Gun Owners Mad As Hell And Will Not Take It! ... J. D. Longstreet

Gun Owners Mad As Hell And Will Not Take It!
"Disarming the SLAVES!"
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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There is a purge of Congress in the offing.  It  will be historic in its magnitude.   

Allow me to be as clear as I possibly can about this because the disconnect between the people of America and their government has become so complete, the distance between the citizen and the government has become so broad, that Washington is hearing only a faint whisper (If they hear anything at all!) coming from those of us outside the beltway.

So let me say this clearly, loudly, and in a declarative manner:  Attention Senators and US Representatives: If you vote for the new Assault Weapons Ban your political career in the US Congress is OVER.  That is O V E R!  Complete, finished, ended, kaput!

For the past few days I have been going over and over Senator Diane Feinstein's proposal for a new Assault Weapons Ban and it reads like some sort of "edict" handed down from the politburo in old Soviet Socialist Russia.  (The politburo is the chief executive and political committee of the Communist Party.)

It IS as bad as I had suspected --  but it is much, much, worse!

If you have not read the proposed bill, there is a "Summary" of the bill in PDF format you must read.  You will find it here:
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=10993387-5d4d-4680-a872-ac8ca4359119 

The full text of the proposed bill has been taken down from the Senator's website and, instead, we find the summary.

I am including a copy of the text of that summary below which was taken from the Senator's website:

Summary of 2013 legislation

Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation:

    Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
        120 specifically-named firearms;
        Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one or more military characteristics; and
        Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
    Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
        Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test;
        Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test; and
        Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans.
    Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
    Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
        Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment;
        Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes; and
        Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons.
    Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
        Background check of owner and any transferee;
        Type and serial number of the firearm;
        Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
        Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
        Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration.

A pdf of the bill summary is available here:  http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=10993387-5d4d-4680-a872-ac8ca4359119
 
What we have here is a full-out, frontal assault on gun owners of America -- not to mention a complete infringement of the rights of gun owners as spelled out, clearly, in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.  It is as if the 2nd Amendment does not exist. 

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." ... 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution

I keep wondering what part of "shall not be infringed" do they not understand???   The definition of "infringe" is:"to go against."  That, then, would mean, it seems to me, the entire proposed 2013 Assault Weapons Ban is unconstitutional from the git-go!  It is clearly an "infringement" on the rights of US citizens as spelled out in the 2nd Amendment.

As we learn, by dribs and drabs, what's in Feinstein's bill it becomes even more disturbing.

In my family we have a long standing tradition of "handing-down" our guns to the next generation.  I have been looking forward to the day I will hand-down my weapons to my grandson.  Now I learn that should Feinstein's bill pass into law, I will not be able to do that.  Nor will you.

"According to the outline of Feinstein’s bill, it will grandfather in all legally owned weapons, but it will require they be registered and the owner fingerprinted. It will require a $200 per weapon tax be paid. The guns will not be transferable, meaning that upon the death of the owner the guns will become the property of the Federal government. It will allow the sale of 900 specifically named weapons, but none that can accept a detachable magazine that holds more than 10 rounds."  SOURCE:  http://personalliberty.com/2012/12/31/the-gun-grab-cometh/

All this is bad enough, but consider this:  If the Congress refuses to pass Feinstein's bill into law, isn't it reasonable to expect that Obama will issue the necessary Executive Orders to do much the same thing by way of rules and regulations, which have the force of law, and those rules and regs will be executed by the alphabet agencies under his control such as BATFE and the DHS, and even the agency, or agencies, charged with the supervision of Obamacare.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!  Losing our freedom, our liberty, and our COUNTRY is a consequence of the November sixth election.  But to be honest, we have to admit the problem began when the American people turned to socialism and a strong central government.  THIS is the price we pay. 

But what the hey!  It's only freedom.  It's just our liberty.  It's just our birthright!  And finally -- it is just the soul of our country.

This is about far more than guns and who has them.  This is about slavery to the state.  Pure and simple.  It's not hard.  It's not difficult.  It is easily understood -- if you're not afraid of the truth.

In the not too distant future there will come a call -- a clarion call.  Whether America lives -- or dies -- will depend upon who among her people answers that call.  The faint-hearted need not bother themselves.  Their services will not be required.  When the call comes you can be sure the "Land of the free" is in need of rescue by those Americans from the "Home of the BRAVE." 

