Politics

Barron Barnett's picture

Quote of the Day–Terry Sanford (02/04/2012)

As one of the thirteen original colonies, North Carolina maintains the moral and legal concept that the right to keep and bear sporting arms is one of the fundamental privileges granted by our American Democracy.

This privilege should be infringed upon only when deemed necessary, through the will of the people in a democratic nation, to insure public safety or to prescribe the manner of taking game. We do not anticipate any legislation abrogating these premises.

Terry Sanford, Governor of North Carolina – Guns Magazine, February Issue 1962, Page 4


[Oh that whole statement is full of so many different individual falsehoods it’s not even funny.  First this is “history” as this article is out of 1962, however it’s recent history.  Doubly so since this statement was given just prior to the GCA of 1968.  This whole statement remains relevant because this is how many of our opponents view the Second Amendment.

Lets start off with the fact he considers the right to arms a privilege.  It isn’t a privilege, it’s a fundamental right that is specifically enumerated by the bill of rights for protection from the state.  Second we don’t live in a Democracy, we live in a Constitutional Republic where the law serves to protect everyone equally, not just the mob. 

If you’re confused by the difference, watch this, I’ll even embed it below just to make it even easier.   Seriously, it is worth the 10 minutes.  

Our constitution exists to protect the rights from the people.  With the fact he considers the right a privilege his disrespect dissolves further into the classic claim used to infringe upon a right. That claim is necessity.  He uses necessity as the validation for infringing on a right.  Necessity however does not allow or expunge the fact that inalienable rights are not for the government to take or a mob of people to take.  Even when the people are tricked into thinking that it is better for them to surrender that right for the greater good, that right cannot be surrendered.

These two complaints are also independent of the fact that his being elected governor of one of the original thirteen colonies makes him think that some how his argument carries further weight in establishing it as a privilege not a right.

Remember, even now there are those who believe that the enumerated right to “Keep and Bear Arms” as affirmed by Heller and McDonald is still just a privilege.  Not only is it just a privilege, but one that could be revoked if they could just get rid of that pesky Second Amendment.  -B

h/t David Codrea]

Barron Barnett's picture

SOPA Shutdown

Considering our fearless leaders want to trash our liberties and freedoms yet again I am joining 7000+ other sites in shutting down.

The SOPA is a very dangerous piece of legislation that has the potential to prevent me from writing my blog.  Not only that but given the events involving Righthaven the damage done by those types of individuals will be greatly multiplied.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

All day you will be redirected tomorrow.

Barron Barnett's picture

Fast and Furious, Root Cause Analysis

Currently Eric Holder is screaming that the cause of guns going into Mexico was because of a "lack of gun control."  There's one problem with that though, it is totally false.  Not only is that statement blatantly false but given the evidence gun control is what allowed those guns to walk to Mexico.  While it may seem humorous and a joke, the fact is it's true.

I have largely been silent on Fast and Furious for one major reason.  There are a lot of other people covering it much better and more in depth than I possibly could.

To start off for those who may be familiar with the term, root cause analysis is something used in engineering to identify problems to come up with solutions that don’t just hide the problem.  Ultimately proper root cause analysis should trace the problem to a point where you can turn the issue on and off like a light switch.  Now we're going to trace back through the events and find the point where we can turn this issue that would turn this problem on and off.

Barron Barnett's picture

Economics 101–See She Gets It

No one likes staring at my ugly mug while I’m preaching on my soap box.  So instead I’ll let her do it.

Facts are stubborn things and that video does a wonderful job of laying out the facts.  Including previous trends, how they compare historically, and what it means.

The bottom line is the War on Poverty actually creates a system that rewards people for being in poverty.  It becomes a vicious circle since those in poverty remain there because their receive more from doing nothing than working to alter their situation.

Watch the video, it’s just shy of 7 minutes and well worth your time.

h/t Weer’d, Grouch Old Cripple

Barron Barnett's picture

Speaking of Productive

So with all those fruit loops running around Wall Street nonproductive because they quit their jobs to be there.  I decided that as usual today was going to be yet another productive day.

Got the house cleaned up, there’s still a few things I need to stash away but I decided to finally start putting some ideas into motion.

I created a Zazzle store.  I’ve only posted up one design idea thus far.  I put it on a coffee mug too.  The wife and I are working on some other design ideas as well.  I’m not the most “graphically gifted”.  I am really good at under the hood type work, but making shiny things people like not so much.

If you’d like to see something a little bit different let me know.  I’m going to continue working on some of my other ideas.

I don’t expect people to throw money towards me without giving something in return.  So I spend my time coming up with goods and services I can exchange for money.  Obviously these dolts are too stupid to figure out that’s how you make money.

There was an article arguing that the dolts were correct because the top one percent has been growing the amount of wealth controlled.  I think the cause of that is there are less people working over all, thus shifting wealth.  If you want to become rich, work your ass off and come up with something world changing.

Barron Barnett's picture

About All Those Felonies

A basic principal to our criminal justice system centers around intent.  The increase in felonies, victimless laws, and other crimes in which no intent is required is becoming increasingly disturbing.  Thankfully someone else is noticing.

For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty. The concept is known as mens rea, Latin for a "guilty mind."

This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells. In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent. Today not only are there thousands more criminal laws than before, but it is easier to fall afoul of them.

The article goes on to state how a man was arrested and served time in jail for much the same as selling a firearm.  His mistake was he hadn’t fully vetted the person buying the product.  He had no intent to break the law, he had a reasonable belief the transaction was legal, but that was not good enough.

