- EverVigilant.net - "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran
The economic downturn has affected the nation's police departments -- and they're turning to civilians for help. From USA Today:
Facing tighter budgets, law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly turning to civilians to respond to some calls that sworn officers and deputies are usually responsible for.
That means people calling 911 to report a traffic accident, a burglarized home or a stolen car may be greeted by a civilian in a polo shirt instead of a gun-toting officer.
"It hasn't been universally adopted throughout the country. But most areas have at least thought about the alternative and are more open to it now because of the economy," said Richard Brady, president of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Matrix Consulting Group that has worked with more than 250 law enforcement agencies.
The idea of using civilians, who require less training and are less expensive than sworn officers, to respond to minor police calls has been around since the late 1980s.
Brady said the practice died off for years as the economy improved and departments were augmented after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
I wonder if law enforcement advocates are thinking this through. If this proves to be effective, police departments may have even more trouble getting extra money in the future.
Hmmmm. I guess that would mean fewer Tasers, machine guns, tanks, SWAT teams, midnight raids... Yes, I'm inclined to think that this is a good thing.
What a government won't do to protect its debt-financed economy and keep its fiat currency afloat. From The New York Times:
The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.
The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the country's hodge-podge of regulatory agencies, which many specialists say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they triggered what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.
According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate what is now an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms. ...
... Under the Treasury proposal, the Federal Reserve would become the government's "market stability regulator" and would be allowed to gather information from virtually any financial institution. Fed officials would be allowed to examine the practices and even the bookkeeping of brokerage firms, hedge funds, commodity-trading exchanges and any other institution that might pose a risk to the financial system.
Excuse me, but isn't the consolidation of control what created this mess in the first place?
Dave Black just watched the Frontline special Bush's War and shares his thoughts:
As the documentary shows, Bush's "war on terror" is simply a bed of Procrustes. The truth must be stretched or surgically abbreviated to fit it. I see no hope at all for a reversal of existing trends and a deliberate return to a more decentralized form of society, since any genuine diminution of the criminal lunacy can be accomplished only by teaching people to realize that our national policies are disastrous and entirely contrary-to-the-facts.
The neoconservative doctrine of perpetual war is manifestly unconstitutional and counter-productive, but those who believe in it get an enormous amount of heart-warming excitement from their belief, which makes them forget the long-range disasters which such beliefs inevitably lead to. Everyone says he is against war, but no one does anything to stop it. Our entire educational system is designed to support statism and is calculated to turn individuals into militarists (Bertrand Russell has a fine discussion in his Which Way to Peace?).
The "military-defense-of-democracy" argument is practically unassailable today, and it is not by proclaiming this fact in a loud voice that will convince human beings to discontinue their habit of aggressive warfare. It's really a great shame, considering the potential America has for setting an example for the world. So long as the majority of Americans choose to live like the homme moyen sensuel, society cannot do anything except to stagger from catastrophe to catastrophe.
You can view the two-part documentary in its entirety at PBS.org.
Boston police officials, surprised by intense opposition from residents, have significantly scaled back and delayed the start of a program that would allow officers to go into people's homes and search for guns without a warrant.
The program, dubbed Safe Homes, was supposed to start in December, but has been delayed at least three times because of misgivings in the community. March 1 was the latest missed start date.
One community group has been circulating a petition against the plan. Police officials trying to assuage residents' fears have been drowned out by criticism at some meetings with residents and elected officials.
Too bad these residents are so thick-headed. Don't they realize it's for the children? These peace officers only have the people's best interests at heart. Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said so: "I would say that the police commissioner has been a bit surprised by those that are not in favor. We're genuinely trying to save lives." Well, if you can't trust a paid government spokesperson, whom can you trust?
Have we have become such a nation of sheep that it's considered news when people don't go along with unwarranted searches?
Here's the first post in (what may become) a regular series on this blog. I will post an item from the news and you tell me what's wrong with it -- preferably from a paleoconservatarian point of view. It may take some analysis, but you shouldn't have to over-think anything. One or two things should jump right out at you.
With candy sales banned on school campuses, sugar pushers are the latest trend at local schools. Backpacks are filled with Snickers and Twinkees for all sweet tooths willing to pay the price.
"It's created a little underground economy, with businessmen selling everything from a pack of skittles to an energy drink," said Jim Nason, principal at Hook Junior High School in Victorville.
This has become a lucrative business, Nason said, and those kids are walking around campus with upwards of $40 in their pockets and disrupting class to make a sale.
