Invisible Art, Invisible Brains

If this turns out to be a hoax, I apologize.

What are these people looking at?

A 27-year-old New York artist has invented something called "invisible art" and she is making millions selling it to people who absolutely must have it. 

A documentary team from the Canadian Broadcasting radio network traveled to Lana Newstrom's empty studio to learn more about her art that isn't there. 
"Just because you can't see anything, doesn't mean I didn't put hours of work into creating a particular piece," Newstrom told the CBC.  "Art is about imagination and that is what my work demands of the people interacting with it. You have to imagine a painting or sculpture is in front of you." 
The most amusing aspect of the story is the image of snobby art collectors walking through an empty studio studiously staring at blank walls with track lighting properly illuminating the nothingness on display. Some of the art afficianados actually stop and soak in the lack of art that is not hanging on the blank wall and tilt their heads in a deeply thoughtful way as if to project their profound understanding of the message sent by the brilliant young artist and her stunning ability to not create anything.  
Newstrom's agent, who is undoubtedly raking in a nice commission by his client's ability to not do anything, says, "When she describes what you can't see, you begin to realize why one of her invisible works can fetch upwards of a million dollars."
This story was not, we repeat, not published in The Onion. 

I wish I had the funds to hire a polling firm to be there every hour the gallery is open, and be able to demand that every person who walks through the door submit to the questionnaire that I get to design.  There will be a string of non-threatening, innocuous questions.  Then there will be these questions:

(#) Would you support tax-payer funding for this art through the NEA?

(#) Of all the pieces you have viewed here today, which one had the most impact on you, and why? Please be very specific.

(#) What policital party or philosophy of government would you describe yourself as being most aligned with?  Again, be very specific.

That Will Teach Him

Bitter abortion advocate demonstrates to Rush Limbaugh that no good deed goes unpunished

By Rosslyn Smith

Merritt Tierce, budding novelist, former executive director of a not for profit and, of course, like all under appreciated artistes, a former moonlighting waitress, thought the $2000 in tips from Rush Limbaugh on a couple of meals at a high end Dallas restaurant "felt like 'blood money." So she gave it to her charity: the Texas Equal Access  (TEA) Fund, a group that finances abortion for poor women. 
Irony seems to be completely lost on this woman.   I wonder if the concept was covered in the coursework when she got her MFA from the University of Iowa?  Of course, her first novel, which she is now promoting, is all about working in a restaurant.
Let me hazard as guess as to the tone of this work.  Since she looks like she is mad at the world, I bet her novel tells in great detail how the main character is mad at life in general and then beats the reader over the head with "the truth" about the high-end restaurant business.  She will then wonder why so few people bought her novel.   (Or came to her play, or listened to his music or bought the painting or sculpture, etc. etc etc.) 

The world of art is full of poseurs who routinely mistake progressive dogma for profound insight and garden variety experiences as penetrating metaphor.  Those few with genuine talent actually seldom tell the audience much of anything.  Instead, a real artist makes an audience feel the emotion as if it were their own.

Merritt Tierce, budding novelist, former executive director of a not for profit and, of course, like all under appreciated artistes, a former moonlighting waitress, thought the $2000 in tips from Rush Limbaugh on a couple of meals at a high end Dallas restaurant "felt like 'blood money." So she gave it to her charity: the Texas Equal Access  (TEA) Fund, a group that finances abortion for poor women. 
Irony seems to be completely lost on this woman.   I wonder if the concept was covered in the coursework when she got her MFA from the University of Iowa?
Of course, her first novel, which she is now promoting, is all about working in a restaurant.
Let me hazard as guess as to the tone of this work.  Since she looks like she is mad at the world, I bet her novel tells in great detail how the main character is mad at life in general and then beats the reader over the head with "the truth" about the high-end restaurant business.  She will then wonder why so few people bought her novel.   (Or came to her play, or listened to his music or bought the painting or sculpture, etc. etc etc.) 
The world of art is full of poseurs who routinely mistake progressive dogma for profound insight and garden variety experiences as penetrating metaphor.  Those few with genuine talent actually seldom tell the audience much of anything.  Instead, a real artist makes an audience feel the emotion as if it were their own.

So, let's think about this for a minute.  "Blood-money?"

