Obama: Don’t stock up on guns:
“I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment,” Obama said at a news conference. “Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven’t indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word.”
“Lawful” becomes “unlawful” at the stroke of pen, now doesn’t it, BHO?
From firstamendmentcenter.org:
Mary Anaya said four armed deputies came into her house that day. She said she tried to keep them outside, even using physical force, but they came in and took Joel from the arms of her 12-year-old child.“It was terror,” she said.
He was placed in the custody of the state Department of Health and Human Services.
A Douglas County juvenile court judge ordered the next day that the baby remain in foster care until the preliminary results came back and confirmed further testing wasn’t needed. Joel was returned to them Oct. 16, when the tests came back negative.
The high court, in the opinion written by Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman, criticized the decisions that were made. While failure to do the required tests can be considered with other actions to conclude a child is being neglected, “failure to test under the newborn screening statutes, standing alone, does not establish neglect,” the judge wrote.
“There simply was no legal, factual, or logical basis to keep Joel in state custody after the blood sample was taken,” today’s opinion continues.
And yet…
But, she added, “What’s done can’t be undone. It’s only a small satisfaction that what was done to us was found to be wrong when there’s no consequences … it’s a small consolation.”
The court found that the actions of the four armed deputies were wrong, yet of course did nothing to punish them.
And there are other, less benign reasons for drawing a baby’s blood. Don’t think there aren’t.
Mice starting to win in the Beijing blogosphere:
Isaac Mao, 36, of Shanghai, credited as China’s first blogger, began using the term Great Firewall in 2005 to describe the frustrating structure of internet blocks and filters imposed by a government determined to move its censor-ship system into the digital age, and keep the world out. He was a pioneer in using proxy server technology to access overseas websites.But while Western attention focuses on how much international content China still blocks, Mr Mao is excited by what has recently happened. His verdict: blogging has given Chinese people nerve.
“Two years ago nobody would have believed this was true,” Mr Mao says. But “as more and more social problems have emerged in China, people have had the chance to connect and share things that could not be seen before. Once there are enough bloggers nothing can be hidden.”
The number of bloggers in China doubled to 107 million in the six months to last June, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre. Total users rose 56 per cent from the previous year, to 253 million, giving China the largest online population in the world.
Mr Mao says he can see a tipping point coming. He believes that as a result of blogging, young Chinese brainwashed by their education system are now trying to think for themselves, work together and find smarter solutions.
[...]
While bloggers continue to be blocked and jailed, Mr Mao says this is failing to deter them. The sheer number of Chinese now blogging about minor matters, “puts the burden on the Government to try to check and monitor so much content. They can’t tell what is sensitive”. He thinks freedom of expression is as much about simple daily stories as it is about topics such as Tibet.
Read the whole article. Appreciate the irony of this information freedom fighter’s family name. And remember that there is freedom in information.
NewsBusters brings us MSNBC Anchor Frets: Why Hasn’t Obama’s Election Ended Terrorism?
ALEX WITT: You know, John, and it’s interesting because there are many who had such an optimstic and hopeful opinion of things, and you certainly can’t expect things to change [snaps fingers] on a dime overnight, but there are many who suggested that with the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration there would be something of a lull in terrorism attacks. There had been such a global outpouring of affection, respect, hope, with the new administration coming in, that precisely these kinds of attacks, it was thought — at least hoped — would be dampered down. But in this case it looks like Barack Obama is getting a preview of things to come.JOHN YANG: He’s — it’s a rude awakening, a very, sort of, sober reminder of what he’s going to be facing in just a few weeks. And there is some concern also, there had been some concern, that during this period, during this, the transition period, between Election Day and Inauguration Day, that the enemies of the United States, those who don’t care for the United States no matter who’s leading it, would try and test the United States, would try to take advantage of this period, and I think that may be one thing that we’re seeing right now.
A rude awakening? Only for those who have been asleep.
I have taken advantage of WordPress’ “page” function to give certain essays a more prominent and permanent place on the sidebar than the typical blog post. (Pardon me if I sometimes include something of my own there). I have added a new page today that I think is worthy of a complete read. Written by Rose Wilder Lane and originally published as part of her 1936 book Give Me Liberty. Here is a taste to whet your appetite.
