As we head into Tisha B’Av, I have a few thoughts. Of course I do. Tisha B’Av is the day we re-feel the lose of the two Temples. The place where G-d said I want to live among you, build me a home. First the Mishkan in the desert, later the two Temples. Tisha B’Av is a 25 hour fast, and there are many customs that accompany the date.
I listened to a very interesting audio show the other day on a Podcast called “Soul Talk”, this episode dealt with the 9th of Av.
The Cliff notes version: It wasn’t about the building, the Temple being destroyed because our behavior had already destroyed was it was about. The core and foundation of it were already weakened by our lack of realization of G-d’s presence within ourselves and others. How we related to ourselves and others. There were 3 key violations that were taking place within the populace at the time. If we sense the presence of G-d within ourselves, how do we relate to ourselves? If we sense the presence of G-d in others, how do we relate to them? The first Temple was destroyed because of 3 cardinal sins, murder, idolatry, and sexual perversion. Murder violates my relationship with others, idolatry violates my relationship with G-d and sexual perversion violates my relationship with myself. It all comes from the feeling is G-d with us? Is he within us? When that’s gone, everything is gone. What hope is there for a world that doesn’t believe in themselves, that doesn’t believe the human being is inherently valuable?
And contained within that, is lack of unity, a lack of cohesiveness. And are we ever there today. The continually changing rules on lockdowns, the stifling of data on actual scientific studies, the denial of information to the American people by big (leftist) corporations is having a horrifying effect on people.
I don’t know if this woman was crazy because she is re-breathing her own CO2, or if her mask fit too tight on her little head. But this woman felt it was her right to attack and mace a couple and their puppy having a little picnic outside in the sunshine and fresh air in a dog park. Why? Because they weren’t wearing masks while they had their little picnic. No one was around them, they were easily socially distancing over the 6 feet outside. Because, you know, safety right? It’s all about protecting lives……by screaming at innocent people, flipping them off and then macing them. Thank goodness neither of them seem to be asthmatic! Poor puppy, only 3 months old. I hope the police find the left wing dingbat and press charges. There is a video. This insane marxist feels entitled to act like this and commit assault in broad daylight. How many others have been so socially conditioned by the MSM #FakeNews to believe they will die and the world will end if free speech isn’t stifled and individuality isn’t stamped out? Masks for all!
Masked Speech
Continuing further with the sense of entitlement we have those that block law abiding citizens from using public roads. Doesn’t matter if they are going to work, an ambulance running a call or taking their kid home from tap dance lessons. We’ve all I’m sure, seen the videos of the peaceful rioters attacking cars breaking windows and pulling the drivers out to be beaten. Heard the terrified people calling 9-1-1 begging for someone to come help them only to be told their city council has given approval for citizens to be attacked and the police will not come. We’ve heard children crying hysterically in the background as their parents are unable to protect them and they know it. And these “peaceful rioters” feel entitled to treat citizens in this manner.
I’m giving you all the tweets the rioter sent out. She feels totally within her rights to do this to another human being. G-d bless the police on this one.
The mob banged on her car, beat her windows, jumped on her hood, screamed at her and threatened the poor woman who just wanted to escape their violence….
As we blocked streets, certain drivers got annoyed and attempted to maneuver their way around us. This particular white woman tried to cut through a gas station. Me and a couple other protestors stood in front of her car and demanded she turn around. Instead she steps on the gas. pic.twitter.com/ODL1Evmmzf
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
Finally cops come but instead of arresting this woman, or asking for her ID, registration, etc., they turn towards us and begin pushing us. We are BEGGING them to arrest this woman who just tried to run over protestors repeatedly. pic.twitter.com/GUP7wWmDBs
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
After about 40 minutes, police FINALLY ask for her ID and she claims she is too scared to give it to them because protestors “might take it”. In the meantime myself and other witnesses give our information to officers. pic.twitter.com/2upyodRSGw
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
After all this time of pushing protestors and protecting this violent white woman, the MPD LET HER DRIVE HOME. Shoving and grabbing protestors who tried to stop her. Police treated us like threats, when she was clearly dangerous.
