The Wrightwing

Recently, an Amendment to the Constitution was barely defeated. This Amendment would have authorized Congress to pass laws prohibiting the physical desecration of the flag.

The Text:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

This would have been only the third time in U.S. history that the Constitution was used to oppress the rights of people under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The defeat was a good defeat, and hopefully this will not come up again. The upcoming elections in November will change the configuration of Congress, so that this will have less chance than ever of passing. At least it should if we have any respect for freedom.

Does anyone remember the two times violations of human rights were written into the Constitution?

The first time was at it’s very creation, and officially became law upon ratification on June 21, 1788 with that first and most egregious oppression of human rights, the Three fifths clause that institutionalized slavery in the US. The delegates knew that it would lead to conflict later on, but without it the slave states would not join a union, and fearing a division of strength in the face of the global powers of the day, not to mention the threat of mother England trying to regain control of her former colonies, the abolitionists relented.

And it did. A mere 73 years later, within the lifetime of many alive as youngsters when ratified, this bastard clause led to the Civil War in 1861. One of the bloodiest battles in history, the bloodiest in U.S. history so far, Antietam, occurred during that war. Wounds were created that still fester to this day, generations later.

The second time rights violations were written in was when Alchohol Prohibition was enshrined by way of the 18th Amendment. An attempt at human social engineering the world had not yet seen the like of in modern times, until the truth of the horrors of the Soviet and Red Chinese revolutions that were hidden at the time, saw light.

This rasp of idiocy led to a decade of violence, corruption and cynicism on the part of the American populace. It started the tear in the fabric of trust the public had in government, a tear that has grown ever larger as the decades since have rolled on. But we did learn one big lesson form that mistake. Never put these things into the Constitution, a lesson learned well by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he implemented his rape of the Constitution during his New Deal. A lesson learned by those that later went on to wage “wars” on Poverty, Drugs and Guns.

Both of these attempts to restrict rights through the Constitution led to violence and death. It could be argued that Prohibition still does, through the never abandoned idea that simply banning something potentially harmful, can make society all better.

What could be the consequences of a ban on Flag Burning?

The first erosion of the hard won victories in free speech, for one. After all, if we can ban something as offensive as flag burning some people, what can we ban next? Gay porn is offensive, so ban that. Next could be Heterosexual porn of certain genre’s and then of course all of it.

How about offensive political speech? I could certainly stand to see less of Rick “Gays ‘R Bad, mmkay?” Santorum, Ted Stevens, Cynthia McKinney, Jabba the Kennedy.

Those folks all spout stuff offensive to many, can we ban them next?

How about Intelligent Design nonsense? Can we ban that? No? Not enough support? Well Evolution then, that pisses a lot of people off.

What kind of response will we see from the population when more and more speech is banned as a desecration by more and more Amendments, provided the bother of further Amendments is even pretended. This would seem to be a perfect laboratory for the Law of Unintended Consequences. I, however, do not care to be a rat in that maze.

Flag burning is such an infrequent occurrence that to pass a Constitutional Amendment to ban it, it is clear, is nothing more than a cynical attempt to pander to the most rabid right wing ideologs in a manner that will intimidate the weak-kneed on the left to go along.

And it almost worked.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Why the First Amendment?

This is why:

A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they’re suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from “state-sponsored religion.”
…
Classmates accused Alex Dobrich of “killing Christ” and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother’s car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, “Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair.”

In addition:

Special privileges for christian students not available to jews or other non-christians, taunts, physical harassment, deliberate, premeditated violation of law and U.S. Supreme Court rulings by both the school board and a local judge.

Sounds to me there area few folks down there that need to start looking to their Second Amendment rights. And it aint the christians.

hat tip fark

The saddest thing about this, is that I am not surprised. Traveling legally, obeying the law, under protection of Federal law, is apparently illegal in New Jersey.
What’s your point? You’se gotta problem wit’ dat?