We appeared suddenly in the doorways of workingmen’s cafes, dingy places with sawdust on earthen floors where one musician forlornly tried to make music on a cheap fiddle and men and women in the gray rags of poverty sat at bare tables and economically sipped beer or coffee. Their terror at the sight of uniforms was abject. All rose and meekly raised their hands. The policemen grinned with that peculiar enjoyment of human beings in possessing such power.
They went through the men’s pockets, making some little jest at this object and that. They found the Labor cards, inspected them, thrust them back in the pockets. At their curt word of release, the men dropped into chairs and wiped their foreheads.
In every place, a few cards failed to pass the examination. No employer had stamped them during the past three days. Men and women were loaded into the patrol wagon.
Now and then, at our entrance, someone tried to escape from back door or window and ran, of course, into the clutch of policemen. We could hear the policemen laughing. The Chief accepted the compliments of the British detective. Everything was perfectly done; no one escaped.
Several women frantically protested, crying, pleading on their knees, so that they had almost to be carried to the wagon. One young girl fought, screaming horribly. It took two policemen to handle her; they were not rough, but when she bit at their hands on her arms, a third slapped her face. In the wagon she went on screaming insanely. I could not understand Hungarian. The Chief explained that some women objected to being given prostitutes’ cards.
To read the entire essay, click here.
Many thanks to Western Rifle Shooters Association for the pointer.
Samantha Power was part of Obama’s campaign team until in March 2008 she referred to Hillary Clinton as “a monster,” and then was called on to resign. She’s now back with Obama as part of the “transition team” and will no doubt continue to work for him. Here are a few select quotes from an interview with her, published in New Statesman last March. All emphases are mine.
New Statesman – Interview: Samantha Power
“Obama has talked a lot about the importance of moving away from electocracy,” she says, trying to move on to more comfortable territory, and suggesting that the way people actually live is more important than the “reification of elections”.“In terms of how radical the shift will be, I think it’s very hard. There’s going to be a huge foreign service and civil service that he will inherit, senators and congressmen who have already been elected. So I think he is one guy, trying to steer this ship of cacophonous agendas into a new place.”
[...]
“There will be situations where the priority is self-defence,” she says, indicating that a preference for multilateralism only goes so far. “President Obama, like every other leader on earth, is still going to be looking out for national and economic interests. States don’t cease to be states overnight just because they get a great visionary as their new president.“
[...]
Refreshingly unsmoothed by politics, Power – and, by extension, Obama – is advocating a nuanced form of foreign policy that takes “the world as it is” but seeks its betterment. It is a pragmatism informed by principle, as well as a certain briskness. At one point, discussing the UN, I say “not to criticise Ban Ki-moon” and Power butts in: “Oh go ahead, please do.” She opens her hands wide at the UN secretary general’s name. “Is that all there is?” she asks. “Can we afford to do without a global figure, a global leader?”
Sergio Vieira de Mello is sadly no longer available to fill such a role. But Samantha Power knows a man who is.
Draw your own conclusions.
via RBO
“Ruby Ridge” used to refer to a geographical location in the state of Idaho, but after an incident that took place there 10 years ago on Aug. 21, the phrase has come to refer to a scandalous series of events that opened the eyes of many people to the inner workings of the federal government, including the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now that 10 years have passed, the feds will accelerate their ongoing effort to “move forward” and have the scandal declared “ancient history.” But the Ruby Ridge episode should not be soon forgotten.
Should never be forgotten as demonstrable proof that agents of the government are perfectly willing to commit murder and lie about it afterwards.
And then, some of them are apparently even proud of their accomplishments.
Tracing a crime suspect through a relative – Los Angeles Times:
Police have determined through DNA and other evidence that the killings were the work of a single person. But the DNA does not match any of the millions of genetic profiles of convicted criminals in law enforcement databases, and detectives have few other clues.Now Los Angeles Police Department investigators want to search the state’s DNA database again — not for exact matches but for any profiles similar enough to belong to a parent or sibling.