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
Police didn’t do XXXi. They have never done XXX. Will never do XXX. And will never BE XXX. XXX the police. This is a hate crime. Find this woman.
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
This is exactly why we need to defund MPD. MPD does not protect citizens utilizing their right to protest, they protect a woman who tried to run over protestors. Police DON’T keep us safe. The only thing police are good at is brutalizing Black people. DEFUND MPD.
— Julia Clark🇧🇷 (@Jsc_35) July 26, 2020
She feels, as Rabbi Aaron talked about that the poor drivers are just a means to an end. The rioting thug is allowed to treat people however she wants to show her displeasure and get what she wants. Means to an end.
We’ve probably all seen the video of the peaceful rioters trying to throw smoke grenades into horse trailers on the highway.
I don’t think there is any resolution to be reached with these people. And we aren’t suppose to compromise with evil. I do believe our country is at the edge of a precipice.
I believe our culture has descended into the darkness that is like when we lost the Temples. The 9th of Av isn’t just about grieving the loss of them.
The Jerusalem Talmud states: “If the Holy Temple is not rebuilt in your lifetime, it’s as though it were destroyed in your lifetime.” The commentaries learn from this that the Temple’s destruction is an ongoing event.
I’m feeling the loss, I miss my Synagogue, I miss being in my community, I miss hearing Rabbi teach, I miss a ton of things and it’s all because we are missing the presence of the Beit HaMikdash.
I may have mentioned, just in passing from time to time, that I have serious doubts about much of what we’ve been told about the Wuhan Flu. I may have mentioned, just in passing from time to time that I have serious concerns about the amount of power the government is grabbing based on the latest glop falling out of the mouth of Anthony Fauci who enables and encourages this sort of tyrannical behavior. I may have mentioned, just in passing from time to time that I fear for our future as I see people who will probably never “feel safe” leaving home if they aren’t wearing a mask and everyone around them isn’t wearing one. I have grieved the catastrophic losses farmers have faced having to plow under crops and kill off livestock. I have watched in shock as the government has seized small businesses away from owners, sometimes families that have held on to a business through the depressions only to see it shut down in one swift pitiless swoop. You need government to get a car title, a driver’s license and other transactions. Those services are basically unavailable. You can call and leave messages, you will not be called back. You can make an appointment, however to do that someone has to answer the phone. Your questions will most likely be unanswered unless you might get lucky with a chat bot. Welcome to communism. Long lines for almost non-existent but required government services. Store shelves that are sometimes empty and sometimes stocked have become the norm. And prices? Well, what do people think will happen when a large part of the food crop has been disrupted and wasted, cause, you know, covid and safety. Meanwhile as prices go up, there is massive unemployment because you know, covid and safety. The MSM #FakeNews breathlessly announces “spike in covid cases” and unless it has to do with a Trump rally seems shocked or smugly satisfied depending on how they are spinning that story. Why is this a shock? Darn near every hospital has a “covid testing” program? They will test anyone and everyone. What is interesting to me is the callers to radio shows I’ve heard that said they made an appointment to be tested, went to be tested, waited as long as they could to be tested and left without being tested at all only to be notified later they tested positive. And it has now come out that some facilities are reporting 100% positives, because they haven’t reported any of their negative results. Florida’s COVID Positivity Rate is Skewed – Countless Labs Are Reporting 100% Positivity Rate – Medical Centers Admit REAL Rate is 9% Or Less!
What if, I told you that this whole pandemic is mostly a scamdemic meant to influence the election and seize power? I mean, it’s not like the radical leftists are above lying to try. Russian Collusion anyone? But when frightened with death, it seems people become quite compliant. And with tyrannical governors and mayors threatening people for going out without wearing a mask, or for going to religious services all the while doing the things they deprive their lowly subjects of doing one should really wonder, WTH? Is it just me or is anyone else wondering since the worst of it is suppose to be over, why is Walmart NOW requiring everyone to wear a mask? Cities in the midwest with low infection rates are deciding to force everyone to wear a mask. It’s like a demented game of Simon Says. Massachusetts is considering a permanent mask requirement according to a friend of mine held captive in the state.
