The Democratic Party seems to be obsessed with race, and it’s true when it comes to racial quotas in employee hirings and college admissions, although they prefer the euphemism “affirmative action.” I say “seems” because when it comes to judicial nominees or anything else in government, politics trumps race.

The Democrats and their media allies made the most unprincipled and vicious attacks on Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada, both of whom were of superior qualifications and never said anything as outrageous as Sotomayor. It’s somewhat ironic that liberals are quick to label principled opposition of Sotomayor as “racist”, when it is they who engage in unprincipled attacks against conservative minorities, including accusations of being ‘inauthentically’ black or Hispanic.

The Democrats blocked Miguel Estrada from the federal appeals court believing he was conservative and likely headed for the Supreme Court. So when the Democrats and the liberal media start swooning over the thought of the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, what they really mean is the first liberal Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Like the phonies that they are, it has nothing to do with race, but everything to do with ideology. There were no celebrations from the left when the Republicans nominated the first black Secretary of State and the first black female Secretary of State. Those firsts apparently don’t count.

Instead of Democrats and the media just admitting that they want liberal minorities appointed in government, they play these deceitful race games of feigning concern for minority advancement. While there was no respectable reason to oppose either Estrada or Thomas, there are good reasons to oppose Sotomayor and it has nothing to do with race. Based on her activist record and highly controversial statements that reveal a disrespect for the Constitution and role of the judiciary, she is clearly unqualified to sit on any court, yet alone the Supreme Court.

Barack Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice Souter on the High Court. As expected, she is a deeply flawed candidate who has made outrageous comments concerning race and judicial activism. The mainstream media has either not reported or downplayed her controversial statements, which are the most relevant points about her to be scrutinized. Instead, the media is focusing on the most trivial and irrelevant topics of ‘her compelling life story’.

Sotomayor has revealed on more than one occasion that she is a judicial activist and is therefore wholly inadequate to sit on any court, yet alone the highest court in the land. The New York Times reported that in 2001, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture, Sotomayor made the following comment: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Aside from her statement being tinged with racism, what difference should it make whether you are a white male or a Latina female if your job is to impartially apply the law?

Sotomayor later said: “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” Sotomayor readily admits that she, as a judge, is influenced by “gender and national origins.” That fact alone should disqualify her from the bench. Additionally, a very high rate of her decisions are overturned, giving further evidence that she is a liberal activist.

She manifestly has no respect for the proper role of a judge or Supreme Court justice. It cannot be made more clear than to think of a judge as a referee who applies the rules of the game (law). It should not make a scintilla of difference what her sex or race is as a referee. But radicals like Sotomayor do not think of themselves as referees who apply the rules evenly. She believes a judge should be changing and/or making the rules of the game.

There is a video of her admitting this, saying that the “court of appeals is where policy is made.” In a moment of truth she let it slip and added: “And I know - I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don’t make law. I know. O.K. I know. I’m not promoting it. I’m not advocating it …” But the problem is she just did, and she did so in a contemptuous way. In backpedaling and trying to retract her own words, you can hear people in the room laughing, as though the corruption of the judicial branch should not be taken seriously.

Sotomayor, like other activist judges, appears to have more of a social philosophy than a judicial one. Historical context or original intent is done away with in favor of personal preferences and social engineering.

With a judge like Sotomayor, the Constitution is an amorphous ‘living’ document. If it is constantly ‘evolving’ with the times, then by definition it cannot be the same thing it was before. Where it once had authority and meaning, it will no longer. Thomas Jefferson called the judiciary “the despotic branch”, and warned that the Constitution would become “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

This is precisely what is wrong with make-it-up-as-you-go-along liberal judges. A non-living Constitution is the only sensible one to have, because it binds people to a set of rules with a fixed meaning. As Jonah Goldberg writes, this is important because it “ensures that future generations will be protected from judges or politicians who’d like to rule arbitrarily…We all like to believe that we have some say about what this country will be like for our children and grandchildren. A ‘living Constitution’ denies us our voice in this regard because it basically holds that whatever decisions we make…can be thrown out by any five dyspeptic justices on the Supreme Court. In other words, the justices who claim the Constitution is a wild card didn’t take their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution in good faith because they couldn’t know what they were swearing to.”