When Gregg Revell packed his bags for a trip to Pennsylvania last April, he had no idea how far he’d be traveling.
Before the week was out, the 57-year-old suburban real estate agent and grandfather would be arrested, thrown into one of the country’s most notorious jails, strip searched and inoculated against his will. The soft-spoken Utah native would be on his way to becoming a poster child for the National Rifle Association in a $3 million lawsuit.
During a nearly five-day stay in a Newark, N.J., jail, he would meet a terrifying side of America that most Utahns see only on television and briefly would become a jailhouse mentor to drug dealers and violent criminals.

All because New Jersey has a pathological, hysterical, fear of freedom.

I gotta get out of this state.

Is it starting to be time to consider Canadian Citizenship?

Is there nothing in the Constitution this sock puppet will fail to molest?

King George has issued a Royal Edict:

Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America’s social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.

via Balko

Police murdered a peaceful man down in Virginia. They claim it was an accident. Tell me. When you bring ninja-clad, para-military stormtroopers pointing loaded guns to a non-violent situation, and one of you kills an unarmed, non-threatening, peaceful optometrist, who’s only crime was liking to run a few bets, what do you call it? ‘oops’?

Fairfax County’s police chief said yesterday that one of his officers accidentally shot and killed an optometrist outside the unarmed man’s townhouse Tuesday night as an undercover detective was about to arrest him on suspicion of gambling on sports.

As Radley Balko points out:

“Tactical officers” is a eumpemism for SWAT team. So yes, the Fairfax County police department dispatched the SWAT team to arrest an optometrist suspected of gambling. They had their guns drawn. The descended upon him. And one of them killed him.
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SWAT teams don’t diminish the risk of violence. They escalate it. In rare situations — hostage crises, barricades, or violent crimes-in-process, for example — escalation is necessary to stave off immediate harm. In inherently nonviolent, routine police work — like serving warrants on optometrists — they’re needlessly provocative and dangerous. A growing pile of bodies testifies to that.

And until spineless lawmakers put an end to this idiocy (and yes, risk being called “soft on crime” as a result), the pile is only going to get larger.

As has been said before, when only the police have guns, you live in a police state. I say disarm all police while they are on duty. Make them rely on armed civilians when they need it. I’ll bet you deaths involving police, whether dead officers, suspects or bystanders, will drop 90% the first year.

South Park ran an episode that seems to have offended some catholics. Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League:

… I asked Joseph Califano, a practicing Catholic and member of Viacom’s board of directors (Viacom is the parent company of Comedy Central) to issue a public condemnation of the ‘Bloody Mary’ episode; I also asked that he do whatever he could to pull any scheduled reruns of the episode.

So Comedy Central has bowed to pressure from a religious extremist group.

South Park has skewered many people. There was an episode where atheists and excreting feces from the mouth were equated. I know a lot of us were annoyed at that, but we did not complain or try to censor South Park.

There have been episodes that have skewered every one imaginable, so why is the Catholic League so different? Poow wittow baby hurt his feewings?
What a bunch of pussies. Can’t take a some one skewering you over your penchant for hysterical claims of miraculous crying and bleeding statuary? Too bad. Why does that give you the authority to demand someone censor a show?

Imagine if they were in charge of the country? There is a reason for the First Amendment, and this is it. While it does not apply to private companies, it does prevent the Catholic League, indeed any religious tyrant, from controlling our press.

Remember that the next time you ask for a christian country. You may not like who is in charge and what they do about YOUR version of christianity.

Radley Balko is doing yeomans work digging into what is starting to look like a complete abortion of constitutional protections, the judicial process and the legal system. All involving the drug war, no-knock warrants and the militarization of police. He has obtained and is posting all relevant documents in the case, warrants, autopsies, etc.

I’m also hoping to get a copy of the third search warrant issued in the case. This was the warrant issued after the initial raid, and after Jones’ death. It’s with this warrant that police allgedly found the less than one ounce of marijuana in Maye’s apartment.

Here they are:

If you read anything today, hell, anything this week, go through the rest of the story: here, here, here, here, here, here, with more early posts to be found as well.

As well as more on the viscious stupidity of no-knock raids: The Folly of Knock-and-Announce, Knock-and-Announce Folly, Ct’d…

I know he needs no help with traffic from a little guy like me, but if I can educate one more person on the evils of the drug war, the visciousness of the legal system created to support it and the erosion of our Constitutional rights due to it, including our gun rights, I will be happy to help.