Permanent masks? Really?
Now the World Health Organization wants people to quit using nice anonymous cash, and use those nice traceable cards for all purchases. Not that probably half of the US will be upset at being traced. They willing loaded those tracing apps onto their phones. So they can be slapped into lockdown again and again if they were exposed to someone, possibly based on one of those faulty tests?
Deaths were counted as covid because they may have had covid with they finally succumbed to the battle with terminal cancer they had fought for the last 5 years. We will never know the actual death toll.
Remember how “Hands up don’t shoot” turned out to be a lie in the Michael Brown case that set the town of Ferguson Mo on fire? Well, in the rush to judgment in the George Floyd case, it seems a couple of things have been left out of the media narrative. Those things are called facts. Or Did George Floyd Die of a Drug Overdose? A word about this site, I’d never heard of it, a buddy of mine was trying to post some article from unz to facebook, facebook blocks it. At once. So I tried, yep, blocked. Definitely some anti-Semitic content on there, but there was this when I was checking out what kind of a website immediately violates facebook’s delicate sensibilities. Toxicology reports are interesting. So over yet another lie, cities have been burned, people have been murdered, all over a potentially false narrative.
This article is long, really long, but please read it. It’s by Angelo Codevilla who is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor emeritus of International Relations at Boston University. It details the amount of lies, the types of lies and a good reason for why we’ve been fed the lies about the Wuhan Flu. And most importantly, it gives some excellent suggestions for what the remedy could be. Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a “new normal”. Especially not when it has been forced down our throats for no good reason.
The U.S. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) modeled the authoritative predictions on which the U.S. lockdowns were based. Its model also predicted COVID deaths for un-locked-down Sweden. On May 3 it wrote that, as of May 14, Sweden would suffer up to 2800 daily deaths. The actual number was below 40. Whether magnifying this falsehood was reckless or willful, it amounted to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. What justifies listening to, and paying, people who do that kind of science?
Establishing any infectious disease’s true lethality is characteristically straightforward: test a large sample of the population proportionately representative of location, age, sex, race, socioeconomic categories. Follow up with the subjects a month later to add up the rate of infections and learn the results thereof. Period. Today, we still lack this definitive, direct knowledge of COVID’s true lethality because bureaucrats have prevented widespread testing for the purpose of firmly establishing the one figure that matters most. That is because that figure’s absence allows them to continue fearmongering.
In May the Centers for Disease Control, by then discredited professionally (though not, alas, in the mass media), was forced to conclude that the lethality rate, far from being circa 5% was 0.26%. Double a typical flu. The CDC was able to keep the estimate that high only by factoring in an unrealistically low figure for asymptomatic infections—never mind inflated figures for deaths. But the U.S. government, instead of amending its recommendations in the face of reality, tried to hide reality by playing a shell game with the definition and number of COVID “cases.”
The less than honest Fauci
Snippet 2, the solution
Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) Committee on Government Affairs, with oversight over the Centers For Disease Control, can set the record straight about how its relationship with China’s laboratories, with the World Health Organization and with the Chinese government itself has shaped how the U.S. government has dealt COVID. The CDC having grasped enormous powers over American life, the Committee can inquire about the level of expertise it has brought to its task. What, if anything, justifies its claim to scientific management? The Committee can also audit how the CDC’s expenditure of funds and efforts among a variety of political, non-health topics affected its readiness to deal with the recurrence of viruses from exotic places.
Its subcommittee on Oversight and Emergency Management, under Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), himself a physician, is well placed to expose who knew what about the COVID-19 virus, when they knew it, who told the public what, and on what basis. The public has noted with dismay the discrepancy and contradictions about COVID-19 from supposedly medical experts, most prominently by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
And these are only the first two listed. There are more, and they make sense. This needs to happen, and it would be good if it happened this way so that the frightened people will have a chance to see they’ve been lied to by politicians using their fear to control them, and, I would say entrap them. There needs to be a clear message this will never happen again. Otherwise this is going to become the default reaction. They will use fear of health and private businesses will be seized again, unemployed will skyrocket, along with the suicides and cases of domestic violence. Hunger due to mismanagement still faces us. There needs to be criminal prosecution. For the murders committed by #KillerCuomo, and the other governors who shoved Wuhan Flu patients into nursing home.