Mark my words:  The call  WILL come.  The rapid rate at which America is spiraling downward is matched by the rapid rate at which patriotism is spiraling upward among freedom loving Americans.  The men and women who have always stepped forward from the masses to save America will step forward again for they are the sons and daughters of heroes.  They know the cost -- and the price  -- of freedom for their families have paid it many times before. THEY will do the RIGHT thing -- because IT IS THE RIGHT THING.

"Through the travail of the ages
Midst the pomp and toil of war
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

I have sinned and I have suffered
Played the hero and the knave
Fought for belly, shame or country
And for each have found a grave.

So as through a glass and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names - but always me."

--- General George S Patton, Jr. 

The poem above is from the pen of a man who, as a boy sat at the feet of, and rode with  an aging Col. John Singleton Mosby, the "Gray Ghost" of Confederate Army fame. Gen. George Patten knew that the men and women I write of above are with us always and when called upon they unflinchingly step forward.   And they will again.  They only await the call. 

© J. D. Longstreet
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The Play's The Thing! ... J. D. Longstreet

The Play's The Thing!
Home of the Brave -- or -- Lair of the Knave
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Definition of knave: 
/nāv/
Noun
A dishonest or unscrupulous man.
Synonyms:  rogue - rascal - jack - villain - scoundrel - scamp

I can't take credit for the title above.  I stole it from some positively ancient would-be playwright named Bill Shakespeare.  I understand there is some question, even today, as to the actual author of those words from Hamlet. So, to whomever wrote it, my thanks! You were -- and remain -- spot on!

As the so-called Mainstream Media continues its propaganda tsunami warning that we are all about to be swept over the fiscal cliff, it has begun to irritate me.  I have begun to question their motive(s) even more. 

The MsM (the Mainstream Media, the Press, the Non-Fox Media, the Democrat Propaganda Bureau, the Ministry of Propaganda, JUST PICK ONE!) has finally dropped its thin camouflage and it is now apparent the MsM is  one huge propaganda machine for the political left.  I trust nothing I hear, see, or read, that has the MSM as its source.

We told you during the early months of 2012 that the MsM would report the American economy as "improving" as we drew nearer the election.  They did. The same with unemployment. In fact, they painted a picture of an economy on the rebound. Of course, Obama's economic policies were hailed as the cause of the "recovery." 

But there was no recovery -- not even the hint of a recovery.  It was all sheer propaganda to assist their hero, Obama, reclaim his seat in the Oval Office from whence he could continue to plot America's fundamental transformation into a socialist/Marxist country.

If you visit my personal blog, "INSIGHT on Freedom," you will see that it is a site for conservative thought, opinion, commentary and analysis.  I make no bones about it nor apologies for it.  I'd like to see all news organizations be as up-front about their political ideology as that.  But, hey, I won't hold my breath! 

I have come to believe we have a knave in the Oval Office.  Oh, I'm pretty sure that as soon as the folks on the left have time to look up the word "knave" in the closest dictionary, I will be labeled a racist.  Never mind that one's skin pigment has nothing, whatsoever, to do with one's being a knave -- or not.

As noted above, a knave is: A dishonest or unscrupulous man.  Knaves exist throughout the government as they do throughout our society.  It is only the word "knave" we are unfamiliar with today.  The knave's actions are too well known to us. 

Knave is old English dating back as far as the year 1000. It's a good word, very descriptive,  and frankly, I wish it had not fallen out of use. But, then again, I am a man out of time and place as my mother-in-law, may she rest in peace,  never tired of reminding me.

Obama's knavish behavior is a dead giveaway.  The man lies.  I'd like to think that his administration will be remembered in the history books as the liers they are -- but THAT will not happen as the history books are mostly written by persons who share Obama's political ideology.

He's a flim-flam artist -- a con man.  Take the "fiscal cliff" (Puh-LEASE!).  His striving to save us from the plunge is all an act.  Obama has no intention of saving America from crashing to the bottom of that ravine.  In fact, in my opinion, that is exactly what he wants!

I find it amusing that Obama and his willing cohort of fellow socialist and Marxists in the Congress and the various alphabet agencies within his administration love America so much they absolutely MUST fundamentally CHANGE it!  Doesn't that strike anyone as, well, rather, uh, strange?             

Right-wing commentator Dinesh d'Souza said of President Obama:  "President Obama has an agenda for downsizing America that he dare not share with the American people because it would endanger his support."  He goes on by saying that Obama:  " ... wants America to have less wealth and power so that people in other countries can have more wealth and power."  SOURCE:  http://hnn.us/blogs/dinesh-dsouza-knave-or-fool

What Mr. d'Souza just described is wealth redistribution, or, as we like to call it -- SOCIALISM.

