Dear brother to the allied forces, NATO, and the United Nations. Loving protector and liberator of the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the enslaved, and the victims of natural and unnatural disasters.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Death of a Republic
Dear brother to the allied forces, NATO, and the United Nations. Loving protector and liberator of the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the enslaved, and the victims of natural and unnatural disasters.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
On Security and Liberty
Police agencies all over the nation set up DUI checkpoints on a frequent basis. Statistically, the arrest rate is around 0.5% or less. So they inconvenience a thousand cars to make a ridiculously low number of arrests. Is this what will happen is Arizona and other states who implement similar laws? Why should any state be forced to assume Federal jurisdiction? Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and there respective administrations looked the other way when it came to illegal immigration while making it nearly impossible to achieve legal status.
By the way, last time I checked we have a few hundred thousand soldiers fighting a couple of pointless wars on the other side of the world. Wouldn't they would be more useful plugging the holes in our own borders? That makes too much sense, though. Another topic for another day.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The 10th Amendment and Nullification


The founders understood that the lust for power and distrust in the people were a recipe for disaster. During the ratification period of the U.S. Constitution, congress was back at work penning the Bill of Rights. Federalists believed it was an unnecessary addition to an already satisfactory document. The Democratic-Republicans, i.e., Thomas Jefferson believed it an absolute, had-to-have list of amendments that should have been incorporated in the original draft. Three years after the ratification was complete, the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments were voted into law.
Shortly after, the Alien and Sedition Acts were put into law to protect the young nation from foreign enemies. Kentucky and Virginia, however, felt the legislation went too far and as a result violated their 1st Amendment rights of free speech. These states passed a resolution to nullify this federal law because they felt it was unconstitutional. Ultimately, the resolutions were ruled invalid, but it effectively put on hold on the federal excess for years.
Thomas Jefferson: Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
During Andrew Jackson’s term, South Carolina felt that the trade tariffs in place favored the northern industries, and passed a resolution to nullify the tariffs. Jackson sent warships in 1832 off the coast of South Carolina, a meeting ensued and a compromise was agreed upon.


The Fugitive Slave Act, otherwise known as the Compromise of 1850 was another example of a group of states reaction to the federal government ignoring their sovereignty as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. This federal law effectively forced free states to participate in the slave trade. How? Slave owners could legally go across state lines with a band of U.S. marshals to hunt down and capture any runaway slave. Citizens who once were apathetic with regard to slavery suddenly had a vested interest in the long arm of Washington. Wisconsin, among other free states declared the law unconstitutional and nullified it. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was the only judicial body among the states using nullification to rule the law null and void.
These examples were pointed out in a simplistic fashion, and the complexities were bypassed for the sake of time and sanity. While our individual and sovereign states had tested the “compact” with the federal entities throughout our history, nullification is not just a quaint piece of history. While the great Civil War was perhaps the single largest and most dramatic example, it did have precedence as I have described.
Nullification, fo

The 10th Amendment apparently is alive and well. It’s a shame that we have to take these measures to reclaim our constitutional rights. The feds, by design, should answer to the states, as opposed to taking the phrase “general welfare” to uncharted heights.

As noted, there are many states using or in preparation of nullification language in an attempt to dissuade Big Brother from crossing that Constitutional line. Today there are others who walk in lock step, like characters from the Dawn of the Dead, with whatever Congress dictates. Thank God for Tennessee and Texas.
While our freed

Friday, January 15, 2010
Rants and Raves.......

On Healthscare: Rep. Anthony Weiner (pronounced Weener or Whiner) (D-N.Y.) issued a statement, saying the Senate is being “mean”, and referred to Harry Reid as “Mr. Poopy Pants”....maybe he didn’t say that, but he could have....
On Healthscare 2: We will all see, very soon, who has brass balls and who does not........Maybe Madam Pelosi fancies herself as bullet proof, but what about the rest? Joyce Jr. thinks not.....when standing on the edge of the political abyss in a mid-term election cycle, nobody jumps.........

On the GOP: Massachusetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley blamed GOP “stalkers” today for triggering tensions outside a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser last night where a Weekly Standard reporter said he was roughed up.......she was mistaken, there are no Republicans alive who have the stones to rough up anybody.......except maybe
Gov. Perry of Texas..........

