BluegrassBulletin.com

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.

Beshear Throws Kentucky Under The Bus?

That's the headline at Hot Air.  Here's their reasoning:

There are some interesting goings on to watch in Kentucky this year, mostly centering on the “centrist” Democrat Governor, Steve Beshear. Some little birds in local politics have whispered in our ears, indicating that Beshear is looking for a place to land after [his term is up] and is hoping for an appointment in Washington from Barack Obama. Of course, that’s a bit different face than the Governor showed after winning his last election, when he promised a lean government, an ability to work with Republicans and distanced himself from Obama as much as possible.

But that was then and this is now. With an eye to the future, one would think that Beshear and Barack Obama are BFFs after the State of the Union address where he was singled out for his excellent work on Obamacare.

Not only that, with the threat of election defeat behind him, Beshear has also been reaching out to the EPA, with policies on the table which are very dangerous to the coal economy of Kentucky.

This all certainly seems very convenient for Governor Beshear in terms of cozying up to the White House and getting a high profile shout out at the SOTU. And it may just land him a job further down the line. But what happens to the people of his state who are left behind? They get stuck with the wreckage of Obamacare and more jobs leaving the state as the EPA decimates the energy industry there.

The leopard seems to be changing his spots rather quickly here. Keep this name in your Google search drawer and remember this if he shows up with a plush new job in the Obama administration.

Oh, and add to the pot the political capital Beshear is struggling to capture for himself by helping Obama defeat the strongest opponent of his runaway socialist agenda, Mitch McConnell.

Beshear has to be calculating into his future what he could score for himself if Alison Lundergan Grimes becomes the reliable vote for Obama that Michelle said she would be.

Don't for one minute think that these parasites aren't in it for themselves.

I May Switch Parties

I am a fourth generation Kentucky Republican.  My wife's family have been republicans since the Civil war.  I've devoted myself to the cause of the Republican party over my entire life.  But I'm about to tell them, enough is enough.

Congress is celebrating the upcoming vote in favor of the likely passage of the Farm Bill.  Once again the GOP is bought and paid for by big business.  Here's just one little straw they added to my back.

Congress‘ mammoth farm bill restores the imposition of an extra fee on home heating oil, hitting consumers in cold-weather states just as utility costs are spiking.

The fee — two-tenths of a cent on every gallon sold — was tacked on to the end of the 959-page bill, which is winding its way through Capitol Hill. The fee would last for nearly 20 years and would siphon the money to develop equipment that is cheaper, more efficient and safer, and to encourage consumers to update their equipment.

It’s just one of dozens of provisions tucked into the farm bill, which cleared the House on a bipartisan 251-166 vote last week and faces a key filibuster test in the Senate on Monday. It is expected to survive and face final passage Tuesday before heading to President Obama’s desk.

Taxpayer groups say the bill could increase spending over the previous version and that it’s crammed with favors for individual lawmakers, such as rules legalizing industrial hemp.

The heating oil fee was backed by Northeast lawmakers who said it would fund important research to benefit consumers. [Washington Times]

Forget the fancy hemp provisions that somehow have blinded the rest of my fellow Kentuckians into falling in line behind the farm bill.  And put aside the slam to those of us who use heating oil.  Do you know what the farm bill really is?

[T]he bill’s main budget attribute is that it ratifies the huge recent increase in food stamp spending. The House bill had proposed trimming a modest $39 billion (5 percent) from food stamps, but Republican leaders caved in and agreed to just a token 1 percent trim in the final bill.

The farm bill is far too costly. George W. Bush vetoed the 2008 farm bill because it “would needlessly expand the size and scope of government.” Unfortunately, Congress overrode his veto and enacted that bill, costing $640 billion over 10 years. Today, the House is considering a farm bill that would cost taxpayers $940 billion over 10 years — 47 percent more than the one that even big-spending President Bush couldn’t stomach.

Food stamp costs have exploded. About four-fifths of the cost of the farm bill is for food stamps.

Farm subsidies are reverse Robin Hood.Farm subsidies even go to millionaire farmland owners such as Mark Rockefeller and Ted Turner.

