The Aurora Massacre and the Gun Control Battle

Earlier this month I attended an evening showing of Brave, a delightful family friendly Pixar movie, here in Alaska.  As we entered the theater, I noticed a young military MP, for so his uniform declare him to be.  He wore on his hip not his service weapon, but clearly his personal weapon.  I smiled inside when I saw him.  I almost pointed him out to my children as an example of a man doing his part to uphold the Constitution of the United States.  Instead, I simply nodded and told him thank you for his service to the country when I held the door as we exited the restroom after the movie. 

As I have thought about the massacre in Aurora, Colorado over the past few days I keep seeing this brave soldier who in spite of the odd looks that several patrons gave him for wearing his gun open in public.  I can't help but wonder what would have happened had this fine soldier and second amendment loving patriot been sitting in that audience.  I am certain there would very well have been many injured and possibly other yet still some dead.  However, I seriously doubt that it would have been the gruesome butcher's bill as this crazed psychopath has wrought upon all those suffering families and the community and indeed the nation as a whole. 

The leftist will always claim it is the gun that killed people, but in reality it was this crazed individual who devised a way to injure so many.  Yet these very same leftists will be crying for mercy for this murderer in a matter of day,s if not weeks after the initial rawness of the event has left our collective consciousness.  These are the people who are the true root of this tragedy in my mind.  It is their fear of an armed and polite society that has allowed the criminals to prey upon the unarmed populace at will.  There is no substitute for an armed citizenry!  The police cannot be there to protect us all at every moment of our lives.  They can only respond to the call, which sadly is all too often far too late to do any preventative good for the true victims of most gun crimes.

There was a time when children carried rifles to school and there were no school shootings.  There was a time when men and women openly carried guns and there was far less gun violence in the streets of the nation.  Sadly, as we have allowed the Leftists to slowly steal our sacred Constitution. This is why we are now witnessing these ever increasing tragedies! 

This nation needs far more trained and openly carrying Second Amendment supporters.  I for one thank everyone who carries a gun either concealed or openly!  They are the sole line of defense for many of us against these sorts of psychopaths. 

An Excellent Discourse on Life, Liberty and Property

This video presentation is the best explanation of what our founding fathers meant by their insertion of "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," into the Declaration of Independence.

Furthermore, it was plainly understood by those who ratified the Constitution that "happiness" was the pursuit of "property". If you disagree with t...his assertion try this historical resolution that was adopted in the Article I of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was adopted UNANIMOUSLY by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776. and written by George Mason, is:

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain
inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot,
by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life
and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing
and obtaining happiness and safety."

Clearly the men who wrote the Constitution understood the importance of property. Sadly the theift of property is the name of the "Socialize Everything" Crowd at the head of the Government.

I had several responses that I believe added to the facebook thread and its value:

Brandon Koller: That sentence would denote not that happiness = property, but
that each person should have the means to gain adequate property to support
one's happiness.

John Royce: I believe it more accurately put that one is free to purse to the
extent they are able the means to gain adequate property to support one's
happiness.

Paul Cargile: Furthermore, owning property insures freedom.

At the end of this is the concept that property is somehow critical to freedom. This is a simple assertion that holds great power if you care to do a bit of digging into the connections between Life, Liberty (Freedom) and Property.

The Problem with Senators...

As many of you know I call my wayward junior Senator on a monthly basis to express my disappointment with whatever it is he is doing wrong this month. Well in true clueless electronic fashion Mark’s has sent out a form letter that completely ignores the core issues I brought to his staff's attention.

I called to express a concern that the current bill was going to bankrupt us and to make it absolutely clear I opposed the PUBLIC OPTION that has since been added to the bill. Yet in true democratic form, ignoring the hewn cry, form around the nation, by educated and concerned doctors and citizens. However, this is a representative republic so I understand the insanity that is going on in Washington at break neck paces, bad pun intended. In the Democrats rush to prevent the people from discovering the truly horrific nature of this PUBLIC OPTION, lies a the clearest evidence that this has little to with health care and much to do with the insanity of their desire to limit personal liberties and freedoms..

