Shocked! Shocked!

Evidently, the "increased transparency" in governance has been extended to assertions made while under investigation:

The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee came to the defense of the National Security Agency today, saying that the federal agency didn’t commit flagrant abuses in its program to intercept American’s phone calls and emails — but stopped short of denying that the agency had overstepped its bounds or broken the law.

To quote Rick, "I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one." One would think that the least Pelosi and Feinstein could do would be to share a successful strategy for working the press on their respective denials. Pathetic.

But wait, there's more!

Meanwhile, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized Attorney General Eric Holder, for refusing to declare that the warrantless wiretapping program started under the Bush administration is against the law. Holder testified before the committee today.

“I was disappointed by Attorney General Holder’s unwillingness to repeat what both he and President Obama had stated in the past – that President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was illegal,” Feingold said in a statement. “For an administration that has repeatedly stated its intention to restore the rule of law, this episode was a step backward.

I suspect that realizing the importance of the case, they are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.

Marriage, the Church, and the State

After further hashing-out some thoughts trapped in my head following a post at Vox Popoli, the subsequent fast-and-furious commentary by the Dread Ilk, and a related story regarding the ongoing failure of marriage in the United Kingdom at Elusive Wapiti (with additional examination at Code-Monkey Ramblings), I stumbled into an insightful op-ed piece at the New York Times, of all places, that had a surprisingly libertarian bent to it. (Broken clocks, nes pa?)

In particular, the op-ed confirms a previously-held opinion of mine: marriage determines the pecking-order of "rights" in the eyes of the State, and if one (or two, or many) want a reservation at the teat of the taxpayer, then one must adhere to the State's prevailing opinion of marriage. And so, fundamentally, marriage becomes a vehicle for convenience and comfortable living in this post-modern dystopia, and thus a mechanism for control.

What brought my attention to the op-ed, however, was a salient point revealed in ensuing discussion regarding the fuster-cluck of modern marriage: the Church refuses to stand up for the rights of its male congregation in the arena of family-law. I'm not suggesting the establishment of an organization of Legal Templars (however interesting the idea sounds), but the movement to reclaim marriage as the sole jurisdiction of the Church must be made in order to strengthen itself at the expense of the State, which has steadily usurped power to dictate restrictions according to its own satisfaction and aims. This alone should underline the danger in attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Social Gospelers in their attempts to unravel our civil-liberties, but if we have learned anything in our history, it is that we constantly demonstrate an ability to promptly forget (or determinedly ignore) our mistakes.

Incidentally, this is the primary reason I've not been to a brick-and-mortar church in years: my last visit to a "Christian" service with my then-girlfriend was so inclusive in scope that it was outright apostasy, and in hindsight, I should have ended the relationship then and there (she was employed by the clergy). Fortunately, it ended for other reasons some time later, and I thank the Almighty that it did.

To believe is one thing, and to not believe is another, but don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining when it comes to my responsibility to enslave myself to the State via a secularly-focused wife under the color of Scripture, because I won't have it.

Who are you people, and what have you done with the Ninth Circuit?

I am certain that every so often, the Ninth Circuit does something like this just to throw the rest of us off-balance:

... The County does little to refute this powerful evidence that the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the Republic, a right Americans considered fundamental at the Founding and thereafter. The County instead argues that the states, in the exercise of their police power, are the instrumentalities of the right of self-defense at the heart of the Second Amendment. This argument merely rephrases the collective rights argument the Supreme Court rejected in Heller. Indeed, one need only consider other constitutional rights to see the poverty of this contention. State police power also covers, for instance, some of the conduct the First Amendment protects, but that does not deny individuals the right to assert First Amendment rights against the states. (15)

Once the County actually addresses modern incorporation doctrine, it relies on general assertions that run afoul of Heller. For example, the County declares that “the English common law tradition does not recognize an individual’s right to possess a firearm as a fundamental right.” Heller plainly contradicts that statement because it says that “[b]y the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects.” 128 S. Ct. at 2798. The County also claims that Heller “nowhere concludes that an individual right to possess firearms for personal self-defense is a fundamental right.” But that misses the point. If Heller had indeed held that the right to keep and bear arms was a fundamental right as we use the term in substantive due process doctrine, then the issue would be foreclosed. The point is that language throughout Heller suggests that the right is fundamental by characterizing it the same way other opinions described enumerated rights found to be incorporated.

... We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. (17) We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments. (18)

(Pages 4476-4496)

In a peculiar turn of events, the County prevailed on the ordinance, so it may not appeal the decision, which leaves the State in an awkward position without further review inside the court-system. (Eugene Volokh also adds that this is only one of three cases currently under-way to provide access to incorporation regarding the Second Amendment.)

This is by far my favorite quip regarding the case:

"What an pyrrhic victory for the gun grabbing county executive. She got the gun shows banned from county property, but accidently got the 2nd amendment incorporated in the process..."

