked people on facebook, the crazed neighbors, the media, vaccine despot Gates? There are those that would clamor for a vaccine to be stuck in everything that moves right now. They have no idea of Gates record of “successful” vaccines. Remember, he wants to reduce the population. They would say the same things about being vaccinated as they do the lock down. If you don’t you’re selfish and want people to die. They will “demand” the government take action.
Look, I am not saying I’m against vaccines. That’s not what this is about. If you want to get a vaccination I’m all for it, you can take every vaccination out there. I won’t say a word. This is about forced vaccinations. And since some employers already do this I’m pretty sure this could go that route as well. With the added bit about governmental control and the vaccine despot’s lousy record added in. This is about being able to make free choices of what goes in your body, not what is forced in your body by the government or fear crazed people deceived by a willing media. I guess with all those people out of work due to the lock down, or those that will be looking for work because their business went under it will be easy. Potential employers will just say something along the lines of “I’m sorry, but governmental regulations state a certain percentage of our staff have to be vaccinated, so you must have the new Gates/Fauci vaccine for us to hire you”.
But we got scared
10 Pharaoh drew near, and the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold! the Egyptians were advancing after them. They were very frightened, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses, Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the desert? What is this that you have done to us to take us out of Egypt?
12 Isn’t this the thing [about] which we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, Leave us alone, and we will serve the Egyptians, because we would rather serve the Egyptians than die in the desert
13 Moses said to the people, Don’t be afraid! Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that He will wreak for you today, for the way you have seen the Egyptians is [only] today, [but] you shall no longer continue to see them for eternity.
~~Exodus/Shemot 14:10-13
The opening of The Ten Commandments,
Leaving Egypt and slavery
I do not want to be one of those clamoring to go back into the slavery of governmental control over my life. Choose freedom, there is Moshe on the right, see him? He’s holding the reins of a camel for you, choose freedom.
In the early morning (4:30 AM), Montgomery County Police killed a man while serving a search warrant. According to a family attorney, Duncan Socrates Lemp was asleep in his bed when police opened fire from outside the home, killing him and wounding his girlfriend.
I found these statements in the news report interesting.
A police statement Thursday says members of the department’s tactical unit were serving a “high-risk” search warrant related to unspecified “firearms offenses” at the home around 4:30 a.m.
[…]
On his Instagram account, Lemp recently posted a photograph that depicts two people holding up rifles and included the term “boogaloo,” slang used by militia members and other extremists to describe a future civil war in the U.S.
Since I know Maryland has an “assault weapon” ban (Maryland Public Safety § 5-101 for “assault long guns,” Maryland Criminal Law § 4-303 for “assault pistols”), I was curious about the “rifles” picture posted to Lemp’s Instagram account. Fortunately, I got to it before the usual post-police shooting social media purge. This appears to be the post in question.
Those would seem to be “assault long guns” under Maryland victim disarmament law. Lemp was only 21 years old, so it’s rather unlikely he could lawfully possess a grandfathered “assault weapon” — the laws passed in 2013 — so I’m speculating that the police used that post as “evidence” that one of those arms was Lemp’s, putting him possession of a banned firearm. And since he iswas reportedly a libertarian “Threeper,” that made him automatically dangerous.
GunPeople control kills. It certainly did this time.
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Trigger Warning: The referenced column is written by a left-wing whacko acting professor at the People’s Republic of Kommiefornia’s UC-Davis, and is published in The Atlantic.
I don’t know what constitution Aaron Tang — who purports to be a “Constitutional law & education law prof” — teaches, but he should bone up on the United States Constitution. If he taught anywhere but the University of California – Davis, I’d call that fraud. But he’s par for the anti-rights course there.
Probably because the right to keep and bear arms is specifically mentioned in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and education is not. check for yourself; no mention of education, learn, teach, school, university, college, or anything else education-related. (While we do speak of an Electoral College, that term doesn’t actually appear in the Constitution; only “electors.”)
