2nd Amendment Refresher

'Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.'
-- Thomas Jefferson

Firearms Refresher Course

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c)1791. All Rights Reserved.
11. What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 legal firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don't make more.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

Road to Serfdom

"Road to Serfdom", a classic book written by a British economist during WW2 and published at the close of the war. It is still in print. I've had a copy for a few years and only a few weeks ago, began reading it. The preface mentioned a "Readers Digest" version and I searched for that and came upon this Blog:

Liberty4Kids.BlogSpot.com which has a link to the .pdf of the RD version.

and a YouTube version as well, with annotation of our "current situation".

They also provided a timely quote of Margaret Thatcher:
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

2nd Amendment

WoW, it HAS been a while since I've had anything to say...

I'm listening to an interview on GunTalk.com (podcast-archive is avail)
of Skip Coryell who has just started: http://SecondAmendmentMarch.com/

Their FAQS page indicates they are planning for Spring 2010 for visibility during the Congressional elections.

Health Care (?)

yes, this is just another forwarded eMail... I just received it (03 Oct) from a long time friend that is
now retired and living in ID. This is not likely the "view" of HealthCare (in Canada, or pending in the US) that each of us would likely "see/experience"... or want to...

It is a perspective, perhaps embellished to motivate the reader...
My reason to pass it on, it that "government" cannot help the individual... they cannot 'protect you' from harm, government cannot rescue you from disaster, government cannot manage your retirement... and least of all cannot manage your health.

It is up to each of us to be aware, careful and knowledgeable and self-responsible...

yeah, I'm back on my little pedistal... I do not believe our political/economic system will survive if we just leave it alone and let others do what they want... It's headed downhill and picking up steam...

from the internet:

I saw on the news up here in Canada where Hillary Clinton introduced her new health care plan. Something similar to what we have in Canada. I also heard that Michael Moore was raving about the health care up here in Canada in his latest movie. As your friend and someone who lives with the Canada health care plan I thought I would give you some facts about this great medical plan that we have in Canada.

1. The health care plan in Canada is not free. We pay a premium every month of $96. for Shirley and I to be covered. Sounds great eh. What they don't tell you is how much we pay in taxes to keep the health care system afloat. I am personally in the 55% tax bracket. Yes 55% of my earnings go to taxes. A large portion of that and I am not sure of the exact amount goes directly to health care our #1 expense.
2. I would not classify what we have as health care plan, it is more like a health diagnosis system. You can get into to see a doctor quick enough so he can tell you "yes indeed you are sick or you need an operation" but now the challenge becomes getting treated or operated on. We have waiting lists out the ying-yang some as much as 2 years down the road.
3. Rather than fix what is wrong with you the usual tactic in Canada is to prescribe drugs. Have a pain here is a drug to take- not what is causing the pain and why. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government re-imbursement.
4. Many Canadians do not have a family Doctor.
5. Don't require emergency treatment as you may wait for hours in the emergency room waiting for treatment.
6. Shirley's dad cut his hand on a power saw a few weeks back and it required that his hand be put in a splint - to our surprise we had to pay $125. for a splint because it is not covered under health care plus we have to pay $60. for each visit for him to check it out each week.
7. Shirley's cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. Put on a waiting list. Died before he could get treatment.
8. Government allots so many operations per year. When that is done no more operations, unless you go to your local newspaper and plead your case and embarrass the government then money suddenly appears.
9. The Government takes great pride in telling us how much more they are increasing the funding for health care but waiting lists never get shorter. Government just keeps throwing money at the problem but it never goes away. But they are good at finding new ways to tax us, but they don't call it a tax anymore it is now a user fee.
10. A friend needs an operation for a blockage in her leg but because she is a smoker they will not do it. Despite paying into the health care system all these years. My friend is 65 years old. people either because they are a drain on the health care system. Let me see now, what we want in Canada is a health care system for healthy people only. That should reduce our health care costs.
11. Forget getting a second opinion, what you see is what you get.
12. I can spend what money I have left after taxes on booze, cigarettes, junk food and anything else that could kill me but I am not allowed by law to spend my money on getting an operation I need because that would be jumping the queue. I must wait my turn except if I am a hockey player or athlete then I can get looked at right away. Go figger. Where else in the world can you spend money to kill yourself but not allowed to spend money to get healthy.
13. Oh did I mention that immigrants are covered automatically at tax payer expense having never contributed a dollar to the system and pay no premiums.
14. Oh yeah we now give free needles to drug users to try and keep them healthy. Wouldn't want a sickly druggie breaking into your house and stealing your things. But people with diabetes who pay into the health care system have to pay for their needles because it is not covered by the health care system.

