BluegrassBulletin.com

Stand Your Ground Update

When the Bureau of Land Management surrounded Cliven Bundy's ranch in Colorado in an effort to reclaim land upon which he and his family had been grazing cattle for generations, the armed forces of the United States took aim at citizens with their weapons.

Some say that revelations implicating Harry Reid and the Chinese in a plan to use the land for other purposes caused the BLM and the armed agents to stand down.  Not so says the rancher's son.

A show of force was necessary to stop the government seizure and sale of embattled cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's cows, his son said on Sunday, a day after an armed standoff between federal agents and hundreds of Bundy's supporters. [Reuters]

The armed standoff came after a contingent of militia groups headed for the ranch in support of Bundy and in opposition to the military like maneuvers of the BLM and other agents.

Under the Obama administration there has been a rise in the number of states which have created a separate militia unit under the control of the governor alone without any requirement that the  members treat the president as their commander in chief.

Obama is angered by the several State Governors who have reestablished “State Defense Forces.” These forces are described as: “State Defense Forces (also known as State Guards, State Military Reserves, State Militias) in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are not regulated by the National Guard Bureau nor are they part of the Army National Guard of the United States. [Politcalvelcraft.org]

And just how has the president responded in the face of the increase in militia groups, state military units and private citizens having the ability to defend themselves?

President Obama has requested $1.1 billion and the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked for $382.1 million for gun control "to protect Americans from gun violence." [Foxnews]

Is it just me or do you hear echoes of "The Concord Hymn"?

Senator Paul, I Respectfully....Diverge

Rand Paul admonished a group of TEA party patriots to avoid divisive rhetoric and said "we can disagree with the president without calling him names.” [POLITICO]  Rand had recently called upon Ted Nugent to apologize for calling the president a "subhuman mongrel".  Obviously "subhuman" is a racist term.

I agree with Rand that some of the vitriolic rhetoric I hear spoken in private about the president is quite nasty.  And while I also agree with Rand that respectful disagreement will better serve the goals of the TEA party movement than hate speech, I diverge a bit from his viewpoint for this reason.

People resent government officials of any stripe telling them what they can and can't say.  Though there is certainly a level of grace that Rand brings to his debates the rank and file are damned angry over the political correctness that has been rammed down their throats.

They are tired of a president who they perceive as a racist himself.  They are tired of being told that their views on fiscal issues and social issues must reflect a more refined attitude.  They are tired of being told that they must refer to certain lifestyles which they object to in a "neutral" manner rather than spitting out their disdain in coarse and disparaging language.

I don't for one minute think that Rand was trying to control free speech, rather he was trying to elevate the debate to a higher level where logic and facts will win more support than hatred and disgust.  But for a lot of Americans they feel as if the president continues to intentionally hit them on the thumb with a hammer and they want to react with the same language they would use if they did it themselves.

Moreover, as the POLITICO piece above corrected itself to say, A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that one T-shirt worn at the event called Obama a “racist” as if calling the president a racist is somehow off limits for the very people who are called racist on a daily basis.

Obviously any language which refers to another human being in purely racist terms is wrong, and should be avoided, but in a free society the right to say almost anything should be protected, even as the speaker is being condemned as wrongheaded. 

Furthermore, if any description of a person is accurate, then it should be fair game.  If a person is a rapist, the term "sexually challenged" strikes most people as offensive.  If a person is a murderer then treating them as "socially maladjusted" won't meet with much approval among the majority of law abiding citizens.  And if a person is a racist, and there is proof of such, then calling him/her a racist is justified.  But, if calling people "racist" merely because they disagree with you is acceptable among the very people whose actions are racially motivated then we have gotten ourselves into a pickle of political correctness that we need to fight our way out of.  And as we've been told since we were children, sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you.

I agree Rand that we would do better to win the debate over the future of our nation on a level playing field in an environment where reason controlled the outcome, but our battlefield is far from level and reason has given way to provocation.  If you can bring us back, I'm all for it, but for many the fight is not advancing far enough or fast enough to save us.  Though I want to be very clear that I am certainly not urging the same action as Patrick Henry did, I do think that his words shed light on this discussion, if not merely to illuminate the frustration of the people:

[W]hat have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

Here's How To Gain The Right To Arrest Law Abiding Citizens

From the Hartford Courant:

Everyone knew there would be some gun owners flouting the law that legislators hurriedly passed last April, requiring residents to register all military-style rifles with state police by Dec. 31.