You may recall that Dinesh d'Souza released a film entitled  "2016: Obama's America" prior to the 2012 election.  The film was hailed by many on the right while simultaneously being denigrated by the political left as a "trashing" of President Obama.

As I write these words, the great melodrama over the avalanche of taxes about to sweep across America is playing out on our TV screens.  It is orchestrated, choreographed, produced and directed just like any other play.  And it is mostly pure bovine scatology.  And I, for one, have had a belly full.

It is clear to anyone, interested enough to look, that Obama's mission is to deconstruct America and rebuild it in the image of a socialist/Marxist state.  But first, he needs the old system to crash.  THAT'S why it is so important that the US go over that fiscal cliff and crash and burn at the bottom. It is from those ashes Obama and his Marxist allies intend to build the new Socialist/Marxist America.

One needn't have a crystal ball to foretell this future.  It's right out there for any and all to see. 

Ah.  But the play's the thing, right?  And it is the play to which our eyes are being directed.  Never mind the man behind the curtain (as they say) keep you eyes center-stage.

Unlike Hamlet's devised scripting of his play, we do not have to watch for the tell-tale flashes of guilt cross the faces of the audience members to discern the guilty party or parties.  We already know the identity of the knave.

Sadly, however, the audience clearly supports such machinations.  How else to explain the enthusiastic support at the polls in November for the knave's agenda of supplanting freedom with slavery?

How quickly we have become a nation of knaves and slaves.

© J. D. Longstreet
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General Welfare and the Fiscal Cliff ... JB Williams

General Welfare and the Fiscal Cliff

By JB Williams

jb.uspu@gmail.com

The leftist push to bludgeon “the rich” with targeted excessive taxes is not only a fiscally unsound strategy for solving our massive spending crisis, it will be a direct violation of the general welfare clause found in both the preamble and Article I – Section VIII of the U.S. Constitution regarding the enumerated powers of congress.

“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Affirmed in Article I – Section VIII, the enumerated powers of congress and/or the Federal Government, congress shall make no law which singles out any individual or group for treatment different than any other individual or group. All acts of the Federal Government must “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

By general welfare, the founders were not referring to food stamps, Medicaid or any other form of government assistance. Affirming Tenth Amendment powers, Thomas Jefferson wrote –

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

In short, the general welfare clause found in our U.S. Constitution is not a blank check for elected servants of the people. One of the many limits placed upon our Federal Government is the general welfare clause, which requires that all laws treat all citizens of the United States equally, prohibiting the government from singling out any individual group, targeting certain individuals for special treatment. Positive special treatment for one group is an unconstitutional offense to another group.

Such a legislative act by congress is a bill of attainder, “A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.”

Democrats demand to “punish” the rich with excessive taxation in an effort to deal with the fiscal catastrophe created by excessive federal spending, is yet another illegal [Bill of Attainder] wholly unconstitutional act by Democrats and the Obama administration.

As Jefferson wrote many years ago, “The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” But it was Samuel Adams who told us what to do about it – “If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”

Although many in America seeking access to the earnings of others couldn’t care less about whether or not their actions are constitutional or legal, much less moral or ethical, even a French Court put a stop on the French governments effort to pass a 75% tax upon its wealthiest members of society and in France too, such an act is illegal.

American taxpayers have endured poor fiscal spending policies for decades now. But it is Barack Obama and Democrats who own the distinction of growing the federal government by 33% in four short years while driving the national public debt up by over 60% in one term, outspending all prior U.S. Administrations since George Washington.

Jefferson stated unequivocally in 1798 – “Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government . . . whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

This is the foundation for modern state initiatives to place the federal government back in check via Tenth Amendment efforts like The Balance of Powers Act. The federal government exists at the pleasure of the states and the people. The constitution greatly restricts federal powers and although the federal government has been acting well beyond its constitutional authority for many years, legally and constitutionally speaking, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.

As our nation speeds toward the fiscal cliff created and caused by the federal government, specifically the U.S. Congress which holds all constitutional powers of the purse strings, it is vital that American patriots prevent the nations ruin by stopping the unconstitutional acts of a runaway tyrannical Fed.

Equally as important is the fact that Barack Obama has presided over the most fiscally catastrophic administration in American history and that his strategy for a second term is even more unsound than that of his first term.

This is not rocket science… Spending money you don’t have and can no longer borrow is unsustainable. Targeting “the rich” as is currently proposed by Democrats, won’t solve the spending problem or even buy any time to solve the spending problem.