Subsidies are very concentrated. Although politicians love to discuss the plight of small farmers, the vast majority of farm subsidies go to the largest farms. In recent years, the biggest 10 percent of farm businesses have received three-quarters of farm subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Farm programs harm free trade.

Farm subsidies are scandal-prone. As in all federal subsidy programs, a substantial share of farm subsidies are wasted on fraudulent and improper payments. Subsidies also go to farmers who haven’t suffered substantial losses. [CATO]

Now back to the heating oil tax.  I don't think that many of my republican elected officials have any sense whatsoever of the plight of millions of their countrymen.  I know many people trying to live on less than $700 per month.  That's TOTAL INCOME!

Out of that they have to pay rent, or a mortgage payment, utilities, taxes, insurance if they can afford it, food, gasoline, car repairs, medical expenses, pharmacy expenses, clothing and all of the other things needed to survive in this world today.  They do it on less than $700 per month. 

Do you Republicans have any sense whatsoever of how hard it is for those people to survive?  They are your grandmothers, your disabled brother, your neighbor.  They are human beings and they are struggling while the big businesses, like big agriculture, are getting billions in support.

Yes, the farm bill does indeed fund food stamps.  And that is a help to some, but the next time you have a minute, go to Walmart, watch a family of illegals push two or three shopping carts piled to spilling over up to the checkout and pay for it with their food stamp card.

And then watch as the hard working guy with a paycheck struggles to pay for a few items in a nearly empty cart out of his earnings.  Why is this wrong?

Because the money for food stamps isn't really helping all the poor.  Not all of them qualify for food stamps.  I know many people who own their homes who don't qualify but are trying to pay for everything else on a pittance.  And now you want to tax their heating oil, in the middle of this cold winter, to fund research?

Bullship!  That research money is going to go to some of the well connected who will spend it to conclude that we need to give the government control over thermostats, or that we need tighter emission controls on furnaces in order to force people to buy new furnaces, a ploy by the furnace makers, or some other cockamamie pop culture idea that will either result in fewer freedoms or be swept into a dust pan with all the other wasted money we spent researching how the government can make life better.

If any one of our Kentucky republicans votes for the farm bill with this level of spending and with this heating oil tax in it, you will disgrace our Commonwealth and our party.

Get over yourselves.  What you do hurts real people.  Forget the rich donors for once and be human again.

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.

Have You People Lost Your Freaked Out Minds?

Rational thought cannot explain what is going on in the world of politics today.  It's as if the American people have been dosed with seconal and mentally kidnapped.

The liberals are engaged in a perpetual rant that the republicans have waged a war on women.  This ridiculous claim is grounded primarily in the lie that only republicans oppose abortion.  Lots of people oppose abortion including many, many democrats.  But not all democrats.

Al Gore, one time democratic presidential nominee, is now calling for "fertility management", specifically in Africa, to control global warming.  Do you not know what he is saying?  This is right out of the Margaret Sanger eugenics playbook.  It's about forced population control, particularly among the dark skinned people of the world.  Snap out of it!  Remember what she said:

"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."

Pro choice my ass.  Isn't having a child a choice?  Isn't having as many children as you want a choice?  What are you people who support these loons thinking?

They are the ones who have an evil plan for the world.  They are the ones with a racist plot to limit the number of dark skinned people in Africa through "fertility management", and for what?  For their phony chicken-little screech about global warming?  It is now and always has been a front for controlling people.  How is it that my friends in the democratic party can't see this?

Is it because you have been mesmerized into thinking that George Bush was the great evil of our lifetime?  For God's sake wake up!

You allowed yourselves to be cursed with tunnel vision and believed that "The Bush Doctrine" was a one dimensional description of a war monger president who claimed the right to launch "pre-emptive strikes" even in nations that were no direct threat to the United States.  Forget for a minute that "The Bush Doctrine" was not the over simplistic concept that Charlie Gibson was high-fived about when he sneered at Sarah Palin.  Stop to look at how much farther than even what you THOUGHT George W. Bush was planning your own president is going in his slobbering lust for power:

In a video posted Wednesday at the Right Scoop, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Senators the administration would seek UN or NATO approval for the deployment of U.S. forces overseas while deciding whether or not it would seek approval from Congress.