A Supreme Court justice is supposed to interpret the Constitution in a dispassionate and agenda-free manner. Liberals on the other hand want activist judges, who will ignore or twist the Constitution to produce the outcomes they desire. For the Left, the only job of a judge or Supreme Court justice is to create equality or ’social justice’. They will admit as much, as Democratic Senator Herb Kohl remarked: “The neutral approach, that of the judge just applying the law, is very often inadequate to ensure social progress . . . ” The Left has always been a product of postmodernism and the French Revolution. Therefore, the greatest evil is not injustice or even murder, but inequality.

A country cannot function with a legal system based on feelings or empathy. If a judge can rule in favor or against someone based on what creates ’social justice’, regardless of law, the system crumbles into a third world kangaroo court. America has spent decades trying to get away from the tyrannical notions of other countries, where who you are determines what kind of justice you get. Unfortunately Judge Sonia Sotomayor represents that kind of judicial tyranny, because who you are will influence her decisions. There is a good reason why Lady Justice is depicted wearing a blindfold. But with activist judges like Sotomayor the scales will tip in the direction of her personal preferences, now that the blindfold is removed.

Here are some traditional characteristics of this country Obama and the political left ‘hope’ to change, in no particular order:

• Free speech - greatly reduced with thought-crimes (Hate crimes) laws, as well as backdoor ‘Fairness Docrtine’ policies already in the works.
• Judges who respect the proper role of judiciary - gone, in favor of activist judges who rule by personal feelings and believe in a ‘living’ Constitution, which means no Constitution.
• Free markets - mostly gone in favor of a command and control economy.
• Fair elections - mostly gone with rampant voter fraud via ACORN, etc.
• Equal protection or rule of law - gone, in favor of equality of outcomes.
• God - gone from the public square completely.
• Keep and bear arms - gone.
• Property rights - further restricted and can be confiscated at any time by the state.
• Economic freedom - further restricted with more taxes, licenses, fees, regulations.
• States rights - further eroded in favor of federal power.

If they truly had their way, America would look nothing like the nation it was before, and would be reduced to another European-like socialist nation, at best. Our Constitution, for all intents and purposes, would be rendered null and void, and turned into just a museum curiosity.

Ask yourself this question; does Barack Hussein Obama have more in common politically/philosophically with Thomas Jefferson or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? You can compare and contrast Obama with any of the other Founding Fathers to any socialist dictators, and reach the same conclusion. Obama is far more in line philosophically with authoritarian socialists. I know some will object that Obama does not want concentration camps. Yes, they may differ in degree, but not in kind. There is no such thing as a safe amount of socialism. Soft tyranny is still tyranny no matter how you slice it.

Obama sayshe believes in free markets, says he wants a small government, etc. But Obama says a lot of things. He is deceiving the people like the masterful politician he is. Don’t listen to what a politician says to know what he believes, look to what he does. Actions really do speak louder than words. His actions, friendships and political alliances are far more revealing than his soothing rhetoric.

You don’t try to change the country fundamentally if you love and respect it. Obama’s ‘Hope’ is to completely undo everything that made America great to begin with. From free markets, to limited government, to the Bill of Rights, Obama and his supporters are either for greatly reducing or eliminating altogether the foundations of American exceptionalism. It is absolutely frightening to consider the consequences of what that will mean to this country and the world, but that is what Obama ‘Hope’ represents.

David Hamilton is being touted by the White House (and the New York Times) as a “moderate”, yet there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest it. However, there is every reason to believe he is a far left activist judge who does not respect the Constitution or the traditional role of the judiciary.

So what are some of this ‘moderate’ appointee’s credentials?

• Was a fundraiser for ACORN, a far-left organization that engaged in criminal voter fraud and closely allied to Obama.
• Served as a board member of the ACLU, another far-left special interest group.
• Hamilton ruled that prayers in Jesus’ Name was unconstitutional, but prayers to Allah were okay.
• He prevented enforcement of an Indiana law requiringabortion clinics to warn about the risks of the procedure, or requiring two visits before the abortion.
• In 1994, when Bill Clinton nominated him to the district court, the ABA rated Hamilton as ‘not qualified,’ apparently because of his almost purely political (as opposed to legal and judicial) experience. There is nothing in his record to suggest he is more qualified now.