I send this out not looking for sympathy but as the election looms in the states you will be hearing more and more about universal health care down there and the advocates will be pointing to Canada. I just want to make sure that you hear the truth about health care up here and have some food for thought and informed questions to ask when broached with this subject.

Step wisely and don't make the same mistakes we have.

Bibles for Democracy

Earlier this evening, I watched the PBS "Secrets of the Dead" episode, Battle for the Bible.

I found it to be very interesting and provided many more details about Wycliffe, M.Luther and William Tyndale than I'd heard from knowing how they each contributed to translating the Greek/Latin Bible into their common language. The program continued to the Pilgrim migration to the Americas and the expanse of various denominations. The roots of democracy in the colonies was credited to the self-sufficiency of the individual and not needing a "Priest/King" to declare what the individual should/could not do.

As I watched the program unfold, I could not help but "think a little deeper" as to how the Priests would use their position of access to the Bible and God to control the people, largely to their own benefit and survival. The updated translations by Wycliffe, Luther and Tyndale empowered the individual to become responsible for his own beliefs.

To me, this extrapolates to our founding fathers concept of democracy as intending to define government's role to serve the people and let the individual become responsible for his own governing.

As we examine our modern-day elected officials and representatives, they seem to be doing a lot of "ruling" and not much "representing". This brings me to observe that a person responsible for some (budget, data, authority ... ) will morph into a more controlling perspective on his duty. This recalls "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely...". In trying to place myself in the time period of the founding fathers with the prior 200+ year history presented in the program, then considering our battle for independence ... it seems more obvious that the individuals elected to government should serve a brief term in office, in order to minimize their exposure to becoming corrupt.

We just do not need career politicians, they cannot remain un-corrupt. We have a rotation out-of-theater for our military troops in war, to permit them to regain their individuality and not become a soldier-personality.

"It is not the function of our government
to keep the citizen from falling into error;
it is the function of the citizen
to keep the government from falling into error."
-- Justice Robert H. Jackson

Talk Radio

I was born long after Radio was invented and about the time Television was still a rare-novelty in the home. I recall that a radio was often ON in the house in the evenings. I received an early Six-Transistor-AM-Radio in about 1960, tuning into the available Pop-40-Count-Down-Hits stations. I found that Paul-Harvey was reporting on events in a way that I understood what was happening. I STILL LISTEN to Paul Harvey regularly. I am amazed that he is still on the air and I am pleased to hear his message, I hope he is able to continue for some time... but I fear that I will be missing him all too soon. Thank-you, Paul Harvey. I want to say it now, to you, not after it's too late.

I have a short-list of Talk-Radio hosts that I tune-in regularly, for various reasons.

• Matt Drudge has a Sunday-evening Radio-show of his Drudge Report.com, with current news items.
• Dennis Prager has a daily opinion/interview program that doesn't Hammer the issue-de-jour
• Dr Dean Edell has a Call-In medical program, he is an amazing encyclopedic-knowledge base
• The Wall-Street-Journal has an early morning WSJ Radio Show that provides current market issues
• Dr.William Bennett has a BennettMornings opinion show with some insight and perspective on current issues
• Roy Masters provides a personal perspective on self, family, relationships on his Advice Line program.

