Thursday, January 31, 2013

Assaulting 'Assault Rifles' is for sissies - arm your mind - The 2nd Amendment meets Saul Alinksy's lucky number #13 - Part 3

In today's permissive society, modern conservatives have become a target rich environment for the Alinskyite, whose 13th rule ("Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.") has been getting a thorough workout against the 2nd Amendment. But as with ill-mannered children, their getting away with what they want, depends upon your willingness to play along with them. If you don't, if you focus them upon what they are trying not to mention, if you discipline their 'facts' with a little bit of knowledge... it can all become very embarrassing for the poor little lefties, very quickly. And for people accustomed to thinking of themselves as the smartest people in the room... that tends to lead to some very entertaining hissy fits (see Piers Morgan... there's certainly no better reason to see him). No one who thinks that they're outsmarting you, much likes being forced to own up to the bill of goods that they were hoping to get you to buy for them, free of charge.

The trick to getting this sort of free entertainment, is to listen to their statements - less for what they're saying, and more for what they are trying so very hard not to say... which is,surprise, what they want you to own up to as being discredited by what they are saying.

Let's take a recent example and see if you can spot, in this prime piece of putzery from the uber-leftist Thom Hartmann (as the failed Air America host is brought to you by RT... that'd be 'Russia Today'... Pravda... hellooo)), what he is working so hard NOT to mention... but which he really, really, wants you to think of as having been discredited by what he is saying.

See if you can spot it:
Pure Evil
Did you notice what he doesn't mention?

If you listen to the whole video, you'll hear the same thing repeatedly not mentioned throughout his entire piece. Yep, that's right, he never mentions what the 2nd Amendment means.

He doesn't mention whether or not it is a valid Right, he doesn't mention whether or not it is a 'useful' Right, he certainly doesn't mention whether or not those 'slave patrol militias' would have been too

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A Tale of two talks upon the 2nd Amendment - The 2nd Amendment meets Saul Alinksy's lucky number #13 - Part 2

I have a friend who disagrees with the point I made in my last post, that you shouldn't answer disingenuous questioners, such as Piers Morgan, when you are aware that their questions are far less interested in your answers, than in making you look foolish for having answered them.

While my friend Lloyd agrees with me that the important point is to understand what the 2nd Amendment refers to, and more importantly why (no slouch on the constitution, his proposed constitutional 'fix' (on the legislative end anyway), 'Madison's lost Amendment', is the only promising one I've seen (though I don't want a constitutional conv.)), he is critical of pursuing a 'strategy' that doesn't give them the easy answers they are asking for. He sees no sense in doing as Dana Loesh did, when she recently refused to take Piers Morgan's 'tank question' bait, answering him only that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to bear arms.

Lloyd replies, in part, that he would have nooo problem,
"... answering Mr. Morgan's rather absurd question and pointing out that is not really the issue here.

But I guess my "strategy" is not clever enough. Anyone who can READ can quote the words of the 2nd amendment."
, and he feels confident that, having answered him, he would then be able to get on to discussing his points afterwards. Which, IMHO, is ridiculously naive position to take, when you are dealing with someone who's only reason for'discussing' the matter is so as to dismiss it - and you - as quickly and embarrassingly (for you) as is possible.

Happily, we have the chance to see two very different examples of these two approaches in action,

Sunday, January 20, 2013

The 2nd Amendment meets Saul Alinksy's lucky number #13 - Part 1

The 2nd Amendment meet's Saul Alinksy's lucky number #13 - Part 1
Some interesting points have come up in discussions with friends, other conservatives, leftists and other internet nincompoops, regarding the 2nd Amdt, what it is, what it means, and what it covers. But mostly, in regards to the later, it has done little more than run up against Saul Alinsky's lucky number #13'th rule:
and in such a collision, the position that is least well understood, loses. That should give you pause.