If this is Obama’s idea of what a ‘moderate’ judge should look like, then the country is in very big trouble. But all of the warning signs that Obama would appoint extremist judges were there.

A New York Times article dated May 28, 2008 gave us a glimpse of the type of judges Obama would appoint. When asked about judicial nominations Obama responded, “I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through.”

Feelings? Empathy?

Do we really want judges deciding cases based on something other than the facts and the law? How can a judge be impartial and give a fair trail when feelings should be considered? This is something that justice Ginsburg would endorse as a valid way to reach rulings. Ginsburg also recently said, “Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?” Because taking into account foreign rulings undermines American sovereignty since most countries do not have Constitutions or a Bill of Rights.

The article went on to explain that Obama had opposed the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court by saying that Alito showed “extraordinarily consistent support for the powerful against the powerless” and “for an overreaching federal government against individual rights and liberties.”

That last part is laughable, as Obama and the Left are the ones who are in favor of massive overreaching federal government, as has been seen lately, and have consistently been opposed to individual rights and liberties. True conservatives are trying to reduce the size and scope of the federal government and do everything they can to protect individual rights and liberties.

As for the first part about Altio supporting the powerful over the powerless, this is just plain rubbish. This nonsense comes straight from the socialist propaganda playbook. It is a pure emotional claim, like most liberal criticisms, and is without validity.

Liberals were against Alito because he hinders the Left’s agenda. Alito is considered an originalist justice, and interprets the Constitution in a dispassionate and agenda-free manner, as much as possible. Alito’s politics should not matter if he just interprets the law, not creates it. However, liberals want activist judges, who will ignore or twist the Constitution to produce the outcomes they desire. They do not want an accurate or faithful interpretation of the Constitution. They see the courts as a vehicle for social change. Hence the hostility to all ‘conservative’ judges, which really means judges who do their job properly.

For the Left, the only job of a judge or Supreme Court justice is to create equality or ’social justice’. No other value is higher to modern liberals than their idea of equality. Those on the political left will admit as much, as Democratic Senator Herb Kohl remarked: “The neutral approach, that of the judge just applying the law, is very often inadequate to ensure social progress . . . ” The Left has always been a product of postmodernism and the French Revolution. Therefore, the greatest evil is not injustice or even murder, but inequality.

A country cannot function with a legal system based on “feelings” or “empathy”. If a judge can rule in favor or against someone based on what creates ’social justice’, regardless of law, the system crumbles into a third world kangaroo court. Law will not matter, right or wrong will not matter, personal responsibility will not matter, contracts will not matter.

Western civilization in general, and America in particular, has spent decades trying to get away from the tyrannical notions of other countries where who you are determines what kind of justice you get. This is especially strange coming from Obama, a black (half-black) man, who in the past would have likely been ruled against in court simply because of his skin color. But the political left does not mind injustice, per se. If injustice helps bring about equality of outcomes, then it is acceptable to liberals.

A president and his administration are only around for four to eight years, but a federal and Supreme Court justice is a lifetime appointment, which can mean decades of harm to this nation and the Constitution.

Barack Obama will stack the courts with radical activist judges who will legislate from the bench and rule by judicial fiat. For the political left, it is not about right or wrong, but weak and strong.

The only exception to this are cases involving the government and money/power. For instance, eminent domain abuses are acceptable if it benefits the state. Kicking people out of their homes for greater tax revenue is unjust and unconstitutional, but to the statist it is permissible.

But in all other cases, the ‘little guy’ must always come out the winner. Judges who side with murderers and terrorists exemplify this. Outcome-based jurisprudence is no different than any totalitarian country, but unfortunately that is where we are headed as a nation.

http://thenationalscene.com/

President Obama refuses to see the folly of his foreign policy approach. Appeasement of our enemies combined with military cutbacks will have the same disastrous outcome like every other time in history it was tried. The Neville Chamberlains in the Obama administration believe that all you need to do is sit down with your adversaries, listen to their grievances, make concessions, and peace will follow. It’s a nice idea, but rarely works, without backing up negotiations with the possibility of force, and the will to use it, or else every agreement can be broken without consequence.