If the courts treated education the same “generous” way they do Second Amendment rights, you might need a license to go to school, minors wouldn’t be allowed to go to school, you’d need to pass a background check before every class, you might be allowed one class per month, and you’d be limited to a low-capacity tenth grade education. The Department of Education could arbitrarily ban knowledge of algebra and imprison you for knowing it. You might be allowed to go to college, but only after paying $200 for the permission slip that would come eight or nine months later, and local law enforcement would be informed. Depending on your major, even with the permission slip you would not be allowed to attend a college or university established after 1986.
Spearheaded by new leadership at the NRA in the late 1970s, gun-rights activists engaged for decades in an effort to persuade the Supreme Court to recognize an individual Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense at home. The Court ultimately enshrined that right 12 years ago in D.C. v. Heller, displacing a long-standing consensus to the contrary.
Tang clearly didn’t read Heller, or he’d have seen Scalia’s many, many citations of Supreme Court cases, law, and history supporting the individual right. The Supreme Court has been recognizing an individual right of the people since at least 1857.
At first glance, the gun-rights movement and the pursuit of educational equity seem to have little in common. But they in fact share an approach: Both promote arguments that rely on what are called “implied” or “unenumerated” constitutional rights.
Oh, really?
Article II: 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.
Article II, Two, 2. Numeral. Enumerated.
The argument for a constitutional right to train at any shooting range is far from obvious. The Second Amendment speaks of a right to “keep” and “bear” arms, but says nothing about a right to train or practice.
I’ll grant that the words “train” and “practice” don’t appear, but please note that “well regulated Militia.” What did “regulate” mean when that was written?
regulate: 1. to adjust by rule or method 2. to direct
What the heck kind of well regulated, ordered, prepared, methodical militia is untrained, unpracticed? Certainly not the sort specified by the Second Militia Act of 1792 which required militia members (each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years) to arm themselves with militarily suitable firearms and equipment.
That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter,How to be armed and accoutred. provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.
Aaron Tang is clearly at UC-Davis because the heads of every other law school in the country were smart enough not to hire the ignoramus.
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Senator Fauxcahontas Warren, the wannabe-commie dictator out for genocide through mandated “carbon-free” (not -neutral, -free) energy and housing, has decided to start with the Gun Culture. Her horrific gunpeople control bill ( SB 3254) has everything a police state tyrant could possibly want, including the neutered kitchen sink. How bad is it? Well, her House co-conspirator is high-on-helium Hank “Tippy” Johnson, noted loon and midget/giant cage match fan.
I could write pages about Warren’s “assault weapon” ban, but let’s just say that unless your semi-auto rifle somehow made it onto the approved list, it’s most likely banned. All it takes is that it can accept a detachable magazine and one of several other features. The kicker is that “pistol grip” is one of them. And what, pray tell is a pistol grip?
‘‘(46) The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumb-hole stock or Thordsen-type grip or stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.
If you can hold it, it has a grip.
There is a grandfather clause for existing arms lawfully possessed.
There’s so much more in that bill that I cannot cover it all in less than the 260 pages of the original. But I do want to address the new universal firearm owner licensing part.
‘‘§ 932. License to own firearms and ammunition ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Except otherwise provided in this section, it shall be unlawful for any individual who is not licensed under this section to knowingly purchase, acquire, or possess a firearm or ammunition.
Elsewhere, I have written about the new tactic adopted by gun-controlling victim-disarmers: writing laws that make compliance impossible. This is yet another effing example. This license would have a training requirement, which includes a written test on law, and a “hands-on testing, including firing testing”. That “Except otherwise provided” does not include an exception for license training and testing; therefore possessing a firearm in a class or test to obtain a license would be illegal. No license = no gun = no test = no license.
While those currently in lawful possession of firearms do not require a license for those firearms, you’ll still need to get a license for any newly acquired firearm first. But new owners? Not anymore. Gun ownership would lawfully end with this generation.
Assuming you’ve jumped through all the fake Indian’s and Georgian village idiot’s hoops, the license is still may issue. On top of all the usual prohibited person restrictions, they added another qualifier: “unsuitability.” This is… similar to “red flag” orders. If the ATF doesn’t want to issue a license, they go to a judge and tell them your aren’t suitable and -gavel bam- you’re a prohibited person.