For if your understanding of the 2nd Amdt doesn't extend much further than having memorized a couple quotes from our founders who DID understand it (and so were able to express themselves in those words you are quoting today), or if your understanding amounts to something along the lines of "The Constitution says so, I believe it, that settles it.", if that is the case, then you place yourself entirely under their power, and when they hit you with ol' #13, you will lose and lose badly.

For instance, as good an example of this as any, of Alinsky's 13th rule being flexed against the 2nd Amdt, came up in the comment section to my post on a despicable comment by Jay Carney made in a press briefing. An anonymous aninnymouse commenter was doing his best to avoid discussing whether or not there is a Right behind the 2nd Amdt, and frustrated at my refusal to take his bait, he jumped directly to Rule #13, and you would be hard pressed to find a better example of it than this

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The target is not the 2nd Amdt, or the 1st Amdt, but all of your Rights at once

Ah. Another wacademic professor of law, struts his stuff in the White House. It remains to be seen whether or not we can survive the lessons they've been teaching us, the last one nearly did us in... will this one make us stronger? Listen to this:

This will not happen unless the American people demand it. If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say, “Enough, we’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue,” then change will come. That’s what it’s going to take..”"

Yeah. One of the more straight forward things he's said.

My understanding however, is that, although it took a couple tries for Mr. Obama and Justice Roberts to get it right, he did take an oath of office, and that oath was this:
Leaving aside the splitting of legal hairs... how does any reading of the Constitution of the United States of America, condone the President, the Chief Executive of the Administrative branch of the Federal Government, issuing executive orders that 'clarify' how individual, private, doctors, should attend to how,
"...The Administration is clarifying that no federal law in any way prohibits doctors or other health care providers from reporting their patients’ threats of violence to the authorities, and issuing guidance making clear that the Affordable Care Act does not prevent doctors from talking to patients about gun safety."
Clarify. Yeah. As Don Corleone's muscular friend Vinny 'clarifies' that
''doz are sum nice kidz youse got dere... it'd be a shame should sumthin' happen to 'em."
One of the more dead on comments I've heard regarding the latest sweep of political doings, came from DaTechGuy (H/T Doug Welch), who quite properly asks our media Esau's to consider something before selling their Rights for tasty treats:

If you don’t understand this then you simply don’t get what America is all about."
Very, very true.

But with executive order being issued 'clarifying' what Doctors should or should not ask regarding whether you own a gun... do you really think that the 2nd Amendment is what is being targeted there?

These have NOT been attacks upon the 1st and 2nd amendments, so much as they are attacks upon the very concepts and principles of Rights as such. Getting people to comply with justifying their rights - or not - as I tried to point out the other day, is but a means of sweeping them aside by reducing the One concept of Rights in the public's understanding, to many particular chips, which can then can be easily stacked up, measured and bargained away.

Pay closer attention to what the President said with "This will not happen unless the American people demand it". Worse than targeting specific amendments that protect our Rights, they are targeting our thoughts and the words we think them with. After over a century, they are succeeding in getting people to think of their Individual Rights as being simply a fluctuating set of privileges and pleasures, to be justified, and re-justified (or discarded) as reflects their present popularity. Once that is complete, and it is frighteningly close, then all of our Rights will have been transformed into favors and privileges to be bestowed upon us by those we've given the power to do so.

That is what has been happening to our liberty.

While we've been distracted with this and that amendment, they've been attacking liberty where it lives - in our ability to comprehend it. That was the point of what happened a year ago with 1st amendment, under the cover of attacking religion, and it is happening now with the 2nd amendment, via the push for gun control.

You don't really have to destroy the amendments, only what people believe they are.

Make them think that the Right to bear arms in defense of your life, and all aspects of it, is something to be measured by what might be useful for hunting or taking down burglars - and it ceases to be a Right.

Make them think that the Right of liberty to follow your conscience depends upon making allowances for birth control, or exemptions from it - and it ceases to be anything other than administrative concessions to mollify those who can raise a ruckus.