The ruling in the Dover School (un)Intelligent Design case has been issued. The judge issued a ruling so severe in it’s criticism it takes the breath away.
Opinion: KITZMILLER v. DOVER AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT.

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts
of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the
Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the
seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and
moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious,
antecedents.
Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock
assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory
is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in
general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the
theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the
scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the
existence of a divine creator.
To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not
be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in
religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific
propositions.
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the
Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals,
who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would
time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID
Policy.
With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID
have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor
do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As
stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an
alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an
activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court.
Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction
on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a
constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the
Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which
has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers
of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal
maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

This ruling is to the Religious Right, what rulings in the cynical and misguided suits against gun manufacturers have been to the Gun-banning Left.

Both are severe slaps in the face to social activists for trying to convince courts to impose by judicial dictate, what they have failed to achieve through the political process. Both sought to redefine well accepted terms, such as ‘theory’ and ‘liability’, and in all cases where a disinterested judge has sat in judgment, they have lost, and lost badly.

It is too bad that it is the taxpayers that will foot the bills for all of these suits. The idiots that allow or cause these suits, by attempting to impose religious instruction in schools, or attempting to make third parties liable for the actions of criminals, are the ones that should have to pay. Each school board member, mayor or city councilman that sets these things in motion should be made to pay the costs out of their own pocket. Short of that, they should be summarily removed from office, as the voters of Dover, PA., have done with their ignorant and foolish school board.

Good essay on Atheists in foxholes and religious discrimination against non-believers in the military by Gaurd officer recently returned from Iraq:

The United States military has gone to great lengths to accommodate soldiers from a variety of religious backgrounds. They provide dietary alternatives, a variety of chaplains and printed materials from every major religion. They have gone as far as accommodating Wiccan rituals and allowing open Satan worship on military bases and ships. But there is one group of soldiers that the military has turned its back on.

Atheists are still openly disparaged by chaplains in today’s military. Chaplains continue to perpetuate the myth that there are no atheists in foxholes despite the fact that atheists are serving honorably right now in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The military’s response has been to simply ignore it.

Balko reports this hideous outrage:

Let’s summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn’t named in the warrant, and wasn’t a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door’s been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town’s police chief. He’s later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. To communicate the fucking Constitution to our fucking GOVERNMENT!

As far as I am concerned, the residents of this town, especially the Black residents, should rise up and revolt against this fascist drug warrior regime. This is what the Second Amendment is for.

End the War on Drugs. End the War on Guns. End the War on People.

Read his main page, linked above, for much more on this.

An interesting piece of commentary in “The New Hampshire” raises a question I have heard before in debates over the Second Amendment.

Can I own a nuclear weapon? It seems like a silly question, I grant you. I mean the idea of a private citizen, especially one so wildly unstable as myself, owning a nuclear weapon is unnerving to say the least. But considering the stated purpose of the second amendment it would follow that I be allowed to own a nuclear weapon or weapons grade anthrax or a tomahawk missile.

and:

If I can build a nuclear bomb or obtain one then certainly I have a right to have it. However, in practice, I don’t know that I would want this to be the case. From there it is only a matter of degree, should we have the right to own street sweepers, AK-47s or AR-15s?

Good questions.

First, the definition I use for a ‘Right’ is that which you can do yourself, without requiring action on the part of another, that does not inflict harm on another who has not attacked you. So you have the right to any food you can provide yourself, but not to the food of others or to have others provide it. You have the right to ask others for food, but not the right to force them to give it to you. You have the right to speak, but no right to force others to listen. You have a right to whatever shelter you provide yourself, but not to someone else’s home. You have the right to defend yourself, but not the right to assault someone else. Got the idea?

We are a technological species. We use out technology to extend out natural abilities beyond what we can do our selves.
We travel faster than we can run, using technology such as the bicycle, motor vehicle, airplane, boat, or even rocket ship, as well as farther by these same means.
We live longer using technology such as anti-biotics, vaccines, pacemakers and other medical advances.
We speak louder and to more people using technology such as automated presses, telephone, radio, television, and now the Internet.
We defend ourselves better, and more effectively using technology such as cartridge ammunition, smokeless powder, repeating guns, automatic and semi-automatic guns, and, yes, make war, more effectively as well.