If American millionaires allow themselves to be targeted for more excessive taxation, which many will not as some have already moved to foreign markets in anticipation of Obama taxes, the revenue generated by the increased tax rates on the wealthy would only fund the federal government for THREE DAYS at the current rate of spending.

In fact, if Obama taxed all American millionaires at a 100% rate, it would only fund the federal government for little more than a week. It’s the spending stupid!

Last, when you over-tax the rich, you remove the resources from the private sector once used to invest and create private sector jobs. This explains why over 70% of the dismal jobs “created” during the Obama administration have been government jobs, increasing the size of the federal government by 33% in four years, driving the nation an additional $6 Trillion in debt, all at unsustainable taxpayer expense.

There is but one way to solve America’s financial crisis and that is to slash the size and expense of the federal government to live within it means and constitutional scope or authority.

Obama and Democrats won’t do it and will in fact fight to the death against it, as they have demonstrated for decades.

That means the congressional Republicans will have to block Obama’s tyrannical tax plan aimed at punishing America’s most successful citizens, mostly for benefit of labor unions and democrat politicians.

Since the American people cannot count on congressional Republicans to do anything in the way of keeping their oath of office these days, the people themselves will have to block it at the state lines using a broad base solution like The Balance of Powers Act to protect state and individual rights, not only of the “target rich,” but of every citizen that the federal government wants to target to suit its own agenda.

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society.”- John Adams, 1774

Our Founders gave us the wisdom, but the current American generation will have to muster the courage.

JB Williams
Co-Founder
www.PatriotsUnion.org
www.VeteranDefenders.org
www.ThePatriotsNews.com

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JB Williams is a writer on matters of history and American politics with more than 3000 pieces published over a twenty-year span. He has a decidedly conservative reverence for the Charters of Freedom, the men and women who have paid the price of freedom and liberty for all, and action oriented real-time solutions for modern challenges. He is a Christian, a husband, a father, a researcher, writer and a business owner. He is co-founder of action organizations The United States Patriots Union, a civilian parent organization for The Veteran Defenders of America. He is also co-founder of The North American Law Center, a citizen run investigative legal research and activism organization preparing to take on American's greatest legal battles. Williams receives mail at: jb.uspu@gmail.com

 

A “Changed” America Is No Good ... J. D. Longstreet

A “Changed” America Is No Good
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Change is not always good.  This “changed” America is definitely not as good as the America we had before we decided to exchange freedom for socialism.

Today, Americans are beginning to awaken and learn the nightmare they are experiencing is not a nightmare one experiences during REM sleep.  In fact, they learn, to their utter surprise, they are NOT sleeping.  This nightmare is NO DREAM.  It is REAL.  And, Americans who THOUGHT they wanted, and yes, even NEEDED change brought it on.

Many of the votes that were cast for our current Presidential Regime for “change” were votes from young people who had no idea what they were trading and what they were getting for the trade. They are the product of a public education system in America now almost totally ruled over by the political left, which still seeks the Nirvana of Utopia through Socialism.  After 12, or more, years in the public education system, then 2 to 4 more years in those bastions of liberalism/socialism we refer to as colleges and universities, is it any wonder their Pavlovian response in the voting booth was to pull all the levers by the names of the candidates who were decidedly left-wing candidates? Hardly!  They were simply reacting to the stimuli implanted in their malleable minds as they made their way through an education system designed to do just that.

And now after the deed is done, we are just on the cusp of the avalanche of hurt coming our way as our country is about to collapse around us.

Those of us who knew socialism’s sad story of lies, deceit, and destruction are not surprised at America’s precarious position today.  We knew it would happen. We have watched socialism from its birth.  We watched socialism’s struggle to grow while it murdered its host country all the while.  Like a physician trying to heal a patient, by draining the patient’s body of all its blood, socialism drains a nation of its life-giving force and leaves it a broken shell of its former self. Even as robust a nation as Russia required assistance from former enemies, just to survive, after throwing off the bonds of socialism a few short years ago.

Pope Pius XI once said: “It is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can accomplish.  So, too, it is an injustice, a grave evil, and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.”

Now we are observing this “wrong,” and this “injustice,” Pope Pius XI warned of, play out right before our eyes here in America.

The “old” America was truly “something else!”  She was a dream.  She was a land of unlimited opportunities and horizons that went on forever.  She was the envy of the world!

Americans were optimistic people who threw themselves into the task of firing the furnace of the engine of democracy and delighting in the rewards of their own labor. The “American Dream” was so big and so multifaceted that no one could describe it! 