The statement shocked Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who asked Panetta if he could "initiate a no-fly zone in Syria" without Congressional approval.

"Again, our goal would be to seek international permission and we would ...come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress - I think those are issues we would have to discuss as we decide what to do here," Panetta said.

"Obama is bypassing Congress every chance he can to do whatever he wants. He did it in Libya and then never complied with the War Powers Act, and I’d expect he’d do that again. He is a totalitarian, it’s just that simple," notes the Right Scoop.[Examiner]

And the world of the crazy left in the media centers went all ape-ish over comments by Mike Huckabee in a speech to the Republican National Committee.  Huckabee said that "no co-pay" birth control is an affront to women suggesting to them that they can't get by "without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government."

But Al Gore can call for the imposition of "fertility management" on an entire continent of Africans and the world just sits there blinking and nodding and drooling a little bit?

Have you people lost your ever loving freaked out minds?

Just go on, watch another reality TV show, buy what they are selling you, run up your credit cards, pretend that political debate and the future of our country are matters too far beyond your control to be bothered with, hope and pray that your unemployment gets extended, take advantage of every government benefit that comes your way and lay down on your face with your hands behind your head whenever you are told to do so.  It's all going to be okay.  Here's your medicine.

Now get off my lawn.

Obama Takes It To McConnell At Home

Don't think for one minute that Barack Obama wouldn't like to have complete control of the government.  He said as much in his speech last night vowing to take action with or without Congress.  But to make the point even more emphatically he gave a shout out to Democrat Steve Beshear in Mitch McConnell's home state.

Mitch has been the single most effective check on a runaway Obama administration and anything the president can do to elevate Kentucky democrats in his effort to defeat McConnell and replace him with Alison Lundergan Grimes, who the FLOTUS has already dubbed "a reliable vote" for their plans to fundamentally transform America, he's going to do.

I mean come on, you don't really think that patting Beshear on the head was a sincere gesture of accomplishment now do you?  Beshear did fall in line right behind Obama on the socialized medicine plan, but spreading favor to Kentucky has much more to do with helping clear the field for his next three years than raising the political capital of a lame duck governor.

Pay attention folks.  The president wants complete control and he won't get it as long as we have Mitch in office.  Like it or not, no one else on the R side or the D side of the ticket can possibly be as effective, and that's just a fact.

Now The Brits Want To Make Knives Illegal

The growing nanny state of Britain is about to move backward toward the days of total tyranny. 

A group associated with West Middlesex University Hospital is proposing a ban in the British Medical Journal on pointy kitchen knives as unnecessary from a culinary standpoint and downright dangerous from a crime standpoint.

The proponents of the ban insist that the ready availability of pointy kitchen knives are fueling injuries, particularly in cases involving alcohol and drugs where they are used as weapons.

[T]he French ordered table and street knives ground smooth in the 17th Century and that blunt kitchen knives were decreed in England in the 18th Century. [Turley]

Soon there will be a call to ban sticks, and stones and require all persons to wear gloves on their hands and hold them above their heads at all times. 

Oh, and don't forget the need to ban harsh words.  You know how badly they can hurt.

Government Cartoon Training Children To Submit

When the communists in the 50's vowed to take over America without firing a shot they focused on indoctrinating the next generations with propaganda via the schools and universities.  The technique has now re-educated our nation into being very much more accepting of socialism and other government controls.

The same techniques are now being used to make children more compliant with government intrusions into their personal privacy and away from the concepts embodied in the Fourth Amendment and the remainder of the Bill of Rights.  Here is just one example of how kids are being taught to think.  Removing distrust of government and teaching submission to government are the lessons of this cartoon.