So technology is part of being human. To restrict the technology we use when exercising our rights is akin to saying we have a right to use our hands, but disabling our thumbs.

At the time the Second Amendment was written, arms consisted of blades, single shot firearms, (though many, such as Leonardo DaVinci, had envisioned and tried to design multi-shot firearms), and basic artillery that could throw shot, solid balls and explosive shells. All of which were owned by private people, without restriction, except the notion of personal responsibility for ones actions, and being held accountable for misuse, whether accidental or deliberate.

At the time the First Amendment was written, speech and the press consisted of how loudly and persuasively you could speak to others in person, and to manually operated presses, with individual lead letters, placed by hand. All of which was done or used, by private people, without restriction, except the notion of personal responsibility for ones actions, and being held accountable for misuse, whether accidental or deliberate, as in libel or slander, or incitement to riot. This is important for what follows.

As our technology has advanced, we have not updated our constitution in a way that addresses this advancement. This I think, is due to our reluctance to do so, a reluctance we should not allow. Instead we bend and twist meanings and definitions to fit whatever new comes along.

When printing presses became automated, there was no outcry over it. When Radio was invented, there was some outcry, but it was included as protected by the First Amendment. When Television extended Radio, this occurred again, and is also occurring with the Internet. While the electromagnetic spectrum was ruled public property, in much the same way that much land in this country is, and leased in a similar manner, the speech carried by these mediums has still been largely protected.
When the technology has permitted direct targeting of speech at specific listeners that have expressed interest in hearing it, or actively sought it out, it is fully protected. But when the speech is broadcast to all, some restrictions have been permitted, such as certain words and images prohibited from broadcast channels, that are protected on subscription channels such as HBO or the Playboy Channel. This is one reason why Howard Stern has moved from a broadcast radio network to a subscription satellite channel. This is also why the ‘wardrobe malfunction’ of Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl broadcast raised such an uproar. If it had occurred on HBO, no one would have cared. (I am not saying it was not a silly over reaction).

But none of these advances in the technology of ’speech’ fundamentally changed the nature of speech or how people react to it, how it affects them and how they respond to it.

So, as to the First Amendment as our technology has advanced, the distinction between whether the content of the speech is protected or not, is whether it is broadcast to all, regardless of whether or not they may wish it, or targeted to those that request it or seek it out. When broadcast to all, some limited restrictions have been permitted. Whether this is right or not, is not the issue here.

The Second Amendment is similar, but how we have treated it is not. As arms became more accurate and more powerful, just as with printing presses, little was done, even when the occasional worry was expressed. No restrictions, (fewer than on speech, anyway), beyond being held accountable for misuse.

Until the Civil War. From that point, things changed politically, but that analysis is beyond what I am discussing here.

If the Second Amendment had been treated like the First Amendment, today we would have no licensing of dealers, just as we have no licensing of printers or publishers. We would have no licensing of owners, just as we have no licensing of readers, subscribers, etc. We might have licensing for use in public places or on government land, as we have for using the ‘public airwaves’, but I doubt that, since carrying of firearms was an accepted practice for centuries before radio was discovered.

So to return to the original questions: Does the Second Amendment protect a right to chemical, biological or nuclear, (CBN), weapons, tomahawk missiles, street sweepers, AK-47s or AR-15s?

This depends on the nature of the weapon. Automatic weapons like the AK-47, semi-automatic weapons like AR15’s and ’street sweepers’ which I usually see defined as automatic or semi-automatic shotguns, are just extensions of firearm technology, the types of arms known by the authors of the Second Amendment. As is artillery, like cannons, which were commonly used on merchant ships. All of these are means to employ the right of self defense, in all its’ meanings, that also extend the known technology of the time.