But few thought the figures would be this bad.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people, almost certainly at least 20,000 — who have broken no other laws. By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.

"I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register," said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature's public safety committee. "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."

Any doubts as to why you need to oppose any gun registration legislation of any sort that comes down the pike?

How will Connecticut deal with all of the unregistered guns owned by the thousands of new felons they just created?

The problem could explode if Connecticut officials decide to compare the list of people who underwent background checks to buy military-style rifles in the past, to the list of those who registered in 2013. Do they still own those guns? The state might want to know.

So how would the government arrest and detain so many gun owners?  That would be a good subject for conspiracy theorists to discuss, but in reality disarming the people by making them felons isn't really all that hard.  Felons cannot own guns, legally.

In 1763 [General Thomas] Gage was appointed commander in chief of all British forces in North America—the most important and influential post in the colonies. Headquartered in New York, he ran a vast military machine of more than 50 garrisons and stations stretching from Newfoundland to Florida and from Bermuda to the Mississippi. He exhibited both patience and tact in handling matters of diplomacy, trade, communication, Indian relations, and western boundaries. His great failure, however, was in his assessment of the burgeoning independence movement.

Thus Gage is chiefly remembered in the U.S. as the protagonist of the British cause while he served as military governor in Massachusetts from 1774 to 1775. In this capacity, he ordered the march of the redcoats on Lexington and Concord (April 1775), which was intended to uncover ammunition caches and to capture the leading Revolutionary agitator, Samuel Adams who escaped.

As the folks over at Truthaboutguns.com reminded us:

First they came for the ARs
and I didn’t speak out because I had other guns.

Then they came for the high capacity magazines,
and I didn’t speak out because I wanted to keep my guns.

Then they came for all semi-automatics,
and I didn’t speak out because I had a revolver.

Then they came for my revolver,
and I couldn’t speak out because I’d lost my ability to speak.

What Happens In California Comes Here In .....

No doubt you've heard it said that what happens on the west coast happens here in the heartland 10 years later.  Well let us hope and pray that what is happening in Los Angeles county never happens anywhere else.

Residents are complaining that the police, dressed in military armor, have a pattern of behavior "oppressive" to the people they are supposed to be serving.  And as in this case, many times the police raids are based upon "anonymous" tips.

You will recall how law enforcement behaved after the Boston Marathon bombings.  Now, in this video, you will see how an innocent 80 year old man was gunned down in his bedroom.

I've asked these questions of you before, but now you need to be asking yourself again, when will we take back our country?  What will you do?

Here's the 7 minute video that should wake you up.  It is very hard to do damage control once the flood breaks out of its banks.

 

Diane Feinstein Thinks Free Speech Is A Privilege Not A Right

Okay, so Texas schoolbooks are trying to re-write the Second Amendment in the minds of children.  Now, Diane Feinstein is trying to silence anybody, particularly bloggers, from speaking their minds.  How is she doing this?  Well, she says that free speech is a "privilege" not a right. 

Constitution, what constitution? 

The Problem Isn't Republicans, It's The Hated View Of Republicans

EDITORIAL RANT

I was once asked by a news paper editor if I was a Republican, or a TEA partier.  I told him that I prefer to avoid labels because they are over-broad.  I am who I am, think what I want and try to have good reason for what I think always willing to be persuaded, if possible, where I am wrong.

As Emerson once said "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  I would emphasize the word "foolish" in that quote as I do not believe that there is anything inherently wrong in being consistently wise.

I know many people who are registered to vote under different banners who think very much alike on many issues.  The Republicans certainly have no special claim to the "right to life" issue, the "right to bear arms" issue, the right to be free from intrusive government regulations issue or many other issues that are of real concern to people regardless of their party registration.

But listen to the haters and you would think that all Republicans are evil.  Such thinking is over broad, over inclusive and born of a little mind.

Dea Riley, former candidate for Lieutenant Governor with the late Gatewood Galbraith recently posted this to her Facebook page:

Come on Dea.  Do you really think that all persons in the Republican Party openly embrace exclusion, elitism and social categorization?  That we are all radical fascists seeking to impose a specific ideology/theology on everyone, embracing intrusion into individual rights?  That certainly doesn't define me, and neither does it define or describe many of the republicans I know. That is an insult.

