<$BlogRSDURL$> abbr, acronym { cursor: help; font-style: normal; font-weight:bold; color: #2a548d; /*border-bottom: 1px solid; */ }

Eminent Domain Stuff


New London Update (2/24/06)
Bad NLDC!
Coverage of the Rally at New London's City Hall (w/ pics)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 

I've Had Enough BS To Last Me A Lifetime

Hey, all you gullible smucks on the Left. Listen up, I'm only going to link this stuff once. You think Bush is a Big Meany? Perhaps he's George Orwell's Big Brother? If you'd stop whining and crying like the little wusses you are for just a second you might be able to hear something that resembles fact. Ready?

George Bush is not the first president to order warrantless searches and surveillance!

Did you get that? Good. Now, for the proof...

Jimminy Carter:
EXERCISE OF CERTAIN AUTHORITY RESPECTING ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE

Slick Willy:
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PHYSICAL SEARCHES

With some commentary from NRO.

So, are you now willing to at least consider that maybe, just maybe, Bush is not some out of control, power-hungry, poopy-head monster? Could it be that he's actually trying to fight terrorism?

No? Well, I suppose it is easier to just sit back and wait for one of our magnificent cities to be reduced to a glowing pile of radioactive rubble and then Blame BushTM for not doing enough to stop it. But don't worry, I wouldn't dream of questioning your patriotism.

Update:

As usual, Goldstein provides some interesting information:

"COURT SAYS U.S. SPY AGENCY CAN TAP OVERSEAS MESSAGES”

A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe the Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Guess what. That story from from the NYT...in 1982. Humm...

|

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

 

The Coming Conflict

Kevin over at The Smallest Minority has a great (and very long) post in which he seems to be looking for a way to define the opposing sides of what some see as the developing conflict within the US. The whole thing is quite involved so I won't try to summarize it further than that.

The point I want to bring up here is that I believe not only is there a developing conflict but that we are, at the very least, in the thick of the opening phase. As I mentioned in the comments, Thomas Jefferson recognized that societies have the tendency, if not the surety, to eventually fall from the Grace that is freedom and civil government when he said:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The biggest fear I have regarding the current conflict is that it is far more subversive than previous ones. In the past, fascism arose in Germany, Italy and Japan...which lead to WWII and the resulting 'peace'. Of course, that peace only lead the strange bedfellows that were the Allies into the Cold War, which was far hotter than our current situation. At least then there was an enemy, and he was outside our borders. (Of course, this is an oversimplification. The Cold War was hardly a time of unity against a commonly defined enemy.)

Today, we face the rise of Islamofascism and multiculturalism. The former movement knows no boundaries and does not seek natural resources or even land (unlike opponents of the post such as Nazis, Communists, etc.). Islamofascism seeks no less than the absolute destruction of all who oppose it, and total world domination. If you don't see this or actively disagree I suggest paying more attention.

You might argue that at least there is a definable enemy, and you'd be right to a certain extent. The real problem arises when the (largely) external threat of Islamofascism is combined with the internal rot of multiculturalism in this country and around the world. We've seen the results in France, Australia and elsewhere. A serious problem arises when multiculturalists convince enough of their countrymen that we must 'respect' the 'other' to the point that absolutely no criticism is allowed, and there is no expectation that immigrants integrate into the host society. This leads to separate societies within societies, with different customs, languages, etc. and no plans for peaceful integration. This creates tension that cannot be resolved with civil words, and so a spark is enough to ignite an inferno.

The situation in the US is, IMHO, somewhat different. While we certainly have minority groups that live largely confined in sections of cities and isolated from mainstream American society, it seems to be less drastic than overseas. The risk, I think, is that we might become more like the French or Australians and end up in their shoes.

Going to the extreme, that would results in a "hot death" of the country. While this would officially fall into the "Not Good" category, it would at least be up in our faces and we might, therefore, be able to handle it and avert serious disaster. The alternative, which I fear more than the "hot death", is "cold death". In other words, death by a thousand small cuts. I see it happening around me everyday. There are only two prerequisites to the "cold death":

1) The majority of people become unthinking, uncritical automatons who live from day to day, even paycheck to paycheck, caring for (and interested in) nothing more today and perhaps tomorrow, and
2) The minority of "good people" do nothing.

I look around in my daily life and I see both conditions all too often. However, rather than focus on the negative, I will point out three examples of people doing the right thing and standing up for what the believe.

First, the one with which I am most familiar: Kelo.