CBN weapons are entirely different. So far as I know, chemical weapons were not known at the time. Biological agents were used in warfare, like tossing rotting, disease ridden corpses into an enemy camp, but this was not really considered an ‘arm’, so much as it was considered a tactic. Corpses could not really be stored in armories or over the fire place, for deployment when needed. Rockets and guided missiles also were unknown, and are not considered firearms by anyone I know. Nuclear weapons were completely off the map of human knowledge, with nothing even pointing to the possibility.

But these advances in the technology of arms DO fundamentally change the nature of arms, how people react to them, how arms affect them and how they respond to arms.

So yes, the Second Amendment does cover machine guns, submachine guns, ’street sweepers’, and artillery, and anything that extends them. It also covers edged weapons. But it does not cover CBN weapons or missiles, just as the First Amendment would not cover direct transmission into the brains of the populace. These are fundamentally different things than what was known or intended by the authors. ‘Arms’, as the authors of the Second Amendment understood the term, and as used in the Second Amendment, does not include CBN weapons or missiles.

A misdemeanor? Is that what negligent homicide is?

A 17-year-old likely will face misdemeanor charges after allegedly losing control of his car while text messaging and hitting a bicyclist.

The bicyclist, Jim R. Price of Highlands Ranch, died Friday, two days after the accident.

There were over 38,000 deaths caused by mis-use of motor vehicles in 2004. About 750 of them bicyclists. There are about 237 million registered motor vehicles in the US.

There are very few true accidents. This was not an accident. This was negligent homicide. This 17 year old was handling a dangerous piece of equipment in a reckless and negligent manner and killed someone. If he had been drunk, what would the charges be? If he had been operating a plane or train and was ‘inattentive’, what would the charges be? If he had been using a firearm, and was ‘inattentive’, what would the charges be? The tool that is used or misused to cause another’s death should not matter.

A number of years ago, well over ten, maybe as long a twenty, a girl driving a car in California tried to change a cassette tape, swerved, ran into a line of cyclists and killed some and severely injured others. The judge let her off, stating the cyclists were at fault and should have know it was dangerous to ride on the road. Some of the cyclists were Olympic hopefuls. ( I am unable to find a link for this, it was pre-web ). That was an outrageous decision, not the same, but still akin to, blaming a rape victim for wearing a short skirt.

I know of one rider that was hit by a car, almost killed and left for dead by the side of the road. His injuries were bad enough that he remembers nothing of the hit, he remembers only riding and then waking in the hospital a couple of days later. He lay on the side of the road for a couple hours before a police officer saw him. No other drivers stopped or called. This was in the era of cell phones, on a busy county road in Bergen County, NJ, in one of the richest towns in the nation. Once you mount a bicycle in this country, you are less than human, and if you are hit by a vehicle you are treated as no more than road kill is. My only wonder is that the cop didn’t shoot him as an act of euthanasia as I have seen them do to deer that are hit but not killed.

This is another reason I have stopped riding. No matter what the laws say, the reality is that the police and courts will treat you, as a bicycle rider, as responsible for being the victim of a negligent motor vehicle driver. They have special privilege over cyclists, not in law, but in reality. Cyclists are treated as less than human, and in reality have essentially no rights as far as the police and courts are concerned, the law, “equal protection of the laws” under the Constitution, and just plain decency, be damned.

Update, more links to this: here, here and here,.

The wife feels sorry for the teen. Again I ask: What if he had been using a gun? Would she feel sorry for him? She should be outraged.

Yes, you read that right. A 3 PART SERIES no less.

Check this out.

Hot to apply, training gun selection. All very well done, with only one mistake I saw. (Revolvers can hold more than 5 shots).

The state of Georgia exempts christian bibles from sales tax. The koran was taxed until recently, but no other books, religious or not receive an exemption. Why should hindu, buddhist, shinto texts be taxed? Why should atheist texts be taxed, that argue the other side of this question?

Candace Apple, owner of the Phoenix and Dragon Bookstore near Atlanta and a plaintiff in the suit, argues the exemption should apply to any book that addresses the meaning of life, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“If they’re not taxing someone’s holy scriptures, they shouldn’t be taxing anyone’s,” said Apple, whose store specializes in metaphysical books. “I’m not willing to stand at the counter and tell someone, ‘Oh, sorry, your religion is wrong.’”