But you are in good company.  MSNBC which has turned out to be the great hater of all things republican made up out of thin air a claim that "conservatives" hate bi-racial families. 

My God!  First of all there was no "conservative" backlash last year which the facts prove and which caused MSNBC to amend it's tweet to remove the word "conservative".  But that doesn't cure the problem.

The far left, the liberals in the democratic party and yes, even some of the TEA party liberals who are hiding out under the banner of "constitutional conservatives" hate republicans so much that they refuse to see that we are all individuals, with individual thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

As a republican I still believe in individual freedom, and that is because like our founders I believe that my life is a gift from God and that I am endowed by Him with inalienable rights.

As a republican I still believe that when a government fears the people there is hope for liberty, but when the people fear the government we have tyranny.

As a republican lawyer I defend the constitution every day, which on some days means that I defend the rights of people to do things, and say things with which I might personally disagree, but they have the right to do and say them.

And as a republican I have no compelling desire to see that we control people through a particular theology.  I am a Christian and my faith teaches me that I am to love my neighbor, introduce them to God when the chance arises, but recognize that they operate with free will and their choices are their own.  Do I want everybody to be a Baptist, or a Catholic, or a Methodist, or a Quaker or a Mormon or a Pentecostal?  Of course not.  As a Christian I would like everyone to know and accept Christ and I think the best way to do that is to live what I believe to the best of my ability and introduce them to each other.

But as an American, who believes that people should be free from government dictates as to whether and how they worship, I do oppose the goal of radical Islam to force the world to capitulate to their twisted worship of a pedophile prophet or be killed or enslaved.

And likewise I oppose any effort, by any person or group of persons to enslave people under any ideology, including the disgusting political game that addicts people to government hand outs, destroying their sense of self worth, de-incentivizing them to reach their full potential and thus enslaving them to the masters who they eventually think are the only ones who can provide for them.

The problem in this nation isn't republicans, it's the irrational, unsupportable, off the chart hatred OF republicans.  And THAT my friends is not an accident. 

Hating republicans is not the natural consequence of an honest study of history.  It is not the result of deductive reasoning.  Hating republicans is the cold and calculated strategy of those who wish to fundamentally transform America into the kind of nation our founders and thousands upon thousands of our best and brightest ever since have fought to prevent.

It is unfair to say that all democrats are far left liberals.  It is unfair to say that all republicans are cracker-assed racists.

We are all Americans.  We all have the right to want and pursue different paths to happiness.  But hatred of others is destructive.

You may assign to me a desire to run things by my theology, but only on this one point.  In my view, hatred has no place in America.  I would prefer that we love each other, and all people, as we love ourselves. 

If that was our guiding principle, I believe everything else would fall into place.

Bloggers Get "Institutional Media" Status In Court

From POLITICO:

A federal appellate court ruled Friday that the author of a blog post deserves the same treatment in a defamation case as "institutional media."

The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held unanimously that there is no difference between a journalist for a media outlet and another speaker when it comes to First Amendment protections.

On Friday, Judge Andrew Hurwitz wrote for the unanimous court that, especially in the age of the Internet, the distinction between traditional journalist and other speakers doesn't matter in this case (opinion here).

"The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story. As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable," Hurwitz wrote.

Cases are sometimes "case specific" but this ruling seems to paint with a fairly broad brush.

For those of you who like me believe that free speech must never be squelched, this is good news.

Hmmmmm..... Is New Egyptian Policy A Scary Reflection Of Obama's Plans For America?

When Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt he did so with an iron fist that killed any dissent.  Then the Muslim Brotherhood rioted (with the encouragement of President Obama) and took over the country, installing Mohamed Morsy as the new Brotherhood leader of Egypt.  Then the people rose up and ousted Morsy.

Now the new government, installed after the military removed Morsy, has declared all of Morsy's supporters and the entire Muslim Brotherhood to be "terrorists", vowing to arrest and kill every single on, even women, following a series of attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood which have killed or wounded hundreds.

Egypt may be moving more toward a true democracy, but think about how they are accomplishing this.  They have labled the opposition as "terrorists".

Not too long ago the Obama administration sent out a memo to various law enforcement agencies around the nation.  It was a study funded by his "Department Of Homeland Security".  In the report various groups of people, such as veterans returning to the United States were identified as potential terrorists.