Below is the form letter, followed by my response to his form letter, not that he will ever bother to listen to his constitution-loving constituents.

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October 27, 2009

Dear Mr. Royce: Thank you for contacting me about insurance and health care reform. I appreciate you taking time to share your thoughts regarding plans in Congress to address the complex issues of insurance and health care costs. I believe health care should be accessible and affordable for all Americans. The need for insurance and health care reform is great. Medical costs are out of control and now tie up one-sixth of the national economy. More than 133,000 Alaskans are uninsured - nearly 20 percent of our population. The cost of their uncompensated care is passed on to those with insurance. This means Alaska families, on average, pay an additional $1,900 a year in premium costs due to this "hidden tax" and insurance premiums for individuals are $710 higher than they should be. Health insurance reform would provide Americans the security of:

• No discrimination for pre-existing conditions,


• No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays,


• No cost-sharing for preventative care,


• No dropping of coverage for seriously ill,


• No gender discrimination,


• No annual or lifetime caps on coverage,


• Children continue to be eligible for family coverage through age 26,


• Insurance can't refuse renewal because someone became sick.

Health care insurance reform is essential for small businesses. Even a middle-of the-road version of health reform could save America's small businesses $800 billion over the next 10 years - money that can be used to innovate, increase productivity, hire more workers and pay better wages. There has been great progress towards a solution on insurance and health care reform. Three committees in the House of Representatives came together to introduce combined legislation. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the Senate Finance Committees have passed their bills. Senate leadership is currently merging the two Senate bills to produce a version to bring before the full Senate. Again, thank you for contacting me. I will continue to work with my Senate colleagues to make health care affordable, and will keep your comments in mind as I do so.

Sincerely, Mark Begich U.S.
Senator

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Honorable Senator Begich (and fellow Toastmaster), While I agree that there a problems that need to be addressed with the system. I STRONGLY DISAGREE with the PUBLIC OPTION! It is always a BAD FINANCIAL decision to employ government! It is always a BAD LIBERTY decision to employ government! What is called for is LESS GOVERNMENT, not more! Your last term as mayor is a perfect example that you could choose to profit from experientially. Consider the long-term contracts that have now burdened the city, (and I am a biased commentator as I am an IBEW member). They have saddled the current set of city leaders with the inescapable necessity of layoffs. That is due in no small part to your choice to enter into a more government solution to the situation. Yes, anytime you increase wages to a government employee; regardless of the overall number of jobs (unless you reduce the total number of employees sufficiently to account for the increased costs,) you are engaging in a big government solution. I know you are philosophically interested in "helping the little guy" as you see the situation. However, in this case your "help" is costing the little guy his job. In this economy it is always better to have a job albeit underpaying than no job. Your actions have hurt the economy as well because with each individual who gets laid off it decreases the amount of public sector disposable income that gets transferred back to the private sector. The transfer is to be understood as money that was originally removed, (by means of implicate threat,) from the private sector that is now returning in a much skewed fashion. You speak admirably of the need to reduce the cost of health care and I am sure you believe what you say. However, it is this very PUBLIC OPTION that you are advancing that is going to have the chilling effect upon the overall effectiveness of what is without argument the best health care money can buy. This is why so many foreign nationals come to the United States to receive the “latest care techniques”. Your blind party allegiance is not "helping the little guy". It is quite simple the reason the "little guy", like myself is in trouble in the first place. Think for a minute what would happen if I had an additional 10K in disposable income through out the year, without the corresponding increase in "legalized plunder" from the governments both local and federal. Would I need the free lunch program for my 5 children? Would I need a subsidy to buy milk? Would I need assistance with my heating bill in the winter? Would a subsidy be needed to help me winterize and improve the energy rating of my house? The answer to every one of those questions in my family's case is NO. Sir, I STRONGLY DISAGREE with your insistence that the PUBLIC OPTION is to my families benefit. Regardless of the "savings" in the short-term it is a destructive system that will only deliver long-term increases in cost and decreases in service. I have seen what rampant inflation does, when I lived in the Ukraine in the post Soviet era, and it is crippling! That is not a non sequitur, either, because when government runs out of funds to pay for an entitlement program it has two choices, stop the program or print more money. When the government runs into difficulty paying for this PUBLIC OPTION which the GAO and other agency reports have clearly shown it will. What will be Washington's response?