Where “unsuitability” differs from a “red flag” order is in the standard of evidence. ERPOs require an unsubstantiated allegation — no proof required, because proof would be grounds for an arrest anyway — that a person currently poses a possible threat to himself or others.
“Unsuitability” actually manages to limbo its waybelow that.
other existing factors that suggest that the individual could potentially create a risk
Suggest”
“Could”
“Potentially
Did you ever criticize Warren or Johnso… Wait. Did you ever not criticize either of those moronic motherhumpers?
Or, as an astonishingly ignorant psycho (don’t click that unless you can spare the brain cells) emailed me a couple of days ago:
“Those who really really want a gun are the very ones who really really should not be able to get a gun.”
— rackjite
I’m sure you’ve heard that sentiment — that anyone who wants a gun is unsuitable to have one.
Or… I’ve publicly related stories of times when muggers decided I was a threat to them sufficient to decide to run away. I’ve demonstrated that I’m potentially a threat to the Democrats’ core constituency. No license for me.
What about you?
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My opposition to Red-Flag laws has been steadfast countenancing no exceptions. Until now. Liberal Time Magazine’s Girl, er um “Person”1 of the Year’s trembling quivering rage-filled Greta Thunberg, who should be starring in H. P. Lovecraft inspired movies, could be that one exception. Ghostwriters and Handlers, please, do not allow Greta near sharp objects or anything that goes bang. Perhaps parents should be scheduling counseling sessions rather than enabling Greta’s delusions of imminent human extinction. Scandinavia once gave the world Vikings. What happened?2
From the Great Depression, mass starvation, to man-created global warming, the Left needs crises with which to menace people. Only through scare tactics terrifying the masses can they evoke reaction based on emotion rather than reason. People who have lost their minds seldom make good decisions. Since the Second World War, the Left, either through ideological compatibility or supreme naïveté, has promoted notions the way to deal with adversarial nations (Communist dictatorships) and people is through non-violent appeasement. Leftists are moral relativists rejecting concepts of good and evil. Therefore global and personal conflicts result from misunderstandings not malevolent intentions. Because people have “issues”, not problems, conflicts can be resolved without anyone having to accept blame or facing consequences. All Stalin needed was a couch, a good listener, and a hug. Today, if the puny underweight wretched victim of bullying stands up to his tormentors, school administrators suspend him along with the thugs. Through its evangelists teaching in public schools, the Left has indoctrinated Americans to reject notions of self-reliance and taking responsibility for their own safety. Lockdowns, shelter-in-place, hide under your desk or in your home…Hence, they grow up to despise the Second Amendment. They are aghast at the idea citizens can own guns and decide when and where to use them in self-defense. Appearing on Fox’s Martha MacCallum Show in response to the Fort Worth Texas church shooting, Democrat strategist Doug Schoen argued people are not competent to carry guns for personal defense. This he added, should be left to the police who, coincidentally, were not there.3 The Left hates the Second Amendment for two reasons; first, it exposes their unwillingness to stand up to bullies and criminals whether on American streets or as heads of State. Think, Justin Trudeau. Second, it is an obstacle to the Great Project.
Whether taking the name Liberal, Socialist, Progressive, Central Planner, Democratic-Socialist, and so forth, Statists are determined to dismantle the Second Amendment either through abolition or redefining it out of existence. Until accomplished, it remains the single greatest impediment to The Project begun by 19th century American Progressives and European Socialists. Its central imperative is to bend the will of the individual completely to the volition of the State to plan, control, and regulate every aspect of human existence. And, the Left is the State. Because altering the Constitution has proven un-doable, the Left has chosen to redefine the Second Amendment as they did the Commerce, General Welfare, Necessary and Proper, and Supremacy clauses until they mean the opposite of their intent. For example they claim owning firearms is dependent upon membership in a federal (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines) or State (“National” sic Guard) standing army. This claim could not be more wrong.4
Proponents and enemies of the Bill of Rights have debated the Founders’ meaning of “militia” ad nauseam. Rehashing it here would seem superfluous. That is, if its enemies were not using mass media, popular culture, and public dis-education to peddle lies conjoined with an American public too intellectually lazy to read and think for itself. As a recovering public school teacher, I can attest to the pervasiveness of this mental lassitude.
Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken writes that the Founders’ idea of a militia was not one comprised of “unorganized amateurs”, called up by local authorities, to address insurrection or invasion. Instead, it was to consist of men between a certain age range, proficient in arms, possessing some degree of training in military discipline and tactics, a system of choosing officers, subject to call up by State or local authorities, and under civilian control.5 McMaken’s conclusion is problematic. In the 1740s, the French, perennially at war with England, established a large fort at Louisbourg near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. From there the French threatened New England with invasion and provided safe haven for pirates and “cruisers” who raided its fishing villages and naval commerce. Finding the British unwilling to act, in 1744 New England raised an army of unorganized amateurs including commoners, farmers, merchants, fishermen, and so forth. With little or no experience, these New England boys executed a successful amphibious landing under difficult conditions, besieged the fort for three months, and forced the French to surrender.6 During the French and Indian War, the British could not have defeated the French without the assistance of colonial militia troops, amateur soldiers who fought as local units under American command.7
On 1 October 1768, in a lead up to what became the War of Independence, Britain dispatched 700 troops led by General Thomas Gage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Boston. His orders were to suppress resistance to British commerce, trading, and tax laws.8 A month later (8 November 1768), King George III declared Bostonians to be in rebellion against English law and government. British political and military leaders drew up plans to subdue the insurrection.9 They employed their standard method of subjugation; round up, jail, and execute the rebellion’s leaders and door-to-door searches for arms and munitions in private hands. Colonials often stored gunpowder in storehouses outside of town due to its volatility. In order to prevent the Red Coats from seizing it, locals formed militias to guard them. In Virginia, Patrick Henry led the Hanover Independent Militia Company comprised of armed locals independent of the Governor’s control. They comprised the nucleus of resistance against British forces. Other colonies replicated this strategy.10
In 1774, British soldiers marched from Boston into the countryside to seize colonial supplies of gunpowder and weapons in Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, and Salem. Forty thousand militiamen met the British, called “Bloody Lobsterbacks”, by locals, at Charlestown. These amateurs drove them back to Boston without firing a shot.11 British confiscation of private arms led to the “shot heard round the world”, the British march on Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, to seize arms.12 Among the militiamen awaiting the British attack were farmers, craftsmen, mechanics, gentlemen, laborers, slaves, dairy farmers, and veterans of the French Indian War. Americans gave as good as they got forcing the British back to Boston.13
McMaken contends, “Gun Rights advocates fixate” on the latter part of the Second Amendment, “The people having a right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as the rationale for private ownership of arms separate from militia membership. He asserts the Second Amendment’s purpose was to guarantee that States “would be free to raise and train their own militias as a defense against federal power and as a means of keeping defensive military force available to Americans while remaining outside the direct control of the federal government”.14 He is correct state militias are supposed to be outside federal control but his assertion the militia is the primary focus of the Second Amendment is incorrect. The Second Amendment clearly contains two independent parts that framers could have fashioned into separate amendments. In fairness to McMaken, his purpose was to demonstrate State Militias are to be independent of federal control and that the so-called “National” (sic) Guard is a standing army and a gross violation of the Constitution.
Drafters wrote definitions of a militia into State Declarations of Rights and later into the federal and State Constitutions from 1791 on. They typically refer to “the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms” who would be available for call-up by State or local authorities, and to which was often appended an age range for those subject to service. Founding Fathers from Patrick Henry, George Mason, John Adams to Thomas Jefferson made clear the purpose of the Second Amendment was “that every man” be armed.15 Was this not so that the people would be equipped for militia service if needed? True but only in part. The Founders clearly saw that as an auxiliary advantage. However, the stress was that all men possess the right to keep and bear arms and government in no way have the power to infringe on this right or disarm the people. During debates over ratification of the proposed Constitution (1788) at the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry declared, “The great object is that every man be armed…Everyone who is able may have a gun”. Zachariah Johnson added, “The new Constitution could never result in religious or other oppression because ‘the people are not to be disarmed of their weapons”. Not militias, people. At the Massachusetts’ ratifying convention, Samuel Adams stated, “That the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms”.16 Again, these rights, freedom of speech, religion, and arms belong to individuals, not states or any other form of organized political entity including militias.