Is a softer approach justified given current events? North Korea recently launched a missile over Japan in an unprovoked show of force. Iran is moving at full speed to acquire a nuclear weapon, with a leader who publicly announced his desire to see Israel destroyed, as well as America. Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Taliban in Pakistan, said the next attack would be in the heart of American power: “Not in Afghanistan, but in Washington, which will amaze the entire world.” Russia is rearming itself and bullying former soviet bloc nations, while supplying Iran with nuclear technology. Pirates from Somalia brazenly attack shipping vessels, etc.

Then we see Obama hugging and greeting, like old friends, rabidly anti-American Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez has embraced Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and proudly calls them friends. Obama also intends to lift some Cuban sanctions in an effort to herald a new openness with the Castro regime. Cuba is a one party system with no freedom of speech, a secret police, no free elections, no media freedom, and no labor freedom. Much the same as what Obama and the political left in America would like to see here undoubtedly.

In the meantime our Department of Homeland Security is busy watching the most loyal and patriotic citizens as being potential ‘threats’ to America. How ironic that they look outside the government for threats to America when the real threats are in the government. The president himself has close alliances and friendships with terrorists like Bill Ayers and other radicals, but is the DHS watching Obama?

If that wasn’t bad enough, the DHS has dropped ‘war on terror’ and ‘terrorist attack’ from its vocabulary, and instead uses “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters”. No more “unlawful enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay, only “detainees”. It is ludicrous to believe that merely changing the terminology will somehow change the reality.

Obama will only embolden our enemies with his hate-America-first world tour, and thus justify in the minds of our enemies that America deserves to be attacked. Unilaterally apologizing for America’s sins, almost never put into any historical context, only makes us look weak and unsure of ourselves. None of Obama’s groveling apologies will stop Iran from going nuclear, nor stop the North Korean missile program. Venezuela is allying with Iran and Russia, all of whom are strengthening their world influence, which often goes against ours. Cuba is also strengthening its ties to Iran and Russia, and just last December Russian warships docked for the first time in Cuba since the cold war.

The rest of the world may temporarily like us better because there isn’t a ‘cowboy’ in the White House, but it won’t last long. In an off-the-record critique of Obama’s performance, even France’s President Sarkozy called him “Weak, inexperienced, and badly briefed.” Obama says he wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons, which sounds like a very noble idea. However, how do you trust other nations to keep their word? The Clinton-Carter deal with North Korea, who promised to abandon their nuclear weapons program in return for billions in aid, lied to us by having a secret program all along. Obama’s foolishly naïve and irresponsible actions are that of an ideologue, and will do much more harm than good.

“The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) - including the use of waterboarding - caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.” Obama’s own national intelligence director conceded that harsh methods had yielded valuable insights into al-Qaida.

Yes, sometimes the person will crack under pressure and say what they think the interrogator wants to hear, but then you check out that information to see if it could be legitimate. But to suggest that a certain technique constitutes ‘torture’ , and can never be used, is to deprive us of a valuable tool that may extract useful information. Can those who are willing to ban this technique honestly say it’s worth losing innocent lives, possibly in the thousands or millions, to avoid discomforting or frightening a terrorist?

America does not engage in true torture. It’s amazing to hear those who say that waterboarding is torture when it does not physically harm the person. If your definition of torture is anything that causes discomfort or yields information, then just about anything can be called torture. Waterboarding is not like electrocution or burning, where permanent physical damage is done. Waterboarding is mostly psychological and may be terrifying, but we are not using this interrogation method on Boy Scouts or nuns - these are terrorists who are actively trying to kill Americans.

The fact that so many waterboarding demonstrations have taken place should give pause to those who call it torture. After all, if it is so bad, why are people voluntarily going through it for demonstration purposes? I don’t see people volunteering for electrocution or being hit with a Roman scourging whip.

The Time magazine website put out a hit piece on the Second Amendment today. The title of the article by Michael A. Lindenberger, Ten Years After Columbine, It’s Easier to Bear Arms, says it all, the implication being that people should be less able to bear arms. There are many places where the article needs to be corrected for spin, so I will address them in order.

In the first paragraph we are told, “What happened that day in 1999 also seemed to wake America up to the reality that it had become a nation of gun owners - and too often a nation of shooters.” America has been a gun owning nation since revolutionary times, so I doubt people suddenly realized that in 1999. The last part about shooters is incorrect, if by shooters he means murderers, as most gun owners are not deranged killers.