One thing that's wrong with this picture is that it is frighteningly similar to the failed war on drugs. It's an exercise in futility. By trying to crack down (no pun intended) on an "illicit substance," school officials have created a demand that probably wasn't all that significant in the first place. Even if it was, they now have a thriving black market that seeks to meet that demand, and "pushers" are getting rich as a result. In short, the authorities can't seem to learn from their mistakes, and "users" who aren't otherwise harming anyone else end up being treated like criminals.
Another answer might be that this is yet another example of a school sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. After all, teaching kids what to eat and what to avoid is the parents' responsibility.
See? Nothing spectacular. The main goal here is to get people to think about the bigger picture. Determining the broader implications certain stories can have helps us to better understand what we liberty-minded citizens are up against, what we need to change, and how we should get involved.
Now that you have the hang of it, we'll start things off with an easy one. So, dear readers, what's wrong with this picture?:
What a shame. The Missouri River Drug Task Force and hundreds of other similar state and local law-enforcement organizations across the country are a little short on cash. It seems they rely heavily on federal funds (i.e., your tax dollars and mine) funneled to them by way of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program -- and Congress cut that funding by 67 percent last year.
It's always good news when the unconstitutional use of tax dollars is curtailed. The downside, however, is that over-zealous narcs may try to make up for their budgetary shortfalls by stepping up raids to seize more money and property. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and, as everyone knows, crime has a tendency to rise during economic downturns.
When California's Second District Court of Appeal declared that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," they were simply confirming what many of us have known all along: The state thinks it owns your children. This alone is reason enough to keep your kids out of government indoctrination centers.
Judge H. Walter Croskey, who presided over the case, reached a chilling conclusion -- which, again, came as no surprise. He ruled that a "primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism, and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare." There is nothing implied here. Judge Croskey is telling California parents that the state's interests come first.
The saddest part of it is that the vast majority of parents see nothing wrong with the concept of public schools. Sure, they will throw the obligatory hissy fit when free condoms are given out to students, or when evolution is taught in lieu of intelligent design, but most of them just can't pass up the opportunity to give their kids a "free education." As a result, virtually all of them fail to address the real problem.
In essence, those in political power believe that they are the true benefactors (as well as beneficiaries) of our children and will raise them in the manner they see fit. After all, that which the state funds, it also controls. Do you really think that you as fathers and mothers matter to them? No. You are nothing more than foster parents for wards of the state.
Now, you can either get used to that idea, or you can choose to do something about it. What's it going to be?
At issue isn't whether or not the Second Amendment supports the individual's right to keep and bear arms. It does, and it exists to make sure the federal government can in no way infringe on that right.
However, the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit states (or pseudo-states, in the case of Washington, D.C.) from enacting their own restrictions. That was the whole point of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
The original understanding of the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, was reflected in the Bill's preamble. That preamble says that the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution "in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its [that is, the federal government's] powers." It was not about empowering federal judges to strike down state laws, in other words, but about limiting federal power.
The Supreme Court reflected this understanding in the 1833 case of Barron v. Baltimore (1833). There, for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice John Marshall said that the Bill of Rights limited only the powers of the federal government, not those of the states. This was the only significant decision in which Marshall came out for a limitation on federal power; he did so because what he was saying was indisputable.
One might counter by saying that the District of Columbia is part of the federal government. Yet, Congress long ago delegated home rule functions to D.C., and it allows residents to elect mayors, city councilors, and a delegate to Congress. When it comes to the Second Amendment, then, D.C. is a state, and the Second Amendment does not restrict its policy-making discretion.
This is not to say that gun control laws are a good idea. It also does not mean that D.C. residents do not have a right to keep and bear arms. What it means is that if they want that right to be respected, people in D.C. should take that up with their own government, not end-run the republican process by trying to get the Court to overturn its valid laws.
If the conservative majority on the Supreme Court rules in favor of Mr. Heller and against the D.C. gun laws, it will be ruling against the original understanding of the Second Amendment.
Thank you, Dr. Gutzman. We need more constitutional originalists like you.
It's one thing to defend the right to keep and bear arms, but it should not be done at the expense of states' rights. After all, that was one of the principles the Second Amendment was designed to protect.
Sure, Bush's illegal war has resulted in the brutal murder of untold thousands of Iraqi civilians, not to mention the senseless deaths of thousands of American soldiers, but just think of all the medical advancements we are making as a result. Dr. Edward V. Craig praises such advancements in an article for MSNBC.com.