Many States, including Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and others specifically state people have an individual right to keep and bear arms and it is not tied to membership in a militia, military, or any form of security force.17 The Founders knew Americans opposed standing peacetime armies (as we have today) and that States were reluctant to cede any of their sovereignty to this new untried federal system of government. They also knew government, like an irresistible force of nature, attracts to it men of ambition, those craving power, and men with no moral scruples. Therefore, they added the militia phrase. States would retain the means to resist federal usurpations of their power and infringement against the liberties of people. Under the proposed Constitution, the federal government, facing a national emergency such as invasion or insurrection, could request the states call up their militias. Governors would send them to federal authorities who in turn would arm, equip, and organize them into a standing army. The States would retain the right to choose officers commanding their militia units. Once the crisis was resolved, militiamen would return to their respective states and mustered out of service. Constitution or not, efforts to “federalize” (actually, “nationalize”) State militias placing them under presidential control began almost at once just as so-called Anti-Federalists had warned.18 The individual right to possess arms was always a separate issue.
English philosopher John Locke’s Treatises On Government were widely read (1689) in the colonies. He argued man had a “natural” (G-D given) right to life, liberty, and property. Inherent in each is the right to the means of defending it.19 Under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.20 Drawing on many widely held philosophical and theological roots; Jefferson wrote that all rights are individual and a gift from G-D. Among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property, wages, and the fruits of one’s labor). Rights imputed by Divinity are inherent in the nature of each individual’s humanity. People are born already possessing these rights. A right to life presupposes a right to the means of defending it.21
The Second Amendment employs the words “right” and “shall not be infringed demonstrating it refers to “a right that is already assumed to exist” (which comports with the Declaration). It does not say, “The people shall have a right to keep and bear arms.” The amendment recognizes but does not grant the right” [emphasis in the original].22 Requirements to join the military, a militia, or engage in a government specified activity in order exercise a right would negate that right. Any regulation, red tape, or hoops one must jump through before accessing a right is a gross infringement and, again, negates it as a right. Governments can in no way qualify a right. No vote by a majority of one’s neighbors to limit a right in any way is legitimate. In addition, people cannot through constitutions or laws, “agree to an infringement on their rights”.23 This is because of the inherency of rights. Only Divinity can alter or abolish rights divinely created. So why does the Second Amendment continue to confound people?
George Mason’s proposed draft of the amendment read, “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state”.24 Madison’s version read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security to a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”.25 Madison, like Mason and other Founders, wanted it understood that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right separate from membership in any form of militia. For example, those objecting to military service on religious grounds, still possessed the right to keep and bear arms. This would not be true had the right been dependent on being in a militia. Madison’s intent “is clear not only from his wording, but also from his notes for his speech proposing the amendment”. He states it pertains to an individual right which his “colleagues clearly understood the proposal to be protective of individual rights”. Massachusetts delegate Fisher Ames wrote that among other rights, that of bearing arms “to be inherent in the people”. Writing under the name “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, Madison’s friend Tench Coxe argued that the delegates wrote the Second Amendment to “guarantee the right of the people to have ‘their private arms’ to prevent tyranny and to overpower an abusive standing army or select militia”. Madison read Coxe’s articles and agreed, the amendment pertained to an individual right.26
So much, did the Founders write about the Second Amendment; its meaning is beyond question. These documents and writings are available to anyone. On what basis can opponents of an individual right interpretation justify their position? Simple. The truth is unimportant. Only the Great Project matters. All narratives, including history, must be made to fit and support it. Like a starfish turning a clamshell over searching for a vulnerability by which to penetrate its defenses, so too do enemies of the Bill of Rights search for weaknesses. They find it in contemporary American’s unfamiliarity with grammatical construction.