 

Pandering, Profiting And Politicizing On The Back's Of Kentucky's Unemployed

The U.S. Senate democrats led by the words of Barack Obama and now many democrats in Kentucky have begun trying to build a voter block on the backs of the unemployed.  In a nation which at one time stood for unbridled opportunity and the land of prosperity, this is a shameful display of inhumanity.

Let's face facts.  The agenda, the decisions and the actions of Barack Obama, aided by a complicit U.S. Senate, have all combined to worsen the living conditions of millions of Americans since he took office in 2009.

There Are 7.7 Million Americans Who Are Currently Working Part-Time Because They Can’t Find Full-Time Employment. 

27 Percent Of Unemployed Americans Have Been Unemployed For A Year Or More – Up From 11 Percent When Obama Took Office In 2009.

The “Real” Unemployment Rate, Including Those Who Have Given Up Looking For Work Or Are Involuntarily Working Part-Time, Is 14.6 Percent In Kentucky. The Real Unemployment Rate In Kentucky Was 12.6 Percent When Obama Took Office In 2009.

The Labor Force Participation Rate Is 63 Percent – Down From 65.7 Percent When President Obama Took Office In 2009. [Bureau Of Labor Statistics]

In other words, the Obama administration, pursuing his policy agenda for America, with the help of the U.S. Senate democrats have made matters far worse for America's workers since he took office in 2009 and now they want to paint the picture as if "they" are out to help the unemployed by extending benefits.

Look, get the teat out of your mouth and think for a minute.  If they really wanted to help they would stop bankrupting the country and playing politics with the future of Americas middle class, get off the backs of businesses and working people and let this economy flourish creating REAL jobs, not made up government paychecks sent to potential voters.

You don't think that the democrats are essentially buying votes with this behavior?  Well, Candy Crowley at CNN has virtually admitted that they are.

CANDY CROWLEY: If I am an unemployed American and I hear from Republicans that, “Yeah, you know, we should go ahead and do that provided we do the following three things,” and it’s a caveat approval of extending those [unemployment] benefits, or if I am a minimum wage worker and I find, I see Republicans who say, “You know what? It's artificial, it messes with the marketplace, it might mean some teens can't get into the job market,” why would I become a Republican? How do you message that in any way to reach out to those who are disinclined to sign up for the Republican Party?

Doesn’t Crowley know that she indicted the Democratic Party as one that is basically buying votes?

So folks that are currently unemployed or on minimum wage must support politicians that promote policies that hurt the very job creation that might lead to them having better lives?

And if Republicans aren’t willing to support such failed policies, it behooves such people to be Democrats thereby potentially condemning themselves to mediocrity and possibly lifetime government dependence?

Clearly, Crowley has forgotten that in 1980, a great deal of unemployed and minimum wage workers voted for Ronald Reagan because they realized Democratic policies weren't helping them. [Newsbusters]

It is time for the people of America to wake up.

The stated "need" to continue extending these benefits is a symptom of the Democrats economic failures under Harry Reid and Barack Obama and their biggest failure is the fact that they’ve failed to create jobs. 

So of course the people of Kentucky are being bamboozled into thinking that all we need to do to make things better is to shift the balance of power in the Senate by getting rid of Mitch McConnell, the most powerful counter force to this failed agenda, and replace him with another reliable vote for Harry Reid and Barack Obama.

Ignorance is the offense which condemns those guilty of it to the consequences of their inaction.  Remember the words of Patrick Henry:

"There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come....

Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!"

Does Rand Paul's Support Come From The "Hate America" Crowd?

Representative Peter King of New York had this to say about Rand Paul:

The New York Republican accused Rand Paul of “lies” and “misperception” :

“So Rand Paul does not know what he’s talking about. And, Rand Paul is really spreading fear among the American people. And, he also today, I understand on the show, he was also was comparing General Clapper to Snowden. To me, he’s either totally uninformed or he’s part of that hate America crowd that I thought left us in the 1960s. In any event, he doesn’t deserve to be in the United States senate for spreading that type of misperception and absolute lies to be honest with you.“ [Gateway Pundit]

What he was referring to was a comment by  Rand on the  Sunday shows discussing his lawsuit against the NSA over illegal snooping.  In some of those comments he had this to say:

"I don't think Edward Snowden deserves the death penalty or life in prison; I think that's inappropriate, I think that's why he fled, is that's what he faced," Paul, a possible 2016 contender for the Republican presidential nomination, said on ABC's "This Week." "Do I think it's OK to leak secrets and give up national security [information] that endangers lives? I don't think that's OK, either. But I think the courts are now saying he revealed something the government was doing that was illegal."

