Constitution? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Constitution!

First of all, let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! I don't do the "Happy Holidays" nonsense, since the message of Christmas is "peace on earth, good will toward men". Therefore, it is a message for everyone, Christian or otherwise. So, again, Merry Christmas, everyone!

Do you remember all those civil liberties we lost to the tyrannical Bush Administration, thanks to the fear of terrorism and the Patriot Act? Remember all those people who had their library records ransacked by the FBI? The law abiding citizens whose phone calls were monitored by the Terrorist Surveillance Program?

Neither do I. Probably, because the accusations of "shredding the Constitution" were just the political posturings of a Left that was still deranged over their failed attempt to steal the 2000 election.

Normally, I don't get too exercised about government actions. Oh, sure! Each time a law is passed, that's just a little more of our precious Liberty dying on the vine. But it's one thing when it is done by our elected legislators and it involves our own institutions and bureaucracies. At least then we still had some representation in the matter. It's still wrong, but we were complicit.

But what if a foreign law enforcement agency were given a more free hand to operate in the United States than our own domestic police agencies? What if that foreign law enforcement agency answered to a foreign court that America has yet to recognize? What if said agency were immune to any attempt to seize its property or examine its archives? And what if this were done, not by a vote of our elected representatives, but through an executive order by the President?

This is precisely what The Messiah, President Barack H. Obama did on Dec. 17th, 2009 with Executive Order Number 13524. Apparently, this wasn't newsworthy, as News Busters found no mention of this travesty anywhere in the New York Times or the AP. You can read for yourselves the facts here and here.

First, let me give you a little history.

The US belongs to the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL. Back in 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12425. This granted INTERPOL many of the privileges and and courtesies afforded diplomats and certain international organizations, as covered by the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288). However, recognizing that INTERPOL is a police agency, Reagan wisely made certain exceptions to the immunities and privileges granted to the international police.

Firstly, IINTERPOL was not granted to immunity from seizure of property. This would enable an American, wrongly accused by INTERPOL, to get satisfaction through legal suits. This is the sort of check and balance that helps keep our own domestic police from becoming oppressive.

Secondly, unlike other international organizations and diplomats, INTERPOL was made subject to the Freedom of Information Act, yet another check and balance against abuse of power by police.

What these two exceptions do, in essence, is subjugate INTERPOL to the same Constitutional restrictions that domestic police agencies have to work within. You, as an American, had the very same rights when under the investigation of INTERPOL, as you would have by the FBI or a local sheriff. And, should those rights be violated, you would have the legal right to investigate any possible wrong-doing and to seek redress.

It was bad enough when the priapic President Bill Clinton issued EO 12971. That gem amended EO 12425 to allow INTERPOL to be exempt from "the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes". Only the government's revenue stream was hurt there. Besides, I'm in favor of tax cuts, even the elimination of taxes, on everyone. So, if INTERPOL got a tax break, more power to them!

Saint Barack, however, violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution with his EO 13524. But more on that later.

Recall what was written in Dopenhagen a couple of days ago. The original goal of the Copenhagen climate summit was a treaty that would establish a world government with the power to tax and to enforce its decisions, thereby destroying capitalism as we know it, all without the benefit of elected officials. Saint Barack was all about signing that treaty. He flew into a blizzard (See the Gore Effect ) to try to bring this New World Order Obamanation about.

Thankfully, negotiations went down in flames and all The Messiah was left with was an "accord" that was non-binding and had no teeth, but still promises billions to the governments of Third World nations to keep their people living in squalor.

Ah! But the Statists never quit and they never tire. Now, The Messiah, Saint Barack, has elevated INTERPOL, a foreign police agency, above the FBI. Indeed, INTERPOL has risen above even the Constitution itself!

You read that right, Folks! If INTERPOL comes knocking on your door, you have no right to demand a warrant. If wrongly accused, you have no right to seek redress, or even investigate their files for evidence that you were wronged. Nor are domestic police agencies any guarantee that INTERPOL plays by the rules. If you lived any amount of time in New York, you know how diplomats are above the law.