From Wikipedia I found this:

Blood money may refer to:

• Blood money (restitution), money paid to the next of kin of a murder victim as a fine
• Thirty pieces of silver, in The New Testament, the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus
• Weregild, in English history, reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide or other wrongful death
• The money earned for contract killing

Which of these is Rush Limbaugh guilty of?  BTW - I'm not a big fan of Rush.  He would put me in the camp of people he makes fun of as KOOKS (Keepers Of Odd Knowledge Society). But yes, I've listened to him an awful lot in the past.  I do agree with him on some things, but he's not the focus of this post, she is.

And even if Rush were guilty of something worthy of referring to the tip as blood money, in what universe does it make sense to help insure the brutal murder of an innocent child in the womb as a way to atone for whatever sins, either perceived or real, may have been committed by him?

I'm sure it would have been unthinkable to give the money to a homeless shelter or a community food bank or something that actually gives aid and comfort to someone who is suffering.

Naaaahh!  Can't do that.

They came to leave a message

They came to tell the rest of us what we have to do to clean up the planet.

They came to tell the rest of us how capitalism doesn't work, even though we haven't had free market capitalism in this country since about 1913.

They came to tell the rest of us how socialism and communism are the only way to make things better.

They left a monument for us to look at and remember how brave and wise they are for having told us what we all need to do.

What I'd like to do is mix up a huge batch of clear epoxy resin and pour it all over this stuff and let it harden, so that people will be able to see how much actions speak louder than words. 

Also, I'd like for the National Endowment for the Arts give me a few million dollars of the taxpayer's money for having created such an avante guarde piece of art for the public to enjoy.

Another Dream Girl

Never stop dreaming.

Of course, at my age, and given my current location, that's just about all I can do.  It just warms my heart to see a video like this.  To know that there are women like this around.  Beautiful, sexy, and very, very intelligent.

Please, God, let me have a girl like this:



Shout out to Morgan at House of Eratosthenes.  Morgan, you make me so damned jealous for finding and posting such awesome stuff like this before me.  But, that's why your blog is so much more successful than mine, you freaking blogmaster.

Origin of Government

Morgan over at House of Eratosthenes got me going on this subject with this post.

My perspective on this is so divergent from his that I decided to make it my own stand alone post on my blog here.  I couldn't just comment on his blog.

For the purpose of this discussion, trying to keep it in as narrow and controllable forum as possible, I'm going to define Column A and Column B in my own terms and maybe give them catchier names.

Severian says Column A people are:  "A group of individuals, each as sovereign as his physical power can make him, agree to cede some of their rights to a collective, in order to better secure their remaining rights. The key player here is the individual."   The only problem I have with that definition is that there is no need to cede any rights.  This is a misconception that has crept into our republican society.  Just because I agree with forming a local government with a police force and courts does not mean that I cede any rights or any sovereignty.  I simply LEND my authority to those entities as a matter of convenience.  I refuse to give up or cede anything to government.  To do so would be to misunderstand and negate the very words of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Until I come up with something better, I'll call the Column A group, "Indies."

The Column B group is made up of people who cover a wide range, as surprising as that may seem.  At the worst end of the spectrum are those who are ravenously power hungry and mean to rule others. Such people have learned to parlay their narcissism and sociopathy into lucrative careers. At the mildest end of the spectrum are those who desire to be ruled under the guise of having security and believe that all others should feel the same way, believe the same way, and by God we will give whatever power necessary to our champions to enforce it.  Probably the greatest rallying cry of this crowd is; "There Ought To Be A Law."  So, I'll call them the TOTBALS.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  If it protects ONE child . . .  Such are the self-proclaimed "liberals" who justify the most intolerant, totalitarian government for the purpose of enforcing what they believe is best for everybody at the point of a gun.  And yes, there are more than enough of such people proudly bearing the labels of Republican and Conservative.  They are just as bad.  Don't talk to me about how evil abortion is and then in the next breath defend the so-called "war on drugs."  Shut. UP.  Don't you dare defend subsidies for industries and corporations and even farmers and then gripe about WIC and food stamps.  All of the policies and bloated bureaucracies of government need to be destroyed or scaled back to make none of those things necessary.

The Indies are those who would love to not need any courts or any police or any government, except for the fact that they recognize that human nature won't allow it.  Indies recognize that anarchy is not viable because there will always be evil people who mean to abuse other people, innocent people, and so we must establish and ordain at least some limited form of government in order to restrain the evil.
The biggest problem in this scenario is that the true-to-the-core Indies who would be the best and most trustworthy at executing that role don't really want the job.  They just want to be left alone to pursue a multitude of worthwhile goals and just taking care of themselves and their loved ones.