Paul, who's pushing a class-action suit against the National Security Agency over its data collection tactics, has said that Snowden and Clapper should "share a prison cell," charging that Clapper lied to Congress.

"It is a grand tradition," he said. "Part of that tradition is, you pay the consequences. If you break the law because your conscience says you have to, you stand trial." [POLITICO]

So the question I have for readers today is this: Does some part of Rand Paul's support come from the "hate America" crowd that Congressman King mentioned?

Let's take a look.

Clearly there is a portion of the Obama support group that one could argue hates many things about America.  Dinesh D'Souza has made the argument that Obama is out for revenge over what his father hated which is "colonialism", the kind of attitude he attributed to the United States participation in "raping" third world countries of their riches to make Americans rich.

In addition Obama has aligned himself with radicals and domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers who clearly hate many things about America.

So, is Rand Paul courting those folks?  I think not, but on the other hand he might find some support among the less militant among the remaining sixties liberals who like his stance on personal freedom and pot and the kind of things Richie Havens and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing about.

But who among the GOP crowd might be pegged as part of the modern day "hate America" crowd?  Well, that depends upon which America you are talking about.

The "big business" America which has become the controlling interest in most legislation and regulations over the past thirty years has its share of supporters.  They don't hate America.

But the small business, ultra conservative TEA party crowd does have its share of "hate America" folks.  At least they seem to hate the incumbent elected officials who they view as ruining America.  They see America headed in the wrong direction.  And some of them even hate many of the institutions of America such as party politics, checks and balances and the orderly interpretation of the Constitution through the court system.

Some of the more militant among this last bunch seethe with contempt for the "mainstream", which of course is the American mainstream and tend to lean very far toward the very liberal philosophies of Libertarianism and even anarchy.  They hate that America won't let them steer the ship of state, are angry about it and do in fact pose some threat to our national security.

And then out there on the real fringes are those who are systematically plotting against America, the true enemies of our way of life, whether driven by religious extremism or a desire to consume our resources even if it means war.  They are the ones who stir up civil unrest, engage in acts of terrorism to disrupt society and take advantage of every opportunity to destroy America because they truly, to their core, hate us.

Obviously Rand Paul is not courting the support of any of the fringe or the near fringe.  But, and I say this with obvious respect for Senator Paul, the razor's edge he walks in order to build his own constituency on his way to a 2016 run for the White House is a topic of frequent discussion in the media.  Clearly any divergence from the hard line of the TEA party gets him nailed by its members.  Any time he leans toward a more moderate position his TEA party friends try to pull him back.  And then he goes and tries to win them over again by standing firm on issue after issue of greatest concern with them, like his lawsuit against the NSA.

I'd like you to weigh in on this, but in my humble opinion, Rand Paul does in fact get some of his support from those who hate the way America has been run, who hate the excesses of our government and hate the fact that they seem to be fighting the very people they entrusted with the reins of power.  Is this what Peter King was referring to?

Those of us who have been standing up for civil liberty, freedom from government overreach, demanding accountability and honesty from our elected officials for as long as I have don't consider ourselves as hating America, but rather loving all that is good about America and hating that those are the very, most precious things about the America we love which we seem to be losing.

Rand has the chance to stand very tall in this fight, but he needs to be very careful not to give in to the other forces at work on the fringes and in the shadows.  The closer he becomes with what can be labeled "extreme" positions the more frequently he will have to face accusations like those of Peter King and though his TEA party friends might rush to his defense he will have to work that much harder, and spend that much more money to discredit people like King than he needs to.