He recalls the words of Hippocrates, who "wrote that war was a surgeon's best training ground." Well, Dr. Craig seems pretty excited about all the "medical training" going on right now. Doctors today are learning more than ever about brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. They have made tremendous strides (pardon the expression) in the area of prosthetics. They have even learned that tourniquets can be used to stop bleeding in emergency situations. Imagine that!
"But the most lasting medical legacy of the Iraq War," Dr. Craig continues, "is likely to be a rather low-tech advance: quick and clear communication of medical information. Today's soldiers carry personal identification cards with extensive patient information, enabling emergency caregivers to quickly gather health history, minimize errors and maximize integration of medical care. Such successes are likely to have a profound impact on attempts to make medical information portable." Hmmm. An argument for RFID tags perhaps?
Dr. Craig concludes by saying, "With each war, we are unfortunately left with new ways of killing. But the other side of the story is that each war also produces new ways of healing." See? It's all worth it.
Why do I suddenly have Johnny Mercer's song "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" running through my head?
It's a common stereotype: Homeschoolers miss out on so many opportunities by not attending regular schools, such as socializing with other kids and participating in sports. Try telling that to the members of the 300 teams competing in the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships in Oklahoma City:
Only a decade ago, home-school athletics was considered little more than organized recess for children without traditional classrooms. Now, home-school players are tracked by scouts, and dozens of them have accepted scholarships to colleges as small as Blue Mountain in Mississippi and as well known as Iowa State.
The White House estimates that faith-based and community organizations have received $7.5 billion in government grants since 2003, while secular nonprofits have received $25 billion. In January's State of the Union address, President Bush called on legislators to permanently extend laws making federal funding available to religiously affiliated social services.
The next President will face several challenges in continuing the faith-based office's work, however. One is the unresolved debate over whether faith-based organizations can discriminate in hiring based on applicants' religious beliefs, a nonnegotiable for many Christian social-service providers. Perceptions of partisanship and questionable success in distributing funds have also clouded the office's achievements.
President Bush's unconstitutional faith-based initiatives merely allowed the federal bureaucracy to get its foot in the church door. Christian organizations foolish and greedy enough to accept federal funds (i.e., taxpayer dollars confiscated through brute force) need to wake up to the fact that the time will come when they will be expected to dance to the government's tune.
How is that we have allowed the Christian Right to be defined by delusional idealism and religious zeal? How is it that American evangelicals not only approved but actually glamorized the war as a form of Christian "mission"? ... It is more than an embarrassment for the evangelical church in America that we have gone forth into the world with gun and Bible, flag and cross.
It seems most Christians have forgotten that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). If we Christians would focus as much energy on fighting the real war as we do on chasing phantom threats to our national security, we might actually see the world change for the better.
About a year into his illegal war against the South, President Lincoln suggested buying slaves for $400 apiece as part of a "gradual emancipation" plan. Fox News reports that Lincoln's "proposal was outlined in one of 72 letters penned by Lincoln that ended up in the University of Rochester's archives." That idea never panned out.
The fact that such a plan wasn't seriously considered before the invasion of the South further demonstrates that the conflict wasn't over slavery. It also betrays the mindset of the anti-secessionist bigots in Washington, who were much happier pursuing the war at a cost of billions of dollars and over 600,000 American lives in order to save their precious Union.
"The War Prayer" is a short story that was written during the aftermath of the Philippine-American War by Mark Twain and published after his death. In 2007, Markos Kounalakis, the president of The Washington Monthly, adapted the text for this animated short film...
(CNN) - The military is investigating a "shocking and deplorable" YouTube video that seems to show a Marine throwing a puppy off a rocky cliff.
The black-and-white puppy makes a yelping sound as it flies through the air.
"That's mean, that was mean," one companion says off-camera, addressing the alleged puppy thrower by his last name. The fate of the animal is not known.
The Marine is identified on the video and in other Internet postings as a lance corporal stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe.
I saw the video in question and thought it looked staged. It's very likely the marines stumbled across a dead puppy and thought it would be funny to make a video of one of them tossing it over a cliff. Real or not, it's still pretty sick.
But what's even more disturbing is the fact that everyone seems to be reacting to this story as if it's the most shocking thing they've seen since the war began. In our twisted American worldview, a cute puppy is worth more than 10 or even 10,000 Iraqis. You can bet this fiasco will see more press coverage than the Haditha massacre.