Unfortunately, the kind of people who actively seek to get the jobs in government are the TOTBALS.  And they actually think of themselves as really good people who are doing us a favor by sacrificing and working for far less than they are actually worth.

I get extremely irritated by anyone who thinks that the American Revolution and the French Revolution had anything remotely in common.  Even if you don't want to study them in depth, at least read "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens.  The former was a righteous attempt to redress grievances and establish a proper government.  The latter was just an excuse to go on a cathartic blood-bath over a corrupt Church-monarchy cabal.

I don't know if there is much more that I should add to this post.  Let me know.

Gunwalker Scandal

. . . Is a lot more important than Wiener's wiener.

The story started circulating in the blogosphere months ago upon the death of agent Terry.  I didn't comment on it until now, because I was afraid that, like the scandal over the two border agents who got railroaded into Federal prison for shooting a drug dealing, illegal Mexican, it would just get swept under the rug and nobody would pay attention.

But when I started seeing it on blogs that don't talk a lot about 2nd amendment issues, I thought maybe there would be hope that some people would wake up to what our government is trying to pull, flagrantly allowing people to die, in the hundreds to carry out policy that would rob us of our constitutional rights.

Read the most recent stuff on it here, and then do some more research on your own.  And don't you dare tell me I should have anything BUT contempt and derision for this administration and anyone in Congress who knew anything about it and didn't blow the whistle.

I was tipped off to this most recent story by Ann Barnhardt, and I like what she has to say about it as well.  She doesn't have permalink on her site so if you are going to read her comments on it, you will need to index her post by today's date:  June 17, 2011

Good Example

I got the following from Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta.  It's a very simple object lesson.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism would work, and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich – a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan. All grades would be averaged, and everyone would receive the same grade – so no one would have to fail, but no one would be able to receive an A."
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride, too, so they studied far less. The second test average was a D. No one was happy.
When the 3rd test finally rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased – but bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would agree to study for the benefit of anyone or everyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor explained to them that socialism would also ultimately fail for exactly the same reason – because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when someone (government) takes the reward away, no one will try or care enough to strive to succeed.
Couldn't be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up, we can't afford to fail in 2012.

Thomas Sowell once said sumpin' like socialism has a record of failure that is so obvious only a liberal could miss it.

Thanks, Denny.  We need to keep making this point every chance we get.

UPDATE:   I like this video version even better:

Social Justice II

When you hear the words "Social Justice" juxtaposed together, remember that is just Marxist code for spreading the misery and reducing everyone down to a subsistence level or worse.

Just keep in mind that in every communist regime since 1900, the answer to food production problems and the resulting unrest was to cut off any food supply and starve the problem to death.

Wanna see what we are headed for if people don't wake up?  Go look at Zimbabwe.
THAT's "social justice."

No Surprise Here

I've known this for over fifteen years, but it's nice to have someone with the expertise and the curriculum vitae to prove it.



Hat tip to Moonbattery.

Best Statement #3 for 2011

From our man at OneCosmos

"The genuine problems that confront man are by no means "solved" by the left, just systematically ignored and obliterated, to man's eternal detriment. In the ideal world of the left, it would be against the law to even talk about the real problem(s); hence, political correctness, which is simply totalitarianism by other means. "

And none of that political correctness is going to go away until the whole mess of a system collapses.  Of course,  for those of us paying attention, we see it coming soon.

I'm Almost Speechless

What happens when classical education, reason, and logic are no longer required subjects in school and the leftist moonbats are in charge of government education?

You get this:

Best Statement #2 for 2011

Found this at the deep-thinking blog called One Cosmos:

Marxism is rooted in the myopic fallacy that things were getting worse for the average worker, when the reality was that, for the first time in 10,000 years, they were actually getting dramatically better. 

In this regard, Marx was not just economically illiterate, but appallingly ahistorical, a malady that continues to afflict the left to this day. The free market will eventually solve most problems that leftist policies will only perpetuate or aggravate, which means that the left is the very disease it attempts to cure. In order to carry this off, the leftist relies upon people being riveted to the ahistorical moment, so they may implement a radical solution to redeem the future. But the former never works and the latter never arrives. 

Update:  Bonus paragraph from the previous day's posting where Bob gives one definition of those who believe in the religion of being "progressive."