The CDC recently revised its death rate estimate down to just 0.4 percent.
One percent of counties in the country account for nearly half of all Covid-19 deaths nationally.
Ten percent of counties account for nearly 90 percent of all deaths.
Roughly 30 percent of the counties in the country haven’t experienced a single coronavirus death.
Nearly half of all coronavirus deaths have come in nursing homes.
In many states, nursing homes and assisted living facilities account for far more than half of all deaths—around 80 percent in Minnesota and around 70 percent in Ohio.
#KillerCuomo
I heard on a radio show this morning about an apartment building in Ventura county that locked down a 7 story apartment building containing mostly elderly and behavioral issue tenets. Mandatory testing, and no one allowed in or out, their card keys were instantly deactivated. Sort of like a red flag law of apartment buildings. No consideration was given to how these people were suppose to get food or other necessities of life. Just done with no process or warning. I suspect after the story started hitting national airwaves they reversed direction as the order as automagically been lifted.
I saw a meme on facebook: I asked my doctor when the Covid-19 pandemic would end. He said how should I know, I’m a doctor not a politician!
Yes, we’ve been living with a plague, but it’s a plague of lies and I’m sick of it.
“The American people, Lee wrote Samuel Adams, had not fought the British only to be ‘brought under despotic rule under the notion of strong government, or in the form of elective despotism; Chains still being chains, whether made of gold or iron’. The “Corrupting nature of power’ made it essential for public safety that ‘power not requisite should not be given’ to government and ‘that necessary powers should be carefully guarded”.1
Richard Henry Lee
“America is a system of taxation to which a government is attached.”2
Part 1 covered an article by conservative journalist Daniel McCarthy wherein he rebutted liberal solutions to Public Mass Shootings (PMS). He hit the right chords at first but then notes turned sour. McCarthy tied private ownership of firearms to membership in a militia under strict State control. He contends the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) “inspired” the Second Amendment. He adds a reason to keep arms is to maintain a well-regulated militia “under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil power” dismissing as “right-wing folklore” claims the Amendment’s authors in any way intended it to support citizen uprisings against a tyrannical government i.e. Shay’s Rebellion.3 Stephen King writes in Danse Macabre that Bram Stoker’s Dracula inspired his novel Salem’s Lot, an homage to Stoker. However, King’s novel is wholly his own and the narrative quite different.4 McCarthy’s problems are more serious than errant extrapolation.
Article III of the Virginia Declaration of Rights written by George Mason reads, “That a well regulated militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to Arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free State; that standing Armies, in Time of Peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty” [emphasis and spelling in the original].5 Regardless of inspiration, Virginia’s Declaration of Rights is not the Second Amendment. In addition, local autonomous militias pre-existed declarations and constitutions.