At stake in the battles being waged over eminent domain in New London, CT is no less than the very foundation of our country. While there are many things one could point to that distinguish America from the despotic regimes of the past and present (think Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Castro's Cuba, etc.) is that We The People of the United States of America, each and every one of us, has the God-Given Right to be secure in our Life, Liberty and Property. If we lose any of those three, we lose the soul of our country. It is for this that our countrymen have fought (and continue to fight) so long and hard from the coast of CT to the Halls of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. If you are a 'good person' and wish to do something other than 'nothing', go visit the Castle Coalition and help out.

Second, there is a battle being waged by our brethren to the north against the brutal, suffocating, socialist and otherwise idiotic monster that is the Canadian Universal Healthcare System. The story of Dr. Jacques Chaoulli should be an inspiration to us all. His future success, or ultimate failure, could have serious implications in the US. I don't currently have any information as to how we can support him directly, so if you do please send it along and I'd be more than happy to share it.

Third, and finally, there is a fledgling effort being undertaken by my favorite gun bloggers and all 'round patriots, Kim and Connie du Toit. The Nation of Volunteers (actual site here, still under construction) is their new effort to, in their own words:

We have launched a new website and a new company, The Nation of Volunteers Foundation. Unlike previous business endeavors, however, this is not a for-profit company. The purpose of this company is to continually raise enough money to fund salaries and endeavors that we believe will make America a better place. We will be calling on Americans to do all sorts of volunteer activities (without compensation), from helping new shooters to sharing their books, information and expertise with home educators. (Details below the fold.) The purpose of the Nation of Volunteers Foundation is to allow us to manage these activities full time.
Read the rest of the post to get up to speed if you've missed any of the story. The bottom line is that, despite serious financial woes, Kim and Connie are going to devote a significant amount of time to the distinctly American ideals of volunteerism and individual responsibility/accountability. Please help them get their effort off the ground in whatever way you feel appropriate.

This turned out to be quite a bit longer than I had originally planned, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. I guess the take home message is that as Americans we have a responsibility to take our heads out of the dirt, look around and actually think. We The People is more than just a pithy turn of phrase, it is the result of a vow taken by men who put their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line. Had they lost, they would have surely hanged as traitors against the British Crown. But they did not. Instead they repeatedly snached victory form the jaws of defeat and bestowed upon their heirs the worst form of government ever conceived...except all the other ones.

Given all that has been sacrificed by our forbearers that we might live in freedom, it is incumbent upon us to do the same for our own heirs. We are obligated to pass on not only the same freedom of which we are the beneficiaries, but we must bequeath to our children the same love for freedom that lives in our own souls. That love for freedom is the only thing that will ensure the America remains a warm, safe home for the liberty we so cherish.

I will close with a brief exchange from one the all time greatest movies, Open Range:

Mack: Shame what this town's come to.
Charley Waite: You could do something about it.
Mack: What? We're freighters. Ralph here's a shopkeeper.
Charley Waite: You're men, ain't you?
Mack: I didn't raise my boys just to see 'em killed.
Charley Waite: Well you may not know this, but there's things that gnaw at a man worse than dying.
We must all remember that it is each of us, individually, who is responsible for our Life, Liberty and Property.

|

Monday, December 12, 2005

 

Iraqis Vote...Again

Hell yes!

|

Friday, December 09, 2005

 

CT State Police Woes

I know full well that the vast majority of CT State Troopers are good cops, and I really feel for them because of all the craziness going on these days (here and here). Here's the latest scandal:

Arrest Jolts State Police
[...]
State Trooper Mary Buckley was arrested Thursday evening and charged with hindering prosecution, three counts of risk of injury to a minor, interfering with a police officer and failure to report sexual abuse by a mandated reporter. She was released on $250,000 bail. Information on her court date was not available Thursday night.
[...]
As director of the East Windsor emergency management department, Buckley supervised executive officer Peter Waraksa, 43, of East Windsor, who was charged with first-degree sexual assault, first-degree risk of injury, first-degree kidnapping and employing a minor in an obscene performance. His bail was set at $2 million. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in Superior Court in Enfield.