While I believe they are all wrong, as far as deities, creation etc, that is beside the point. Why should one religion get special exemption and not others? This is clearly an endorsement of one religion over others, and if extended to other religious texts would be an endorsement in general. If then also extended to atheist texts, it would be neutral at least, but still would punish texts on politics, science, sports, whatever.

Free speech is free speech, religious or otherwise. Tax it all, or not at all.

Finally, a Gun Banner publically admits what they have said in private allalong: Sensible guncontrol means a complete ban.

Proposition H makes it illegal for residents to keep handguns in their homes or businesses and prohibits the manufacture and sale of all firearms and ammunition in San Francisco. The City’s new ordinance will be the strictest in the nation, since it requires existing guns to be turned in to law enforcement officials by April 1. Law enforcement personnel and others who require weapons for work are exempt from the measure.

Supervisor Chris Daly, the author of the ballot measure, said the law was needed to reduce the number of guns in a city plagued by gun violence, with 88 homicides so far this year, about 60 percent of them by handguns, according to officials. Fewer guns in The City, according to Daly, means fewer guns for criminals to get their hands on.

“This is sensible gun control,” Daly said. “Prop. H isn’t going to solve violence in San Francisco, but it’s one part that we can do to get a handle on this epidemic of violence, most of it handgun-related.”

We have a First Amendment for many reasons. Two of them are: To protect us from religious tyranny and to protect our religious freedom.

A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced a Protestant minister, his wife and her brother to prison terms of up to three years for illegally printing Bibles and other Christian publications, one of their lawyers said.

This illustrate the other side of the coin of imposing religion on people, including in school.

The difference between China and us.

I have heard stories like this for years, but never in the papers or news channels. If you ever find yourself in this situation, you should probably try to find a way to get out of the country fast. Remember: “The Police are NOT your friends”.

Read it and be outraged.

Ok, but how would the social workers actually get a court order to take your kids? Wouldn’t you know about that order and be able to fight it in court or have a say in the matter? Laugh, choke, giggle…ROFL. Well, in our particular case there was no hearing and the judge that signed the order was not even a family court judge (we’d never heard of him before, never seen him before). We HAD been in court recently for the child welfare matter, but it had nothing to do with the custody of our children. The document this judge (from God knows where) signed was dated for the day of that hearing, and claimed to site actual events of the court that day. Full transcripts of that court hearing show the judge that signed the order giving custody of our children to the state was not even in the courthouse that day…let alone in our courtroom, and that no mention was made regarding custody of our children by anyone in the courtroom. So essentially it was a phony document created by CPS and signed by a pet judge of theirs.
…
Are you about ready to spit nails now? So, think it can’t happen to you? And just what the hell were we accused of doing? We have 4 children. I was first accused of being a pregnant drug user, while pregnant with my 4th child. It was later confirmed that the hospital I used had given me a narcotic sleeping pill, then a drug test shortly after - and without mentioning their prescribed sleeping pill they called CPS to warn them of my pregnant status and failed drug test - for narcotics. This situation was straightened out - but CPS had their teeth in it now…and wouldn’t give it up.

Being a minority STILL seems to make you a target for would-be Bull Conners every where. Well, at least in Edna, Texas:

The segregated restrooms are gone. But the town remains an East Texas - - or Old South - throwback, where racism simmers like a bully’s threat, and equal justice under the law appears little more than an outsider’s sentimental fancy. And in the fall of 2002, Edna’s institutionalized rural racism overmatched Justice’s balanced scales when 29 African-American residents - nearly 4% of the town’s black population - including Patterson, a lifelong Ednan, and later, his wife, Joycelyn - were rounded up and charged with felony drug offenses in connection with a six-month undercover drug sting, a joint operation of the Edna Police Department and the Jackson Co. Sheriff’s Office coyly dubbed “Operation Crackdown.”

When the defendants called lawyers, all refused the cases when they found out the charged were in Edna and Jackson County.

When one defendants daughter called the DA to say they would fight the charges, SHE was then charged.

All of this is done on the word of ONE informant and audio recordings, no officers witnessed any crime.