Colonial survival, especially in outlying villages and settlements, required individuals possess and be skilled with arms long before the Revolution. For the most part, Americans did not acquire skill at arms serving in militias or in standing armies.5 No army or police force existed to protect colonists from criminals or against attacks by the French and their Indian allies. When British Royal Governors began seizing the firearms and ammunition of colonials, Virginians George Washington, and George Mason formed the Fairfax County Militia Association. It was a ground up not top down unit. Enlistment was voluntary. Each member had to supply his own weapons and ammunition and they chose officers through election.6
Mason shed light in 1775 on the meaning of militia noting a “well regulated militia” was comprised of “Gentleman, Freeholders, and other Freeman”. Its purpose was to “protect ‘our ancient Laws & Liberty’ from a standing army” [emphasis and spelling in the original].7 For Mason and many of his contemporaries, a standing army, whether British or American, national or state, was a threat to liberty. Mason wrote, “All men are by nature born equally free and independent”. The greatest threat to liberty was government in all its forms. He defined a “well-regulated” militia as the whole of the people, possessed of arms, who formed and organized themselves into “independent companies” prepared to “resist the standing army of a despotic state”.8 Founding Father Richard Henry Lee observed a militia could only consist of the people as a whole. If it was organized and maintained in continual service, it would constitute a “select militia” no different from a standing army in peacetime a practice that the Founders, for the most part, abhorred.9
Americans and political leaders universally viewed the individual right to keep and bear arms, and the right of States to call up a militia, as two separate issues neither dependent on the other. Beyond the Founder’s hope that Americans would maintain their precision with arms, the right to keep and bear arms had/has nothing to do with membership in a militia. If states called on the people to form a militia, prior experience with arms would lessen the time to train them.10 Had the Founders known future Americans would manufacture confusion concerning the Second Amendment’s meaning, they might have bifurcated it into two separate amendments. Why didn’t they? At the time State delegates ratified and then amended the Constitution, there was no confusion with respect to the right to keep and bear arms. It was an individual G-d given right. Some delegates opposed adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution as superfluous. States delegated specific authorities to the federal government enumerating them in Article I, Section 8. Government cannot regulate activities or rights over which it has no authority. The States delegated to the federal government no authority to regulate the right to keep and bear arms. For it to do so is unconstitutional. Various state delegates argued to declare that people have an individual right to keep and bear arms was akin to declaring people breath air.11
Part 2 explained the so-called “Shay’s Rebellion” in Western Massachusetts was used by proponents of a strong national government, who wanted to jettison the Articles of Confederation, as a boogeyman to whip up fear among Americans that the nation was falling apart. Like public schools today, merchants of mendacious propaganda told Americans then that landless rabble, thieves, bandits, and poor hardscrabble farmers deeply in debt had formed a violent mob and marched on Boston to overthrow the state government. If successful, the rebels would have freed men in debtor’s prisons, erased public and private debts, and seized the land of the rich to divide among themselves. This story is problematic to say the least.
Shay’s was actually several rebellions led for the most part by leading men in their communities. They were patriots, Revolutionary War veterans, political and religious leaders, landowners, and men of means.12 They called themselves “Regulators” organized into militias to halt depredations committed against them by the corrupt government in Boston controlled by a coastal banking and commercial aristocracy.13 Only three years prior (1783), Americans had concluded a war against Great Britain based on similar offenses. It is incongruous that leading Founding Fathers then and textbook authors today, fail to see the parallels and similarities.
Daniel McCarthy is a credentialed well-established journalist writing for conservative and Libertarian publications. It is unfortunate he dismisses as “right-wing folklore” the notion the Founders intended the Second Amendment support a Shay’s-like rebellion. They certainly did. If the federal and or State governments commit crimes against the people’s rights, they have but two choices, submit or resist. The Left employs the labels “right-wing” and “far-right” equally to the former Nazi Party, Ku Klux Klan, and their modern iterations. They also apply it to patriots from Ronald Reagan to Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, the antithesis of such groups. Although their motive should be obvious, regrettably such a malicious and deceitful practice works in post-literate America. How disappointing a learned man like McCarthy would follow suit. Was Shays’ Rebellion emblematic of anarchy, lawlessness, and chaos verging on destroying America or, were their actions an embodiment of the spirit that sparked and guided the Revolution of 1776? Is it possible to find support for the rebellion in the Founder’s writings?
The Federalist Papers are not part of the Constitution nor do they necessarily reflect majority opinion among America’s Founders. They are a collection of polemics in support of ratification of the proposed Constitution (1787). Its author’s opinions represent a spectrum spanning desires for a strong national government with states as appendages, Hamilton and to a lesser extent, Madison, to true Federalists like John Jay.14 Nevertheless, with respect to resisting government tyranny, they represent commonly held views among Americans.
Hamilton and his allies adopted the name Federalists but they were actually nationalists. They sought to extinguish state autonomy and sovereignty in favor of a central unitary government much like that in England. Hamilton believed the English system was the best of all. Others, like James Wilson of Pennsylvania, were Federalists but recognized Hamilton’s plan to destroy state sovereignty would also destroy the Constitution hence supported creation of a federal system of government. The central government would have authority over international relations, trade, war, and functions only a central government could execute. States would retain all other functions and authorities, sovereign in their own sphere. Both nationalists and true Federalists supported the right of the people to overthrow their own government should it become oppressive, tyrannical, and destructive to their liberties.