The whole point of our legal system no longer centers around protecting the innocent but bringing in as many as possible.  Convicted felons have numerous rights stripped, including some that cannot even be restored through the courts.

It gets better though because those creating the laws and enforcing them are also confiscating the property of those they charge.  Then you have State Sponsored Criminals walking off with the confiscated materials.  How bad could this over criminalization be though?

Overall, more than 40% of nonviolent offenses created or amended during two recent Congresses—the 109th and the 111th, the latter of which ran through last year—had "weak" mens rea requirements at best, according to a study conducted by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

(Emphasis mine.)  Do you really think that is by accident?  It certainly isn’t a coincidence.  What better way to control the public than by criminalizing all of them.  The government is continually driving that wedge of us vs. them.  Any law that is victimless, I.E. ownership and possession laws, do nothing other than criminalize many who would otherwise be law abiding.

Remember, the government is not your friend.

Janelle Barnett's picture

Disgraceful

Mayor Bloomberg, the asshat, has decided that first responders are not invited to the 10th anniversary ceremony of ground zero. 

Because you know, the people who ran into the buildings trying to save people should totally be left out.  The people who spent weeks of their own time searching for survivors should not be there either.  But we have more than enough room for three asshat's that actually had NOTHING to do with any of it.  Obama, Bush, and Giuliani did absolutely nothing that day.  Everyone else did what they were trained to do, those three are just using the deaths of others for political gain.

Those three individuals do nothing but masturbate thinking about the abuse created by the TSA and DHS knowing it has been created and furthered by their hand.  They take no greater pleasure than that of destroying the rights of the law abiding, sexually abusing them, and intimidating them.

It should come as no surprise that given those three have such fine moral caliber, the first responders would not be invited to their private little circle jerk of tyranny.  Frankly, if I was a first responder, I would keep my ass home because nothing good could possibly come from aiding in their political power plays.

 

Thank you Barron for the commentary.

Barron Barnett's picture

SSCC #34, #35–Fullerton, California

Two separate incidents in the same town.  The first involved a man who suffered from schizophrenia.

For Fullerton, things began spiraling out of control on July 5, when Thomas got into a violent fight with police officers who were responding to reports that someone had been burglarizing cars at a downtown transit station. Thomas, who suffered severe head and neck injuries, was taken off life support on July 10.

The incident was caught on cellphone camera, along with other surveillance cameras.  Currently the city refuses to disclose the names of the individuals involved in the incident.  Interesting that, considering if someone is over the age of 18, they’ll throw that name out no matter how thin the evidence.  As usual they are protecting their own from the black eye they face for their actions.

The second involves a wrongful arrest.

Mam, 35, was accused of jumping on an officer's back and choking him outside of a bar he and his friends had just left. His criminal attorney, David Borsari, said Mam was actually recording the arrest of his friend on his cell phone when the officer in question knocked the device out of his hand, and wrestled him to the ground where he was arrested.

Another bystander picked up Mam's phone and captured Mam's arrest — footage that proves he never attacked an officer, said Borsari.

The officers continued to lie until they were presented with the evidence proving them false.  At which point they claim it was a mistake and ask for a free pass.  This is by no means the first time an officer in the SSCC has attempted to frame an individual and have their life destroyed by the legal system.

There is a common saying, ”Once is happenstance, Twice is coincidence, Three or more is Enemy action.”  Well I don’t believe in coincidence, and there appears to be a definite pattern beginning to emerge, since you have other officers who assisted the primary officers in same crimes.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 35

Because the state has every right to beat someone to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or arrest and charge someone on a lie to make them look better.

Barron Barnett's picture

SSCC #23–Knox County Sheriff

Nichols also says that if he were a gambling man, his money would be on someone eventually getting charged in connection with the card games. So far, though, no one's been arrested.

In the meantime, the Sheriff's Office has amassed a tidy loot of more than a dozen slightly-used felt tables, lots of playing cards, stacks of poker chips, surveillance cameras and, biggest of all, more than $50,500 cash (although authorities haven't disclosed the exact amount).

The sheriff contends these weren’t buddies getting together but arranged games to turn a profit for the organizer.  If that’s the case, why wasn’t the organizer arrested on the spot?  Later in the article it becomes immediately clear what’s going on:

"Any money seized ... is subject to forfeiture," said John Gill, special counsel to Nichols . "If we say gambling occurred, regardless of whether we prosecute a specific person, we can seize the property and the money."

So what ever happened to due process?  I guess the Knox County Sheriff threw it out with the garbage when they discovered the county debt is increasing without restraint.  What better way to supplement it than through forfeitures that do not require a prosecution.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 23

Because what better way to whittle your deficit down than to steal money from friends gambling in their garage.  It’s 100% taxation without due process or legal recourse for the tax payer, how can the state loose?

Barron Barnett's picture

Bunch of Hypocrites

So, a couple months ago while the Egyptian riots were going down, our government berated the Egyptian government for cutting off internet access and limiting communications.  Well local legislators have yet again embraced the “let no crisis go wasted” mantra and are now exploiting the London riots to be able to restrict communication abilities.

The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police.

Considering this is the “Republik of California” how does one now notify the police when in an emergency situation?  You have not only disabled the ability of the enemy for communication, but for the law abiding as well.  But that’s the point isn’t it, put the public in the dark and make them dependent upon the state for assistance.

That said, I know that all they did is disable the towers within the tunnels, but it’s only a matter of time before they request the ability to do it elsewhere.  The wife and I have backup long distance communications abilities and procedures, do you?

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