It is important to keep in mind, of the Bill of Rights none refers to “States having rights”. Each refers to a right of the people. These are individual rights. To argue the Second Amendment applies only to members of a military organization turns it into a State not individual right. We have clearly seen that was not the Founder’s intention. If the Founders had intended military or militia membership dependency in order to own or possess arms, “Why would they say, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? Madison and those who shaped the amendment’s wording “chose to put the militia reference into a dependent phrase” choosing “the weakest possible construction by using the participle (word formed from a verb) ‘being’ instead of writing say, ‘Since a well regulated militia is necessary…” The militia wording’s weak form demonstrates its framers listed it as a right of states. “The main independent clause” of the amendment reads, “The people’s right to have guns ‘shall not be infringed”.27
An independent clause is a stand-alone sentence dependent on nothing. The militia part of the Second Amendment forms a dependent phrase. It cannot stand alone by itself containing a subject, verb, and complete thought. Therefore, it is secondary in importance to the main independent clause. The words; “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” would mean what by itself? The words; “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” would mean what without the first part of the amendment? People have a right to keep and bear arms. By reversing this order, the amendment’s drafters made emphatic that the independent clause was its most important part. “The Founders correctly intuited that in a bill of rights (list), the last thing the reader should have ringing in his mind’s ear is the absolute prohibition on infringement of the natural right to own guns”.28
If the Bill of Right’s enemies read America’s founding documents and writings, they know the truth. None of that matters. What does matter to them is total disarmament of American citizens. The Great Project cannot culminate until that happens. Toward that goal, the end always justifies the means.
11 Unlike men and women since the dawn of time, those on the Left are stymied when it comes to determining their sex, of which, there are but the two aforementioned options.
22 As with the Marjory Stoned Man Douglass high school “useful idiots,” Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, et al, the Left cowardly uses kids as stooge props, their youth supposedly giving them and their terribly immature and uninformed rantings an unassailable immunity against critique. Isn’t this what Muslim terrorists do, hide behind children?
33 Martha MacCallum Show, FOX News, 31 December 2019.
44 Sheldon Richman, “Reading the Second Amendment”, The Freeman 2 (February 1998), 112.
66 Marvin Olasky, Fighting For Liberty And Virtue: Political and Cultural Wars in Eighteenth Century America (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, A Division of Good News Publishers, 1995), 93.
1616 Stephen Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Albuquerque, New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 73-75.
1818 Edwin Meese III, Matthew Spalding, and David Forte, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005), 139-143.
2020 Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Experience 1607-1774 (Wadley, Alabama, American Textbook Committee, 1987), 182-183.
2121 Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 1985), ix, 60-63. See also, Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration (Brentwood, Tennessee, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 35-74, 117-118.
2222 Sheldon Richman, “Properly Interpreting the 2nd Amendment” Human Events (June 16, 1995), 16.
According to the more lurid propaganda now circulating, the Virginia National Guard will be going door-to-door, searching homes, seizing firearms, leaving law-abiding gun owners vulnerable to attacks by criminal hordes and organized gangs such as MS-13.
Casey hangs around some odd web sites if he’s seeing that. Despite my extensive reading on firearms policy and law, I haven’t run across claims that will happen. I have seen analyses of ramifications of filed Virginia legislation.
Relax. It’s not going to happen. Probably there’ll be some changes to gun laws, and some long-overdue tightening of statutes that were increasingly relaxed during two decades of Republican rule.
But nobody’s going to be going door-to-door seizing firearms. And any legislation that passes is likely to be quite familiar to Virginia’s 8.57 million residents.
Consider just two major proposals on the table.
So he ridicules the possibility of bans and confiscation, and supports his position by bringing up firearm purchase rationing and the elimination of state firearms law preemption, as if that’s all that’s being proposed.
Let me bring up another bill that was filed. I can’t think of how Casey missed it, given the very subject he mocks: VA Senate Bill 16: Assault firearms and certain firearm magazines; prohibiting sale, transport, etc.. Since the Democrats have the house, senate, and governorship it seems likely this will pass. I hardly expect the senate majority leader to let it die… since Sen. Dick Saslaw himself is the original sponsor.
That bill completely bans several large classes of common firearms. There is no grandfathering. No “buyback” provision to compensate owners for their loss. Casey somehow hasn’t noticed this. What did he think prompted Rep. Don McEachin to say, “Ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law”?