In Federalist 28, Hamilton writes there exist circumstances in which the “national” (sic) government may “resort to force”. They would include “seditions and insurrections” that are “maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body…” He also refers to uprisings in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.15 However, Hamilton addresses circumstances in which the people have a legitimate right to rise up against their rulers. He observes, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government…” Hamilton adds that self-defense (armed resistance) against a “national” (sic) government offered greater “prospects” for success than against an “individual state”.16 Whether resistance to a federal or state government would likely be more successful, Hamilton affirms the right of the people to rise up against a tyrannical government. Only an armed people could execute such an undertaking.
Hamilton condemns those who betray the people’s liberties as “usurpers”. Although people might organize for armed resistance, “usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo”. Hamilton argues states should be in charge of organizing and executing the resistance not local militias raised by the people. This is because the states would have more arms and larger forces to resist a federal army.17 However, suppose States, not the federal government, commit usurpation against the people’s liberties. Did Hamilton forget that the people of their respective states raised their own local militias to oppose the State Militias controlled by Royal Governors? He explains the methods by which states can organize in cooperation with each other to resist “invasions of the public liberty” by the central government. Even if a federal army quelled resistance in one state, others states would respond “with fresh forces”.18 Strategies and methods aside, Hamilton establishes that States have the right to raise an army to resist usurpation of their powers by the federal government. The people possess the same right against their respective states. Is Shays’ Rebellion a great departure from this principle? Hamilton, nor anyone else, argues people have a right to arm and rise up against government over pet peeves or perceived injustices. The standard justifying resistance is gross violations of the Bill of Rights and suppression of the people’s liberties by government with no possibility of redress.
Critics of the proposed Constitution warned the federal government might turn its power to call up, organize, and equip state militias against the states turning militias into a federal army. Hamilton addressed this possibility in Federalist 28.19 He conceded in times of extreme emergency (invasion by a foreign power, insurrection) the federal government would need to call up and train state militias because such training allows them to act in concert. However, it would not be the same as raising, organizing, equipping, and disciplining a federal standing army. To do so would be futile requiring too much time in the face of an immediate threat. It was not feasible to take the “yeomanry” far from their towns and farms long enough to transform them into professional soldiers. If the federal government called up State militias, the latter would be responsible for arming, equipping, and choosing their officers. The federal government would train and subject them to military discipline. The point is militias come from the people. If harnessed for a national purpose in times of extreme emergency, their loyalty remains to their respective states. Once the crisis had passed, the federal government returns militias to their states. This would create a trained body of armed people large enough to oppose a standing federal army should one attempt to suppress the states. Hamilton wrote that militias were the “best possible security” against a standing army. For any of this to be remotely feasible, the people would have to retain their own arms.20
In Federalist 46, James Madison noted, “Ultimate authority wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone” and not in the federal or state governments.21 If the federal government attempted to expand its “power beyond due limits” at the expense of states, the “latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments”. The States would resist the federal government by force. Even if the latter had the resources to raise powerful standing armies, states would always possess a greater resource in the number of citizens within their boundaries. State militias would outnumber a federal army.22 He added that Americans possessed a great advantage over all others in the world; whether the threat came from federal or state governments, the people are armed. In America, all government is “subordinate to the people” and the people are ultimately the masters of the militia because they are the militia.23
The Founders are clear. People have an individual right to keep and bear arms independent of membership in any form of militia or military unit. States have a right to resist, by force, federal usurpation of State rights and Constitutional liberties. The people retain the same rights with respect to both. Why do some attempt to tie firearms ownership to service in a quasi-professional militia or “national” (sic), State guard? Perhaps they do not trust the common man to be the master of his affairs including responsibility for his safety. People buying, building, and selling arms sans government oversight frightens them. What you smell is the aroma of elitism that permeates all aristocracies, economic, political, or professional. They have never trusted the Great Unwashed with freedom. To the elite, for anyone to claim people have the right to keep and bear arms, as a defense against the federal and state governments is unthinkable. Nevertheless, that is how this nation was born.