Oops. Sometimes, when the stars are aligned and the Keynesian animal-spirits are near, even the Ninth Circuit can get it right.

Something is rotten in the state of Beltway

Double-speak, or infighting? Pelosi contravenes Holder's assertions:

Q: "Madam Speaker, Attorney General Holder yesterday said that the Administration wants to reinstitute the assault weapons ban. Have you talked with Administration officials about that, and how quickly can you bring it to the floor?"

Speaker Pelosi: No, but I think on that score, one good place to start would be to enforce the laws that are on the books right now. And I think the evidence points this out, that the Bush Administration was not enforcing law. So let's start with enforcing the law that we have now."

Does Holder have "foot-in-mouth" disease, or did he let the cat out of the bag?

How was the Bush Administration not enforcing the law regarding those nasty "assault weapons"? If anything, the BATFE seems to enforce laws not on the books right now, and encourages interpretations that favor arbitrary enforcement of said "laws".

I can't bring myself to believe that Pelosi has suddenly developed a new-found respect for the Second Amendment, as we poor proletariat in the Peoples' Republik of Kalifornia have steaming heaps of evidence to the contrary; hence, I must surmise that either there is a measure of infighting between the Princess Pelosi Power-Puff Party and the Hope-Change Kool-Aid Korps, or Pelosi believes that their political position is not yet sufficiently entrenched to weather the political backlash from such a ban.

Either way, I predict that firearms sales will continue on a strong upward trend.

Update:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will join Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in opposing any effort to revive the 1994 assault weapons ban, putting them on the opposite side of the Obama administration...

It was not immediately clear whether Reid would block the bill from the Senate, but his opposition casts serious doubt on its chances. Also, Manley noted that Reid voted against the ban in 1994 and again when it expired in 2004.

This doesn't surprise me, as Pelosi seems to have Reid's tackle firmly in her skeletal grip. I suspect that Pelosi is adopting a realistic view regarding the maintenance of a Democratic majority in the House, and that the lofty throne of the Speaker of the House soothes the voices too sweetly for her to give it up without a grotesque level of carnage.

Newton's Third Law of Firearms

Montana flips the bird-shot at the Commerce Clause:

Montana lawmakers fired another shot in battles for states' rights as they supported letting some Montana gun owners and dealers skip reporting their transactions to the federal government.

Under House Bill 246, firearms made in Montana and used in Montana would be exempt from federal regulation. The same would be true for firearm accessories and ammunition made and sold in the state.

In days with an abundance of gloomy news, it's uplifting to hear that some of these United States are not taking the fevered chanting of hope-change sitting down. Instead, they are kicking it back in the teeth of the authoritarians that are frantically applying band-aids to a disemboweled financial system with one hand, and grasping at any liberties within reach with the other.

Needless to say, Montana has recaptured my interest as an eventual location to reside in a more permanent fashion.

Stick this in your change-purse

Hope & Change 0, More-of-the-Same 2009:

Obama made both announcements on Monday, saying that his picks "bring the integrity, depth of experience and tenacity that the Department of Justice demands in these uncertain times." The soon-to-be-appointees: Tom Perrelli for associate attorney general and David Ogden for deputy attorney general.

Campaign rhetoric aside, this should be no surprise. Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music.

Where is your Obamessiah now?

If y'all will excuse me, I need to make some popcorn for the weeping and gnashing of teeth that will presently be heard from the college campi nation-wide.

(Hat-tip: The Agitator)

"We have forgotten God. That's why all this has happened."

The Solzhenitsyn quote seemed particularly appropriate considering our present state of affairs. These are merely the last rattling gasps of the Republic-That-Should-Have-Been. (Burr should have pulled the trigger on Hamilton a number of years earlier, in my opinion. Good riddance to bad rubbish.)

Anyway, while this has been making the rounds on the Internet, it, and the news of late, reminded me of this poem (in a particularly beautiful rendition by Loreena McKinnett):

Lullaby, by William Blake

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! - When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

When in doubt, buy extra clips and ammo

- “Anyone looking for the G-20 to issue a mea culpa on the global financial crisis will be sadly disappointed,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard. The leaders “curiously downplay the huge culpability of the political leadership in the U.S. and Europe.”

- Ron Paul shares his thoughts on "Bretton Woods II: Attack of the Keynesians".

- Records of mortality amongst organisms in a similar niche to the Norwegian Blue parrot extend further into antiquity than previously thought.

- "We have a large amount of hope-change in Kenya that we need to move out of the country..."

Cry Havoc!

Smithers! Release the hounds!

Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University is an expert on police and military technologies, and last year correctly predicted this pack-hunting mode of operation would happen. "The giveaway here is the phrase 'a non-cooperative human subject'," he told me:

"What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.