The hope is that one of those family members might lead detectives to the killer.
This strategy, pioneered in Britain, is poised to become an important crime-fighting tool in the United States. The Los Angeles case will mark the first major use of California’s newly approved familial searching policy, the most far-reaching in the nation.
But the idea of scrutinizing families based exclusively on their possible genetic relationship to an unknown suspect makes privacy advocates and legal experts nervous. They argue that it effectively expands criminal databases to include every offender’s relatives, a potentially unconstitutional intrusion.
“There is kind of a queasiness about having the sins of your father come back to haunt you,” said Stanford University law professor Hank Greely, who supports familial searching despite those concerns. “It feels like we’re holding people responsible for the crimes of their family.”
Because the technology isn’t perfect, families with no connection to the perpetrator inevitably will be investigated, some scientists and legal experts say.
If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
This is their mantra.
Meanwhile, they do everything in their power to prevent us from exercising our most fundamental right in order to defend ourselves from the rapists and murderers.
But fear not, the “authorities” will be coming right along to wipe up the mess and follow trails of incomplete DNA until they wreck several innocent lives before they (might) find the real perpetrator. Not that it will do you any good. You’ll still be dead. Or raped.
Ask this: How have they accumulated a database of DNA profiles for those who have never committed a crime? Such information must already exist, if they are pursuing leads through relatives via partial DNA matches. This is an inescapable conclusion.
Every government function, no matter how mundane or apparently harmless, carries with it the implied (and often overt) use of lethal force against those who do not submit. Stefan Molyneux perceptively describes this as the principle of the “Gun in the room”: Whenever anybody refers to the supposed virtue of a given government undertaking, Molyneux sagely observes, the central question is not whether the end is desirable, but rather “whether I am allowed to disagree with you without getting shot.”
An argument that can have great effect on a receptive listener. It reminds me very much of another of my favorite blog posts, by Mike Gogulski: The penalty is always death.
Read them both.
Just a couple of comments on something from The Liberty Sphere:
But, The Chairman is dependent on crisis to consolidate power. Thus, the ‘crisis’ is made to sound worse than it is, courtesy of his new Pravda–the mainstream media. Dire warnings must be issued of the loss of ‘millions of jobs’ unless big government comes to the rescue.
Government has always, always relied on crisis to consolidate power. Regardless of any so-called party affiliation. They create crisis where there is none, and they exploit real crisis when it occurs; just look at all the unconstitutional laws (e.g., The Patriot Act) passed since 9/11. Obama is simply being blatantly obvious about it.
And to those who may think I am engaging in more Obama-phobia or hysteria, I would remind you that The Chairman’s own new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, candidly stated several months ago that it would be silly to allow a golden opportunity like an economic nosedive to slip by them.
As I said once before, the socialists have tasted blood, and they are going to find it very difficult to restrain themselves. They are going to relax their deviousness and assume that no one stands in their way. In a way, this is a good thing, because it is going to wake some people up. Whether enough people will awaken in time, I cannot say.
America the Illiterate by Chris Hedges:
We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
[...]
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
I must agree, and once again recommend to read the whole thing. They will pretend that the dichotomy is based on race; in fact, they have already started with calling His Highnass’s opponents racists, and it’s going to get worse. They will pretend it’s based on wealth, and cite “redistribution” as a form of justice. But the fact is, the dichotomy is between the stupid, who have damned us, and we the damned, who know better and are cursed for it.
via Karen De Coster
An AP news release at firstamendmentcenter.org has the details. Main points:
Read the whole thing for more.
Expect persecution of such malcontents who dare to ask real questions to increase.
Another video that you should see at How Obama Got Elected. Evidence that the voters who elected him are worse than ignorant; not only do they not know, their “knowledge” is wrong.
A couple of examples: they all think the Republicans control Congress, none of them have ever even heard of Barney Frank, none of them knew Obama had people kicked off the ballot so he could win…
Just watch the video.
via RBO
RBO finds a web of associations:
Caveat: By now we should all be used to the idea that lines cross, criss cross, and cross over again any time one attempts to trace a direct pathway between Barack Obama and anyone else. If you have tried to do this, you thoroughly understand the complexity — and frustration — of the task.
