My recent tirade about Agenda 21 seems to have struck a sore spot in many people for some reason or other. I’ve heard comments that range from “not a bad article” all the way up to folks who are literally foaming at the mouth about the subject. Some were complimentary, some think I’m a nut for even talking about the subject, and one person that seems to think I’m some sort of traitor to humanity… or the environment… or something… In reality I’m an American who happens to believe in the promise of this great country. I’m also an American that believes in the maximum of individual freedom (and in shouldering the personal and civic responsibility that goes with that freedom). The proponents of global governance often wrap themselves in false patriotism, happily wave the flag, and claim they’re saving us from ourselves. They’re also trying to tell us how they are so much smarter or better than the rest of us, elitists for the most part, who think they should have total control of the world while all of us iggerant’ common folk can be their serfs and servants. Generally these are the kind of people I consider “control freaks”, folks who aren’t happy unless they’re busily telling everyone else how to run their lives (and who it seems, usually can’t run their own lives all that well).
I’ve never been much of a believer in the “Vast Government Conspiracy” theories, but the Agenda 21 program sounds like it could be the source of many of those theories. Environmental activist and attorney Daniel Sitarz is credited with saying "AGENDA 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth... Effective execution of AGENDA 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced — a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources." He’s quite right of course, but he didn’t go nearly far enough. Agenda 21 will require nothing less than the complete reorganization of human society, as it cannot function in a free world that is not tightly controlled. It’s the global plan to change the way we "live, eat, learn, and communicate", but only because we must "save the earth" of course. Maurice Strong, Secretary-general of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio said that "Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat consumption and large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.” In other words most of us “must” learn to live on the economic level of third world nations, but I also noticed there was no reference to what the super rich are supposed to give up either. For most of us it means not much use of energy sources, no air-conditioning and darn little heat, very little meat or preserved foods, pedi-cabs instead of cars, vacations (if any) in the back yard, severely limited water, and eliminating human access to most wildland areas for us poor folks. “No one would be free from the watchful eye of the global tracking and information system," according to Berit Kjos, author of ‘Brave New Schools’. It’s becoming apparent that the global government movement is determined these “sustainable controls” will be put into place one way or another, and of course the elitists of the global governance movement would be in charge.
The United States signed on to Agenda 21 in 1992 and 14 years later the American people still know next to nothing about it. If you ask someone in America today, "Have you heard of Agenda 21?" the answer would be an over-whelming "No". Why do we not know about this, considering that Agenda 21 severely impacts our life, our culture, and our government? Is it perhaps that if the American people are kept in ignorance, these rules and regulations will be easier to implement? Well, lets see…
Several years ago the UN called for the worldwide ban of individually owned firearms, as a means to eliminate ethnic cleansing, assorted rebellions, and civil unrest. Strangely enough, today the US Supreme Court is debating the meaning of our Second Amendment, and deciding if American citizens have the right to firearms ownership. As it’s rather difficult for any political entity (our federal government or the UN) to negotiate with our fifty sovereign states simultaneously, particularly so when we’re generally squabbling with each other (and the federal government) over nearly everything. If those states had little or no political clout, wouldn’t it be much easier for the federal government to implement Agenda 21 in this country? Perhaps that’s why the federal government is moving towards a “North American Union”, where our states would be little more than ceremonial assemblies. The Patriot Act strips us of many constitutional rights, and it very definitely does allow the federal government to declare any American citizen a suspected terrorist on nearly any pretense, whereby they can arrested and incarcerated indefinately. The weakening of our property rights laws (Kelo vs. New London) allows the government to seize your home, farm, business, or vacation cabin on any pretext, for any purpose, and you have no recourse. We complain that the schools are dumbing down our children, and we continue to follow federal school guidelines which promote agenda 21 and that dumbing down. Our President, without the advice and consent of Congress, recently signed into law the “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive” that makes plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments as well as private organizations to continue functioning under the president's direction in the event of a national emergency… and guess who declares that a national emergency exists… The federal government is also expanding their efforts to collect DNA samples from everyone, currently those convicted of a crime, civil servants, military personnel, and immigrants, so that they can more easily identify “dangerous criminals”… or anyone else that’s in the federal database.
The prophesied collapse of the worlds’ environment, and global warming, are being touted as the reason our “Spaceship Earth” must be saved from humanity. Yet the scientists who make those dire predictions often based on questionable science, are the very same people who are completely dependant on government largess for their livelihood.
Writer Henry Lamb stated that “The world changed on 9-11. No longer can the world tilt at the windmills of a fantasized "global village." No longer can visions of "sustainable development" be justified in a world where "sustainable freedom" is the only possible solution to the economic and power vacuum that foments acts of terrorism. There is a better way. Nations can, and ultimately must, learn to live as neighbors, free from the web of "international laws" that dictate which activities are "sustainable" and which are xenophobic and unacceptable. Nation-to-nation relationships, just like neighbor-to-neighbor relationships, should be fashioned voluntarily, driven by mutual benefit.”
And, I might add, “by a free people”.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Defense
For decades Americans have listened to any number of political catfights over defense policy and defense spending. It always seems that the political party in power wants to spend zillions of dollars for some new weapons system being built or proposed by a defense contractor with the proper political connections, while the minority party favors some other system, being built or proposed by a different contractor with the proper political connections. Making the defense of our nation a political hot potato generally leaves the military between a rock and a hard place of course, often being handed weapons they can’t use/don’t want, and at the same time not getting the weapons they want/need.
All three major presidential hopefuls often cite their vast foreign policy “experience”. Yet that experience seems to be based on visiting this or that country for a short period of time, varying from a few days to several months. (The exception being Sen. McCain’s five year long stint in a North Vietnamese prison, which I hardly think qualifies him as an expert on present day Vietnam.) To the best of my knowledge neither Senators Obama or Clinton have ever served in the military, nor do they have any real experience with military affairs other than sitting on congressional committees. Yet both senators, by reason of visiting Iraq for a day or so, seem to think they are military experts. By their standards (thanks to quite a few years in the USAF and the Idaho National Guard), I suppose I could qualify as a military affairs expert as well, so… I’ll toss my nickels worth out for all to see. Picking on Sen. Obama only because he’s said the most in recent weeks about what he intends to do if elected, I’ll question many of his military ideas. Here are some of his proposals:
“.....I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems...” Unproven? Humm… “Star Wars” (SDI) has proven itself quite effective in numerous tests, and in the recent shoot-down of an errant American spy satellite. The original objection to the Reagan era missile interceptors was that they could not shoot down all the Russian ICBMs aimed at the United States. Quite so, they couldn’t, because, for one thing the technology was still rather immature, and for another there were a lot of Russian missiles pointed at us. Still, even 10% of 1,500 missiles is a lot of megatons that could otherwise have killed American women and children. Today’s missile interceptors have proven they do work, and quite well apparently. Nor do they have to defend us from thousands of incoming warheads any longer, but rather they must stop only a few missiles from one or another unfriendly nation, or possibly only a single rocket from al-Queda. I would give them a high probability of success under those conditions, considering that the satellite shoot-down was a “direct kill”, where the interceptor physically hit the satellite, the hardest to accomplish shot of all.