We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed."

Here's a related video of the same model of the robot in the photo in the article, developed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA:



It's a tired old line, but it's been true for the last century, and will remain true for the foreseeable future: our ability to manufacture devices to pursue our ends invariably outstrips our capability to control ourselves, our pride, and lust for power. Sadly, there is more than one horrific outcome possible for this particular project: the Sarah Conner Chronicles ending, and the totalitarian oppression that occurs while the former path is in development.

At this point, I'm welcoming a zombie-style apocalypse. It's equal-opportunity, a very egalitarian way to usher out mankind. And that's what we're all about here in America, equality. Just ask any of the two Politburo-approved candidates for Supreme Commander...

And people ask me why I drink.

On the bright side, I'm almost positive it will be more difficult to disable a tank than a Big-Dog. And, for all the technologically-gifted individuals out there, remember Rule #1: Everything can be hacked. No exceptions.

Even broken clocks are right twice a day

Santa Cruz, paragon of the open-campus asylum, actually gets it right:

For the first time since 1996, when the Compassionate Use Act was passed, the federal authorities have been charged with violating the 10th Amendment for harassing medical marijuana patients and state authorities.

The case of Santa Cruz vs. Mukasey, was heard by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel, who said the Bush Administration's request to dismiss a lawsuit by Santa Cruz city and county officials, and the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), wasn't going to happen...

In the summation, the court found that, “There was a calculated pattern of selective arrests and prosecutions by the federal government with the intent to render California's medical marijuana laws impossible to implement and therefore forced Californian's and their political subdivisions to re-criminalize medical marijuana.”

Bravo! Although the likelihood of this decision emerging from Santa Cruz was "high", the fact that the Federal government makes a persistent, malicious and otherwise tyrannical effort to thwart states' laws when they run afoul of the official party lines in Washington DC cannot be denied, and it is becoming more evident in every state of the Union.

While I'm happy that California residents are closer to enjoying the level of freedom all citizens should enjoy, I'm more excited that the revitalization of the Tenth Amendment seems imminent, which heralds a concerted movement to systematically dismantle the means by which the Federal government interferes with reserved rights of the States and the People. A real emphasis should be placed on the necessity to alter the United States Constitution if Washington wants to retain its self-mandated powers, which would require ratification by a super-majority of the states.

Frankly, I don't see that happening.

A sign of the times, and man for this era

It is not a favorable indicator for the people that the sentence that will be handed down for this man's actions will be death at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party:

Mr Yang is said to have thrown molotov cocktails into a police station in Zhabei, a northern suburb of the city, before entering the building and attacking a group of unarmed officers with a knife. He was arrested at the scene...

Mr Yang is rumoured to have been badly beaten and maimed by police.

I do not support the aggressive use of violence on the part of Mr. Yang, nor the murder of six police officers, but had the police initiated the violence, I would support his right to defend his life, liberty and property (despite whatever the claims of the CCP may be to the contrary) with "extreme prejudice".

Despite the official/suppressed media releases, the actions of Mr. Yang seem to be having some resonance with his countrymen:

However, instead of condemnation, he has received widespread approval from Chinese internet users, or netizens, for his apparent act of defiance...

Mr Yang has even been compared to Wu Song, one of the greatest heroes in Chinese literature, who killed a tiger with his bare hands.

One message left on his MySpace page said: "You have done what most people want to do, but do not have enough courage to do".

Regardless of the outcome and Mr. Yang's intent, the situation bears thorough examination and discussion. Furthermore, I find the fact that the CCP is trying to suppress the information surrounding Mr. Yang more than a little suspicious, and the CCP didn't exactly take home the gold-medal last week for veneration of human liberties.

It seems that the Chinese are also participants in the subtle curse of living in "interesting times".

When in doubt, empty the clip.

- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

- Two wrongs do not make a right, and the return of a "Fairness Doctrine" with a new application to the Internet is a disaster waiting to happen. The very idea makes me nauseous.

- Expect this to get slapped down in the name of the "new professionalism", as the police have clearly indicated that they had iron-clad evidence of wrong-doing... From their laser-guided government-ID scanners, with 150yd range, that run on rainbows and unicorn crap.

Thoughts on The Ascent of the Administrative State and the Demise of Mercy

I was browsing the Fully-Informed Jury Association's website and spied a new article posting (see title). I admit, I wasn't totally prepared for a 34-page essay, but I settled in with the last of the bottle of shiraz from Trader Joe's and got to reading.

I'm going to add a little something to this: exposure. The more the populace is aware of the option to use this inviolable right, the more it may be feasibly exercised, driving a stake into the heart of State corruption, one mallet-stroke at a time. While FIJA can provide more astute observations on the practice thereof, this essay (and hopefully the commentary) more clearly outlines the philosophy behind the practice.