Again, this is anything but progressiveism; it is pure romanticism, which is always backward looking -- and not just backward looking, but backward to an idealized past that never existed to begin with. It is pure projection of present existential pain, and escapism into the past. No one is more conservative than a progressive. It's just that what they want to conserve is childhood and all of its privileges, e.g., irresponsibility, dependency, entitlement, rebellion against the grown-ups, polymorphous perversity, weak boundaries, etc.  [emphasis mine]

Todah Rabbah, Robert Godwin!

Best Statement #1 for 2011

Via the comment section from House of Eratosthenes:

“The Left is more than ruthless, they are evil. They seek to rule, not by persuasion or honest debate, but by any means necessary. They revel in slander, character assassination and violence. They are steeped in hatred for all who oppose them. They seek to create and hold a monopoly on news media and editorial opinion; they support voter fraud and stolen elections; they prosecute political opponents on trumped-up charges in kangaroo courts. They have raised “the politics of personal destruction” to a high art form. Fairness, civility and common decency are unknown to them. I do not see the American Left as fellow citizens, I see them as sworn enemies for whom I feel little or no commonality or fraternity.

The Left has, however, finally convinced me of the truth of one of their key precepts: Politics is war by other means. They proved that in their orgy of hate and slander following the Arizona shootings. I shall not forget again.”

I’m fresh out of mercy."

That's right.

Good Answer

I wish I could have written this answer.  It may not perfectly fit everything I believe, but it comes very close.  Maybe someday I will take the body of the text and embellish on it.

I think my favorite aspect of his explanation on the answer is the fact that we conservatives, and I mean true conservatives, and not the George Bush, John McCain, Karl Rove types, have to explain our conservatism in contrast to leftists/progressives.

Reading Comprehension

We live in a world where few people like to engage in debate because somebody's feelings might get hurt.  The left has so successfully dumbed down most of society in this regard.  "Political Correctness" is all about not being able to clearly state the truth because it might make someone uncomfortable.  The other side of that coin is that it allows people to say really stupid or completely false (or both) things that make people feel good. Then, if you point out that such things really don't make sense, or are a lie; you are the villian.


For example:  Pointing out that "affirmative action" which creates quotas and in turn puts lesser qualified minorities in positions they don't deserve on merit, or punishes qualified minorities by tainting them with a stain of doubt, will get you dismissed as a racist.  "We don't have to debate the issues, or data, or anything else, you are a racist, end of argument!"  But that's not the point of this post.


I came across this tiny little post by Tam over at View From The Porch, which linked to this very long screed by Mark Ames where he chastises the younger generation of leftists who are dissatisfied (notice I didn't say disillusioned) with the democrat party. 


It makes good sense to try to understand your opposition if for no other reason than to question yourself about what it is that you believe, and if you cannot articulate properly what it is you believe, then you should do some careful analysis to see if what you believe is in error.  


Tam quoted the last paragraph of Ames' lengthy rant to make her point, but it was something a bit before that which got me thinking.  Not about Ames' argument per se, but how in the wide, wide world of sports he could conclude such drivel. Here it is:

Ever read the preamble to the Constitution? There’s nothing about private property there and self-interest. Nothing at all about that. It’s a contract whose purpose is clearly spelled out, and it’s a purpose that’s the very opposite of the purpose driving Stewart’s rally, or the purpose driving the libertarian ideology so dominant over the past few generations. This country, by contract, was founded in order to strive for a “more Perfect Union”—that’s “union,” as in the pairing of the words “perfect” and “union”—not sovereign, not states, not local, not selfish, but “union.” And that other purpose at the end of the Constitution’s contractual obligations: promote the “General Welfare.” That means “welfare.” Not “everyone for himself” but “General Welfare.” That’s what it is to be American: to strive to form the most perfect union with each other, and to promote everyone’s general betterment. That’s it. The definition of an American patriot is anyone promoting the General Welfare of every single American, and anyone helping to form the most perfect Union—that’s “union”, repeat, “Union” you dumb fucks. Now, our problem is that there are a lot of people in this country who have dedicated their entire lives to subverting the stated purpose of this country. We must be prepared to identify those who disrupt and sabotage our national purpose of creating this “more perfect union” identifying those who sabotage our national goal of “promoting the General Welfare”—and calling them by their name: traitors. You who strive to form this Perfect Union and promote General Welfare—You are Patriots.

If you are a Bible scholar, you'll appreciate that this is like talking to a Jehovah's Witness.  They use almost all the same vocabulary that you do, but they have completely different meanings for the words.