Lindenberger then describes how, “Texas lawmakers are mulling a new law that would allow college students to carry firearms to campus (Utah already makes this legal).” It then quotes a student named Woods who asks why they would allow this and that Woods thought it was a terrible idea. Well, actually it is a very good idea. A student who goes on a killing spree like Cho Seung-Hui (2007 Virginia Tech) who killed 32 people could be stopped much sooner with less people harmed or killed if another student or teacher was armed.

There was a case not long ago where a student was suspended due to failing grades and started shooting people. Two students who heard the shots ran to their cars where they had to keep their guns, since they were not allowed to carry on campus. They ran back and confronted the shooter, who then threw down his weapon while other students jumped him. The story received very little mainstream media attention, and of the news outlets that did, they neglected a key part of the whole story. James Eaves-Johnson wrote about this story one week later in The Daily Iowan. He wrote: “Unfortunately, the media did not point out that the ‘intervening’ students were armed. A Lexis-Nexis search revealed 88 stories on the topic, of which only two mentioned that either Bridges or Gross [the students who stopped the killer] were armed. A Westnews search exposed worse results. It revealed 112 stories, of which only two mentioned the armed students.” Most only reported that students jumped the shooter. Why? Because this is just one out of possibly millions of examples of defensive gun use, which goes contrary to the perception that the media wants to create concerning guns.

Lindenberger goes on to describe Woods’ gun control efforts as being “up against powerful headwinds - and not just because of the powerful gun lobby that often strangles gun-control laws.” ‘Powerful gun lobby’ and ’strangles’ are not exactly neutral descriptions.

The article continues with, “…that restrictions on guns have eased rather than tightened in the wake of tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech.” You can tighten them all you want, it will not deter someone who is determined to do others harm. Again, greater restrictions only encourages greater harm in the future.

Lindenberger then ironically says, “Indeed, the debate seems to be almost one-sided nowadays, with an ongoing backlash against gun control.” The debate is indeed one-sided with the mainstream anti-gun media, as is evidenced by Mr. Lindenberger’s article. He also includes a link to pictures of the Virginia Tech massacre, but no link to pictures of armed citizens who stopped violent crime. His article then describes the various states that have enacted or strengthened pro-self defense laws, as though that is a bad thing.

In describing pro-Second Amendment bills or laws, Lindenberger says, “Other legal responses have been more creative still.” Notice how he trivializes these ‘legal responses’ as being ‘creative’, as though helping people defend themselves is not something to be taken seriously.

Unwittingly Lindenberger stumbles upon the crux of the whole problem with gun control, but does not see it. He mentions how Washington, D.C. is “murder-plagued” and has the “strictest gun-control ordinance in the country.” Yet he does not seem to be able to put those simple facts together. If all that gun control worked, why is Washington, D.C. “murder-plagued”? It should be the safest place to live with the least violent crime, but it’s just the opposite. Which just goes to show it isn’t the gun, but the people.

Washington, D.C. is like a liberal experiment in gun control that went horribly wrong. They believe, falsely, that if you remove the guns, the violent crime will go down. It doesn’t occur to them that we have laws against crack cocaine, yet people still buy and use crack despite it being illegal to produce, sell, or possess. The same thing holds true for guns and crime. You can ban guns (as they did in D.C.), but the bad guys will still be able to get guns for their crimes. The only people you hurt are the law-abiding citizens who are now disarmed and helpless against the criminal element in society. James Eaves-Johnson asked, “No one would believe that people in Iowa City don’t smoke marijuana or that underage college students don’t find ways to procure alcohol. Why should we be any more naïve when it comes to rules against firearms?”

Now that the national tea parties are over we see just how predictably dismissive and contemptuous the Big Media elites are.  Is there any doubt that if these protests were perceived as liberal or leftwing, that the mainstream media would have been covering it with glowing enthusiasm? Is there any doubt that if these protests were from some liberal organization, it would have been covered in a positive light?

So what were some of the responses from the alphabet news outlets?

Dan Harris of ABC: “Cheered on by Fox News and talk radio, the hundreds of tea parties today were designed to protest the bailouts, the stimulus plan, and President Obama’s budget.” He continued with: “But critics on the left say this is not a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it’s actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests.”