Some of you, mainly those on the Left, will say, "What's the big deal? He's the President and he has the right to issue executive orders! Every president does it! Besides, they give out diplomatic immunity, why not for INTERPOL?"

All of that may be true, except diplomats and most other international organizations are not police agencies. Diplomats can't search your premises, can't arrest you, can't bring charges against you to the International Criminal Court. The United States has not joined the ICC, by the way, since many of its provisions violate American sovereignty.

Did you know that INTERPOL has its American offices headquartered in the Justice Department in Washington, DC? Does this now mean that the Justice Department now has an inviolable stash to hide documents from the American people, immune to FOIA requests?

Be aware, ladies and gentlemen! The Left is committed to destroying the United States as a representative republic. It has been working toward this end since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. We see this in the constant violations of the Constitution in such things as domestic spending, gun control, progressive taxes, the expanded powers of bureaucracy, climate treaties, even such simple semantic mechanisms such as substituting the word "republic" with "democracy".

The ultimate goal is the destruction of capitalism and the American way of life and the subjugation of the American people under a world government run by the very same Third World bureaucrats who brought you the Oil-for-Food scam and brothels and rape run by the "UN Peacekeepers" in Africa. All of this to be run by a few, well-connected elites like Maurice Strong and Al Gore, the Grand Prelate of the Church of Gore.

The time has come, my Friends, to look at just what was meant by "Yes We Can".

We had better before it's too late.

Copyright Dec. 24th, 2009

LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE.

Recently, my e-mail address was added on to some sort of mailing list for Liberals. Each day, would bring me the latest Leftist screeds. Occasionally, I'd ask these people, who were they and how did they get my e-mail address? But they'd just ignore my queries.

But then, I did something that they could not just let stand. I responded to their harangues and their polemics. None of them actually rebutted my points. No, that would not be playing by the rules of the Angry Left. What I got back were accusations, obscenities, vitriol, invective, and virulent denunciation.

In short, they responded the way a monkey in the zoo would to provocation: they hurled their own feces at me.

One of these Liberals thought to ask me what I thought a Liberal was. I'm sure she was trying to make some point about my ignorance or something, but I took the challenge and made a list of some twenty five points describing a Liberal.

This was promptly followed by a challenge to define a Conservative, with the smug suggestion that I would be unable to do so. Within a few minutes, I fired off twenty five points describing a Conservative.

I now await the monkeys and their hurled feces. Good thing I've got a good rain coat!

At any rate, I'd thought my readers might enjoy a glimpse into the workings of my thoughts. Therefore, listed below, are the twenty-five definitions of a Liberal and of a Conservative, with my thanks to Jeff Foxworthy, since I sort of borrowed his style. Enjoy!

You might be a Liberal if:

1. 
   You believe that woman's right to choose trumps a baby's right to live.
2. 
   You believe that the only choice to allow an individual is to kill an unborn child or to choose a sexually deviant lifestyle.
3. 
   You do not believe in the right to choose to keep and bear arms.
4. 
   You do not believe in the right for an individual to keep the money he earns without it being confiscated through the tax system and redistributed through the welfare system.
5. 
   You believe that government is the answer to all mankind's problems, not the source of most of them.
6. 
   You believe that Marxism has gotten a bad rap.
7. 
   You believe that the only reason Islamo-fascists hate us is because we support Israel.
8. 
   You believe that Islam is a "religion of peace" but Christians are murderous cretins.
9. 
   You believe that Democrats never lose elections, they have them stolen from them.
10. 
    You believe that the only rational response to someone who disagrees with you is to curse him out, question his motives, or call him a fascist.
11. 
    You think that limited government equals fascism.
12. 
    You believe that government should stay out of the bedroom, except to mandate what light bulbs and what toilets we can use.
13. 
    You believe that there is no difference between an animal and a human being.
14. 
    You believe that your ideology automatically makes you a better person.
15. 
    You believe that guns and poverty cause crime, rather than immorality, criminal coddling courts and unarmed citizens.
16. 
    You believe it is charitable to confiscate property and wealth from those who've earned it and who own it in order to give it to those who have done neither.
17. 
    You believe that it is morally superior to clone aborted babies for their stem cells rather than to use adult stem cells, even though the only cures discovered thus far came from adult stem cells with no dead babies.
18. 
    You believe it is more proper to send our troops into places that have no national interests at stake than to actually defend American interests. Oil, by the way is the engine of our prosperity and, therefore, a national interest.
19. 
    You think that the ideal population of the world should be about 1/5th what it is, and that the rest should die, leaving enlightened Liberals to live as they think they should.
20. 
    You think that the Pope and Evangelical Christians are more of a threat than the Islamo-fascists who want to bring us back to the 6th or 7th Century through rape murder and intimidation, all with the approval of the Qu'ran.
21. .
    You think that Muslim terrorists are freedom fighters on a par with George Washington, even though they reject every aspect of freedom.
22. 
    You actually believe that John Kerry was a war hero, and that Ted Kennedy has the moral authority to condemn waterboarding. Here's a little joke for you: What's the difference between John Kerry and Ted Kennedy? Ted Kennedy has a confirmed kill!
23. 
    You think that No Child Left Behind was a Conservative scam, even though it was largely written by Ted Kennedy.
24. 
    You think that Bill Clinton was railroaded, but Larry Craig should be hung.
25. 
    You think that the Constitution really doesn't mean what it says, that we can make it say whatever we (by "we" I mean Liberals) want it to say. This is otherwise known as "The Living Constitution". Try playing a game of Monopoly, for instance, if the rule book is suddenly "living". You won't get very far, would you?

Now then, what does it mean to be a Conservative?

You might be a Conservative if:

1. 
   You read the Constitution in the plain English it was written in, rather than the legalese preferred by folks like Souter, Breyer, Kennedy, and Ginsberg.
2. 
   You think that government is far too big and intrusive, and mostly in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
3. 
   You believe charity is only virtuous when it is with your own money and voluntary, rather than someone else's confiscated through the tax code.
4. 
   You look at America, recognize its faults and the errors of its ways, and still believe that America is the best damn country to have ever appeared on this good Earth.
5. 
   You believe that the only proper gun control law is the one that repeals all gun control laws.
6. 
   You believe that keeping the government out of the bedroom doesn't mean we have to give equal time to deviant sexual behavior.
7. 
   You believe that health care is a product, not a right, and that the free market is the only way to bring down health care costs.
8. 
   You look to real scientists (Robert Felix, Roy Spencer and Tim Ball come to mind) for information about climate change, rather than the bitter loser of a very close election who tried to use the courts to steal the White House.
9. 
   You understand exactly why the Constitution provides for the Electoral College, and you approve.
10. 
    You know the difference between amending the Constitution and violating it through creative readings by the Supreme Court.
11. 
    You look at a tax rate (anyone's, at any income level) and think it's just too high.
12. 
    You understand that bureaucrats serve the same role in society that parasites do in Nature. The suck of the life essence of the host and return nothing -- NOTHING -- of value.
13. 
    You hear Chuck Schumer talk about his "passion to legislate" and all you hear are your Liberties going down the tubes.
14. 
    You know that the things Liberals think are torture are only things that many people derive deviant sexual pleasure from, and you don't understand why one is torture and the other is merely a "lifestyle choice".
15. 
    You believe that an unborn child has more claim to the right to life than a condemned murderer.
16. 
    You recognize that there is, indeed, a difference between "killing" and "murdering", and that one is immoral and the other is sometimes necessary.
17. 
    You look at America's meat industry, and marvel that it is able to feed so many millions of people for so little expense.
18. 
    You know that mankind is just not big enough to impact the Earth in any serious fashion, and, even if we can, we're not doing anything different than any other species that evolved on Earth: change the environment, wipe out some species, make new homes for other newer species.
19. 
    You know that, if you want to save an endangered species, advertise that it tastes good. (See "America's meat industry")
20. 
    You truly believe in choice: choice of what light bulb to use, choice of what to eat, where to live, what to drive, how much energy you use, what to own and use to defend yourself, what to do with your own property, where to send your kids to school, what your schools teach your kids, what charities you want to give to, what to listen to on the radio, what to read, etc.
21. 
    You believe that Freedom also means you have to put up with things you don't like -- Liberals, for instance. Liberals, on the other hand, think that disagreeing with them is hate speech and should be made illegal.
22. 
    You know that racism is both wrong and stupid, and that's why you oppose affirmative action.
23. 
    You know that "separation of church and state" really isn't in the Constitution and that the Establishment Clause was meant to protect religion from government, rather than to protect government from religion.
24. 
    You don't confuse the Boy Scouts with a right wing paramilitary group with tendencies toward fascism.
25. 
    You can actually have a debate with a Liberal without once cursing him out, questioning his motives, or calling him a fascist.
    