More Blogs... More Blogs!!

What this Information-Age needs is: More Blogs... More Blogs!!

Every elected office in the land needs a Blog and Forum associated with it. Instead of Writing-Your-Rep, you would simply post your request, opinion or comment to the respective Forum. Don't have a net-active computer?... give your note to a neighborhood school-kid to post on your behalf, they need to know how this political-stuff works anyway. Private communications could still be sent in all the traditional methods, but if you have an issue that needs constituent-support or notification, this is much more efficient/effective than expecting the Rep (or the Letter-to-the-Editor) to be, in turn, posted for constituency review/response.

This is nothing more than an e-TownHall Meeting. We have periodic Public Meetings with the Rep anyway, this just makes it a 24x7 meeting. The public meetings are tightly scheduled and we each get a little stage-fright to stand up and state a question or opinion in 50-words-or-less. This lets the rest of us know and discuss the concerns and opinions of the community.

The Rep would post issues, information, opinions and status to the Blog and the citizens would post to the Forum. All meetings, conferences and trips should have a summary-report posted by the Rep. The Rep would get feedback from the Forum. Registered Voters could have an ID/pw while others, including Business/Special-Interests could post as guest.

The Rep would post an intended-vote, prior to the Roll-Call, allowing the citizens to respond. After all, how else should they have the title of 'Rep-resentative'? They weren't elected to have the power of the position, they were selected to be the discussion/focus-point to represent their district needs and preference.

What next? ... how about a Web-Cam/Mic in the Rep's office and conference room... for the entertainment (disgust?) of the Represented.

Texas Politics

I recently found this news source for Texas Politics
It is by the Houston Chronicle, in Blog-style.

---

Several sources are reporting and reminding the Texas citizens that our legislature is only one of ten-state-legislatures that is NOT required to Record-Votes by legislators and made available as public record.

the FtW Star-Telegram full-story: "Most legislation passes both chambers of the Legislature without a recorded, or roll call, vote showing how individual lawmakers stood on the bill..."

Do I really have to say this...
'Please contact your Rep and Senator to request passage of Recorded/Roll-Call votes'

Term Limits

If my understanding of our US-History is not too far off the mark, the office of President began without any Term-Limits. Geo. Washington set a voluntary-precident by serving only two-terms. When FDR was in office during the Great-Depression, followed by WW2, he was re-elected a fourth term (passing away early in his 4th term) as he was popular and a hesitation to change horses in the middle of the stream. This was followed by a successful effort of an amendment to our Constitution to limit the Office of President to two-terms.

We have no such Term-Limit on the House or Senate. States, few I presume, have term-limits on their elected Gov., Legislature, Bureaucratic-Offices, Judicial or Law Enforcement. The same no-limit perspective exists at the County and Municipal levels, too. I'm sure examples exist and I'd appreciate hearing of them, but I presume they are in the minority.

It has been my wise-crack for several years that Anyone interested in running for office must be corrupt and therefore should not be elected. In recent months I have come to believe there is an erie prophecy in my wise-crack. It is beginning to appear that the cronie-ism of our elected officials is taking on a self-rightous perspective of being selected as member of a ruling class and therefore Above The Law. I should hope that there are still a few individuals that seek an elected position with the best of intentions, but I suspect they get disgusted with the crowd they associate with and soon tire of the effort required to mentally, emotionally and legally engage in rhetorical-combat.

A more recent observation leads me to conclude that we need strict term-limits on ALL ELECTED OFFICES at ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT. Political Seniority gains a power that can be used to 'Git-R-Done', and can be a valuable political tool in the hands of a public-minded official. However, in the hands of a power-manipulator, Seniority is used to determine spending and government-direction based on personal-value-system (often with monied-benefactors). I believe the damage done to our political-economic system by Re-Elected-corrupted Officials FAR OVERRIDES any good that is done by the Re-Elected-public-minded Officials.