In Mark Ames' case, I can only assume that his wacked-out college professors spoon fed him this drivel about what the framers had in mind when they penned the founding documents.  I could take a hundred people who had been educated to read well the English language, but who haven't been polluted by the leftist thought of modern academe and let them read just the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution, and I doubt that even five percent of them could come to the conclusions of Mark Ames.


It would be one thing if all Mark had to go on was just those two documents for him to come up with this "opposite world" view of what the framers intended, but the framers took several years to hammer out the Constitution, and in the process, there was tremendous debate back and forth on the pros and cons of each and every particular sentence. The war for independence began in 1775 and took 8 years to win. The Constitution was not adopted until 1787.  In that time, there were letters published in the newspapers.  This is how we got the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. (Yes, there were people even more radically in favor of constraining  government than even those who won out with the Constitution we have.)  The debates in Congress about each aspect of the Constitution  are a matter of public record.


I could regale my reader with quote after quote that makes it quite clear that the founders saw government as a necessary evil that should be kept in very strong chains and with a muzzle over it's fangs.  "A useful tool, but a cruel master."  They wrote much about the dangers of an overreaching government and a natural tendency toward tyranny, all in the name of "what's good for the people."


I think today I should start looking for such quotes and create a new page for such reference.  Until then, let me suggest that you "google" the web for quotes by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Samuel Adams, etc. to read for yourself what animated those men to create the form of government that we USED to enjoy.


What is scary is how many people there are out there who think like Mark Ames.  People who think that the Constitution of the United States was written as if by Karl Marx.


Anyone with enough intelligence to earn better than minimum wage can understand that the general welfare clause in the Preamble of the Constitution meant that, and I paraphrase here: "The rest of the document, that you are about to read, is designed to keep as much government out of your lives as possible, so that you can be free to pursue a life of prosperity and value and happiness."


The founders were highly intelligent, educated men.  Their vocabularies were immense and many of them knew Greek and Latin.  They chose their words very carefully, and as I stated before, there were often lengthy debates on the wording of every sentence in the Constitution.  Notice that the preamble says "promote" the general welfare and not "provide."  There's a reason for that.


If Mr. Ames believes that it is the purpose of government to create a "perfect union," I suggest he go where they are working hard to make that happen.  Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, France, China, etc. The list is long.  I'm sure they would be glad to have such a true believer working side by side with them.

What Is A Right?

If there is one thing that can make my blood pressure go up and get me to ranting it is the abuse of the word "right."  That is, in the sense of what a human being is entitled to.  Nowhere is the leftist brainwashing of the government indoctrination system ("public school") and the media, more apparent than in this area.

Ever wonder why there are just three very intangible things listed as rights in the Declaration of Independence?  How many people are aware that in the Bill of Rights, which is a list of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, only one,  -- Ahem --,  **AHEM**   only one thing, or inanimate object is referred to as being a right?  Notice that the definition of said article is really only about it's use and not the object itself.  But more about that later.

What is a right?  What's the difference between a right and a privilege? How can we determine this?  When you think of something as being a right, what does that mean?  Isn't it something that you believe that you are owed merely for existing? To put it another way, maybe you think it is something you are entitled to in order to exist. To an undeveloped mind, it would make perfect sense that if you need something in order to survive, it MUST be a right, right? Um, not so fast, Sparky.

 In what should seem silly and outrageous to any thinking person, there are actually people who think that housing is a right. Some people actually think that food is a right.  Some even think that medical care is a right. Such people have only engaged in what Thomas Sowell calls "stage one" thinking.  They have not thought it out completely.   In my essay on Peterson Syndrome I start to delve into how this came about, and it goes to the lack of education via debate and logic.  In this case the most useful tool in the logic box is reductio ad absurdum.  This means reducing an argument to it's most logical base.  We exercise the concept of "if - then" until we exhaust it to the conclusion, until there is no more "then."

I started getting the idea about this from seeing Joe Huffman's "Jews in the attic" test.  He developed this test for deciding whether or not a law could be considered Constitutional.   To put it simply the way I understand it, imagine you are in Nazi controlled Europe and you are trying to rescue Jews from the holocaust.  If a law was passed that directly interfered with your ability to protect those Jews or try to get them to safety, the law fails the test.  Go study it for yourself, and think about having to be in such positions. It may be coming sooner than you think.