11 Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate The Constitution, 1787-1788 (New York N.Y., Simon & Schuster, 2010), 67.
1010 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. Sheldon Richman, “Properly Interpreting the 2nd Amendment”, Human Events (June 16 1995), Halbrook’s The Founder’s Second Amendment, 221, and Gary A. Shade, “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: The Legacy of Republicanism vs. Absolutism”, at https://www-firarmsandliberty.com/papers-shade/TheRightToKeepAndBearArms.Pdf
1212 Leonard L. Richards, Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 43-62.
1414 Kevin R. C. Gutzman, J.D., Ph.D. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution (Washington, D.C. Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007), 15-28.
1515 Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, The Federalist (Birmingham, Alabama, Library of American Freedoms, Palladium Press, 2000), 170-171.
What follows is the author’s personal opinion, not that of The Zelman Partisans.
There is no rule of law.
Dictators shut down states for the common cold.
States are violating the Constitution and federal laws, and the Supreme CourtClown Show says, “So what?”
What we do have is mob rule. Let’s look at that last one.
Mob commits breaking and entering.
Mob trespasses.
Disturbing the peace.
Vandalism.
Circuit Attorney calls all that First Amendment “peaceful protest,” and threatens the innocent homeowners.
Perhaps there’s a lesson there for us honest folk to take to heart in dealing with these governmental scumsuckers…
Or not. I think we’re past the point of no return. Anything we do to defend freedom is just a delaying action.
delaying action
noun Military.
a maneuver in which a defensive force delays the advance of a superior enemy force by withdrawing while inflicting the maximum destruction possible without engaging in decisive combat.
But such is necessary if anyone who still values freedom is going to get out. Pockets of resistance that still value individual rights may be able to hold out against the darkness. Maybe the survivors can rebuild after the societal collapse. They’ll need something better than the Constitutional failure as framework.
And those thoughts caused me to remember something I wrote a couple of decades ago. I’m going to dust it off and re-post it here. Maybe some free survivor will remember it when the time comes.
This was thought experiment, inspired by L. Neil Smith’s Covenant of Unanimous Consent. It was meant to address the issues of “abandoned polity,” and the lack of a formally designated arbitration system raised in his novel Pallas.
ARTICLES OF INDIVIDUALS
Whereas we wish to establish that individuals can only be ruled by themselves individually, and that the only acceptable role of government is advisory in nature, we ally in common interest as individuals and accept these articles, and establish ourselves as the Confederacy.
Article I. Statement of Principles
1. No individual, group of individuals, or other organization has the right to initiate force or coercion against another person for any reason.
2. All individuals have the right and responsibility of self defense, by any means they deem necessary, against initiated force or coercion.
3. All individuals are encouraged, but not obligated, to aid other individuals in their defense against initiated force or coercion.
4. All rights are individual rights, neither collective nor additive, and those rights are any and all necessary to allow individuals to live their lives as they see fit, regardless of age, gender, race, or any other distinguishing criteria.
5. All individuals have the sole responsibility for their actions in exercising their rights, and the responsibility to accept that all other individuals possess the same rights.
6. All individuals must strive to be independent, self-supporting, and responsible for their own actions.
7. While charity is encouraged, no individual, group of individuals, or other organization is entitled to support by any other; the sole exception being that any parent or guardian must accept the responsibility of caring for all children whom he or she has parented or voluntarily chosen to act as parent or guardian for, until such time as the child can be reasonably expected to assume for his or her own self the rights and responsibilities of an independent individual, or until he or she voluntarily chooses to accept those rights and responsibilities.
Article II. Limits of Authority
1. All authority resides within individuals, and extends only to the originating individual and any other individual voluntarily accepting that authority.
2. The Confederacy as a whole has no authority.
3. The Confederacy as a whole may take on only those functions specifically and explicitly delegated to it by these articles.
4.The Confederacy as a whole is forbidden to collect taxes, tarrifs, duties, or fees of any kind.
5. The Confederacy as a whole is forbidden to license or regulate any activity.
6. The Confederacy as a whole is forbidden to raise or maintain any military or police force.
7. The Confederacy as a whole has no executive, legislative, regulatory, or judicial authority except that specifically delegated to it by these articles.