I'll go a step further. What Obama actually said yesterday, as he signed his executive orders and called for legislation, was no more important than what he said the day before yesterday, in calling for such. Why? Because what is truly important right now, is not how those in power go about doing what they've been saying they're going to do, but in what you say and do about it (Sen. Rand Paul did make a nice start at getting the conversation started).

What is or is not Constitutional, hasn't changed all that much since it was ratified. As I pointed out in an earlier post "♫ ♪ ♬ You say you want a Constitution ... wellll ya know, we all want to change the world ♬ ♪ ♫", when a Federal Roads bill was passed in 1817, President Madison vetoed it as unconstitutional. When a Federal Roads bill was passed, and it was signed, by President Wilson, in 1916, and was not overturned as being unconstitutional, by the courts. Something had changed in that century, and in this regard, it wasn't the constitution, but We The People.

The Constitution records what We The People established for what may, and may not, be considered lawful. If any President or functionary seeks to act in contradiction to the Constitution, they are outside the bounds of law, as defined by the Constitution, which we defined.

If we forget the meaning of what it defines, and the reality behind that, then it's gone. A steady drip, drip, drip corrupting our understanding of what is, and is not, true, has been nibbling away at our Rights for 150 years. The more we forget that that paper serves only to remind us of who and what we are, that our Rights must be recognized and respected, that in order to 'pursue happiness' we must secure ourselves from what those in power would do - the more we forget that, then the more they will get away with doing what they will.

With FDR's outright theft of the citizens gold, where Supreme Court Justice McReynolds stated “This is Nero at his worst,” he thundered. “The Constitution is gone.”, but a case could be made that had happened twenty years earlier with the establishment of the first alphabet agency, the FDA. The Constitution has been dead and all govt actions have been those of outlaws for quite some time... but they can only get away with what you, We The People, forget about what they shouldn't be doing.

At the very least, the govt has been engaging in outlawry for a century. Thanks to an educational system that has taught us how to not only not understand what it means to be an American, but to actively wish that we weren't, we've now got a media, a culture, a President, a Congress, and a Supreme Court, who not only routinely disregard, but discard and disparage, the Constitution which they are formed from.

The Constitution hasn't changed. What Rights are, hasn't changed. You have.

And the more you continue to play along with their arguments, instead of pulling them up short, as any adult should do to an errant 8 year old trying to bargain their way around the rules, then those Rights which the Constitution serves to record for us, and which it does its best to uphold and defend, will be lost.

The secret of America and of the Constitution, is that the document doesn't actually do anything about your Rights - You do. It has always been you. The problem with Conservatives, especially, is that they have been foolish enough to believe in the magical talismanic power of paper. It has no power.

Never has, never will.

The Constitution does nothing more than serve as a reminder to us, all of us, that we do have Rights which are inherent in our nature as human beings, and which require a careful, orderly, defense - from our inherent nature as human beings. If we forget that it is every bit as much part of our nature to desire to exert power to get what we want, which is the reason why those Rights must be recorded, understood and defended - by us -  if we get carried away with thinking that all is well because of some asinine notion that 'We are the people we've been waiting for!", then what chance can Rights have to be respected and defended? And lacking that, what chance does Liberty itself possibly have? If you TRUST those who seek power over you, what chance has liberty got?

If we forget our Liberty and the Rights which enable it, or if we don't bother learning what they mean and require, if we are foolish enough
"... to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power..."
, deluding ourselves into thinking that lines on paper are somehow going to prop your liberty up for you so you don't have to strain yourself - then it will be lost.


Stop looking to politicians and start looking to your own understanding, or lack of it. If you don't understand Liberty and the Rights it requires, then you have already lost it. If that is the case... what are you going to do about it?

Wednesday, January 16, 2013


What an unbelievably vicious, blood thirsty thing to say.


What do I mean?



Is that the sort of life you want for your child?




Sunday, January 13, 2013

There are no ‘reasons’ for your Rights – stop trying to justify them!

How many times have you heard this one recently?
"Tell me one good reason why you should have an assault rifle?!"
More than a few times?