The tea parties were a grassroots idea that started and spread across the internet. And this idea of linking conservatives or the rightwing to “corporate interests”, let’s set the record straight. Obama and the Democrats received far more money from corporate America than did McCain and Republicans. The Democratic Party is the new party of Wallstreet.

Dean Reynolds of CBS: “a fistful of rightward leaning Web sites and commentators embraced the cause.”

Notice how dismissive Reynolds is with his “fistful” description, minimizing the numbers which are much greater than a ‘fistful’.

Lee Cowan of NBC: “some observers suggest not all of it was as home-grown as it may seem”.

Again, a suggestion of deception on the part of the protestors; that perhaps the rightwing or corporations are behind it (the standard playbook response).

Anderson Cooper of CNN made an obscene sexual joke about the protestors. Imagine the outrage and calls for his firing if instead it was a code pink rally or some other liberal event. But because the protest is viewed as conservative, the insulting humor gets a free pass.

Susan Roesgen of CNN: (watch the video) “Anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox and since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing.”

Roesgen probably had the most appalling performance of any reporter covering the event. Her condescending tone, smug look on her face, and obvious contempt for the protestors proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that America simply cannot trust the bias Big Media.

The tea parties were a grassroots protest from people of all backgrounds. It wasn’t staged or orchestrated by FOX news or any rightwing groups. It was ordinary working tax-paying citizens who are fed up with the taxes, spending, corruption and lies from the politicians in Washington, particularly the Obama Administration.

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” and gave some reasons that need to be broken down and looked at more closely. The DHS has made warnings of leftwing groups in the past, but was always very specific. However, this time there seems to be a generalized attack on all those on the political right. Janet Napolitano, the head of the DHS, is an Obama appointee so it’s not surprising this kind of statement would come out.

The DHS warning includes, as one of the reasons for the “rise of rightwing extremism”, the “election of the first black president”. Notice how they include racism on the Right when it has primarily been a Left phenomenon. Conservatives have no problem with a black president, if he were say, Justice Thomas. The issue is un-American socialism, not skin color.

Also included was a footnote saying, “rightwing extremism…including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.” Again, racist groups are not rightwing, but are something more like apolitical anarchists who are racists. “Hate groups” is a bit vague and can mean virtually anything. I consider N.O.W. a hate group, and they certainly aren’t rightwing.

And finally this part: “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.” In fact, this statement from the DHS is incomplete. What it should read is - “reject unconstitutional federal authority…” Those on the political right have no problem with legitimate, constitutionally authorized federal authority. It’s when the federal government usurps power not delegated to it by the constitution that we reject. This is actually a good thing, as the people are doing their patriotic duty. If The People do not keep the powers of the federal government in check, who will?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/14/federal-agency-warns-of-radicals-on-right/

Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder said that the president will seek to reinstate and make permanent the ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’, despite Obama promising on the campaign trail that he would not be a gun-grabber. Obama told voters “I’m not going to take your guns away”, and “Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I think people can take me at my word.” We see his word is worth little or nothing.

Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) was the champion of the 1994 so-called assault weapons ban. She said these guns are “more deadly” and are the weapon of choice for gangs. Wrong. All firearms are potentially lethal, and so-called assault weapons are no more deadly than any other firearm. Gangs and drug cartels obtain their guns on the black market and from foreign sources. Taking them away from the average citizen accomplishes nothing against crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice conducted two studies of the consequences of the 1994 assault weapons ban. In 1999, Bill Clinton’s Justice Department looked exhaustively at the ban’s effects. It concluded that “the public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated.” In 2001, a second Justice Department review similarly found no evidence that the ban had a statistically significant effect on violent crime. A congressionally mandated study by the Urban Institute reached comparable conclusions.

So-called assault weapons are used only in a tiny fraction of crimes compared to handguns and so-called ‘Saturday night specials’. Data compiled by criminologist Gary Kleck put the frequency of ‘assault weapons’ use in all violent crime at 0.5 percent. Most criminals do not prefer these types of weapons because they are more difficult to conceal and more costly to obtain. More people are killed each year by drowning compared to ‘assault weapons’.