The racism of the drug war is brought home in this tale. Minorities with little political power in general, African-Americans specifically, are targeted. After conviction, which is almost ensured in places like Edna, the convicted then lose much more than their freedom:

They lose the right to vote in almost all states, never to get it back, and thereby lose even more political power.
They then also lose the right to enter many licensed professions or trades, like law or medicine, but also innocuous trades like barber in many areas. This then lowers their economic power.
They lose the right to loans and grants for education from the feds and many states, further lowering their chances of getting out of poverty.
They lose the right to keep and bear arms, thereby opening them up to exploitation by predatory criminals and, worse, the ability to fight back against tyranny.

They lose that and more.

The drug war is supported by both Democrats and Republicans, almost all rich, white, powerful, males, and a FEW minorities, who have been either bought off by relative wealth and status, or just plain fooled, all seeking to keep their social, political and financial status.

This is entangled into so many other areas it is almost impossible to list them all. But here are a few.

Why are so many powerful politicians against voting rights to former felons? If they have paid their debt to society, are they not citizens again? It is a convenient way to suppress those you seek to oppress.

If there has ever been a time for the Second Amendment to be used to overthrow a tyranny, is it not the wholesale enslavement of minorities into a life of perpetual servitude? Oh I forgot, the government decides when, and WHO gets this ‘right’. How convenient. By defining who is a felon, they define who gets this ‘right’, and at the same time, quietly and systematically disarm those who may someday oppose them.
My conservative and right wing friends, not to mention my liberal friends will be aghast at this idea. But why release someone into society if they can not be trusted with the full rights of society? If they are a danger, why release them? If they are not, why convict them in the first place?

But if the government can define away ANYONES rights, can it not define away yours? When will they define away YOUR right to vote, right to speak, right to fight back?

Think about these:
The National Firearms Act’s
The War on Drugs
The Patriot Act
McCain-Feingold
The ‘Kelo’ decision, AKA: ‘All your home are belong to us’.
The ‘Raich’ decision, AKA:’All your doctors are belong to us’
Recent proposals to ‘License’ journalists to give them privileges others ‘citizens’ do not have. Bloggers, and other regular people, excluded, of course.

How many can you add?
I haven’t come close to exhausting the possibilities.

Own an ugly gun? Go to jail.
Have a nude picture? Go to jail.

Heck, the subscriber lists to Field and Stream and Playboy could be the start of a prison industry all its’ own.
Willie Nelson, Ted Nugent and Marilyn Manson would be summarily executed.

Hugh Hefner and Charlton Heston would bring back the very entertaining practice of taking the miscreant and Half-hanging, drawing, quartering, beheading and then displaying their heads on a pike outside the courthouse. Worked for England.

How far will we go?

Time to end the war on people, on all fronts: The War on Drugs, The War on Guns, The War on Property, The War on Speech, The War on Us.

Every minority of any sort, racial, religious, political, social, should be concerned about this.

Thanks to Balko.

FEMA bans firearms in ‘camp’:
According to a report that aired on the Lehrer News Hour on Thursday, displaced New Orleans residents are being allowed to move into a compound called “FEMA City,” where trailers and RVs have been assembled to provide temporary housing. Among the conditions for being allowed to move in - and the only one detailed by Baker Mayor Harold Rideau - is that no firearms are allowed. The compound was established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), hence its nickname.

So, what kind of ‘camp’ does that make it?

So you can be free and have firearms, or be in a cage without. Your choice. Not that you should have one.

We supporters of Liberty believe it is your choice to keep or bear arms. The supporters of tyranny think it is their choice, and they say NO.

When did the Federal Emergency Management Agency morph into the Wirtschafts- und Verwaltunshauptamt?

If you live in NJ, this will probably not surprise you. A Superior Court ruling basically says, that even if there is no law against something, you can still be arrested, charged, tried, found guilty, fined and even imprisoned: When is a non-law a law?

So if the legislature happens to overlook something, or even deliberatly leave it out, now all the prosecutors need to do is convince a judge that something SHOULD be illegal, and it will be. We can send the legislature home now.