One British author, John Keegan, described America this way:

“Left to themselves, Americans build, cultivate, bridge, dam, canalize, invent, teach, manufacture, think, write, lock themselves in struggle with the eternal challenges that man has chosen to confront, and with an intensity not known elsewhere on the globe.

Bidden to make “War” their work, Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose.  If I were obliged to define the American mystery, I would say it is the ethos - masculine, pervasive, unrelenting - of work as an end in itself.  War is a form of work, and America makes war in a particularly workmanlike way.  I do not love war; but I love America!”  - John Keegan, author of “Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America” is a British military historian, lecturer, and journalist.

Mr. Keegan had it right  This is what America USED to be like. And for those of us who STILL remember her, as she was, today’s “changed” America  is a bitter pill to swallow!

J. D. Longstreet
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Is Every Single Animal and Reptile Endangered? ... Alan Caruba

Is Every Single Animal and Reptile Endangered?

Prairie Chicken

By Alan Caruba

If it sometimes seems to you that every single animal and reptile is endangered, you can thank that element of the environmental and animal rights movements that has spent millions to foster this absurd belief. Animals and reptiles, fish and birds, lizards and turtles, all are born in the wild and all are food for other species. Nature doesn’t pick favorites, but thanks to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), humans do.

I say “the wild”, but the wild is not some far off place, but rather, for example, it is the vast forested area along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Virginia and beyond. The “wild” has become our backyards as suburbs have become the home of choice for most Americans.

As often as not, those creatures are simply pawns in the environmental movement’s effort to close off vast portions of the nation’s landmass to access from the energy industries, the timber industry, agricultural interests, and any form of development from new housing to hospitals.

Enacted in 1973, the ESA has become the most pernicious piece of legislation foisted on a public that loves animals, but usually only in the abstract except for those who are pet owners who enjoy the companionship, mostly of dogs and cats. Other species may co-exist in beneficial ways, but they don’t adopt one another, nor do they intervene in the way the ESA does.

A couple of recent news stories illustrate how a noble human emotion, empathy, results in some outcomes that don’t reflect good judgment. Take, for instance, the Tampa Bay, Florida woman who ignored signs prohibiting contact with manatees. Videotaped climbing on several of them, she faces a stiff fine against touching them. Florida wants to protect these gentle vegetarians and to ensure they can continue their lives while avoiding dangers from boats whose propellers can cut or kill them. That just makes sense.

Contrast that with an article in New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper about Clinton Township residents who believe coyotes killed a deer. One family reported that is common to hear coyotes howling at night. Ah, Nature! But New Jersey?

Yes, New Jersey where its huge deer population thrives, often becoming road kill when a car crashes into them, endangering the drivers and passengers. A year ago the county in which I live had to authorize a deer kill in a reservation area, a watershed I have lived nearby my whole life. The deer were destroying it by eating the ground cover and any new trees. Where you find deer, you are likely to find clusters of Lyme disease since the ticks that are their parasites spread it to humans.

A large bear population requires New Jersey to have a hunting season for them. In recent years, this has been regularly challenged by those who have appointed themselves their guardians, but ask any Garden State resident that finds one in their back yard or on their porch and you will learn of the fear they generate. The state, like others, is home to Canada geese. Huge flocks of these birds befoul parks, golf courses, and other open areas they favor with their droppings. It was a geese collision that forced US Airways Flight 1549 to ditch in the Hudson River in 2009.

As a lifelong resident of New Jersey, I can assure you that there is no lack of raccoons, opossums, rabbits, and other wildlife. We have been told for decades that the growth of the suburbs is adversely affecting wildlife, but you would not know that if you lived here. They adapt! The bears break into garbage cans, eat the seeds in bird feeders. The coyotes will make off with a family pet for a tasty dinner. The deer eat expensive foliage and the crops that our farmers raise. It’s not called the Garden State for nothing.

This phenomenon is so widespread that Jim Sterba has authored “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds.”  The woods that Dorothy passed through to get to Oz was filled with “lions and tigers and bears, oh my”, but throughout suburban America, they also include cougars, coyotes, deer, and bears.

In general, the ESA has been a huge failure. Only a handful of species of the hundreds deemed “endangered” have been restored to a larger population. The real purpose of the ESA is not about protecting creatures. It is about thwarting all manner of development, but most especially, access to areas where vast amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal exist, waiting to be extracted. The most endangered species in America today are the hundreds of jobs (and revenue) that this represents.