Without further eloquence, the salient points au jus:

The birth of administrative agencies posed a dilemma for traditional constitutional and legal analysis. These agencies challenge the nation’s commitment to separation of powers by combining executive, legislative, and judicial power under one roof. Moreover, the scope of agencies’ authority is vast; their decisions have profound consequences for the nation’s economy and for individual rights and liberties. The puzzle for the law has been how to keep this potential Leviathan in check. If the officials at these agencies could exercise their authority without oversight, citizens would become subjects to unelected bureaucrats and democracy would be compromised. (Page 5)

Anyone in the Peoples' Republic of Kalifornia with a political pulse, intact short-term memory and a grade-school education should be able to share in a "moment of clarity" regarding the Public Utilities Commission and their "Flex Your Power" (rolling blackouts in sheeps' clothing) and the Coastal Commission's arbitrary binding edicts regarding property rights in non-coastal areas. I didn't vote for them, and neither did you. And there's still forty-nine states to choose from, not including the federal bureaucracies. Indeed, it's difficult to tell when one is breaking the law in this country, and that's no accident. To the point:

Jury nullification occurs when a jury votes to acquit a defendant despite the fact that the defendant is guilty under the letter of the law. A jury may opt to nullify because it believes the law is generally unfair or unjust, because it believes applying the law in the particular case would be unfair or unjust, or because it believes the punishment is too harsh. The jury’s power to nullify stems from the fact that it does not need to give a reason for its decision and its vote of acquittal is unreviewable. (Page 9)

It's that simple. If the law is unjust, then the authority of that governing body is null and void; hence, you cannot be guilty, and thus must be acquitted of wrongdoing. And it applies for any modifiers of a law as well: mandatory minimum sentencing, for example... Something that prosecutors may decline to mention during the trial for fear of losing emotional momentum.

That said, is it any wonder that the legal machine hates the very notion that the entire courtroom chessboard may, on a very mild amount of effort, be tossed aside? "An Army of One" has never been a more apt description.

However:

In 1895, shortly after the birth of the first major federal agency, the Supreme Court held in Sparf v. United States that juries do not have a right to ignore a court’s instructions on the law. (Page 10)

Juries do not have the right to ignore the court's instruction, but even under the consideration of the facts, the law may yet be deemed unjust. Founding Father Samuel Adams and First Chief Justice John Jay will back me up on this, and while their opinion may not stand as legal precedent, Sparf v. United States does not implicitly or explicitly deny the right to nullify, and rightly so, considering its common-law origins... But don't tell that to the revisionists:

Recently, courts have permitted the removal of a juror during deliberations when the juror has a different view of the law than the judge. Indeed, in extreme cases, jurors who fail to follow a judge’s instructions during deliberations have been prosecuted for contempt. Judges have also pursued charges of contempt, obstruction, or tampering against individuals who have attempted to inform prospective jurors that they have the right to nullify. In addition, courts have rejected attempts to inform juries about the sentencing consequences of their decisions for fear that jurors might use that information to engage in compromise verdicts or base their decision on anything other than their findings of fact.(Page 12)(Emphasis is mine.)

"Fact" in the courtroom deserves the dubiousness of double-quotes, at the very least. With the advent of the various state-sponsored "Wars on (Flavor of the Week)", facts often get thrown out in favor of speedy convictions, the accused accept plea-bargains to hedge against dire sentencing, and the innocent are victims of out-and-out railroading for being nothing more than easy targets. (Check out Radley Balko and his site for more in-depth information.)

The final word: we the people, or as it says in the manual, The People, have the prerogative, the right, and the duty to nullify unjust laws by means of a jury.

The full article is definitely worth the read, as it also outlines the use of pardons and the willingness of prosecutors to not press charges. (This part is very short, understandably, as it is notedly against their interests not to.)

God willing, we may yet someday see this nonsense of "family courts" subject to jury trials. I suspect that it might even initiate some greater degree of community involvement, although that may be a mixed blessing.

The only constant is change

Apparently, they're thinking about rising again:

UTICA, New York -One in five American adults - 22% - believe that any state or region has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic," a new Middlebury Institute/Zogby International telephone poll shows.

I'd be interested to see a similar survey done in the next 12-18 months, with a larger sample size and an even geographic distribution.

Personally, I think the impending economic crash, coupled with federal mismanagement of the next major disaster would be enough to push the numbers to the approximate split that existed during the Revolutionary War. Considering the current push towards a more totalitarian state with the various "Wars on (Flavor of the Week)" that our government seems to enjoy at our expense (quite literally), I'm going to stick by my prediction that the United States will see internal conflict within the next century. Some are already telling Der Staat to take a long walk off a short pier.

I don't take any joy in being a storm-crow, but I call 'em like I see 'em. As the tired old tune goes, those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Don't get caught in the rain.