We often hear political arguments that refer to what the Founding-Fathers intended. Supporters of the arguments indicate we should not change that original intent. Distractors will make arguments that our government is an evolving and growing entity and should be adaptable to current majority opinion. This slaps-the-face of the Individual Rights that are protected to individuals, from the Majority-Opinion-de-Jeur. My take on our Founding-Father intent was that elected positions would be filled by citizens taking a turn to serve their Government-of/by/for-the-People, and then having served, would return to their citizen role of supporting their government. The concept of a Professional-Politician was not known in colonial days. (see my MastHead quote by Alex Pope).

Pre-1800 governments consisted of Kings, Dictators, War-Lords with a balance of Iron-Fists and some benevolent-looking traits to avoid out-right rebellion and mutiny by their comrads and subjects. Thanks to shenanigans by some medieval Anglo-Royalty, they pushed the limits of their subjects to the breaking point. Rather than simply rebel and over-throw a king just to be replaced by another... They gave an ultimatum of limiting the power of the King (Magna Carta, 1215ad) from that day forward. After some 5 centuries of evolution (the sum of random Progression and Digression) of English-Law, our Founding Fathers saw an opportunity to form a governmental experiment that places ALL the Governmental Powers in the hands of the citizens. The citizens would periodically select from among themselves the individuals to serve in a Government-Job for a while, then return to their citizen-role while another filled that position. Like any new product on the market, there were some bugs to be worked out and our early government struggled to improve the design of a Government-of/by/for-the-People.

Lord Acton penned Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. This serves to remind us that some are regarded as Corrupt and need to be closely watched to minimize the detrimental impact on families, friends, neighbors, co-workers... anyone within their sphere of influence. Since each individual is a complex mix of various feelings, wants, needs, fears, values... we can assume there is some Corrupt-ness in each of us, hopefully minimal and easily kept-in-check by our moral-values... however, given the fertile-soil of being selected to serve in some Governmental Office, the little Corruption-Daemon inside us can gain strength. This daemon will grow stronger and faster when inside a person with a weak-will to suppress or contain it. The daemon will produce stress in the individual trying to serve our government with honor and dignity. If this indicates that power will corrupt (more or less over time), then we citizens need a systematic method to limit the political corruption. Until Dr.Phil uses his Jury-Selection skills to devise a Candidate-Corruption-Index, we can use the power of the ballot to limit the time an official is exposed to their growing-daemon. Sure, there are many candidates that are worthy of additional time to serve their constituents and those should receive recognition at the ballot-box. But, similarly, we need to systematically and often -- simply try some fresh-blood in the office.

I would be foolish to suggest a constitutional limitation of terms-served. We need the ballot to select our Government-of/by/for-the-People. I have thought it might be best expressed as No-Re-Election to an office: require any candidate to sit-out a term, then seek election-again, after another has provided their services. This would allow new ideas and techniques to be presented to the citizens on a regular basis and provide a limit on those ideas that are not going as planned or promised. It also serves to let the citizens Compare/Contrast the various ideas and candidates, a very fundamental learning technique (much better than reading, lectures or trial-and-error).

I am beginning to review the candidates that will be on my ballot in a few weeks. I see many opportunities to Vote-Against-An-Incumbant. Some because they have not performed their service in an honorable manner and the others because I want to help save them from their growing daemon.

Poly-Ticks

Watching C-Span the other morning and two of the founders of a (potential) new Political Party were guests. See what you think about Unity08

Gun Use

If you "oppose guns", please just quietly move on...
However, if you tolerate, respect, use, enjoy or love bullets, pistols, rifles... then you may enjoy keeping up with current events as posted by John Lott, he wrote-the-books on statistical support of crime reduction associated with educated, trained, proper use of weapons.
His blog is: http://www.JohnRLott.com/