Maybe you've seen the TV show "Survivor."  This was another piece of the puzzle for developing my rights test.  It didn't take long for me to grow disgusted with the show.  Survivor was a misnomer. However, the show did teach me a lot about human behavior.  "Reality" TV it was not.  The producers of the show manipulated everything, all in the effort to create tension, controversy and ultimately, ratings.  Let's really exercise our minds by thinking about what would happen if a small group of people were suddenly thrust into a genuine survival situation.  Plane crash in a remote area of South America or Canada.  Shipwrecked on a remote island.  Doesn't matter.  But there is no government, no rules, no infrastructure, no electricity, no shelter.  Doesn't matter if there are three of you or thirty of you.  All that matters now is survival.

This is where you had better hope and pray that the strong male(s) in the group have character and conscience, otherwise you'd better have enough survival skills to move out on your own and do your best. That goes double if you are female.

Now, think about what rights you have.  Do you have a right to food? Only if you hunt it down and kill it, or find it and dig it up or collect it. That applies to you as an individual or a group.  Do you have a right to warmth?  Only if you can figure out how to start a fire and maintain it.  The wood will not gather itself.  Do you have a right to shelter?  Only if you want to figure out how to build it or find a cave.  Do you have a right to a job?  Are you starting to see the picture here?

Let's say the group of "survivors" is about 20 or so in size.  It is a fairly diverse group when it comes to employment, vocation, education, etc. Why, there is even a physician in the mix. Does that mean you have a right to medical care?  There is no hospital, no beds, no medical equipment.  Only the knowledge that exists in that well-trained brain of that lady who spent the better part of her life, giving up any "life" as most people know it to acquire the knowledge she needed to be called "doctor."  But now, your little group is in a situation where everybody has to work hard to do just the most basic things to gather scarce food and water and try to maintain warmth and create shelter.  What about her rights?  Are you going to force her, just because of her knowledge, to have to care for anyone in the group who needs medical attention?  Any time that she sacrifices for that, instead of gathering or hunting or working on the shelter or gathering wood, takes away from the benefits of the whole group, let alone herself.  How are you going to compensate her?

Of course it is beneficial if everyone works together and finds a way to divide the labor and make the best use of everyone's skills. But it has to be on a voluntary basis.  Respect for each person's individual rights would be imperative. The cold, hard truth that each person would have to come to grips with, is that a right is only something that does not require any other person to have to sacrifice any of his own rights.

Private property has to be a fundamental right in order for any society to thrive.  That which you work to earn has to be respected by all the members of a community. This right was understood well by the founding fathers. It is understood from the main body of the Constitution.  It went all the way back to the Magna Carta, and had long been a part of English common law.

The bottom line is this: Nothing that requires that another person give up involuntarily, a part of his life, either in actual time or property earned, can be considered a right by someone else.  Go think on that.  We are quickly approaching a time in history when the looters are going to have to get their own hands dirty doing the actual looting and risk the consequences, rather than electing henchmen to use the power of government to do it for them.

Bring It On

The left likes to say that we conservatives are dangerous.  When you believe in the principles of this country as founded, that's exactly what we should have been for a long time, but we weren't.  Leftists will take what I say and twist it, as they always do, but I'm going to say it anyway.

The reason the country is in such lousy shape is because conservatives didn't maintain the respect that comes from being feared. We conservatives also just assumed that common sense would let people know that the ideas of the left just don't work in the long term, and that history had proved it over and over.  The government at all levels took little steps, and incrementally did things that would take us all down the road to hell, and we conservatives bought into the idea of just being nice, and going along to get along.What should have happened is that, every time those critters who seek out power by getting elected or becoming a bureaucrat started doing stuff that was outside the enumerated powers of the Constitution, they would have quickly heard from a large body of the constituency letting them know that their job was in danger.  Alas, we so wanted not to be hated or to be labeled as sexist, racist, xenophobic, intolerant, homophobic, or whatever, that we kept giving away ground.  Just like the Israelis, trading real estate for the hope of peace.  It was a fool's game.

Have there been extremists among the so-called "right wing?"  Of course.  There are always extremists in every camp.  And now we have an example of one on the left.

What fascinates me is the total lack of reason in the man.  Recent polls coming up to the 2010 election said that only 20% of the country thinks of itself as liberal.  Not leftist, mind you, but just liberal.  And it's been my experience that when you talk to someone who considers themselves liberal, they most often don't know much about anything political or about history, and certainly not anything about weapons.  In fact, most liberals I've ever dealt with in my life reacted to seeing my folding knife or one of my firearms as if they'd seen a scary monster.