An example of this was described by David Porter in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “Playing Chicken in Oil-Patch Politics.”

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will formally consider listing the Lesser Prairie Chicken—whose habitat includes some of the nation’s major energy fields—as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.” Porter identified this as “a desperate ploy by the Obama administration to further its campaign against oil and gas drilling.” The chicken is a ground-nesting bird native to portions of Texas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

The effort to list the prairie chicken is similar to an earlier effort to list the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, overlapping the same area as the chicken. Fortunately it failed, but it drains revenue and time from those states that must invest both to resist such listings in the effort to protect access to the energy reserves beneath their ground.

By September 2011, the Associated Press reported that there were more than 700 pending cases to declare “endangered” everything from the golden-winged warbler, the American eel, and the tiny Texas kangaroo rat. Yes, a rat!

The U.S. Forest and Wildlife Service had “issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act.”

It is time to end the Endangered Species Act as a very bad piece of legislation whose intent has nothing to do with protecting these creatures whose populations are exploding everywhere and everything to do with harming the economy of the nation. They don’t need protecting. They are surviving in spades!

© Alan Caruba, 2012

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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

National ID Card Or A Number Tattooed On Your Arm ... J. D. Longstreet

Editor's note:  The following is one of our most popular commentaries.  It has been published and republished many times over.  We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it and offering it for your perusal.   ...   J. D. Longstreet

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(March 2010)    

National ID Card Or A Number Tattooed On Your Arm?

By:  J. D. Longstreet

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I read recently that a proposal for a National I.D. card for American citizens may soon be back on the table for consideration by US lawmakers. There are some who believe approval for a National ID card is growing. 

I have to ask: what is wrong with Americans?  Are we sheep to be herded by a National Shepherd?  Where is the individualism that won this country from the British and then stretched it across the entire continent to the shores of the Pacific?  Even the oceans could not hold back our burning desire, our passion,  for FREEDOM!  Yet, today, we are begging the federal government to take our freedoms away!  This is scandalous!  This borders on cowardice of the highest magnitude!

Are we so quick to give back the liberties bought with the precious blood of our forefathers, our ancestors, and in many cases our immediate relatives?  In cemeteries all over the globe lie the bodies of American men and women who put their lives on the line and shed their blood up to the "last full measure" to ensure you and I the freedoms we are now begging the Federal Government to take away! 

Some example we are setting for the rest of the world!  Look at the cowardly Americans.  They talk a good game but when the going gets tough they run to hide under the wings of the Federal Nanny! 

Our national motto is:  "In God We Trust."   Apparently it’s a lie!   If we truly placed our trust in God we would not be so hasty to misplace it in a government, which is already too big and intrusive.  

There comes a time when we have to stand on our own two feet.  Sure there is risk involved in living free!  That's why it's called freedom.  It means, simply, that you (you and I) take responsibility for ourselves!   Example:  If I'm afraid to get on a plane.... then I WON'T get on a plane!   We have to understand, as did our forefathers, that living free does not mean, necessarily, living secure!  To live free, it is required that we must live with certain insecurities, or risks.

There is also the thing called “respect” and “self-respect.”   Respect is earned.  You earn the respect of your fellowman, and the respect of the world, by standing on your own two feet as a man! You do not earn respect by leaning on others… and that includes leaning on the government. Modern day Americans have forgotten that. I am embarrassed, as an American, to find that I even feel I have to explain that to my fellow Americans!

Something profound has happened to Americans.  That steel in our character is gone. That “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead”characteristic of American manhood is not there anymore. As a result, our way of life, our freedom, indeed, our nation is at risk.  American used to be known for sticking their finger in the eye of government. 

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just me.  I am proud of my ancestors who were bootleggers and smugglers.  They left me more than fond memories.  They left me with a strong distrust of government.  I think that distrust is healthy.  They left me something else as well.  They made me understand that the government is not responsible for me.  They taught me that a man is always responsible for himself.  They taught me that the more I depended on government the more dependence government would require until I had nothing left to give and then I would find that I was a slave to that government.

The historian Edward Gibbon had it about right when he wrote of ancient Athens:  "In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all…  security, comfort, and freedom.  When the Athenians finally wanted NOT TO GIVE TO SOCIETY BUT FOR SOCIETY TO GIVE TO THEM, when the freedom they wanted most was FREEDOM FROM RESPONSIBILITY, then ATHENS CEASED TO BE FREE...AND NEVER WAS FREE AGAIN!