Article III. Arbitration
1. Individuals, or groups of individuals, unable to otherwise settle any dispute are encouraged to employ a neutral party as an arbitrator.
2. An arbitrator is any individual who chooses to referee a dispute. He or she may choose to charge a fee for arbitration services.
3. Arbitration may be binding or nonbinding as agreed to by all parties to the dispute. In the event that any party to the dispute chooses not to participate in the arbitration process, the arbitration is nonbinding.
4. An arbitrator may conduct the arbitration proceedings in any manner he or she wishes, so long as it is consistent with these articles.
5. No decision by any arbitrator shall be used as a binding precedent for any other proceeding. But any arbitrator privy to the results of any arbitration may choose to take said results under advisement.
6. No individual is required to be a member of the Board of Arbitrators in order to act as an arbitrator.
7. In the event that any party to dispute is not satisfied with the arbitrator’s decision, a second arbitrator, whose fee if any shall be paid by the first arbitrator, shall be engaged to conduct new arbitration proceedings. Any binding decision rendered by the second arbitrator is final, with no further appeal.
Article IV. Board of Arbitrators
1. The Board of Arbitrators is the only entity allowed to represent the Confederacy as a whole. While so acting, the Board has no binding authority over the Confederacy as a whole or any individual. While representing the Confederacy as a whole, the Board has only an advisory role. This advisory role may be filled by any one member of the Board or by any number of members, up to and including their entire number.
2. The Board of Arbitrators shall consist of any individual wishing to act as an arbitrator in accordance within these articles, and who agrees to share in the financial support of the Board’s required activities. The Board is forbidden to obtain financial support from any entity not a member of the Board.
3. The required activities of the Board are:
To maintain a permanent record of all proceedings in which the Board represented the Confederacy as a whole. All individuals in the Confederacy will have unrestricted access to these records.
To main a permanent record of all arbitration proceedings conducted by members of the Board. Access to each of these records is limited to the records archivist selected by the Board, the arbitrator, all parties to the dispute, and anyone granted access by any party to the dispute.
To publish a public directory of all member arbitrators, to aid individual desiring arbitration in locating an arbitrator.
To maintain a permanent public register, by name only, of any individual signatory to these articles who wishes the Board to so record.
Article V. Inviolability of Articles
These Articles of Confederation may not be added to, subtracted from, modified, or otherwise amended without the unanimous consent of all living individuals signatory to these articles.
Statement of Consent
We accept all rights and responsibilities laid out in these Articles of Confederation.
/signed by each individual/
________________________________________________
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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Contrary to Alan Korwin, [American Handgunner, July/August 2020] Thomas Jefferson got it right. When I taught government, I explained to students the Declaration represented the accumulated political and religious wisdom and philosophy relevant to the American cause. It was a religious, not secular Libertarian document. For centuries, monarchs and emperors had employed Romans 13: 1-2 as justification for the notion of an unquestioned Divine Right to rule. Through the Declaration, the Founding Fathers established the principle rights are G-d-given, rather than privileges dependent on royal prerogatives. Rights are inalienable due to their divine origin and not dependent on one’s title or the force he commands. No people before had established their own government instead of the other way around. It should be common sense the Founders knew rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were not extant. Inalienable rights are those which government cannot separate from people. As long as one person still draws breath, these rights exist. By declaring rights inalienable, Jefferson established the ultimate goal for which nations should strive. In naming those rights, he established a template by which Americans specifically, and nations as a whole, could judge their progress toward that goal. Jefferson knew future generations would hold the Declaration up to determine their progress on that journey. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “got it” when, in 1963, he declared at the Lincoln Memorial, people of color had come to collect on the Declaration’s promissory note of inalienable rights. It is too bad Alan Korwin doesn’t get it.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
That is it; “to secure these rights”: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of happiness, I’ll emphasize; not a guaranteed outcome of achieving it.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, 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.
Not clear enough yet?
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Let’s look at some of the specifics that sufficiently angered Jefferson et al to throw off a government.