East Windsor police Capt. Bernard Duffy said they were contacted on Nov. 29 by the boy's family, who said the [12-year-old] boy had been sexually assaulted by a 43-year-old man. The assaults, said to have taken place in the suspect's home, occurred from sometime in May until early fall, police said.
Obviously, the investigation is ongoing and we should presume these individuals are innocent until proven guilty. Of course, if they are guilty I hope they are strung up from a pole by their toes for all to see.

|
 

Clarity In Iraq

The next time Howie Dean starts to get inside your head and you being to think that maybe we really can't win in Iraq, go back to this post. Believe me, it'll help:

I am a student of history, (I'm no genius, but I know a thing or two) I have never seen nor read, nor heard of any nation's military at any time in the world's history whose members believed they were fighting for a better world. American armies have always fought for geopolitics, or resources, or even idealism, but this is relatively new. The military of today believes it is not only righteous, but just to bring freedom to oppressed people.

|

Thursday, December 08, 2005

 

Misdirection On Tax Cuts

This happens literally every time I see an article on tax cuts. Here's how the Washington Post puts it:

House Passes 3 Tax Cuts, Plans a 4th

The House passed three separate tax cuts yesterday and plans to approve a fourth today, trimming the federal revenue by $94.5 billion over five years -- nearly double the budget savings that Republicans muscled through the House last month.
So they want us to believe that by decreasing a tax rate, the tax revenue is decreased. That's not how it works. Taxation is not a zero sum game for the simple reason that when taxes are lowered, more people become successful and start paying taxes on a greater number of dollars. The relationship is known as a Laffer Curve. Don't believe it? Take a look at what happened when Russia adopted a flat tax of 13%.

Anyway, the WaPo saves an interesting bit of information for the end of the article:

Although the federal tax revenue has grown since the passage of the 2003 tax cuts -- from $1.9 trillion in 2004 to $2.1 trillion in 2005 -- the tax revenue measured against the size of the economy remains below the 2002 level and well below the level of 2001, when the first of Bush's five tax cuts was passed. "The argument that tax cuts will grow the economy and pay for themselves is very attractive, but it's just not true," MacGuineas said.
Hold on, hold on. I'd like to challenge the premise. Why is the tax revenue being measured against the GDP? Is it really important to maintain a level of tax revenue of some arbitrary percentage of the country's economic output? Why?

Wouldn't the budge deficit be a better gauge of the country's solvency? After all, the idea (for Conservatives like me) is to decrease the tax revenue and spending by my government. So to just assume that tax revenues of X% of GDP is "good" strikes me as, well, Liberal.

An extremely brief look at the numbers presented above indicate that tax revenues increased 9.5% in one year. That's a good deal more than inflation (usually 2-3%). So in reality, the US government has more money (in constant dollars) in 2005 than it did in 2004. Remember, that's right after Bush's tax cuts went into effect. Why, then, should we be worried about cutting tax rates further? If we go too far and start heading down the left side of the Laffer Curve have no fear, the Left will be more than willing to help us out getting taxes back up to where they 'should' be.

Moral of the story: Don't let anyone tell you that a decrease in any particular tax rate (especially federal ones) will necessarily lead to a decrease in tax revenue. They are two very different things and the relationship is often exactly opposite what the Left (and their media lackeys at the WaPo, in this case) would have you believe.

|
 

Coulter At UConn

Sadly, I was right down the road and totally missed it:

Hecklers Disrupt Coulter's Speech At UConn
[...]
After waiting with her bodyguard on stage for several minutes for the music to stop while a section of the audience chanted "You suck, you suck," an irritated Coulter said she would not finish her speech. She said she would go straight to questions and answers, suggesting the disruption was the best the liberals could do to counter her.
[...]
Coulter, a well-known, conservative author and commentator, fielded questions ranging from the war in Iraq and Democratic leadership to abortion with the witty, provocative responses that have made her a frequent guest on such TV talk shows as "Hannity & Colmes" and "The O'Reilly Factor."
Ann got heckled. Blah, blah, blah. What's new? Here's the part of the story that maked me laugh through the vomit it induced:

Just before the event, Students Against Hate held an alternative event focusing on discrimination at UConn and intended to provide "balance" to the Coulter talk. During the talk several students from various racial groups and of various sexual orientations spoke about how harsh words have wounded them.

Hana Kim, 20, of Stamford, cried as she recalled her experience hearing two young men express shock and disapproval in a loud conversation that a friend was dating an "Asian chick."

Jerome Smith, a UConn graduate, talked about how he hid his homosexuality while at UConn, afraid his fraternity brothers and family would shun him.

"Words are sharp tools and certain people like Ann Coulter use them to hurt people," he said.
Oh boy. What even happened to the Sticks And Stones thing? Sometimes it hard to believe/admit that these people are my countrymen. But you know, I've always liked to slaughter Winston Churchill quotes, so: America is the worst place in the world to live...except all the other places.