In this particular instance, the starting point had nothing to do with the destination. This article began as RBO continued to poke around in that declassified, highly-redacted August 1976 FBI report on the Weather Underground. It was completely unexpected that we would arrive where we did.
Hold onto your head tightly, it will help prevent your skull from exploding.
Existingthing links to a video regarding the “civilian security force” (a.k.a. Brownshirts) proposed by the upcoming regime. I’ll not embed the video here, just follow the link.
These and other such videos should be not only seen, but downloaded by as many people as possible. We can expect such information to be scrubbed, and the more people preserve such information, that faster it can be spread and re-spread.
via Oleg Volk
From Pro Libertate:
I’m of the view that all presidents should be simultaneously inaugurated and impeached, and that there should be a streamlined procedure to expedite their conviction and removal from office upon each president’s first documented violation of his constitutional oath.–William N. Grigg
What I’ve Learned from Gun Nuts | Travel & Outdoors | New West Network:
I consider my right to bear arms one of my basic freedoms, but not the only one, so buckle up, gun nuts. I happen to think other amendments to our constitution such as Number 1 (freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition), 13 (abolishing slavery), 14 (equal protection under the law), 19 and 26 (right to vote for women and all citizens over 18) and others might actually be more important than Number 2.
Then you would be wrong.
If the vast majority of the population does not own guns because of government intervention, and said government decides to re-institute slavery, what are you going to do about it? Protest? But then the government brings its full muscle to bear in order to censor you, to prohibit your meeting with like-minded individuals, to invade your house for no reason other than to find anti-slavery literature, and finally, it removes your right to vote because you have been arrested for transgressing its own “laws”…what are you going to do about it? You have no arms.
The right to keep and bear arms protects all other rights. There is no other way to defend basic freedoms if a governing authority decides to abolish them. That is what makes it the most fundamental right.
–
I have been reading the sentiment here and there that, yes, the U.S. elected a blatant Marxist; yes, he believes that private citizens should not be allowed the means to repel violent criminal attacks against themselves and their property; yes, he will likely destroy our already faltering economy; yes, he plans to create his own civilian force with mandatory service–but gosh, he’s black, and that’s something about which we should be proud.
No. It is not.
Why was Obama elected? I can think of two reasons.
The majority voters of the United States want a level of tyranny which they have never before personally experienced. They want to be controlled like never before. They want their wages to be garnished even more heavily than ever. They want to be managed, fed and culled like cattle.
The other reason is the one no one wants to mention. It’s not only the elephant in the room, it’s the elephant that’s about to drop a big steaming pile of fertilizer on what’s left of our freedom.
The majority of voters voted for him because of the pigmentation of his skin.
Should either of these reasons give us cause to be proud? I defy anyone to logically argue that it is less racist to vote for someone because of his skin color than it is to vote against someone because of his skin color.
Remember, I said, “logically.”
So: either the majority voters of the United States want a president who will do his best to stomp their freedom into the ground, or they want a president who is black.
There is nothing here to be proud of. This election is merely evidence that racism in the United States is still going strong, and thought control (that is, “political correctness”) is stronger than ever. Those who voted for him should be ashamed, and those who did not should be revolted.
If you really think that race will not be a huge part of the upcoming regime, you are not paying attention. Any indication of discontent with the Fuhrer will bring accusations of racism. Expect it. In fact, it has already begun.
–
I would like to take this opportunity to mention a new addition to the blogroll: The Real Barak Obama.
WendyMcElroy provides some good reading on the subject.
View the video “Goodbye Liberty” by Chris Bliss. If you were not outraged by these dictatorial measures taken by the Bush presidency, why not? And if you were not outraged before, do you now fear these powers being transferred into the hands of Obama? Is it only because of the letters “R” and “D”?
Obama is going to spike it. But Bush set him up. Don’t forget that.
via the Thomas Jefferson Center