The new tactic is to claim that by banning these types of guns it will help Mexico with their drug cartel violence. Aside from the fact that robbing Americans of a constitutionally protected right to aid a foreign government is ludicrous, there is no evidence to suggest that banning these semi-automatic firearms will help Mexico’s problems. And even if guns were coming from the US into Mexico, it’s not a gun issue, but a border issue. Secure the borders and you won’t have to worry about illegal guns or drugs crossing the border (not to mention illegal people crossings).

Most of the people get their news and information from the mainstream media, which is manifestly anti-gun. People need to be educated about the myths surrounding guns in general and ‘assault weapons’ in particular. Why is there this scary word ‘assault’ attached to certain guns? Can’t you assault someone with any gun, or a knife or just about anything else for that matter? So that word is meaningless, aside from its usage as a buzzword to help demonize certain semi-automatic firearms.

‘Assault weapons’ are NOT machine guns. Fully automatic guns are called machine guns and cannot be owned by the general public (with extremely rare exceptions). When you pull and hold the trigger of a machine gun, multiple bullets are fired. If you pull and hold the trigger of an ‘assault weapon’, a single bullet is fired, which is no different than any hunting rifle. In fact, one of the rifles that would be banned is the common AR-15 Sporter rifle, which is commonly outfitted for hunting.

So how then do they define ‘assault weapon’? It is defined purely by cosmetics and nothing more. This irrational gun-banning crusade is based only on the appearances of certain guns. Some look like their military counterparts, but are NOT the same thing; internally and functionally they are different. Therefore there is no rational basis to ban these types of firearms.

Watch as the news media begin focusing more of their stories on gun crimes. This is intentionally done to help the Obama Administration enact more gun control. If they get their way, the Second Amendment will be further eroded until it is almost gone (which is their ultimate goal). Do not fall for the lies and deception from the anti-gun Democrats and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media.

The political, academic and media elites hate the idea of the people being armed because they do not trust the people. These immoral and arrogant aristocrats see the American people as small-town rubes to be subjugated and controlled. However, they do trust government agents to have ‘assault weapons’, as well as full machine guns, because they have direct control over them.

This is just another step on the road to banning all firearms. The anti-liberty crowd is devious in their tactics and uses what has been called incrementalism. Meaning, they will slowly take away rights piece by piece, so you don’t notice the infringement all at once, while claiming they just want ‘common sense’ restrictions with every seemingly small step.

Tyrants, criminals, and the political left all prefer their victims unarmed. Only an immoral person would deny a citizen the right to exercise one of the most fundamental aspects of liberty imaginable. The right to keep and bear arms has been an integral part of our nation since its inception, and We The People should not allow the erosion of that valuable right.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez stated that “Fox News and listening to right-wing radio” influenced the guy who shot three police officers in Pittsburgh. Sanchez said, “That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, ‘Our rights were being infringed upon.’” Poplawski (the killer) also believed in conspiracy theories and that the Jews secretly controlled the government. He came from a broken home, was expelled from high school and dishonorably discharged from the Marines. That kind of background hardly describes the average gun owner in America (roughly 90 million).

Rick Sanchez is just another spokesperson for lies and misinformation from the mainstream media. Sadly, today’s mainstream media has no integrity, and basically abandoned all neutrality when it became a propaganda disseminator for left-wing politics. Sanchez is no different from just about every other talking head in the big media.

Sanchez asked, “Are Americans being fed a pack of lies about President Obama and gun laws?”

No they are not lies, but the agenda of the political left. Attorney General Eric Holder had expressed that the Obama administration sought “a few gun-related changes…among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.” Almost everyone in the Obama administration is vehemently anti-gun. There are some pro-gun Democrats, but none are in this Administration. Liberal Democrats have made it clear that they intend to attack the Second Amendment. We heard for years how Bush was ’shredding the constitution’, but it was untrue. The true Constitution shredders are, and always have been, liberal Democrats. What more proof do you need than the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights constantly being under attack from the Left?

The mainstream anti-gun media is once again priming their audience to accept more constitutional infringements with the help of the anti-gun Democrats. No matter how many books, articles, and studies have shown that disarming citizens does nothing to reduce crime, they still can’t accept it. Liberals cannot understand how they are only hurting the people, the ones they claim to care about, by passing unconstitutional laws severely restricting our rights.