It is also mentioned in the article that Cindy Sheehan was invited to speak this past Monday. Oddly, I can't find a single account* of the event that even hints at anyone on campus treating her with any degree of disrespect, let alone the disgusting level of vitriol spewed at Ann. Humm, could that be because liberals are afraid of losing arguments based on facts and so must resort to crying, yelling and otherwise acting like spoiled children. Hummm...

---

*As a matter of fact, the one "dissenter" mentioned in UConn's The Daily Campus asked Sheehan why she was charging $10,000. Woa. Calm down there buddy, take a lesson from the tolerant Left at Ann's talk.

|

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

 

The Day That Lives In Infamy

Always remember, the Day that lives on in Infamy...

The USS West Virginia as she burned.


The memorial to the USS Arizona.

|
 

Great News For Cheese Heads!

Good news from the frozen north!

Wisconsin State Senate Passes Right to Carry by 70 to 30%

The state Senate passed a bill tonight that would allow residents 21 and over to carry concealed guns if they passed a training course.

The measure passed 23-10 after five Democrats joined 18 Republicans in supporting the bill (SB 403). If that two-thirds majority holds, it would be strong enough to override a promised veto by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
(via Gun Law News)

|
 

Know What Makes Me Angry?

Dumb, selfish hippies:

About two weeks ago, a male approximately 5 foot 9, 150 pounds broke and entered my house. (SIDE NOTE: This is funny because it is true.)
[...]
Lauren and I were freaking out. We grabbed butcher knives and head lamps and quickly turned on all the lights in my house.
[...]
We were standing in the hallway and the only barrier between him and us was the hall door. I began to call the police. In the middle of the phone call, my phone dies. I had just driven back from Austin that night and I had one bar on the phone all weekend. My phone wouldn't turn back on.
[...]
(SIDE NOTE: I am a pretty liberal hippie when it comes to life, a make-love-not-war type of girl. But I know enough about anatomy to know a butcher knife doesn't protect from a bullet. I have been an anti-hand gun person for years, mainly because they serve one purpose: to kill people. However, this has become a matter of self-defense. Damn it, this is Texas, and I'm gettin' a gun.)
[...]
Anyway, I begin my gun classes in January. I hear that with a shotgun, I won't miss much, so for the record, I also am buying a raffle ticket from the Texas Tech Polo Club.
Let me start by saying that I am happy these two women ended up unharmed and that I'm glad to see yet another person added to the ranks of (hopefully) responsible gun owners.

That said, Ms. Cobb is both...

Dumb: Never thought a gun could serve a good, useful purpose.
...and...
Selfish: Now that 'it' has happened to her, it's finally ok to be armed.

No offense, but the inability to recognize that something bad could happen just because it's never happened to you is, well, dumb. Then, to do a complete about-face in terms of personal opinion as a result of that thing finally happening to you is painfully selfish. After all, what about all those people whom you were trying, all these years, to deprive of the right to defend themselves and their families?

There are plenty of people in this world who miscalculate their actual risk and decide that guns just aren't for them. They're not the ones I'm libeling here. No, it's the people like pre-break in Ms. Cobb who I'm talking about. Self-described hippy liberals who think that guns are evil and could never serve a good purpose and, therefore, everyone must be prohibited from keeping and bearing arms. Of course, had pre-break in Ms. Cobb and her ilk been successful in outlawing guns (a la Britain, DC, IL, etc.) what would post-break in Ms. Cobb do? Not only would there be no guns to be had but, worse yet, there would be no one around with the knowledge and skills necessary to teach her to use a gun in the first place.

Need I even mention what the article would have looked like in the papers had Ms. Cobb and her housemate been hurt or killed by a gun-wielding criminal home invader? Her friends would have been quoted demanding more reasonable gun control laws. Humm...

All I ask is that people (read: anti-gun people) take a moment to sit down and think. Read Ms. Cobb's whole story, consider the fact that essentially zero legally licensed gun owners every hurt anyone, good or bad, and maybe, just maybe come to the conclusion that even if you choose to not engage in gun ownership yourself that others have the right to do if the they choose.

As for those of you out there in post-break in Ms. Cobb's shoes, take a minute some day and do your best to convince your anti-gun friends that guns can and do serve a good cause. Who better to carry the banner of freedom and our God-given right to self-defense than a convert?

(via Gun Law News)

|

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?