On Aliens and Lumberjacks: NASA reportedly photographed 'trees' on Mars. The “trees” are actually debris from an avalanche, NASA says........sounds like time for a multi billion dollar Federal investigation....
I think SOMEBODY knows the real story.......
On The Patriot Act: An (8) year old New Jersey boy is on the Terrorism Watch List. Apparently he shares a name with a foreign terrorist....Homeland Security overlooks a guy with C-4 in his boxer's. When it comes to Cub Scouts, they don't miss a thing...........
On The Prez 2: A new musical set to open in Germany is called "Hope -- the Obama Musical Story"........whatever...........

On Hollywood, Avatars, and Patriots: The script, in its entirety, is out for “Avatar”. Here’s a portion: “............ troopers issue automatic weapons and magazines to a long line of mine workers. The miners lock and load like the red-blooded redneck NRA supporters they are.” Hollywood is so tolerant of others, aren’t they?

On Celebrity Conservatives: Bo Derek reportedly is a committed conservative and appeared on Bill O’Reilly to talk about Japanese Whalers and Wild Horse Roundups.....I’m not sure about her politics, but she looked really good when she got naked in “Ten”.......

On Barney Frank: Uh, oh...take a gander at Rep. Frank’s 1,279 pages H.R. 4173. I think somebody should look at it, because apparently our elected reps in D.C. have not. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes......say it ain't so, Barn.........

On Barney Frank2: Looks like a sheep gave birth to human-faced lamb in Turkey. This is not 100% substantiated, but a certain congressman was in Istanbul recently and the resemblance is uncanny.........

Maybe it’s the hair......
On Nevada Will Elect Anybody: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s evaluation of our current Prez: “Obama is a "light-skinned" black man with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." Negro? "Bring me my shoes,Toby!!" It’s 2010, Harry, maybe time to sit on the front porch with a good, government issued drool cup......
On the U.S. Will Elect Anybody: Bill Clinton recounting a conversation to a friend said this about the Prez: “a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” Nice........
On Political Bedfellows or Friends of Convenience: During the last presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was seriously considering a new tactic when her New Hampshire campaign chairman, Billy Shaheen, mentioned Prez Obama's previous use of drugs. Probably would have been a good idea. Perhaps we would have had a Secretary of State that was actually worthy of the office......

On Mrs. Prez 2: The Food Network TV show “Iron Chef America” featured the beefy first lady Ms. Obama to share her kitchen secrets with the rest of the world. The veggies used on set did not, in fact, come from the White House garden, as previously reported. This amounts to a Culinary Hoax of grand proportions, not unlike Dan Rather and Buffalo Bob. However, this scandal affirms the character of those who inhabit the White House. I didn't vote for him.........
On the End of World: Isaac Newton said the year 2060 is it.....could the Mayans be wrong? Stay tuned............
On Did You Know: A cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a pregnant goldfish is called a twit, the plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets, and finally, on average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
On Inner Harmony: Could there possibly be any group of people in the entire world happier than the Yak Herdsmen of Nepal? I think not.........
On Random Lyrics of 60’s Protest Songs:
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.
Bob Dylan-Masters of War

Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Birth of a Patriot
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."
John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818

Fast forward to a couple of years ago: my oldest son, who was a junior in high school, was on a diatribe I didn’t care for. The topic was anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-war, and anti-everything that I held very dear to my heart. “But Dad, what about civil liberties? Why are we at war with a country which had nothing to do with 911? Don’t you think the Patriot Act is a bit intrusive? The Conservatives are social Nazis!”

Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"
I had pictures of Reagan and J.C. Watts hanging in my office, two or three RNC membership cards in my wallet, and a vicious right-wing attitude. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I had an epiphany, angels did not break out in chorus, and the heavens did not open up. But, at this moment, my eyes were opening, and my vision was approaching clarity. The most remarkable result was the notion of peripheral thinking, to think outside of what had been my sad, little box.

After November 4th, 2008, I awoke uncharacteristically rested, but a tad troubled. Typically, on the night of the presidential election I stay up until it’s over. My little crystal ball told me the outcome long before the votes were cast. My first thought as I woke up was: Had I done it again? Did I vote in another presidential election just to vote? Did I vote against a candidate again? Yes, yes and yes. That day, I wrote a piece about what I knew about The Libertarian Party, sent it to the newspaper (The Cincinnati Enquirer, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t show up on the editorial page that Saturday morning. So I wrote more, and again, and I’ll be double damned if they didn’t print my column four out of the next six weeks. Then, boom, it stopped as quick as it started. Oh, well, I had my fifteen minutes of fame, or whatever you would like to call it. I was miffed, but more than motivated to continue.

I learned that it really wasn’t any of my business what people do behind their closed doors, and that if two people of the same sex want to live and thrive together, it really had no impact on me at all. The Patriot Act seemed like a good idea, but at that time I was under the influence of GWB. Good man, bad decisions. Period. The 10th Amendment meant very little to me back in the day, but today it has become a throw away. It’s a sad day when the Bill of Rights turns into a comedy sketch that would be seen on Saturday Night Live. “Let’s see, we’ll keep the 1st so the media can gush all over us, and the 10th is laughable, and the 2nd is in our sights”. The dominoes are falling, one by one.


"Every human has four endowments: self awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom. The power to choose, to respond, to change." - Steven R. Covey
The Libertarian Party is, quite simply, an organization whose goal is restoration of government to its rightful owners, who are “We the People”. We the People should be governed by our consent, and only our consent. We the People should be entrusted with policy and protocol, with selecting the individuals that best represent our village, our township, our county, our state, and our nation. Here’s the dirty secret: THEY don’t trust us anymore. THEY are effectively saying, “Sit down and shut up. We’ll tell you what’s good for you. And if you don’t like it, screw you.”
We the People deserve better than that. We, as Libertarians are positioned for a sort of spiritual revival, or a back-to-the-future type of quest. The other major parties have financial resources, but are lacking in assets that only We the People can provide. Our major assets are our people. The Libertarian Party is in a position to recruit, market, and recruit some more. There exists, in today’s political hodgepodge, an enormous potential for disgruntled voters stuck in the abyss of the political middle to make a new commitment. Maximum freedom + minimum taxes + limited government = The Libertarian Party.
Mf + Mt + Lg = LP.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Song of the Syren
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?" --Patrick Henry
si⋅ren [sahy-ruhn] syren (alternate spelling)
Classical Mythology, one of several sea nymphs, part woman and part bird, who lure mariners to destruction by their seductive singing.
Throughout history, civilizations have been seduced by the Song of the Syren. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Amin, Saddam, Franco, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Ngirumpatse, on and on and on. What these despots had in common was a song that was very soothing to their population. Typically, these monsters raise their heads at a time of economic collapse or civil unrest, or both.
The song is always the same: a promise to bring their respective country/state/region back from the abyss, a firm commitment to be a leader for the people. The lyrics reflect a sort of hope to these people who have none. The tune always begins with a melodic, yet hypnotic tempo that sets their collective minds at ease. One could imagine a symphonic largess filled with strings and woodwinds. Now that the new “leader” has the attention and support of the crowd, the tempo begins to change.
It speeds up, with more percussion, a marching band in motion. He selects his most ardent supporters to stand firm by his side, the volume of the music increases, the cadence much more distinct, but the theme has morphed into a much darker and sardonic one. Cello and bass overtake the violins and flutes. The Song of the Syren ends abruptly, every time, with a staccato-like finality.
As the director leaves the stage, the scenes unfolds with timeless duplicity; thousands of bloated corpses floating down the Kagera River in Rwanda, mountains of rotting bodies at Auschwitz, fields filled with the skulls of intellectuals in Cambodia, millions starved to death in the Ukraine, countless dead during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. And so it goes.
The song is always the same. Those that are in need or in a state of despair hear the seductive notes as a solution that they perhaps did not hear the day before. The messiah has come. Never again will they have to worry about war and famine, disease and pestilence for the savior has arrived and sings the song of salvation up until the point when the realization of oppression and genocide appears. By then it is too late.
We have had the good fortune here in the
"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
Today my toilet allows me one gallon per flush. I’m not supposed to fill up my car until after
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson
We, as a country, could fall into that same hypnotic state, like sleepwalkers. Lack of due diligence on the part of the rest of us could be deadly. We must stay focused, keep our eye on history, and to be forever committed to the cause, and that is the restoration of government to its rightful owners; we the people. If we lose sight of that, the
The Ukrainians or Jews or Cambodians or Rwandans didn’t see it coming either. They listened to the song. They were attracted to the lyrics. They loved the beat. It was easy and pleasant to dance to. What separates us from them is a unique document, firm resolve, and commitment to turn our ears from the music. At least I hope we still have enough Americans that believe to maintain the necessary diligence to turn back any attempts to further degrade the freedoms we take for granted, for, after all, the song remains the same.
“There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.”-
Neil Peart (Rush)