Sen. Obama went on to say “....I will not weaponize space...”. This is an idea that suffers from mixed reviews. I can’t say that anybody really wants an arms race in space, but still, space based weapons are the easiest, and probably the cheapest, means of destroying incoming warheads, from anywhere, not just from the mid-east. We might also keep in mind the Chinese satellite kill of not long back. China is in a space race with us, whether we want to admit it or not, and the PRC does very little that doesn’t have extensive military applications. With all this, yes, I do think we need space based defenses.
Then we have “....I will slow development of future combat systems...”. Considering the very long developmental time of modern weapons systems, if things got any slower, they’d be in reverse! Why is it that our primary fighter aircraft are nearing thirty years old? Why are we still using fifty year old B-52 bombers, and expecting to keep them in service for yet another twenty years!? If today’s Democratic candidates had their way, the US Army would probably still be armed with Civil War era muskets, and sent out to do battle against tanks and machine guns!
On a “pie in the sky” note, “....I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons...”. An admirable goal certainly, but quite impossible I’m afraid. Once that first nuclear device was detonated at Alamogordo in 1945, the genie was out of the bottle, and we’ll never get it back in despite all the wistful thinking. Once we demonstrated that such a weapon was possible, Stalinist Russia bent on every effort to duplicate that weapon, which they did in surprisingly short time, with the rest of the “nuclear club” quickly followed suite. The basic knowledge needed to construct nuclear weapons is common knowledge all over the world today, with only the lack of certain fissile materials keeping every nation from having their own nuclear arsenal. Following that, “....I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material...”. Good luck young feller… the prospect of cheap nuclear power is far to important for many third world nations to expect them to just bury the idea. I expect we could find a way to harness all the hot air being generated in Washington DC every day, to provide for this country’s electrical needs, but that’s not going to help the rest of the world. If oil production has peaked as so many experts presently claim, nuclear power will become a dire necessity for every country that hopes to have much more than a medieval existence.
He further said “....and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert...”, followed by “....and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals...”. Unless I missed something really important over the last few years, I think President Bush (the elder) ordered a nuclear stand-down at the end of the cold war, which ended the “hair trigger” response days in both Russia and the United States. I do know that the US Air Force ended their nuclear airborne alert, and I understand it would take an hour or so to prepare an American ICBM for flight nowadays. That hour is hardly “hair trigger”! As to the deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal, I believe that’s already been done as well? I know that a large number of US nuclear weapons have been removed from service in recent years, and not replaced. Even the currently available weapons are far fewer in number than they were eighteen years ago. In fact, the Russians have done exactly the same thing, with our assistance!
So I’ll ask you Sen. Obama, are you just playing to the anti-nuclear crowd, or do you actually intend to disarm these United States? Remember that there really are quite a lot of unpleasant people in this world who would like nothing better than to destroy our nation, and enslave any of us who happen to be left alive. The only thing that stands between them and their goal are the US armed forces, and the ability to deliver massive amounts of death and destruction on those who would attack us. Nobody in their right mind wants a nuclear war, but after all, the threat of one helped to keep the Soviet Union on it’s better behavior throughout the cold war. Today we face an increasingly hostile China, along with minor players such as North Korea and Iran.
Sorry Sen. Obama, but there is no acceptable substitute for victory, and victory is impossible when all we have is little more than a bouquet of flowers to defend ourselves with.
All three major presidential hopefuls often cite their vast foreign policy “experience”. Yet that experience seems to be based on visiting this or that country for a short period of time, varying from a few days to several months. (The exception being Sen. McCain’s five year long stint in a North Vietnamese prison, which I hardly think qualifies him as an expert on present day Vietnam.) To the best of my knowledge neither Senators Obama or Clinton have ever served in the military, nor do they have any real experience with military affairs other than sitting on congressional committees. Yet both senators, by reason of visiting Iraq for a day or so, seem to think they are military experts. By their standards (thanks to quite a few years in the USAF and the Idaho National Guard), I suppose I could qualify as a military affairs expert as well, so… I’ll toss my nickels worth out for all to see. Picking on Sen. Obama only because he’s said the most in recent weeks about what he intends to do if elected, I’ll question many of his military ideas. Here are some of his proposals:
“.....I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems...” Unproven? Humm… “Star Wars” (SDI) has proven itself quite effective in numerous tests, and in the recent shoot-down of an errant American spy satellite. The original objection to the Reagan era missile interceptors was that they could not shoot down all the Russian ICBMs aimed at the United States. Quite so, they couldn’t, because, for one thing the technology was still rather immature, and for another there were a lot of Russian missiles pointed at us. Still, even 10% of 1,500 missiles is a lot of megatons that could otherwise have killed American women and children. Today’s missile interceptors have proven they do work, and quite well apparently. Nor do they have to defend us from thousands of incoming warheads any longer, but rather they must stop only a few missiles from one or another unfriendly nation, or possibly only a single rocket from al-Queda. I would give them a high probability of success under those conditions, considering that the satellite shoot-down was a “direct kill”, where the interceptor physically hit the satellite, the hardest to accomplish shot of all.
Sen. Obama went on to say “....I will not weaponize space...”. This is an idea that suffers from mixed reviews. I can’t say that anybody really wants an arms race in space, but still, space based weapons are the easiest, and probably the cheapest, means of destroying incoming warheads, from anywhere, not just from the mid-east. We might also keep in mind the Chinese satellite kill of not long back. China is in a space race with us, whether we want to admit it or not, and the PRC does very little that doesn’t have extensive military applications. With all this, yes, I do think we need space based defenses.
Then we have “....I will slow development of future combat systems...”. Considering the very long developmental time of modern weapons systems, if things got any slower, they’d be in reverse! Why is it that our primary fighter aircraft are nearing thirty years old? Why are we still using fifty year old B-52 bombers, and expecting to keep them in service for yet another twenty years!? If today’s Democratic candidates had their way, the US Army would probably still be armed with Civil War era muskets, and sent out to do battle against tanks and machine guns!
On a “pie in the sky” note, “....I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons...”. An admirable goal certainly, but quite impossible I’m afraid. Once that first nuclear device was detonated at Alamogordo in 1945, the genie was out of the bottle, and we’ll never get it back in despite all the wistful thinking. Once we demonstrated that such a weapon was possible, Stalinist Russia bent on every effort to duplicate that weapon, which they did in surprisingly short time, with the rest of the “nuclear club” quickly followed suite. The basic knowledge needed to construct nuclear weapons is common knowledge all over the world today, with only the lack of certain fissile materials keeping every nation from having their own nuclear arsenal. Following that, “....I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material...”. Good luck young feller… the prospect of cheap nuclear power is far to important for many third world nations to expect them to just bury the idea. I expect we could find a way to harness all the hot air being generated in Washington DC every day, to provide for this country’s electrical needs, but that’s not going to help the rest of the world. If oil production has peaked as so many experts presently claim, nuclear power will become a dire necessity for every country that hopes to have much more than a medieval existence.