Well, that's it for tonight, folks! Who knows what tomorrow will bring. As you know, we here at Montag's World pride ourselves at goring more sacred cows than a drunken cab driver in Mumbai!

Copyright March 31st, 2008

PC THOUGHT CONTROL

Many of our friends on the Left decry the alleged Conservative takeover of the United States. These are the same folks who claim that every Democratic electoral loss was actually stolen by the GOP, that President Bush actually blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, that our efforts to fight the War on Terror are rounding up Liberals wholesale and having them waterboarded. To listen to these delusional folks, you'd think it was Adolph Hitler himself who is running this country.

Actually, many of them make that claim, calling the President "Chimpy W. Bush-itler" and other such nonsense. They really believe that the government is run by the corporations, while simultaneously advocating for more and more government control over our lives. And they see no contradictions in these mutually exclusive views. It's quite stunning, don't you think?

But what is the truth? Who is it that is really trying to reign in our Liberties? Let's look at five different examples. Let's see who it is that is really declaring war on Freedom.

THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE:

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission issued guidelines to the holders of broadcast licenses. While there was no outright ban on controversial speech, the license holders had to balance each opinion aired on their stations. The logic for such controls was that there were only a limited few broadcast wavelengths available with the technology of the time, hence there were only a few choices available to the news/information consumer. Therefore, some effort had to be made to make even unpopular viewpoints available.

This policy was in effect until 1985. The Supreme Court had previously ruled, in the 1969 Red Lion Broadcasting Co, Inc. v. The FCC, that the Fairness Doctrine was a necessary regulation, but many journalists became troubled by the apparent violation of their First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press. Many were concerned that a "forced fairness" by the FCC was the exact antithesis of free speech. What happened was, instead of trying to find "contrasting viewpoints" to make a story "fair", journalists simply avoided covering any issue that was controversial. In other words, all discussion of controversial issues was ended. While this can, perhaps, be contrued as "fair", it certainly doesn't amount to informative broadcasting.

By the early 1980's, things began to change dramatically. First of all, the scarcity argument (there are only a very few frequencies available, therefore we have to enforce "fairness") became moot with the proliferation of cable television, more and more radio stations, and the gradual rise of the Internet, although the Internet didn't become truly influential until the 1990's. The second major change was political. The nation as a whole had been moving away from the idea of government as a regulatory body. The 1980's was the Age of Deregulation.

The FCC, in a 1985 document entitled The Fairness Report, found that the Doctrine "chilled" debate of controversial issues, rather than made the discussion more balanced. The Supreme Court in 1987 revisited the matter in Merideth Corp. v. The FCC, and found that, since the Fairness Doctrine was not a legislation of Congress, the FCC did not, in fact, have to enforce it. That year, the FCC dropped the Fairness Doctrine.

Today, with many hundreds of radio stations, with satellite radio, cable, and the Internet, there is even less need for the Fairness Doctrine. Yet, our friends on the Left demand its return. Why? The simple truth of the matter is that Liberal talk radio and Liberal news outlets are failing at a stunning rate. If you can't get Air America in your market, that is simply because the network doesn't make enough money to justify its existence. I mean, these are the same folks who'll tell you that we need the National Endowment for the Arts because no one will buy a photo of a crucifix in a jar of urine. Why should we let them force their Liberal bilge onto the airwaves?

What they really object to is the overwhelming popularity of such talk radio luminaries as Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Levin, Grant, and Ingraham. There is, in fact, no comparable market available for the likes of Randi Rhodes, Thom Harmann, or Rachel Maddow. There was one evening host on Air America that was actually giving advertising away in a contest for select Liberal businesses.

That's right, folks! They are so hard up for advertisers, due to low listenership, that they have to give advertising time away with contests!

Essentially, since they can't seem to compete in the marketplace of ideas, they have to force stations to air their programming. This, by definition, is the exact antithesis of Free Speech.

HOMESCHOOLING:

Let's say you don't like the way your public schools teach. Or you don't like the values that they try to inculcate in your children. Let's say that you can't afford send your kids to a private school that is more appropriate for your kids. Looks like you're stuck with the public schools, right?

For many parents, the only real option is homeschooling.

The United States has, for almost all its history, recognized the rights of parents to educate their children in the manner they see fit. Public education was, until recently, a matter of local jurisdiction, allowing the parents a greater control over the content and quality of the educational product they were consumers of. Since Jimmy Carter and the elevation of education to a Cabinet post, things have become more and more centralized.

They have also become more and more Liberal and secular. California, for instance, has made it a matter of law that homosexuality be taught in the schools as just another way of living. No disparaging remarks may be uttered. In fact, children wearing T-shirts with the relevant Bible verses are suspended and remanded to "sensitivity" training.

Teachers in schools all across America are discouraged, at best, often times punished, for uttering such "hateful" phrases as "Merry Christmas". On the other hand, in New York City, there is a public school that has been turned into a madrassa, an Islamic school following the teachings of the Wahabi sect, the very same sect that Ossama bin Ladin belongs to.

Many parents have turned to homeschooling their children to escape such PC thuggery. They make sure that their kids are learning their school work. Indeed, homeschoolers often out-perform public schoolers by wide margins in standardized testing. The local school boards all monitor the education of these kids, and they are all enrolled in many extracurricular activities to allow them to socialize. The school districts still collect the taxes that would otherwise be spent on educating these children, but they don't have to actually educate them.

Sounds like a win-win situation all around, doesn't it? The schools get more money per pupil, the parents get freedom from PC oppression, and kids still get a decent education. Everyone's a winner, right?

Well, in a word... no. For one thing, the school district gets federal money, separate from the local school taxes, for each pupil enrolled in public school. So, even though they aren't spending all the money they take in for education, the districts aren't getting as much as they would with the homeschooler enrolled in public school.

The economics of the situation alone should be enough for school districts to be unhappy, but it is the education establishment itself that has the real beef. You see, these are the very same Liberals who foist their PC agenda on our children. If you, as a parent, remove your child from their embrace, well... We can't have that, now. Can we?

To our Liberal Elites, homeschooling is a monstrous threat. For it liberates far too many children from the Liberal indoctrination mills that our public schools have become. Therefore, some way must be found to get these kids back in their clutches.

Fortunately (for the Liberal Elites, not for us normal folks) there are the Courts. In California, a family who had been homeschooling their kids for years were suddenly brought up on child welfare charges. Local school officials had managed to cajole some child advocate to gin up charges of neglect, since the kids weren't enrolled in a public school nor being taught by a government approved facility. They then proceeded to find a judge that would go along with this travesty.

World Net Daily reports:

The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special
petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children
after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child
advocates. The lawyers appointed by the state were unhappy with a lower court's
ruling that allowed the family to continue homeschooling and challenged it on
appeal.

Justice H. Walt Croskey, whose opinion was joined by two other judges, then
ordered: "Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be
subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction and
subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and
counseling program."

The court, of course, totally ignored the state's practice of allowing homeschooling, and the fact that the kids were enrolled in an accredited private homeschooling program. What mattered most was to get those kids into the indoctrination program ASAP. Failure to comply might result in the parents getting "re-educated".

Of course, this has struck fear into the hearts of the parents of 166,000 children in the state of California who are homeschooled today. Attorneys for the parents and for the homeschooling program vow to fight right up to the Supreme Court.

But isn't it sad that Americans have to fight their own government over the education of their children?

HATE SPEECH?

A woman in Rochester, Mn, is facing trial for felony harassment and disorderly conduct. And what did she actually do? She tried to preach Christianity to a Muslim woman. By her own admission, she said that she tried to "plant a small little seed" in the woman, telling her to Just Say No to Islam.

The Muslim woman claimed that the accused, Patricia Stockwell, threatened and menaced her. She claimed that Ms. Stockwell yelled and said she wanted to kill her. No one else witnessed the exchange, but why should we let a little matter like evidence get in the way of a good hate crime?

Obviously, the court in this matter is taking the side of the Muslim woman. So let's see what the Quran has to say about these matters:

• In Surah 2:282 we find this lovely bit of misogyny: And let two men from among you bear witness to all such documents [contracts of loans without interest]. But if two men be not available, there should be one man and two women to bear witness so that if one of the women forgets (anything), the other may remind her. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 205). The Hadiths clarify the Surah with this observation from the Prophet himself: The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind."
  
  Therefore, according the Quran, we shouldn't believe either of the two women and the case is moot.


• Abdullah al Araby, writing for the Islam Review, notes that, while the Quran in general forbids deceit and dishonesty, it is perfectly hunky dory to lie to infidels and other non-believers. Therefore, why should we believe this young Muslim woman?

Look, I don't want to take sides in the this particular issue, but don't you think it's a bit overboard to side with the Muslim woman over the Christian? In America? After all, most observers would agree that the case is much ado about nothing.

However, Political Correctness mandates that the majority, simply by being the majority, is automatically suspect. Therefore, in the PC worldview, the Christian woman must have been in the wrong.

So what happened to the Christian woman's right to preach? In PC, she has no right to preach!

THE PREACHER AND THE POLICE:

In Salem, Mass, a Christian preacher was arrested for preaching the Gospels on Halloween Night in 2007. Salem, you might recall, has made witchcraft something of a cottage industry, thanks to its infamy in the Salem Witch Trials. To be sure, the police didn't actually put "preaching the Gospels" on the paperwork, but that was all Michael Marcavage was doing, as shown by this video. Apparently, preaching to would-be witches and other non-Christians has now become "disorderly conduct".

But, in this brave new PC world, that is only right. Christianity is intolerant, not witchcraft. And besides, the witches were persecuted, so it's only that preacher's just desserts.

More PC thought control? You betcha'!

PICTURES OF GUN CONTROL:

This last case really takes the cake! Young Donald Miller III, 14, wore a T-shirt last December emblazoned with a picture of a gun, with the words "Volunteer Homeland Security" on the front and the legend "Special issue — Resident — Lifetime License — United States Terrorist Hunting Permit — Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner — No Bag Limit." on the back. He said he wore this shirt in support of his uncle, who is fighting for our freedoms in Iraq.

Well, his school, Penn Manor in Lancaster, Pa, took the view that the shirt was a threat. Said Kevin French, the school district's attorney, the policy of the schools is to foster a safe environment, where no one would feel threatened. Even a picture of a gun violates that policy.

So, this poor kid gets detention for a patriotic shirt in a time of war. He expresses his support of the Second Amendment and the defense of America, and he is threatening? Precisely whom is he threatening? An Islamo-fascist terrorist? Are there any in Penn Manor? Why aren't they in violation of school policy?

Ray Bradbury wrote the cautionary tale, Fahrenheit 451. Presciently, he predicted just the sort of dystopian thought control we are witnessing in America today. How long before our firemen start pumping kerosene?

Copyright March 9th, 2008