I agree that we need some government. But, I believe, as did our forefathers,  that the government, especially the federal government, was, and is, intended to be an agent of the states, and not the other way around! Our American Founders believed a federal government was answerable to the states… not the states to the federal government. 

I believe the government does some things well.... as it should.  One such thing is "provide for the common defense" with a well trained and equipped military.  I believe as did one of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine, one of the early “pamphleteers” (Most likely a “Blogger” today!) who said: "Government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in it's worse state, and intolerable one."  (From: Common Sense). 

In this Constitutional Republic we call America; it is up to us, the citizens, to keep our government on a short rein.  Indeed, it is our duty,as citizens, to keep the tentacles of government out of our every day existence.  They have no business there.  We must be wary of "Knee-Jerk" responses to danger, real or imagined, such as I believe the National I.D. Card to be.  If the government wants to "Card" somebody, why not make every one not a citizen of this country carry one (an I.D. card) while inside our borders?

How dangerous is Big Government?  Well, I believe Alexis de Tocqueville summed it up nicely when writing of the dangers of big government.  Tocqueville said of big government: "it covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds, and the most energetic characters, cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.  The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting.  Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies people, 'til each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." (Alexis de Tocqueville on "Big Government".)  

Well, there you have it.  Animals with a shepherd!  

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be counted among the animals that need a shepherd.  I, like millions of Americans before me, will live free!   I do not choose to beg the government to take back the liberty my ancestors fought and died that I might have.  It's blasphemy!  

I want my grandchildren to live, and grow up, in a free country.  A country, which will allow them to be everything they are capable of being.  I don't want their prospects to be lessened by the intrusions of government.  I owe them that.  I owe them an America in which they can be FREE.   Free to succeed and, yes, free to fail!   I owe them an America my father, and my forefathers, placed in my safe keeping (as did yours) at my (our) birth.  To be worthy custodians of this nation’s freedom, we must insure that we pass it along no less free that when we received it!

As I look about me today, at modern day America, I have to conclude we have failed at the single most important task we have as adult Americans. That task is to preserve freedom in this country… to guarantee a future for our children in a free nation. A National ID card is much the same as a tattooed number on your forearm.  It is proof of ownership… by someone other than you.  Next will come the National RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip implanted at birth. It will broadcast a radio signal all the days of your life telling the government who you are, and where you are, at all times. National ID, of any kind, takes away one of your basic rights, the right to privacy.

It is time to get a grip, America!  Our National Anthem says: “…The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”  Well, don’t you think it is about time we began to act like it? A National ID card would say to the world just the opposite.

J. D. Longstreet
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Eat Your Veggies… Or Else! ... Eric Peters

Eat Your Veggies… Or Else!
By Eric Peters

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LINK:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/12/28/and-eat-your-veggies-too/

NHTSA and the insurance Mafia want to see fines for not buckling-up jacked up to as much as $100 in order to “encourage” higher compliance with mandatory seatbelt laws.

Apparently, the $25 hit imposed at gunpoint that’s the current national average fine just isn’t sufficient. Neither are the DMV demerit points some states and (of course) the District of Columbia) assign if you’re found unbuckled and which the insurance Mafia uses as the basis for “adjustments” to your can’t-say-no-thanks, enforced-at-gunpoint insurance policy

Higher fines would improve “compliance” by 6 to 7 percent, according to (yet another) taxpayer-financed study of the obvious.

Threaten people with violence  and – surprise – they’ll  do what you say.

But the question more people ought to be asking is whether it’s right to threaten anyone with violence for such things as not wearing a seatbelt. And if that’s ok, then shouldn’t the system at least be consistent and hit people who don’t exercise – or who are grossly overweight – with fines as a well? Call it it the Tubby Tax. After all, the same reasoning applies.

Or at least, it ought to.

NHTSA and other buckle-up-at-gunpoint advocates argue that wearing a seat belt is “safer.” True enough. Just as it is also true that it’s safer to exercise regularly – and to not be grossly overweight. Why, then, aren’t couch potatoes and fat slobs threatened with violence by costumed goons? Is their “safety” of less importance than the unbuckled driver’s?

The beefy impose higher actual costs on society, too -  in the form of major health problems such as early-onset diabetes, arteriosclerosis, degenerative joint diseases  and so on than do unbuckled drivers – most of whom never impose any costs on anyone at all. Because most people don’t get into major wrecks, buckled or unbuckled. Which means, their seatbelt usage is irrelevant. Or at least, not necessarily “unsafe.” Being grossly overweight, on the other hand, all-but-guarantees premature death and significant health problems.