That was no “idle, ill-thought-out comment.” That was a carefully crafted proposal made in a planned interview with a national media outlet, in response to most of the state’s counties and towns announcing that they would not enforce that law if passed.
Sure, afterwards, the governor claimed the bill would be amended to grandfather in existing firearms so long as the owners register them like good little serfs. But 1) it hasn’t been amended, 2) no substitute bill with grandfathering has been filed, and 3) the governor is already budgeting for personnel to enforce SB 16, and for an increased corrections budget for people incarcerated under the proposed — and not even passed yet — gunpeople control laws.
When governor, senate majority leader, and a congresscritter tell us that they are going to try to take guns, tell us how many millions of dollars they plan to spend trying to take guns, tell us how many people they plan to hire to try to take guns, and tell us how much money they expect to spend to imprison those that don’t want their guns taken…
Virginians should take them at their word, Casey’s clumsy attempt at dismissal through obfuscation and misdirection not withstanding.
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Article 1 – The Legislative Branch Section 1 – The Legislature All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Article 1 – The Legislative Branch Section 7 – Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
Bills originating in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives become law immediately, the House and Senate not having a say, and such bills not being subject to veto by the President.
(Italicized text added by ATF fiat.)
I always wondered how the ATF was going to deal with Franklin Armory’s Reformation. That’s the firearm which bypassed existing law by creative design. It appears to be a short-barreled rifle, but — while it has lands — it isn’t rifled; the lands are straight.
But it isn’t a shotgun because it isn’t a smoothbore. Nor is it an Any Other Weapon because it isn’t really concealable, nor does it fit any of the other AOW definitions. Franklin Armory came up with something not envisioned by the crafters of the NFA or Gun Control Act of ’68.
A normal person, yet who for some odd reason does think government should regulate firearms, might think, “Well heck; that’s like a law specifically addressing animal- or wind-powered transport, and along comes the motor car. We need Congress to pass a new law for new gadget.”
Normal people don’t work at the ATF.
Frankly, I expected the ATF to declare it to be concealable and thus an NFA Any Other Weapon, just as they declared bump-fire stocks to be machineguns, bypassing unconstitutionally bypassing Congress. But they’re on a roll now, so…
Without any enabling legislation whatsoever, the ATF has invented out whole cloth a brand new, non-NFA class of firearms.
The GCA/SBS: Gun Control Act Short-Barreled Shotgun.
The ATP Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD) has examined the Reformation firearm for purposes of classification under the applicable provisions of the Gun Control Act (GCA) and the National Firearms Act (NFA). During this examination, FATD determined that the straight lands and grooves incorporated into the barrel design of the Reformation do not impart a spin onto a projectile when fired through the barrel. Consequently, the Reformation is not a “rifle” as that term is defined in the GCA and NFA. 1 Moreover, because the Reformation is not chambered for shotgun shells, it is not a shotgun as defined in the NFA.2 Given these determinations, the Reformation is classified as a shotgun that is subject only to the provisions of the GCA (i.e., it is not a weapon subject to the provisions of the NFA).3
Under the provisions of the GCA, if a Reformation firearm is equipped with a barrel that is less than 18-inches in overall length, that firearm is classified to be a short-barreled shotgun (SBS).4 When a Reformation is configured as a GCNSBS, specific provisions of the GCA apply to the transfer of that firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FPL) to a non-licensee, and to the transport of that firearm by a non-licensee in interstate or foreign commerce.
A whole new class, with whole new rules. They don’t even have forms to address this unlawful, unconstitutional Frankensteinian firearm fiat. Therefore, all sales have been ordered stopped.
Under the GCA, a non-NFA firearm would be subject to just the already burdensome rules: bound book, prohibited persons, background checks, et cetera. No NFA tax stamp.
The GCA/SBS will require special permission — somehow differing from the NFA tax stamp — from the US Attorney General (tell me again how Trump was going to save the Second with his appointees?) not just to purchase, but even to transport your own firearm across state lines.
Hey, why not? The EPA seized power to regulate carbon dioxide. At least they did it by classify exhalations — plant food — as a pollutant, an existing class in existing law.
The ATF is the third chamber of Congress. There is no Constitution.
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Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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