He further said “....and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert...”, followed by “....and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals...”. Unless I missed something really important over the last few years, I think President Bush (the elder) ordered a nuclear stand-down at the end of the cold war, which ended the “hair trigger” response days in both Russia and the United States. I do know that the US Air Force ended their nuclear airborne alert, and I understand it would take an hour or so to prepare an American ICBM for flight nowadays. That hour is hardly “hair trigger”! As to the deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal, I believe that’s already been done as well? I know that a large number of US nuclear weapons have been removed from service in recent years, and not replaced. Even the currently available weapons are far fewer in number than they were eighteen years ago. In fact, the Russians have done exactly the same thing, with our assistance!
So I’ll ask you Sen. Obama, are you just playing to the anti-nuclear crowd, or do you actually intend to disarm these United States? Remember that there really are quite a lot of unpleasant people in this world who would like nothing better than to destroy our nation, and enslave any of us who happen to be left alive. The only thing that stands between them and their goal are the US armed forces, and the ability to deliver massive amounts of death and destruction on those who would attack us. Nobody in their right mind wants a nuclear war, but after all, the threat of one helped to keep the Soviet Union on it’s better behavior throughout the cold war. Today we face an increasingly hostile China, along with minor players such as North Korea and Iran.
Sorry Sen. Obama, but there is no acceptable substitute for victory, and victory is impossible when all we have is little more than a bouquet of flowers to defend ourselves with.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Agenda 21
Agenda 21?… Huh?…wuzzat? I’d vaguely heard of this United Nations sponsored program before, but I really didn’t know just what it referred to, and due to other concerns didn’t take the time to look into it. Actually I thought it was just another of those wild “end of the world” tales culled from the archives of the National Enquirer. Pity, as Agenda 21 actually exists, has been an official UN policy for the past sixteen years, and has apparently been accepted by 178 sovereign nations including the United States of America. It’s something that everyone in this country should be fully aware of, considering that it severely affects not only your life, but that of your kids, grandkids, and the yet unborn generations.
Agenda 21 (the “21” indicates “21st Century”) is a United Nations sponsored, world encompassing plan to ensure the ecological sustainability of the Earth by controlling all aspects of human activity that impacts the balance of nature. Or so goes the theory. Essentially it calls for developing over a period of about 30 years the much feared “one world government”, and implies a planet wide socialist culture. Virtually all decisions regarding your life are to be made for you rather than by you, by a remote and yet un-named, worldwide central government. An enormous planning and zoning commission will decide what industry is to be allowed, where it will be located, and just how it may function, along with the same decisions of where homes, schools, farms, and stores will be located. Government appointed medical experts will decide what foods you may eat, and in what quantity (but only to protect your health from unwise personal judgment of course). A population control committee will decide how many children you are allowed (probably only if you meet certain government approved genetic standards, although that’s yet unstated), while education committees will decide how those children are to be raised. The kids are to be cared for by a centrally planned public school system that provides a state friendly planned education, and I suspect will also provide their health care without your input. I imagine that such a system is considered best, so that the problems of raising your children won’t interfere with the performance of your government assigned job, and besides, if you’re not “in the loop” the kids can be better taught to be perfectly obedient citizens of this brave new world order.
There will be no crime in this upcoming socialist Utopia of course, as nobody will have any money or personal possessions worth stealing. It would be a peaceful world where no one can start a war, because no one (except the guardians of the government) are allowed to possess a weapon with which to threaten the security of the state. Greed and poverty are eliminated, as everyone works for the state, at their state appointed job, and everyone is provided for by the state, according to their needs (no exceptions allowed). Everything is centrally organized and peaceful, where we may all feel secure in knowing that tomorrow will be a carbon copy of today, as will the day after that… and the day after that. We will be ruled by the intelligentsia, who we all should know are far smarter and better qualified to rule than us ignorant unwashed commoners. I would like to know what they intend to do with those citizens who break the rules, either deliberately or by accident? Hum… Kind of makes you wonder what might be planned for the “unproductive” among us, such as retarded children, physically disabled individuals, and even senior citizens doesn’t it?
Agenda 21 was announced at the “United Nations' Earth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June of 1992. Essentially it’s a policy called Sustainable Development (or in some circles “zero growth”) where population, production, and consumption are to be held at some environmentally friendly predetermined level. The program is now said to be part of the official policy of the United States government, and is being quietly imposed on every state in the Union. To me, using the term “Sustainable Development” is of course an immediate warning that the hard core environmentalists are at it again. Actually that’s unfair to the rational environmentalists; this sounds more like something from the kooks at Earth First or PETA! What’s planned in Agenda 21 is a program in which every decision involving our lives is determined by a government program, not by the individual most concerned. They will determine all business decisions; all property usage; the medical care you receive; what your education will consist of; planet wide economics; labor policies; your career decisions; where and how you are housed; a world wide farm policy; energy allocations; and anything else that affects every aspect of our lives. Nothing will be allowed to interfere with sustaining natures balance. The guiding principle of Agenda 21 apparently is that any individual rights are a gift of the “benign” government, wherein government giveth and government can darn well taketh away. You receive only what the government appointed bureaucrats think you deserve.
Many of us will remember the song “Little Boxes” that was quite popular during the 1960’s. Basically it describes a totally conformist world where the streets are lined with hundreds or even thousands of identical houses, and about the only choice you have is what color to paint the living room walls. With global sustainability the rule, you won’t even have to make the choice between a two or three bedroom house, as you don’t have a choice. Your housing is assigned to you, as determined by the government. Besides, you’d probably only need a two bedroom at best, as much like China today, in the name of population control you’re only allowed one child (and China enforces that law with rather draconian measures). We’ve seen the TV advertisements for weekly or monthly food deliveries (pretty much on the line of TV dinners I understand) being advertised as a weight loss aid, but in actuality is this nothing more than quietly introducing the concept of food rationing? Housed alike, fed alike, and clothed alike, what is else is planned for us? Well, how about implantable ID chips, which just might aid the government in controlling our daily movements? Sub-dermal chips are now being seriously considered for all American newborns, in a way quite similar to the mandatory Social Security numbers now assigned at birth. I suppose we wouldn’t have to worry about cars either, as we’ll probably find our assigned living quarters located within walking distance of our assigned work station. “We live in little boxes, all in a row”.
Principle #1 of the “Rio Declaration on environment and development” states (and I quote from the Rio document as copied from a UN website), “Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.” For one thing, I’ll argue with the “entitled” part. You get what you earn; nobody is automatically entitled to anything except possibly death and taxes (unless you’re a member of the elite ruling class and stand to inherit the worlds wealth). The “harmony with nature” part sounds much like the stance taken by a hard core environmentalist I once had a conversation with. His idea was that we should all live a primitive, hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle, with the excess population being “mercifully” eliminated. I guess in the evenings we could sit around in the safety of our little box and sing “Kumbaya”, thereby making it the anthem of our sustainable new world.
Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, defines sustainability as “a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries, and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend in balance with the impacts of our unsustainable or sustainable design.” I imagine we could get Al Gore to explain global warming and the planet’s climatic system to us, but how about the rest of it? Every time people try to “adjust” the natural balance of nature (no matter how we think to improve it), we wind up with another localized ecological disaster! Looking at the results of the changes our government has mandated in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries over the last few years, this whole thing is beginning to look like an enormous planet wide anti-human conspiracy, orchestrated by a bunch of starry eyed environmental idealists! Unfortunately, the rest of us aren’t being given any choice in the matter. We get to be the worker bees in an experimental planet sized hive!