According to the Society of Actuaries, the add-on cost of obesity is nearly $300 million annually: $127 for medical care, $49 billion for productivity losses, and another $72 billion for  disability payments. Hasn’t society got a “right” to insist that Large Marges and Sloppy Sams behave more responsibly? That they be encouraged – at gunpoint – to behave in a less “risky” fashion?

Meanwhile,  a mere $8.8 billion might be saved if everyone buckled-up.

Chump change. It’s time for a War on Fat. A Crusade to the Gym. Daily physical jerks for all. Lower, Smith! You’re not trying hard enough! Anyone under the age of 40 is perfectly capable of touching his toes! Try harder, please!

Well, why not?

It’d be funny, except people – most people – miss the underlying point. This Piers Morgan-like, un-American notion of collective everything, always to be imposed at gunpoint. You’re not an individual, responsible for your own life – and so, free to decide how best to live it. You’re part of the collective. It owns you – and you own it.  No one is allowed to own themselves. Your actions affect others – even though this “affecting” is only possible as a result of coercive collective policies that cause us all to prey on one another like a pack of hyenas.

A pack of intellectually dishonest hyenas.

Because – hyenas who revel in selective persecution based on arbitrary criteria.

There’s no reason, for instance, that fat people shouldn’t feel the full force of the state – if the reasoning used to persecute seatbelt-avoiders applies generally rather than subjectively and arbitrarily. Anything the individual chooses to do that can be convincingly argued increases his “risk” – or which might “impose costs on society” – must be forbidden at gunpoint.

But of course, the system doesn’t do that – not yet. Instead, it selectively targets some people. And only certain personal choices.

The juggernaut is usually preceded by a propaganda campaign worthy of Dr. Goebbels – whose purpose is to marginalize and anathematize the new pariah group so that they may be shoved out from under the protective umbrella of “responsible” society. And then, targeted for special enforcement.

It happened to cigarette smokers – and with such vindictive ferocity that to light up today is sufficient, almost, to be treated as a pedophile.

Next came seatbelt scofflaws. Same tactics, too. Portray the unbuckled as reckless and stupid – people apart from the “law abiding” and “responsible.” It thus becomes so much easier for the average non-thinking American to feel no empathy for the person who is waylaid with heavy fines for having failed to “buckle up for safety” (even though it’s his safety, and so no one else’s business).

Much less anger toward the system that threatens a fellow citizen who has caused no one any harm with lethal violence.

The unthinking American only sees a non-person, different from himself, who has become an outlier for having failed to Do as He Has Been Told.

It almost never occurs to the unthinking American that perhaps some day, he, too, will become the object of some hairshirt crusade based on the “risk” his actions present – and hypothetical, generalized and utterly arbitrary assertions about the “costs” such actions may impose on “society.” He contents himself, instead, with a sort of low-wattage moral busybodyism that selectively focuses on actions he personally doesn’t approve of – or which he has been taught not to approve of – never grasping that there is nothing preventing the same mechanism being deployed against himself. That it is only a matter of some other busybody taking interest in his “risky” actions – and demanding that they, too, be outlawed or banned or fined into oblivion.

Once, a long time ago, America was about  the freedom to choose for yourself – and to be responsible for yourself. And to not be made responsible for other people’s choices.

It was a not-bad place to live.final veggie

“Smith” has every right to be a fat slob – to eat whatever he likes and as much as he likes. What he doesn’t have is the right to force others to pay for the consequences of his choices. If he agrees to that, we agree to leave him to his triple angus Thickburgers.

Same thing as regards seat belts. Let people choose for themselves – and be personally accountable for any negative consequences.

That’s freedom – the opposite of this insufferably henpecky, busybody society congealing all around us, in which everything you do is everyone’s else’s business. And vice versa.

Where there’s no real choice, there’s no freedom. Your individualism is drowned in a sea of We.

That’s Option A.

Option B is what America used to be. You do your thing, I do mine. And we agree to leave one another alone. Our lives intersect on a voluntary basis only. I can’t force you to pay my medical bills – and you can’t force me to “buckle-up for safety.”

Which one sounds more appealing to you?

Eric Peters
LINK:http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/12/28/and-eat-your-veggies-too/
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Eric Peters is a longtime car/bikes/Libertarian-minded journalist. His book, “Road Hogs,” came out June 2011.

Peters has been writing a weekly column about cars for almost 20 years now. He is the author of “Automotive Atrocities” and “Road Hogs” (MBI). He lives in rural SW Virginia with his wife and a polyglot crew of animals.