Senator, you and I both know that Washington's wheels will empower the Federal Reserve to print more Dollars which will only decrease the value of existing Dollars. Increasing the overall cost of healthcare purchased with those dollars. This is the unintended consequences of your best intentions of "helping out" with medical costs is a devalued US Dollar, which will more and more resemble the currency used within the popular board game Monopoly. This will spiral a little more out of control with every “good intentioned helping hand” offered to assist “the little guy”. The net result is decrease in the affordability of the goods and services we take for granted in this the Greatest Nation ever to rise from the myriad mists of history. Your job as a Senator is to look at the TRUE LONG-TERM COSTS, not the political short-term needs of any one ethically challenged political colleague, regardless of their status within your chosen political party. Remember you ran saying you were a man of principle compared to Uncle Ted. The only question now is: Are you going to live up to that promise or are you going to play politics as usual. I urge you to BE A REAL MEN OF PRINCIPLE, who STANDS FOR TRUE LIBERTY, as our Founding Fathers envisioned it! Sincerely an Annoyed Constitution-loving, Union Member and Independent Super-Voter, John Royce

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Yes this was a long post, the moral of which is call and write your Senators and Representative(s), regardless of your perceived effectiveness. It is our sacred responsibility to utilize our dearly purchased freedoms to maintain the cause of LIBERTY!

Here is a Petition for us as Citizen's to ask for REDRESS from our elected officials...

I have signed this Petition and I would encourage you to as well. It is hard to believe that this is even needed yet, Mr. Obama continues to refuses to produce his birth certificate.

The Constitution IS NOT "Fundamentally Flawed"!

Unlike our likely 44th President, Mr Obama, I do not believe the Constitution was "fundamentally flawed". I believe it to be inspired and capable of overcoming the insanity that the framers recognized would tear at the new nation's fabric until it was solved. They provided the means and the incentive for what President Lincoln and the Civil War ultimately placed on its final road to oblivion. I fail to see how Obama as a man who would have 200 years ago been considered 3/5th of who he has become can claim that it was fundementally flawed. Perhaps he fails to recognize that the 3/5ths compromise is the very thing that the framers used to table a divisive topic for the future and yet to grant it strong standing when it was next addressed. How can he claim to be a constitutional scholar and miss that salient detail. Perhaps it is just rhetoric but I am annoyed by his comment.

Read it or Listen to it... Either way do it Today!

Ask someone if they know what the Constitution of the United States says about religion and God and they will likely tell you it says to keep them seperated from government. Ask them about the Bill of Rights and the Right to an Abortion. It is scary but over half will say it is there!

Sadly, that isn't a given in this nation anymore. After the last speech I gave on the Bill of Rights that I gave in my Toastmasters International meeting, I had a 62 year old fellow IBEW member tell me that she had never read it or the constitution since she had left high school. She was shocked at some of the clauses when I read them. I had two others say they hadn't read it in over 30 years. There is a general "idea" about what is contained in these two documents out in the public but sadly as I meet people and discuss it with them I find they are operating on heresay at best when it comes to the content of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Here is a University of Chicago, Law School site I came across that has it in audio version for those of you who are avid audio book listeners like myself.

I encoraging people to read (or listen to) and to seek to understand their heritage granted them by these marvelous documents. I don't want to see us trade freedom for security. As we both know when we do that we gain neither. That idea is attributed to Ben Franklin though three is some debate as to its proper attribution in some circles. History is intresting that way.

Respectful Dialog is Important!!!