I can always hope that I’m being unnecessarily an alarmist, or perhaps reading something into all this that simply isn’t there, but from all appearances we are on just this track. If you try to find an answer for all the seemingly screw-ball things that our government has been foisting on us lately, you get some vague doubletalk that makes absolutely no sense at all, and certainly doesn’t answer your question. We’re slowly being disarmed under the guise of “protecting the public” via gun control. “Real ID” allows the government a means to control our every movement. Credit cards, direct deposit and computers allow the government to track and control our personal finances. Taxes, particularly those odious hidden taxes, rob us of the fruits of our labor and “redistributes” our wealth all over the world. Globalization sends our jobs overseas, and doesn’t seem to be attracting any jobs here. A lack of immigration control invites a flood of undocumented cheap labor to grab whatever jobs are left. When a bazillion dollar bank goes broke due to their own fiscal foolishness, the government quickly takes our money and bails them out of the jam… but seemingly can do nothing if a citizen looses his home because of that bank. The courts read anything they want into the laws, while bureaucrats make law, and congress just spends our hard earned money. The bright ideas of government educational experts are dumbing down our children. Political correctness, backed by law, has robbed us of our freedom of speech. Assorted government required licensing and permits control nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Environmentalists, backed by the government, control our national wildlands, not “we the people” who own those lands. And we can seemingly do nothing to halt this continuous government supported erosion of our freedoms.
There’s also the fact that the various “true believers” in socialism have, for a very long time, been trying to force their brand of governance on the entire world. They nearly succeeded with communism and the Soviet Union, but they failed to take into account the real world of economics and the variables of human nature, so the whole assemblage self destructed. Despite its good points (and there are a few), the fact remains that socialism just doesn’t work over any period of time for any but a few insect species. Yet socialists continually insist that they have all the answers to the problems of humanity, if only we would allow them to take over, and of course “share the wealth” equally among all the peoples of the world. Their theory of economics failed to prove their point, so now they’re going to use the bug-a-boo of over population, and toss in global warming as seasoning! Such persistence can be admired I guess, but I do wish they’d pick a better subject.
So Mr. Congressman; is or is not “Agenda 21” a United Nations sponsored program, and has or has not the US government become a signatory to this program? Both parts of this question can be answered with a simple yes or no rather than political sidestepping and fast talking. Do you actually intend to allow our government to turn the nation, and all its citizens, over to UN control, without our unanimous agreement? What gives you the right to try something like that? And just how do you plan to explain this horrific plan to your bosses, the American voters?
Something this all-encompassing could not be accomplished overnight of course, but it could be introduced in numerous small steps taken over a long period of time. Might this be at least part of the reason we have seen so many highly restrictive laws and regulations passed by the federal government over the last decade or so? As I understand the Agenda 21 timeline, the final steps are planned to be taken somewhere in the years 2040 – 2050. I guess that allows plenty of time for us “old timers” who remember the freedom Americans enjoyed in the past to die off, thus making it much easier for the new world order to take over.
There are currently around six billion humans on the planet, and through overpopulation we are slowly but surely wreaking havoc with the environment. That is a given. Runaway population already threatens to turn the Earth into an all encompassing mega city. Our resources are not inexhaustible, we’ve nearly reached the limits of our energy resources, many parts of the world have already run out of potable water, and atmospheric pollution is a major problem in far to many areas. Our food supply is already endangered by the rapid expansion of towns and cities. If humanity is to survive on Earth, then resource rationing is likely to become a necessity along with some form of population control, if that is, our shortsighted leaders fail to recognize the alternatives. As I see things, we have essentially three choices open to us. We could become the socialistic hive dwelling creatures of Agenda 21. Second; we could use our ingenuity and technology to expand our species into the vastness of space and utilize the seemingly endless resources found there to sustain our planet, or thirdly; somewhat like the dinosaur, we can face the inevitable extinction of the human race.
For the moment however, I have seen our centrally planned future… and I ain’t gonna like it…
Agenda 21 (the “21” indicates “21st Century”) is a United Nations sponsored, world encompassing plan to ensure the ecological sustainability of the Earth by controlling all aspects of human activity that impacts the balance of nature. Or so goes the theory. Essentially it calls for developing over a period of about 30 years the much feared “one world government”, and implies a planet wide socialist culture. Virtually all decisions regarding your life are to be made for you rather than by you, by a remote and yet un-named, worldwide central government. An enormous planning and zoning commission will decide what industry is to be allowed, where it will be located, and just how it may function, along with the same decisions of where homes, schools, farms, and stores will be located. Government appointed medical experts will decide what foods you may eat, and in what quantity (but only to protect your health from unwise personal judgment of course). A population control committee will decide how many children you are allowed (probably only if you meet certain government approved genetic standards, although that’s yet unstated), while education committees will decide how those children are to be raised. The kids are to be cared for by a centrally planned public school system that provides a state friendly planned education, and I suspect will also provide their health care without your input. I imagine that such a system is considered best, so that the problems of raising your children won’t interfere with the performance of your government assigned job, and besides, if you’re not “in the loop” the kids can be better taught to be perfectly obedient citizens of this brave new world order.
There will be no crime in this upcoming socialist Utopia of course, as nobody will have any money or personal possessions worth stealing. It would be a peaceful world where no one can start a war, because no one (except the guardians of the government) are allowed to possess a weapon with which to threaten the security of the state. Greed and poverty are eliminated, as everyone works for the state, at their state appointed job, and everyone is provided for by the state, according to their needs (no exceptions allowed). Everything is centrally organized and peaceful, where we may all feel secure in knowing that tomorrow will be a carbon copy of today, as will the day after that… and the day after that. We will be ruled by the intelligentsia, who we all should know are far smarter and better qualified to rule than us ignorant unwashed commoners. I would like to know what they intend to do with those citizens who break the rules, either deliberately or by accident? Hum… Kind of makes you wonder what might be planned for the “unproductive” among us, such as retarded children, physically disabled individuals, and even senior citizens doesn’t it?
Agenda 21 was announced at the “United Nations' Earth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June of 1992. Essentially it’s a policy called Sustainable Development (or in some circles “zero growth”) where population, production, and consumption are to be held at some environmentally friendly predetermined level. The program is now said to be part of the official policy of the United States government, and is being quietly imposed on every state in the Union. To me, using the term “Sustainable Development” is of course an immediate warning that the hard core environmentalists are at it again. Actually that’s unfair to the rational environmentalists; this sounds more like something from the kooks at Earth First or PETA! What’s planned in Agenda 21 is a program in which every decision involving our lives is determined by a government program, not by the individual most concerned. They will determine all business decisions; all property usage; the medical care you receive; what your education will consist of; planet wide economics; labor policies; your career decisions; where and how you are housed; a world wide farm policy; energy allocations; and anything else that affects every aspect of our lives. Nothing will be allowed to interfere with sustaining natures balance. The guiding principle of Agenda 21 apparently is that any individual rights are a gift of the “benign” government, wherein government giveth and government can darn well taketh away. You receive only what the government appointed bureaucrats think you deserve.