Apparently they believe that disarming law abiding normal citizens will somehow stop criminals and nuts from obtaining guns. If criminals obeyed the law to begin with, they wouldn’t be criminals. So more restrictive gun laws will do nothing to stop shooting sprees, but only enable the killer to carry out their attack without resistance.

If more people were allowed to carry concealed weapons, then the killer would be stopped much sooner with less injuries and deaths. An armed citizen would be able to shoot back and put an end to the maniac’s rampage. Calling the police and waiting for them to arrive is clearly not a winning strategy. By the time the police arrive, the shooter has usually already taken their own life, and the cops have nothing to do except count bodies and fill out paperwork.

http://thenationalscene.com/

To answer the question posed by my last posting we need to turn to the schools and universities. The root cause of the socialist ideas in popular culture can be traced directly to the education system in this country. It is here where many of the journalists, reporters, news anchors, writers and politicians received their worldview.

The academics have many fashionable theories as to how things should work in society and the world, many of them utopian, but ultimately they are incorrect and often make things much worse.

The late William F. Buckley, Jr., famously wrote: “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” But he went on to explain why he would make this preference: 

http://thenationalscene.com/source-socialisms-influence/

The Left, with its belief in socialism and other forms of utopianism, always fail because they reject the core truths of mankind. Conservatives understand that mankind can never achieve perfection on this earth, while modern liberals believe it can. The history of the last century has proved that when movements attempt to perfect mankind and its institutions, it always ends in catastrophe.

Socialism, fascism, Nazism, communism, etc. are all forms of collectivism that have some things in common. Among these are the ideas that the troubles that plague mankind are due to corrupt institutions and ineffective leaders; that if we only remade the institutions of society with the right leadership, we can achieve some kind of utopia. That criminals and the poor are a product of broken or outdated capitalistic systems. That a classless society in which all are equal is achievable. That religion is bad and science is all that is needed to explain everything. That the State should be all-powerful and essentially worshipped by the people. That the State should control the economy and redistribute the resources according to the elite who know better because of their ’superior’ education. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and others believed in this, though they had differing way as to how to achieve a socialist paradise. Regardless of the means taken, the end goal was always the same. Continue Reading

What the Obama Administration has in store for this country represents the danger of voting for a Democrat these days. Not to say the Republicans are without flaws, as we have seen with the reckless spending and growth of government under the Bush Administration. The Republicans have certainly lost their way and have abandoned many of their conservative principles, which is why the Democrats now control the government.

But whatever their weaknesses, at least the Republicans do not try to take your money away, nor your Constitutional rights. Here is a partial list of the damage done by putting liberal Democrats in charge of the country:

• Attack First Amendment (i.e. reinstate a backdoor ‘Fairness Doctrine’)
• Attack Second Amendment (i.e. reinstate so-called ‘Assault Weapons’ ban)
• Raise taxes (i.e. letting the Bush tax cuts expire – yes, the effect is an increase)
• Weaken national defense (i.e. against missile defense systems)
• Activist judges who legislate from the bench (i.e. Ginsburg)
• Push America further into socialism (i.e. “spread the wealth around”)

Most Democratic politicians, and the intelligentsia, do not believe in liberty or the foundational principles this country was founded on, despite paying lip service to the contrary.

For example, the Left does not respect free speech, as is seen by their desire in reviving an alternative version of the so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine’, which in typical Orwellian fashion is about as unfair as can be. However, they will end up calling it something else (watch for words like “localism” and “airwave neutrality”) and use a different means to the same ends. How can you claim ‘fairness’ while creating a monopoly and silencing opposition?

Another Orwellian act from the Left is the so-called ‘Employee Free Choice Act’, or “Card Check” that was introduced in the U.S. Congress. Employee free choice sounds good, right? Liberals are experts at twisting words and manipulating people with disinformation and lies. What this Act will do is effectively eliminate our right to vote by private ballot when deciding whether to join a union, and undermine our right to freely negotiate contracts. The Union will then know who voted against them and harass that person, or take any number of other retributive actions.

So why are modern liberals so interested in taking away our liberties and making government bureaucrats our rulers? What is it about collectivism that is so attractive to them, regardless of its historical failures?