This posting came out of a discussion family members (and a few friends) were having about Obama and the possiblity that he might not be eligible to run for President of the United States. A discussion that in my family which has its share of self discribed Flaming Liberals, Conservatives, Constitutionalists and a handful of Ostriches, who would rather not discuss the issues our Nation has before it. Each is a person I value and each has insight, even the isolationist. Though I make a point of not mentioning that to them as they don't think they are involved in the discussion.

A cousin stated something profound, in my opinion. He wrote, "...just because people are liberals does not mean we should stop talking to them. ... We can preach to the choir all we want. It takes guts to go out there and say something to someone who may not want to hear it. However, that is how people's minds get changed. I sent it to him knowing he was liberal, he is also a friend of mine... They ought to know what I think about them and their socialist ways. Conservatives have a bad habit of being not able to cope with liberals. I am sure the opposite is true but we can only change ourselves."

In response to that thought and several others I added the following:

We must always be able to speak to one another with respect even if we don't agree, (actually it is acutely more important in that case). Our Founding Fathers did that quite well. Sadly that aspect of our Freedom of Speech is waning as a general apathy concerning the source of those Rights in our Nation; the Constitution and Bill of Rights are increasingly viewed as unimportant. It is a trend on both sides of the isle in Washington and in our Nation as a whole. It is a mistake to sell one's heritage for any reason, because once it is sold it is gone forever. I value debate and the free exchange of ideas. They challenge and stimulate thought and I believe we are lost if we relinquish our own ability to think beyond the boundaries established for us by which ever party has control of our Nation's political establishments. We as people must never forget the blood that was paid as a down payment on this ever so rare and delicate Right of all men and women of every race, religion and creed.

The legal right to become a the President of the United States, is relevant. If we do not respect the laws that govern our nation we can as a nation not expect others to pay any heed to those laws and ideals we hold up as having value. This is one of the biggest lessons we should take from the last eight years. The rule of law IS CRITICAL. Bush was wrong or perhaps he missed the salient point the other side was so adamantly seeking to make due to their vociferous rancor. The rule of law must be adhered to or we will lose respect.

This is why it matters where Obama was born. This is why the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have to be defended. There are many who do not accept the legitimacy of the free exchange of ideologies, on both the Right and the Left.

This is nothing new though, having lived in a former Soviet Republic I can tell you that the News and the Truth (the names of the two State Sponsored newspapers) were notorious for not printing any differing opinions. That is what I fear most about this lack of dialog between the two political camps. They are wrong to advocate an isolationist view. It doesn't serve either side. It actually corrodes the very fabric of what America stands for in the World; which I see as a beacon of hope and for a better tomorrow for not only me, but also for my four children.

A chance for us who still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

Here is a chance for each of us who still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to stand up and be counted.

I have signed the Contract with Conservatives Petition and I hope you will too. Perhaps if enough of us sign it, the idiot politicians, (who cannot pass as coherent Energy Bill that includes a domestic supply increase [but that is another topic for another day]), will FINALLY understand what it is we REALLY want them to do for us in Washington DC.

My Best Regards to you All!

U.S. Constitution - Discussion Series: Frame Work

As I have watched the struggle for the Republican Nomination this year between Mitt Romney and John McCain, it struck me that too few of my fellow countrymen understand these very documents defining our freedoms. It prompted me to review these precious documents. I have decided to post a short commentary on the United States Constitution and other documents of Founding importance, like the Bill of Rights and letters of our founding fathers.

I have decided to start with the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. This is one is the most important Amendment and it is protected by the Second Amendment. Several of the Amendments are composed of very diverse subjects in and as such in an effort not to short change their importance I will break them up into smaller sections.

So without further adieu, the U.S. Constitution - Amendment I

• Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

How sublime! The Freedom of Religion is given the position of honor and power as the first of the ideals to be protected. While many Americans do not associate themselves with any religion what so ever, there are countless millions who do. Why is this principle "The Freedom of Religion" required for the Freedom and Liberty our Founding Fathers sought to establish?

That is the question I will discuss in detail in my next post.