With that in mind, I just had to laugh when I read this excerpt of what is a call for violent revolution published by the notorious left wing cartoonist Ted Rall.  He wants to seek out and destroy Tea-Party Patriots.  What more can I say, than, "Good luck with that."

Hat tip to The Anti-Idiotarian Rottwieler.

Where We Started

It is good to think upon this on a day when we are on the verge of a new revolution in this country.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Let me paraphrase.  Let me expound on the things that I see in the text in a spirit of being true to exegesis in honor of the authors.  Let me not speak what I would wish it to say based upon some selfish notion of egalitarianism or other nonsense, but what did the men who were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor  mean to say.

The introduction above speaks to the understanding that in the late eighteenth century, the modern world believed that kings reigned  because God had ordained it.  That unless a king was so unredeemingly corrupt and evil that appealing to his good graces could bring about a correction of abuses of government, it would be wrong to go to war in order to achieve justice.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

I was once told that, if I didn't like how the government did things, I should move.  That if I didn't like the way the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution, I should just find another country.
I don't have enough words, or words that have the power to contain my anger or commitment to see the death and destruction of such evil.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. 

How many people ever consider that the men who created the Federal government of this land expected us to always be prepared to tell the Federal government:  "To hell with you, WE will tell YOU how it is going to be.    You don't dictate to us.  We dictate to you.  And when you start acting like you think you know better how we should live, we will put an end to your sorry and worthless existence."

The Constitution of the United States of America is the first governmental document in the history of the world that had the purpose of telling the government that, "You can do these enumerated things and no more."  The Constitution of the United States was a contract by which the People loaned the government very restricted powers to carry out just the minimum necessary things  that only a government could do in order to protect the rights of the people.  Contrary to modern misunderstanding, the constitution does not grant any rights to the people.  Let that sink in.  The Constitution does not grant any rights to the people.  The Constitution assumes that all rights are inherently belonging to the people from God.

I've read history.  I've read the Federalist Papers.  I hope to spend some time reading the Anti-Federalist papers.  From all of those sources it is abundantly clear that the founders of the United States saw government as a necessary evil.  Something akin to a pit bull on a leash that needed to be beaten back on occasion to make sure it didn't get out of hand.  One founding father compared government to fire; a useful servant and a fearful master.

If you wish to live in a land where the government will dictate to you which lightbulbs you can use, what kind of house you can build, how much sugar you can eat, what kind of medical care you can receive, what kind of car you can drive, what kind of job you can have, then you need to move to a country that already does those things.  Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, France, England, Mexico, etc.  The world is full of places that  already are happy to dictate every aspect of your life and pride themselves in providing everything you need as a "right."

I'm willing to make a deal with you.  You people on the left can take California and New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and most of the New England States.  Continue to turn them into the Democrat/Socialist utopias that you have so much confidence in.  Go ahead, show us how wrong we are.   We'll take all the other States and see what happens.

What makes me so angry about leftists is that they lie about what we conservatives want.  We conservatives just want to be left alone.  We want a very small government because we know that a government big enough to give you everything you need is also big enough to take everything away.  We are willing to be offended by groups and individuals who have disgusting and abhorrent lifestyles because that is the price of freedom. We believe you should be free to make billions of dollars as long as you don't do it by force or fraud, or you can live as a hobo subsisting on the charity of people who voluntarily support your lifestyle, as long as they don't demand that the government tax us to support your laziness.

I have so much more to say, but I'm tired.

I've Been Quoted

A fine gentleman, defender of the Constitution, and firearms enthusiast, somewhere out in Arizona, Kevin Baker, has a great blog called "The Smallest Minority."  It is taken from a quote by Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to name the two most famous novels.  The quote is part of his blog header and is well worth memorizing.

Kevin had a record setting comment session going regarding a small post, and out of 556 comments on the thread, he chose 'lil ole me to quote.  He didn't just quote part of my comment.  He posted the whole blasted thing!  Some of the most intelligent folks go to Kevin's blog, so I am honored and humbled beyond belief.

Unless you were willing to go read at least half of the comment thread, and pay particular attention to "Markadelphia" and the commenter's I cite, my comment may not seem very important to you, but I'm flattered all the same.   Thanks, Kevin

And now for something hilarious:

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