Now think about that.  If the government can label you as a terrorist with the stroke of a pen, then you could be arrested, imprisoned and maybe even executed.

This kinda makes you wonder if the new Egyptian Policy is a scary reflection of our President's attitude.

Has America Gone Crazy?

I offer this for your consideration:

A bearded successful businessman, Phil Robertson, is being castigated for expressing his personal opinion that homosexuals are not acceptable in the eyes of God.

A Clean shaven teacher of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, has spent years calling out homosexuals as being anti-God but receives none of the same treatment.

Actor Chris Noth of “Law and Order” and “Sex and the City” tweeted a call for violence against every member of the TEA Party.

Actress Marg Helgenberger tweeted her opinion that "one can only hope" that members of the NRA get shot.

Another victim of the "knock out" game crime was victimized in Brooklyn, a 33-year-old Jewish woman who was walking down the block with her 7-year-old daughter when she was ambushed by a Black male in his thirties.

And as all of this nuttiness is raging all around us, we once again find ourselves in the midst of the season of remembrance of the day when a crazy world was given the greatest gift next to life itself, when God came to earth in human form and walked among us.

He came in the form of a child, with none of the circumstance of being a king.  He was raised without much ceremony until his time had come and he, through his life and his teachings, led us back into communion with God, a communion we had by our own acts broken, turned away from and had suffered for that sin.

And in that new covenant our original sin was forgiven, we were re-united with God and given a second chance.

How have we behaved?  Are we loving each other?  Are we helping the less fortunate?  Are we trying to abide by God's will for our lives?  Are we trying to bring others into a closer relationship with God?

Do we represent God in our deeds, our words and our own legacy that we create every day?

Or has America gone crazy?

Peace, love, joy, all can be found, not by looking high up on shelves at the mall, not by pecking away on Amazon trying to take advantage of the last minute deals.

All of the things that really matter can be found only when you get down on your knees and ask for them to be shown to you.  And if you ask, you shall receive.

Merry Christmas.

Obama's Chess Game: How Snowden's Leaks Could Spell More Government Secrecy

If anything happens in politics you can bet somebody planned it that way.  When Edward Snowden leaked to the British Press that the US was spying on everybody the reaction was predictable and swift.  From all parts of the political spectrum came calls for tightening security coupled with calls for less spying.

But as the dust around the initial revelation settled more and more information about the extent of government spying became available which of course sent everybody scrambling to put an end to such abuses.  Now however the other shoe has dropped.

The Obama administration has ordered a government-wide reassessment of how almost 5 million Americans have been granted classified information security clearances and whether each person currently approved to see sensitive national security secrets truly has a need for such access.

Clapper asked agencies to perform a top-to-bottom scrub of the teeming rolls of people authorized to access classified information and to remove anyone deemed not to have a so-called need to know. [POLITICO]

At first this may seem like a perfectly good step to take, considering that nobody really knows who is among those 5 million folks.  But consider this.

The Obama administration has been accused of "purging" the military of leaders they don't trust.  While the top to bottom scrub of "people authorized to access classified information" sounds good, might it also eliminate those who are in a position to warn America about further abuses yet to come?

I for one do not thing Snowden is a hero.  I believe he is a criminal.  But what part in a larger chess game might he have played?  Is it possible that Snowden's revelations about the extent of government spying created a "crisis" too good to waste?  Might the outrage over his revelations have provided the Obama administration with exactly the kind of atmosphere they needed in order to put blinders on others who could report on abuses yet to come? 

Many people today say that they do not trust "government".  This is a common expression and one that reveals a core of ignorance.  There is no entity operating on its own called "the government". We are a nation of self governed, a representative republic which functions through the actions of human beings.  Saying that you do not trust "our government" suggests that you do not trust people to govern themselves.

What is I believe a more correct statement would be for these people to say "I don't trust those people who are now in charge of our government".  So in the context of the news that the Obama administration is going to "purge" people from the list of those entitled to know what is going on behind the scenes, might it not be appropriate to ask: "Do you trust Obama to determine who gets to see what he is up to?"

Granted, national security does indeed require some things be kept secret, but since liberty likewise extends at least the same amount of privacy to the rest of us which should be our greater concern, that our privacy is being violated, or that the private actions of those who run our government is protected from view?

In Obama's world it's all a big chess game.  What moves will the King authorize for his own protection?  That's the real question.