And I'll wager you've heard it before too, in other forms, such as with
"What are you going to do about the 30 million uninsured?!"
, and again with something like:
"Give me a reason why someone needs billions of dollars?!"
Do you know how to answer those questions?
Now hold on there Charlie Brown! Before you go running at that football again, take a look at Lucy's eyes - take a moment, look closer, her eyes aren't focused on the ball, but on your feet. She's not holding it out for you to kick, she's only waiting for that magic moment when you are committed to kicking at it, so she can whip it away and watch you fly up into the air... and fall down on the ground... flat on your back. So she can laugh at you. Again.

Think about it - have you ever, ever, won one of the arguments you've entered into by answering that question (and yes, they are all the same question)? And no, being willing to kick at the football more times than Lucy is willing to stand it up again for you, is not winning.

When they ask what they always ask of something to do with your Individual Rights: "What reasons could you possibly have for ___?!". Don't try to give them any reasons - they don't want your reasons, what they want is for you to give up your ability to actually Reason with them, and if you answer that question, that is what you will do.

So how do you deal with this type of question? You already know how. Annoying, isn't it? The truth is that you've either had how you should deal with this sort of question demonstrated to you time and again while you were growing up, or, if you're a parent, you've no doubt learned how to do it yourself, on your own.

See if this rings a bell:
"But Dad, it's only 30 more minutes, what is it going to hurt if I stay up 30 more minutes?!"
Yep, that's right, and just as 8 yr old you didn't give a damn about the reasons why it was that your dad thought it might be harmful to your night's rest to stay up 30 more minutes, neither does the leftist Lucy you are arguing with today. They are only looking for a way to help you slip up and abandon your principles and hand the argument over to them.

Again and again and again - flat on your back, is the only place that replying to that 'argument' will get you.

Conservative Catnip
Why this technique acts on conservatives like catnip... or footballs... is that in asking the question, it seems as if they are interested in the reasons Why you hold your position... it seems to be an invitation to discuss your disagreement, but like Lucy and her football, or the 8 yr old and their TV show, nothing could be further from the truth. It is only a pose, a taunt, and the moment you begin to discuss the matter, their interest in discussion vanishes as they begin to supply more and more spectacular examples to overwhelm every realistic reason you come up with for your position, a position that is no longer rooted in principles, but particulars, and on that playing field, their playing field, their impressive quantities sweep away the high ground you were standing upon just moments before.

The technique is to demand that you to give a particular, quantitative, justification, for a qualitative concept, but there's nothing fancy going on here, as every 8-year-old knows. By getting you to focus on a an isolated particular, preferably expressed with impressive sounding quantities ("just 30, more, minutes!'... '30 million uninsured!'... 'billions of dollars!'"), the questioner, be they an 8-year-old child, or a tenured professor (difference?) of constitutional law, just knows that if you bite, and nearly every conservative does, the moment you stoop to providing them with any of the reasons they've asked you for -you lose!

That's the reason why every 8-year-old child loves this technique so much - it wipes out the advantages you have in being an adult - experience and wisdom - reducing the debate to one of emotional appeal and numbers.

There's an old anecdote that illustrates this even better than Lucy and her football, where Winston Churchill, annoyed to no end by a flighty society girl, becomes fed up, turns to her and asks her if she'd sleep with him for a hundred thousand pounds. Surprised, she bats her eyes and answers "Well, ... uh... that is a lot of money, I'd have to think about it... ", at which point he changes the price to fifty pounds. Insulted, she demands "What kind of woman do you take me for!" and Churchill replies coolly
"Madam, what you are we have already established, now we are simply haggling over the price."
Get the picture? What happens, is that in the simple act of answering the question, you have abandoned the principle which determines whether or not numbers should be discussed at all, and any attempt to reclaim it is futile, all that remains is settling on the particular numbers it'll take for you to cave in (30 pieces of silver perhaps?), and in the end they get whatever it is that they desire .

This has been the favored technique with everyone from Utilitarianism’s Jeremy Bentham (you know, the fellow who called Individual Rights, nonsense on stilts), on down the line to the child who wants to stay up late to watch one more TV show.