Many of us will remember the song “Little Boxes” that was quite popular during the 1960’s. Basically it describes a totally conformist world where the streets are lined with hundreds or even thousands of identical houses, and about the only choice you have is what color to paint the living room walls. With global sustainability the rule, you won’t even have to make the choice between a two or three bedroom house, as you don’t have a choice. Your housing is assigned to you, as determined by the government. Besides, you’d probably only need a two bedroom at best, as much like China today, in the name of population control you’re only allowed one child (and China enforces that law with rather draconian measures). We’ve seen the TV advertisements for weekly or monthly food deliveries (pretty much on the line of TV dinners I understand) being advertised as a weight loss aid, but in actuality is this nothing more than quietly introducing the concept of food rationing? Housed alike, fed alike, and clothed alike, what is else is planned for us? Well, how about implantable ID chips, which just might aid the government in controlling our daily movements? Sub-dermal chips are now being seriously considered for all American newborns, in a way quite similar to the mandatory Social Security numbers now assigned at birth. I suppose we wouldn’t have to worry about cars either, as we’ll probably find our assigned living quarters located within walking distance of our assigned work station. “We live in little boxes, all in a row”.
Principle #1 of the “Rio Declaration on environment and development” states (and I quote from the Rio document as copied from a UN website), “Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.” For one thing, I’ll argue with the “entitled” part. You get what you earn; nobody is automatically entitled to anything except possibly death and taxes (unless you’re a member of the elite ruling class and stand to inherit the worlds wealth). The “harmony with nature” part sounds much like the stance taken by a hard core environmentalist I once had a conversation with. His idea was that we should all live a primitive, hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle, with the excess population being “mercifully” eliminated. I guess in the evenings we could sit around in the safety of our little box and sing “Kumbaya”, thereby making it the anthem of our sustainable new world.
Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, defines sustainability as “a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries, and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend in balance with the impacts of our unsustainable or sustainable design.” I imagine we could get Al Gore to explain global warming and the planet’s climatic system to us, but how about the rest of it? Every time people try to “adjust” the natural balance of nature (no matter how we think to improve it), we wind up with another localized ecological disaster! Looking at the results of the changes our government has mandated in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries over the last few years, this whole thing is beginning to look like an enormous planet wide anti-human conspiracy, orchestrated by a bunch of starry eyed environmental idealists! Unfortunately, the rest of us aren’t being given any choice in the matter. We get to be the worker bees in an experimental planet sized hive!
I can always hope that I’m being unnecessarily an alarmist, or perhaps reading something into all this that simply isn’t there, but from all appearances we are on just this track. If you try to find an answer for all the seemingly screw-ball things that our government has been foisting on us lately, you get some vague doubletalk that makes absolutely no sense at all, and certainly doesn’t answer your question. We’re slowly being disarmed under the guise of “protecting the public” via gun control. “Real ID” allows the government a means to control our every movement. Credit cards, direct deposit and computers allow the government to track and control our personal finances. Taxes, particularly those odious hidden taxes, rob us of the fruits of our labor and “redistributes” our wealth all over the world. Globalization sends our jobs overseas, and doesn’t seem to be attracting any jobs here. A lack of immigration control invites a flood of undocumented cheap labor to grab whatever jobs are left. When a bazillion dollar bank goes broke due to their own fiscal foolishness, the government quickly takes our money and bails them out of the jam… but seemingly can do nothing if a citizen looses his home because of that bank. The courts read anything they want into the laws, while bureaucrats make law, and congress just spends our hard earned money. The bright ideas of government educational experts are dumbing down our children. Political correctness, backed by law, has robbed us of our freedom of speech. Assorted government required licensing and permits control nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Environmentalists, backed by the government, control our national wildlands, not “we the people” who own those lands. And we can seemingly do nothing to halt this continuous government supported erosion of our freedoms.
There’s also the fact that the various “true believers” in socialism have, for a very long time, been trying to force their brand of governance on the entire world. They nearly succeeded with communism and the Soviet Union, but they failed to take into account the real world of economics and the variables of human nature, so the whole assemblage self destructed. Despite its good points (and there are a few), the fact remains that socialism just doesn’t work over any period of time for any but a few insect species. Yet socialists continually insist that they have all the answers to the problems of humanity, if only we would allow them to take over, and of course “share the wealth” equally among all the peoples of the world. Their theory of economics failed to prove their point, so now they’re going to use the bug-a-boo of over population, and toss in global warming as seasoning! Such persistence can be admired I guess, but I do wish they’d pick a better subject.
So Mr. Congressman; is or is not “Agenda 21” a United Nations sponsored program, and has or has not the US government become a signatory to this program? Both parts of this question can be answered with a simple yes or no rather than political sidestepping and fast talking. Do you actually intend to allow our government to turn the nation, and all its citizens, over to UN control, without our unanimous agreement? What gives you the right to try something like that? And just how do you plan to explain this horrific plan to your bosses, the American voters?
Something this all-encompassing could not be accomplished overnight of course, but it could be introduced in numerous small steps taken over a long period of time. Might this be at least part of the reason we have seen so many highly restrictive laws and regulations passed by the federal government over the last decade or so? As I understand the Agenda 21 timeline, the final steps are planned to be taken somewhere in the years 2040 – 2050. I guess that allows plenty of time for us “old timers” who remember the freedom Americans enjoyed in the past to die off, thus making it much easier for the new world order to take over.
There are currently around six billion humans on the planet, and through overpopulation we are slowly but surely wreaking havoc with the environment. That is a given. Runaway population already threatens to turn the Earth into an all encompassing mega city. Our resources are not inexhaustible, we’ve nearly reached the limits of our energy resources, many parts of the world have already run out of potable water, and atmospheric pollution is a major problem in far to many areas. Our food supply is already endangered by the rapid expansion of towns and cities. If humanity is to survive on Earth, then resource rationing is likely to become a necessity along with some form of population control, if that is, our shortsighted leaders fail to recognize the alternatives. As I see things, we have essentially three choices open to us. We could become the socialistic hive dwelling creatures of Agenda 21. Second; we could use our ingenuity and technology to expand our species into the vastness of space and utilize the seemingly endless resources found there to sustain our planet, or thirdly; somewhat like the dinosaur, we can face the inevitable extinction of the human race.
For the moment however, I have seen our centrally planned future… and I ain’t gonna like it…
Monday, April 7, 2008
Worth it?
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. – Thomas Jefferson
The remains of two U.S. contractors kidnapped in Iraq have been found. With these deaths, and the four US servicemen killed by a roadside bomb just a week after the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi War, we are now mourning 4,000 Americans killed in Iraq. Of those 4,000 military personnel killed in the war, 3,263 have died in combat, and 737 in various incidents such as traffic accidents and suicides. Eight were civilians working for the Pentagon. (The numbers are based on a CNN news report.) Discounting the monetary costs of the war, the US has certainly paid a high price in her soldier’s lives for Iraqi freedom. Were those deaths “in vain”? I guess that would depend on who you talk to. The Democrats say “YES, they were in vain” quite loudly, while the Republicans say “NO they were not in vain” equally loudly, and hope to continue the fight against radical Islam. Meanwhile the US military bleeds, and Iraqi women and children aren’t being killed in quite the large numbers they were a couple of years ago.
According to statistics posted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States suffered 4,435 battle deaths over the course of eight years, with another 6,188 soldiers wounded. That was our revolution. The War of 1812, a three year struggle, cost us 2,260 killed, and 4,505 soldiers wounded. From 1846 to 1898, the entire era of the Indian Wars, saw approximately 1,000 soldiers killed in action. The Mexican War counted 1,733 deaths in battle, 4,152 wounded, and 11,550 “other” deaths in service (“other” generally means deaths from disease, starvation, accidents, and hardship). Our Civil War saw three and a half million Americans, both Union and Confederate, slugging it out over four years. Of these, 215,000 were killed in action, 283,394 died of other causes, 281,881 union soldiers were non-lethal battle casualties along with an unknown number of Confederate wounded. The Spanish-American War saw 385 soldiers killed and 1,662 wounded in combat. World War I cost us 53,402 killed in slightly over a year of fighting, along with 204,002 wounded. Another 63,114 died non-combat deaths. World War II was the “Big One”, costing us 291,557 battle deaths, 671,846 wounded, and an additional 113,842 other deaths in its four year duration. Three years on the Korean peninsula cost us 33,741 American lives in combat, along with 103,284 wounded. Eleven years in Vietnam cost us another 47,424 battle deaths, 10,785 other deaths, and 153,303 wounded. Desert Shield/Desert Storm wasn’t quite as expensive, with 147 battle deaths, 235 “other” deaths, and 467 wounded in slightly less than a year. (As it hasn’t ended yet, the DVA statistics do not include the present conflict in Iraq.) Historically, approximately 41 years of actual warfare have cost the lives of 1,119,098 American soldiers, and have left us the painful legacy of another 1,431,290 non-mortal casualties. In playing with those numbers I find that we’ve averaged 27,295 deaths, and 34,909 wounded, for each of those forty one years. (This is a lot less than those killed on the nations’ highways each year.)
Had we not fought the Revolutionary War, we’d still be paying taxes on British tea I suppose, taking orders from Buckingham Palace, and toasting the "glorious" King (or Queen) at every turn. But we’d have “saved” 4,500 lives. We expended American lives in the War of 1812 to allow US ships to sail the seas unhindered, and to put an end to American sailors being forced into the Royal Navy, where who knows how many more of them would have died in Britain’s incessant “small wars”. The War with Mexico gained us the entire American southwest at a relatively low cost, but I can hardly claim it was a “just” war. The Civil War was expensive, but it did prove to all and sundry that we believe in the constitutional point of view that all men are created equal. It also provided the basis for many of the governmental problems the United States faces today. The War with Spain served little purpose other than to provide a few war heroes, introduce the US Army to the horrors of tropical disease, and made William Randolph Hearst a little richer. WW I saw the end of three empires, the Kaiser’s Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. It saved the empires of Britain and France, along with laying the groundwork for WW II. The Second World War saw the Allies crush Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan along with their threat to the free world, at a very high cost to all participants. It also made the Soviet Union a world superpower, and made the forty-five year long “Cold War” inevitable. Korea was little more than an expensive demonstration of Americas resolve to “halt communist expansion”, as was the long and painful war in Vietnam. I guess the jury’s still out on the mid-east conflict.
With the exception of Vietnam, each of our previous wars were more or less “conventional” wars for their era, and the causality figures reflect that fact. Vietnam was the unusual case of a conventional military force (the United States Army) trying to engage a Guerrilla military force (the Viet Cong/NVA) in a conventional war. Unfortunately for the United States that idea didn’t work very well, as with only a few shining exceptions we’re not real good at unconventional warfare. Nor does it seem that the Powers That Be have learned the lessons of Vietnam either, as once again we’re trying to fight a “limited war” against guerrillas, with more or less conventional forces. But American soldiers… fighting and dieing for the freedom of Iraq? Well, remember that a lot of French soldiers came over here, to fight and die for American liberty during our revolution. Be glad they did, we’d have lost without them.
But still, were all those American wars “worth it”? Not according to the “Better Red than Dead” pacifists of course, who seem to prefer lifelong slavery to individual freedom. Not even the history books can agree on the value of any particular war, depending of course on who wrote the book. Perhaps we would be better advised to ask the previously enslaved American blacks if the Civil War was “worth it”, or the surviving European Jews if World War Two was worth the effort. You might also inquire of the slave laborers that despots always seem to exploit, or the concentration camp victims of totalitarian “justice”. Ask the Iraqi people who have suffered tens of thousands of their relatives, friends, and countrymen killed by radical extremists. And don’t forget to ask the families of those dead Americans if the sacrifice of their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters was “worth it”. Ask them if their loved ones died in vain, ask them if the people of a free nation cannot hold upright the light of liberty for all the worlds inhabitants.
The current war in Iraq is averaging around 800 lives per year, or about one fifth the causalities we suffered in Vietnam. The cause of those causalities is much the same however, mines and booby traps for the most part, treacherous weapons emplaced by fanatics who know full well they cannot defeat us, but can only hope to outlast us, that shortsighted American patience will eventually grow frayed… that once again the American people will demand that their soldiers come home before the job is done… and once again they will allow the enemies of democracy a free hand.
The remains of two U.S. contractors kidnapped in Iraq have been found. With these deaths, and the four US servicemen killed by a roadside bomb just a week after the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi War, we are now mourning 4,000 Americans killed in Iraq. Of those 4,000 military personnel killed in the war, 3,263 have died in combat, and 737 in various incidents such as traffic accidents and suicides. Eight were civilians working for the Pentagon. (The numbers are based on a CNN news report.) Discounting the monetary costs of the war, the US has certainly paid a high price in her soldier’s lives for Iraqi freedom. Were those deaths “in vain”? I guess that would depend on who you talk to. The Democrats say “YES, they were in vain” quite loudly, while the Republicans say “NO they were not in vain” equally loudly, and hope to continue the fight against radical Islam. Meanwhile the US military bleeds, and Iraqi women and children aren’t being killed in quite the large numbers they were a couple of years ago.
According to statistics posted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States suffered 4,435 battle deaths over the course of eight years, with another 6,188 soldiers wounded. That was our revolution. The War of 1812, a three year struggle, cost us 2,260 killed, and 4,505 soldiers wounded. From 1846 to 1898, the entire era of the Indian Wars, saw approximately 1,000 soldiers killed in action. The Mexican War counted 1,733 deaths in battle, 4,152 wounded, and 11,550 “other” deaths in service (“other” generally means deaths from disease, starvation, accidents, and hardship). Our Civil War saw three and a half million Americans, both Union and Confederate, slugging it out over four years. Of these, 215,000 were killed in action, 283,394 died of other causes, 281,881 union soldiers were non-lethal battle casualties along with an unknown number of Confederate wounded. The Spanish-American War saw 385 soldiers killed and 1,662 wounded in combat. World War I cost us 53,402 killed in slightly over a year of fighting, along with 204,002 wounded. Another 63,114 died non-combat deaths. World War II was the “Big One”, costing us 291,557 battle deaths, 671,846 wounded, and an additional 113,842 other deaths in its four year duration. Three years on the Korean peninsula cost us 33,741 American lives in combat, along with 103,284 wounded. Eleven years in Vietnam cost us another 47,424 battle deaths, 10,785 other deaths, and 153,303 wounded. Desert Shield/Desert Storm wasn’t quite as expensive, with 147 battle deaths, 235 “other” deaths, and 467 wounded in slightly less than a year. (As it hasn’t ended yet, the DVA statistics do not include the present conflict in Iraq.) Historically, approximately 41 years of actual warfare have cost the lives of 1,119,098 American soldiers, and have left us the painful legacy of another 1,431,290 non-mortal casualties. In playing with those numbers I find that we’ve averaged 27,295 deaths, and 34,909 wounded, for each of those forty one years. (This is a lot less than those killed on the nations’ highways each year.)
Had we not fought the Revolutionary War, we’d still be paying taxes on British tea I suppose, taking orders from Buckingham Palace, and toasting the "glorious" King (or Queen) at every turn. But we’d have “saved” 4,500 lives. We expended American lives in the War of 1812 to allow US ships to sail the seas unhindered, and to put an end to American sailors being forced into the Royal Navy, where who knows how many more of them would have died in Britain’s incessant “small wars”. The War with Mexico gained us the entire American southwest at a relatively low cost, but I can hardly claim it was a “just” war. The Civil War was expensive, but it did prove to all and sundry that we believe in the constitutional point of view that all men are created equal. It also provided the basis for many of the governmental problems the United States faces today. The War with Spain served little purpose other than to provide a few war heroes, introduce the US Army to the horrors of tropical disease, and made William Randolph Hearst a little richer. WW I saw the end of three empires, the Kaiser’s Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. It saved the empires of Britain and France, along with laying the groundwork for WW II. The Second World War saw the Allies crush Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan along with their threat to the free world, at a very high cost to all participants. It also made the Soviet Union a world superpower, and made the forty-five year long “Cold War” inevitable. Korea was little more than an expensive demonstration of Americas resolve to “halt communist expansion”, as was the long and painful war in Vietnam. I guess the jury’s still out on the mid-east conflict.
With the exception of Vietnam, each of our previous wars were more or less “conventional” wars for their era, and the causality figures reflect that fact. Vietnam was the unusual case of a conventional military force (the United States Army) trying to engage a Guerrilla military force (the Viet Cong/NVA) in a conventional war. Unfortunately for the United States that idea didn’t work very well, as with only a few shining exceptions we’re not real good at unconventional warfare. Nor does it seem that the Powers That Be have learned the lessons of Vietnam either, as once again we’re trying to fight a “limited war” against guerrillas, with more or less conventional forces. But American soldiers… fighting and dieing for the freedom of Iraq? Well, remember that a lot of French soldiers came over here, to fight and die for American liberty during our revolution. Be glad they did, we’d have lost without them.
But still, were all those American wars “worth it”? Not according to the “Better Red than Dead” pacifists of course, who seem to prefer lifelong slavery to individual freedom. Not even the history books can agree on the value of any particular war, depending of course on who wrote the book. Perhaps we would be better advised to ask the previously enslaved American blacks if the Civil War was “worth it”, or the surviving European Jews if World War Two was worth the effort. You might also inquire of the slave laborers that despots always seem to exploit, or the concentration camp victims of totalitarian “justice”. Ask the Iraqi people who have suffered tens of thousands of their relatives, friends, and countrymen killed by radical extremists. And don’t forget to ask the families of those dead Americans if the sacrifice of their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters was “worth it”. Ask them if their loved ones died in vain, ask them if the people of a free nation cannot hold upright the light of liberty for all the worlds inhabitants.
The current war in Iraq is averaging around 800 lives per year, or about one fifth the causalities we suffered in Vietnam. The cause of those causalities is much the same however, mines and booby traps for the most part, treacherous weapons emplaced by fanatics who know full well they cannot defeat us, but can only hope to outlast us, that shortsighted American patience will eventually grow frayed… that once again the American people will demand that their soldiers come home before the job is done… and once again they will allow the enemies of democracy a free hand.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Gun Ban
Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth. - George Washington
A couple of months ago (Feb. 4th, 2008), Tom Henderson of the Lewiston Morning Tribune wrote an editorial in which he severely castigates the State of Idaho, the National Rifle Association, and of course all us crazy gun owning Idaho voters, for not subscribing to the tenets of the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence”. Apparently the Brady supporters score each state on a number of issues including curbing firearms trafficking, strengthening background checks, child safety, banning military-style assault rifles, and making it harder to carry guns in public places. Idaho’s pretty low on their scoreboard I gather.
First off, we can’t eliminate the non-existant “gun violence” in this country. After all, guns are not violent, they are lumps of inert steel, wood, and plastic, and they’re certainly not going to jump off the table and deliberately attack some poor innocent bystander. People are the violent part of the equation, no matter if they’re bare handed, have a gun, or the steering wheel of a car in their hands, and those violent people should be the target of our ire. Certainly we could outlaw all guns and even melt them down, but what good will that do? It certainly won’t solve the social problem of violent people harming other people! Those who want us to get rid of our guns in the name of “public safety” are the same folks who want totally open borders, which makes it much easier for the criminal element to smuggle all sorts of weapons in and I suspect peddle ‘em to various criminal gangs. If the government can’t keep the drugs out after years of a “War on Drugs”, and if Homeland Security is panicy about the possibility of a smuggled “suitcase from allah”, just how do they figure to control a very lucrative market in illegal firearms? Sure we can disarm John Q. citizen by writ of law and a lot of police activity, but what’s going to make John Dillinger obey that law and turn in his gun?
Next is “curbing firearms trafficing”. Okay, just what is “trafficing”? Are we talking about the corner sporting goods store, gun shows, or what? If they’re speaking about bulk sales, the legal sales are already under government supervision. If they mean the illegal market, well, that’s a major problem in every country in todays world, and nobody’s found a workable answer to that yet! If you want to buy a few thousand AK-47s, go to some of the poorest countries in Africa, and they’d be very happy to sell ‘em to you, and even smuggle ‘em into the US, probably at cut rate prices.
Background checks are bit of a joke I think. I’m sure background checks do stop a few people from buying a weapon at the local sporting goods store. But if I were a violent ex-fellon I’d already be aware of that problem, and I’d be buying my gun off the street, for about half the price of a legal firearm. Really, all a background check does is inform the seller that I haven’t been guilty of mass murder… yet. The part about child safety also bothers me. When I was a kid, my Dad taught me how to shoot, and he taught me about firearms safety. That was just something that Dad’s did. When I got older I taught my boys the same thing, in the same manner, and none of us have ever shot anyone by accident, nor are we mass murderers. Common sense, careful teaching, and personal responsibility takes care of that problem, yet nowadays the “Brady Bunch” seems to think that firearms safety comes from a law book.
Military style assault rifles are rather humorous as well. Fully automatic weapons are already banned by law, and have been since the 1930’s. Thus, if you see someone running around with an M-16 in his hands, and he’s not wearing a uniform, you can bet he’s already breaking the law, or it’s a “look-alike” weapon with no more than semi-automatic capabilities. Granted that a semi-automatic can be nasty in it’s own right, still, semi-automatic hunting rifles have been around for a long time, and we’re none the worse for them. If somebody wants to go hunting with a semi-automatic M-16 because “it’s cool”, well, that’s his problem.
Finally we come to the “carrying guns in public places” thing. People have been carrying weapons in public for far longer than this nation has existed. Back when it was common for most folks to be armed, the crime rate was generally pretty low and most people were downright polite despite what you see on TV. After we decided to get “civilized” and quit carrying arms, the bad guys got real brave, and now we have one of the highest crime rates in the world, as the criminals happily victimize an unarmed populance. Our recent spate of mass shootings? What happened when the Colorado Springs church shooter unexpectedly ran into a citizen who did happen to have a weapon!?
Perhaps Mr. Henderson, we in Idaho don’t have all those anti-gun laws on the books because we don’t believe we need ‘em. But don’t worry, we just might get gun control rammed down our throats anyhow. If you’ve been following the national news of late, you’re well aware that our country is facing numerous major problems. The upcoming presidential election (if it doesn’t turn into another bloodbath over “hanging chads”) will determine what direction our international relations will take over the next four years, and the balance of power in congress will determine just how far down the road to rampant socialism our leaders are willing to take us. But perhaps the single most important decision in our nation’s history will come from the US Supreme Court in the very near future.
The so called “Patriot Act” hurriedly passed in the congressional panic following 9-11 effectively stripped many of our constitutional rights from us, made a mockery of American justice, and I suspect has Lady Liberty in tears. Now the US Supreme Court is being asked to go even further and determine whether or not our Constitution is worth the paper it’s written on. The question, the “test case” as it were, is the legal interpretation of the wording in the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. If the court determines that the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed to the individual citizen, there are a lot of current gun laws that will probably go down in flames. But if they decide that the right to bear arms is restricted to “the state” rather than to the citizens, we might as well throw our Constitution and Bill of Rights in the trash, as by legal precedent our Constitution will mean absolutely nothing to the law, and certainly nothing in the eyes of whatever government we then find ourselves shackled with. Our republic will no longer exist; the American experiment in representative democracy will have come to an end. We would be nothing more than unarmed slaves, under the thumb of an all powerful federal government somewhat reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in June, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
A couple of months ago (Feb. 4th, 2008), Tom Henderson of the Lewiston Morning Tribune wrote an editorial in which he severely castigates the State of Idaho, the National Rifle Association, and of course all us crazy gun owning Idaho voters, for not subscribing to the tenets of the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence”. Apparently the Brady supporters score each state on a number of issues including curbing firearms trafficking, strengthening background checks, child safety, banning military-style assault rifles, and making it harder to carry guns in public places. Idaho’s pretty low on their scoreboard I gather.
First off, we can’t eliminate the non-existant “gun violence” in this country. After all, guns are not violent, they are lumps of inert steel, wood, and plastic, and they’re certainly not going to jump off the table and deliberately attack some poor innocent bystander. People are the violent part of the equation, no matter if they’re bare handed, have a gun, or the steering wheel of a car in their hands, and those violent people should be the target of our ire. Certainly we could outlaw all guns and even melt them down, but what good will that do? It certainly won’t solve the social problem of violent people harming other people! Those who want us to get rid of our guns in the name of “public safety” are the same folks who want totally open borders, which makes it much easier for the criminal element to smuggle all sorts of weapons in and I suspect peddle ‘em to various criminal gangs. If the government can’t keep the drugs out after years of a “War on Drugs”, and if Homeland Security is panicy about the possibility of a smuggled “suitcase from allah”, just how do they figure to control a very lucrative market in illegal firearms? Sure we can disarm John Q. citizen by writ of law and a lot of police activity, but what’s going to make John Dillinger obey that law and turn in his gun?
Next is “curbing firearms trafficing”. Okay, just what is “trafficing”? Are we talking about the corner sporting goods store, gun shows, or what? If they’re speaking about bulk sales, the legal sales are already under government supervision. If they mean the illegal market, well, that’s a major problem in every country in todays world, and nobody’s found a workable answer to that yet! If you want to buy a few thousand AK-47s, go to some of the poorest countries in Africa, and they’d be very happy to sell ‘em to you, and even smuggle ‘em into the US, probably at cut rate prices.
Background checks are bit of a joke I think. I’m sure background checks do stop a few people from buying a weapon at the local sporting goods store. But if I were a violent ex-fellon I’d already be aware of that problem, and I’d be buying my gun off the street, for about half the price of a legal firearm. Really, all a background check does is inform the seller that I haven’t been guilty of mass murder… yet. The part about child safety also bothers me. When I was a kid, my Dad taught me how to shoot, and he taught me about firearms safety. That was just something that Dad’s did. When I got older I taught my boys the same thing, in the same manner, and none of us have ever shot anyone by accident, nor are we mass murderers. Common sense, careful teaching, and personal responsibility takes care of that problem, yet nowadays the “Brady Bunch” seems to think that firearms safety comes from a law book.
Military style assault rifles are rather humorous as well. Fully automatic weapons are already banned by law, and have been since the 1930’s. Thus, if you see someone running around with an M-16 in his hands, and he’s not wearing a uniform, you can bet he’s already breaking the law, or it’s a “look-alike” weapon with no more than semi-automatic capabilities. Granted that a semi-automatic can be nasty in it’s own right, still, semi-automatic hunting rifles have been around for a long time, and we’re none the worse for them. If somebody wants to go hunting with a semi-automatic M-16 because “it’s cool”, well, that’s his problem.
Finally we come to the “carrying guns in public places” thing. People have been carrying weapons in public for far longer than this nation has existed. Back when it was common for most folks to be armed, the crime rate was generally pretty low and most people were downright polite despite what you see on TV. After we decided to get “civilized” and quit carrying arms, the bad guys got real brave, and now we have one of the highest crime rates in the world, as the criminals happily victimize an unarmed populance. Our recent spate of mass shootings? What happened when the Colorado Springs church shooter unexpectedly ran into a citizen who did happen to have a weapon!?
Perhaps Mr. Henderson, we in Idaho don’t have all those anti-gun laws on the books because we don’t believe we need ‘em. But don’t worry, we just might get gun control rammed down our throats anyhow. If you’ve been following the national news of late, you’re well aware that our country is facing numerous major problems. The upcoming presidential election (if it doesn’t turn into another bloodbath over “hanging chads”) will determine what direction our international relations will take over the next four years, and the balance of power in congress will determine just how far down the road to rampant socialism our leaders are willing to take us. But perhaps the single most important decision in our nation’s history will come from the US Supreme Court in the very near future.
The so called “Patriot Act” hurriedly passed in the congressional panic following 9-11 effectively stripped many of our constitutional rights from us, made a mockery of American justice, and I suspect has Lady Liberty in tears. Now the US Supreme Court is being asked to go even further and determine whether or not our Constitution is worth the paper it’s written on. The question, the “test case” as it were, is the legal interpretation of the wording in the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. If the court determines that the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed to the individual citizen, there are a lot of current gun laws that will probably go down in flames. But if they decide that the right to bear arms is restricted to “the state” rather than to the citizens, we might as well throw our Constitution and Bill of Rights in the trash, as by legal precedent our Constitution will mean absolutely nothing to the law, and certainly nothing in the eyes of whatever government we then find ourselves shackled with. Our republic will no longer exist; the American experiment in representative democracy will have come to an end. We would be nothing more than unarmed slaves, under the thumb of an all powerful federal government somewhat reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in June, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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