Opus 2017-073: Constitutional Considerations: Liberty Is Not Secure

If we are going to preserve our liberty we are going to need to do two things.  Accept increased risk and learn to take care of ourselves.  They may actually be the same.

Benjamin Franklin was supposed to have made a comment about how you could not have both security and liberty.  We tend to want both.  We want the liberty to do our own thing.  We don’t want anyone telling us what to do.  At the same time we want the government to keep us safe.  Safe from hunger, terrorists, boredom and any other thing that we feel should be far away. 

On the broad field that is part of the government’s responsibility.  Article IV, Section 4 reads,

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.  

That means kicking out any would-be kings, defending our borders against invasion and slapping down insurrection.  That does not mean defending my front door against local thugs.  It does not mean requiring nutrition labels on the cans I buy.  It does not mean forcing a restaurant to post calorie content on their signs.  It does not mean having safe spaces for people who are emotionally unstable.  It means protecting us from the big things we cannot be expected to deal with.  Invasion by China, sure.  Invasion by bed bugs, not so much.

I am getting old and looking at retirement.  Do I expect the government to take care of me?  No, not really.  I will take whatever they are giving out, after all I am being taxed to pay for it, but if I am too cheap to buy insurance it is not the governments job to give me Cadillac health care.  At the same time I don’t expect them to bump me off because I am past my prime.  Have you ever asked yourself why seniors get the discounts when they have most of the money?

Give me a gun and let me lock my doors and windows.  If I leave my windows open for some criminal to climb in why should I expect the police to come bail me out.  Get the laws changed that put me in jail for defending my sanctuary and family.  And no, what they guy stole from my home was not just stuff.  Some of it was heirloom items that I received from my dead ancestors.  It can’t be replaced.  Some is heart items given to me by my children.  Some of it is things that cannot be replaced in the modern market.  He has taken a part of my life so he can buy drugs to ruin his.

Every time the government moves to protect you they chip away at the latitude you have for freedom of movement.  We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and earn our own bread.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-072: On the Street: Cool Meets Physics

I didn’t laugh at first.  He was cool.  His hat was on backwards and he was cruisin’ on his skateboard.  He was speeding across the street, in the crosswalk, and to be fair, he would have made it before the light went red. 

The problem with cool is that cool does not trump the laws of physics.  When his front wheels met a crack that his momentum could not bridge, gravity did what gravity does, the wheels when down, the skateboard stopped, the cool dude did not.

At first I cringed, watching him plunge to his face.  I had been knocked down a few days earlier and I had visions of doom and destruction for him.  My fears were assuaged as he quickly jumped up trying to look like he had planned it that way.  Cool never admits non-cool.  He probably will have some scrapes and bruises but the biggest victim was his dignity.

That was when I had to struggle with laughter.  Another skateboarder bites the dust.  It gave me a brief chance to feel superior.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-071: Federalists, Whigs and ?

A recurring story in the news over the last several administrations has been the end of the ___ party.  They used to say it about the Republicans.  Now they are saying it about the Democrats.  It is generally partisan hype.  To be honest neither party is going anywhere soon.

But it will happen eventually.  The Federalists faded away.  The Whigs imploded.  Which of the current two will be the first to go?  My guess right now is the Democrats.  Why?  Not because I am a Republican and have a blind faith that we are on the right side of history.  It is because I look into the wings and ask, “Who would replace them?”

Disgruntled, grass roots Republicans have no place to go.  The Libertarians are all over the place and can’t even seem to work together.  The other parties tend to be fringe groups.  The elites don’t represent me but there are enough in the organization for me to stick with it.

On the other hand, the groundwork is already in place for the Democrats to morph into a socialist or communist organization.  You look at the way in which they are pressing further and further left.  The elites that run that party are looking to marginalize the masses while they retain all the power in their hands.  They want to control all means of wealth and remove all voices of dissent.  They have the press on board and education has drunk the kool aide.  The tactics you see are the same that totalitarians have used all around the world.  You see the brown shirts.  You see the Big Lie.  You see Kangaroo courts.  You see attempts to disarm the population.  You see loyalty to the party instead of the nation.  You see the derision of the rule of law. 

Will they succeed this time?  They have tried before through organized labor.  This time it is a blatant grab for the reigns of government.  Will we have a Whittaker Chambers this time?  Will we have a politician like Richard Nixon step forward?  Will the American people wake up?

I invite you to stay tuned.  I am not sure you have any choice.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-070: Headlines: Where Are the Cops?

I am sure that by now those who get beyond CNN have heard about the brownshirts at Middlebury College.  They not only disrupted the planned visit of a world known scholar but attacked the car he was trying to leave in and roughed up the faculty member who was escorting him.  One reason we know this is fascism at work is that the faculty member was a liberal who had the temerity to actually be open minded and wanted to give the other side a chance to express its opinion.  To the fascist left that is probably the biggest sin.

We are going to see more and more of this but the reason I highlight this post is all in the title.  The title asks, “Where are the cops?”  Why are violent insurrectionists being arrested and allowed to find out what the rule of law means?  Every time we let them get away with this kind of thing and say, “Just childish enthusiasm” they will be emboldened to get even more violent next time.  If we do not start arresting, putting on trial and jailing the revolutionaries they will drive us from the square and take over our society.

Then the purges will really begin.  1984, anyone?

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-069: The Problem of Liberty

The problem with liberty is that it is self destructive.

People who believe in liberty believe that even people who disagree with them have a right to their opinions.  That is good, or it should be.  The problem is that the people on the other side do not believe that everyone has a right to their own way of living.  They take it another step.  While liberty loving conservatives generally take a live-and-let-live attitude the leftist progressive sets out to destroy variety and options.

We who love liberty get blind sided.  It happens time and time again.  We are nearing the nader of a cycle.  We have people rioting, looting and assaulting strangers in the name of free speech.  What is the phrase from 1984, “Freedom is slavery”?  These people have that feel.

The courts reflect this asymmetrical justice.  Progressive liberals feel free to legislate from the bench.  They ignore precedent and the Constitution.  Common law is based on those two things but fiat law is in the mind and the power of the judge.  Thus they come up with some bizarre ideas that are considered justice.  Traditionalist conservative judges then refuse to change the law back because the new interpretation has become precedent and is not to be changed lightly.  Thus we continue to lose and lose big time.

If we were playing Monopoly we would refuse to play with them just like we refused to play with people who kept changing the rules when we were kids.  Unfortunately we are not playing the game of Monopoly but the game of Liberty.

I am not sure of the solution because if we become like them we have lost.  We need to debate what freedom of speech looks like today but people are afraid of becoming targets.  That is part of the left’s strategy but we need to get over the fear of having the conversation.  Maybe something can be hammered out.  Or we could pass an Amendment that would allow bills of attainder and throw all the bums in jail.  Then we could change the law back. 

The other answer is violence in which he who has the most guns wins.  That is not a solution I want to face.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-068: Headlines: Black Holes and Quasars

A site called The Daily Time Waster had an interesting post about quasars.  I was willing to take their word for it.  I don’t have a dog in that race.  It was worth reading, until I came to this line,

“The intense gravity of the black hole makes the gas orbit at insane speeds. And the gas becomes incredibly hot as a result. And because of the size of supermassive black holes, the superheated gascloud is larger than our whole solar system.”

This was also interesting but set off a little alarm in my mind.  I am not a scientist but I am credentialed to teach science.  That isn’t worth much but it is true.  In my limited knowledge of physics I was under the impression that black holes were based totally on theory.  It is a way of explaining a phenomenon in the sky that is not understood.  As a theory it might be valid, but we don’t know.

Now we have a bunch of theory about quasars based on a bunch of theory about black holes being presented as established fact. 

Laymen to science need to understand that it is a bunch of theories based on a bunch of facts.  The facts can be duplicated and verified.  How they fit together is open to interpretation and that interpretation is constantly changing.  Newton was the guru until guys like Einstein came along.  Einstein is no longer the final word.  The scientific method is based on the assumption that the science will never be settled, unless you are Al Gore talking about global warming, of course.

So if you are a Christian who is not comfortable with some of the nonsense you hear about evolution you need to realize that they can no more prove evolution than you can creation.  The same goes for global warming, people being born homosexual and the list goes on.

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet or your textbooks.

homo unius libri

Opus 2017-067: The Editor

I have never written a book but from descriptions in forwards and acknowledgments I get a picture of a group of experts who know English and how to write.  A book it submitted to an editor who corrects the errors in grammar and syntax and gives ideas on how to improve the manuscript.  A good editor has a lot of influence.

Newspapers also have editors, who with the publisher, make the decisions about what stories will be published and which will be buried, where they appear in the paper and if they need to be shorter or longer.  Errors are pointed out and headlines are created.  Sometimes the entire article is rewritten to conform to the political stand of the editor.  They also have a lot of power. 

When I think of the media I am beginning to believe there is a little man, or could be a woman, who sits in a room somewhere and helps the robots of the media rewrite their hit pieces to be more effective against Trump.  There is a certain consistency of language and style.  There is a similarity of phrases and a common ignoring of important facts.  I would call it a conspiracy except for a Bible verse from the Old Testament,

(Isaiah 8:12 NAS77)  "You are not to say, 'It is a conspiracy!' In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.

Okay.  I can’t call it a conspiracy.  It is just like minds, or lack of them, and like morals, or lack of them, and a desire to destroy the country.  It is almost like some diabolical force is forcing them into the same mold of America hating.  I guess it doesn’t take much imagination  or organization to recycle all the nonsense they threw at George Bush and filed away for eight years under Barak Obama. 

You have heard of “talking points”.  They are recommended questions and responses published by the political parties and special interest groups for their sycophants.  I understand that both parties are accused of putting them out but liberals have a harder time thinking for themselves so you see more uniformity in their opinions.

Maybe we should do away with editors and find out how well the media can write on their own.

homo unius libri