The immediate answer of course, to the child anyway, is not to answer their question, but to remind them of the rule or principle they are trying to get you to forget:
"No, you can't stay up. Bedtime is 9:00. Get your butt in bed. Now."
Why? Because those are the rules and there are good reasons for them, reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with any quantity of minutes of TV time they might desire. Reasons which have already been well established and validated, and aren't open for discussion. And the wise adult knows darn well that it doesn't matter whether you are talking about bedtime, or shoplifting, an eight year old, if you let them, will still ask,
"How will this little thing I do hurt anyone? Why can't I have what I want?!"
, and neither the eight year old, nor the 40 year veteran professor of law, has the least bit of interest in what is right or wrong, but only in getting what it is that they want. But of course while the eight year old is usually wise enough to listen to reason (and to avoid the consequences of not listening), the leftist... not so much.

The main difference here, is that with an eight year old you expect this sort of thing, it is part of the learning process inherent in moving from childhood to adulthood. With the leftist Lucy however, although you do tend to expect it, there really is no excuse, except that they learned such disdain towards reason and reasonable behavior, from what we teach them. .. after all, do we send students to school in order to learn what they need to know to become better people?, people more concerned with what is right and best to do? or do we send them to school to learn 'useful skills' for getting what they want to 'succeed' in life in the 21st century?

Don't bargain for your Rights, proclaim them
The next time someone asks you what good reason there is for anyone to ___ (insert the belittled Right here), just remember that they don't care what reasons you might have for your position, they don't want to determine what is right or wrong to do, they only want to overpower you, and their question is the handiest technique (indoctrinated habit) for keeping questions of right and wrong out of the conversation, freeing them to pursue what will be the most useful,efficient, effective means for achieving their desired ends.

So wise up already.

What the ignorant are hurtling us towards, the ultimate point of their asking for 'reasons' to justify your exercising your rights, is this:
'Tell me one good reason why you should have any right to do whatever you feel like, when that might cost someone their safety? Their security? Their health? Why should you be able to do what you want, if it oppresses your fellow man?! Give up your annoying Right' so we can do what is best for you.'
And that is the goal that our leftie Lucy's are focused upon, gaining the power to use your life to their advantage, and your principles stand in their way - and they are just waiting for you to try to answer them, to give them their 'reasons" and abandon your ground, so they can drop you flat upon your back again.

The simple fact is, in regards to the 2nd Amendment, or any other of our Rights, defended by the constitution or not, that my Right to defend my life, loved ones and property, does not depend upon my proving its value to you! And my Rights do not require that I put you at ease about the tools - arms - that I choose to defend them with. There are no valid reasons, no matter how beneficial they purport to be, that justify your seeking to interfere with my right to make that decision myself.

My Rights are inherent in my nature as a reasoning human being, and they are not subject to your, or congress's or any majority's approval. The 2nd amendment does not grant me the 'right' to keep and bear arms, it only defends it from the foolish and the powerful who feel threatened by it.

Our problem today, is not with who is in office, but with a people raised to think along utilitarian lines, rather than moral ones, raised to consider effectiveness and efficiency before considering whether or not something is right or wrong to do. These people do not seek to understand your arguments, they seek to strip you of what they do not understand - and playing their game won't score you any points or safeguard your rights against them. Their ignorance is the problem we face, and it threatens our lives, our liberty, and our happiness.

There are no reasons that justify your having rights - you have Rights because you are a reasoning human being -you don't need to justify your rights, you need to understand them and assert them.
If you want those opposing your rights to see reason, you cannot abandon it when talking with them. Learn what your rights are, learn  what they mean and the principles which they depend upon (hint: it's not legislation) and without which America would cease to exist, and most of all, learn how to defend and to proclaim them.

Originally posted at The Bell News

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Here’s one message conservatives do need to hear


So… what?



From my first post at The Bell News:

You betcha!
As they have been.
Fine, you want a message? Here you go: