Isilion

Something probably everybody should watch.

Don’t Talk to the Police

“Don’t Talk to the Police” by Professor James Duane 27 min
“Don’t Talk to the Police” by Officer George Bruch 21 min

In our time, when people are saying we must sacrifice liberty for security, that scrapping the Constitution is necessary to win the “war” against terrorism, I would suggest that you take your choice of genocides in the past 100 years and remind yourself what happens when people buy into the false proposition that the end justifies the means. People who preach that are always more interested in the means than in any end.

The only safe environment for a human being is under a weak government with very restricted powers. Normal people don’t need much to be happy – food, shelter, dignity and freedom from marauders. They need a rule of law that applies to everyone equally and at all times and in all circumstances. In established societies, legislators should meet rarely – perhaps once every two or three years – because a continuing cascade of new laws will eventually drown freedom.

The Founding Fathers, whether through luck, wisdom or divine guidance, gave us an almost perfect form of government, and we’ve been busy ever since trying to take it apart. Human beings are dangerous predators and cannot be trusted with power over their fellows. Many Americans have forgotten that the power of government comes out of the barrel of a gun. Governments coerce; they don’t persuade.

There are people living among us at this very moment capable of the cruelty so evident in the Holocaust. All they are waiting for is the opportunity. No greater opportunity exists than when a government enlists such people and says whatever you do is now justified for the sake of the “greater good.”

Read it all…

To: Alberto Gonzales
From: John Yoo
Oct. 23, 2001
	
Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment
had no application to domestic military operations...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080402/D8VQ1NG80.html

Eyes wide open!

Is there a way out of all this? Yes, but it involves a return to the founding principles of our nation, not just in domestic affairs but in foreign affairs as well. Private property. Individual liberty. A limited-government republic. The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. Due process of law. Habeas corpus. Trial by jury. Such principles constitute our heritage. Herein lies the key to extricating ourselves from the morass into which we have been plunged.

Out of chaos comes opportunity. We have the opportunity to lead the world out of the chaos and toward the highest reaches of freedom ever witnessed by man. What greater gift could we bequeath to ourselves, our children, and those coming after us?

read more | digg story

And patriots know their own…
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) discusses the REAL ID on NPR

I’ll expand this real soon now…

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/11/wsj/

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002511—-000-.html

Glenn Greenwald sums it up better than anyone else I’ve seen:

Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides that “[e]very telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of . . . customers.” 18 U.S.C. 2511 makes warrantless eavesdropping a felony; 18 U.S.C. 2702 requires that any “entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication” without a court order; 47 U.S.C. 605 states that “no person receiving, assisting in receiving, transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception”; and 18 U.S.C. 2520 provides for civil damages for any violations.

Like all statutes, those are all laws democratically enacted by the American people through their Congress and signed into law by the President. They were enacted precisely in order to make it illegal for telecoms to allow government spying on our calls and written communications without court orders

The principle those laws are supposed to uphold is foundational to the Constitution.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The United States Senate has passed a bill, S.2248, and sent it to the House of Representatives which retroactively legalizes violations of the law by both the government and the telecoms and protects the telecoms from law suites specifically allowed by statute.

The are sixty-eight men and women who swore the following oath

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…

These sixty-eight Senators violated their oath when they passed that bill. It cannot be reconciled with the Fourth Amendment. I sent a message to Barbara Mikulski, my Senator, and told her I was ashamed of the way she represented me asking her how she slept at night knowing she was undermining the foundations of or republic. Yours should hear from you, too.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. `(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

I just sent the following letter to John Conyers, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee:

Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

Congressman Conyers,

I am writing to encourage you to bring H.R. 1359, the Enumerated Powers Act, to a vote as quickly as possible. I realize I do not live in your district and I am not one of your constituents, per se, but in your capacity as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee you are in a position to take actions and make judgments which affect every citizen. As such every citizen is in effect your constituent.

I am one of a growing number of Americans who attribute many of the problems we face in this country today to the fact that all three branches of government have strayed far from the framework devised by the Founding Fathers as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. I am also among the many who believe the best way to address those problems is to return to constitutional principles.

As you know the Enumerated Powers Act would require each Act of Congress to “contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act.” Had such a provision been in place in 2002 it might have hindered the introduction and passage of H.J.R 114, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, a bill which you voted against. Since there is no authorization in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution allowing Congress to delegate its war making powers to the President “as he determines to be necessary,” H.J.R 114 might have had a bit more trouble getting through the House of Representatives. The same might be said of S 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, another bill you opposed. Had a specific constitutional authorization to suspend habeas corpus been required, American citizens would still be protected from imprisonment without charge and without legal representation based simply on a determination of the President. I could also mention the USA PATRIOT Act and who knows how many other usurpations enacted into law in flagrant disregard of limited powers delegated to the federal government by the states.

I cite so many examples from the recent past because as you are no doubt aware the Enumerated Powers Act has been introduced in one form or fashion in every session of Congress since the 104th in 1995. If it had been passed then we might have prevented much of degradation of the rule of law that has occurred since. In an ideal world such a law would not be required since every member of Congress would live up to their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world and members of Congress ignore that oath daily, so such a law is required and I urge you to give passage of the Enumerated Powers Act your highest priority.

Of course I’m still waiting for a response to a letter I sent to another Democratic congressman I sent almost a year ago, so I’m not holding my breath for an answer.

I was looking around for a quote I once stumbled across because I thought it was appropriate for a rant I was writing over on the super secret underground forum were all six of us Ron Paul supporters craft our l33t text message bots to confound the Fox post-debate polls. It is one of my favorites: A government under the U.S. Constitution, to paraphrase columnist Joseph Sobran, would be a radical improvement over the one we have today. ~Vin Suprynowicz

Anyway, I found the quote, obviously, and found myself reenjoying the essay it came from. A tasty excerpt follows:

Thanks to a 2004 law authored by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., every American school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17 (the date the document was adopted, in 1787), or the closest school day available.

It would be wonderful to see the U.S. Constitution taught in the public schools. I will believe such a course of education is underway when someone can show me a list of study questions being presented to today’s students, including:

• Article I Section 8 grants to Congress alone the power “to declare war.” Did President Bush seek and declare a congressional “Declaration of War” against Iraq? If not, did he violate the Constitution when he sent troops to attack that nation?
• Article I Section 8 says the Congress can exercise “exclusive Legislation in all cases” over the District of Columbia, and may “exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be …” May it exercise such exclusive authority over Yucca Mountain – building a nuclear waste dump there without state permission, for example – even though it can show no bill of sale, nor written consent of the Nevada Legislature to allow it to purchase that land? Where in the Constitution does that authority arise?
• Article I Section 10 says “No state shall … make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” What was the founders’ experience with fiat paper currency that led to the insertion of that clause? Does the widespread acceptance of “federal reserve notes,” not convertible into gold and silver, violate this provision? Why or why not?
• The Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.” Do background checks, waiting periods, $200 taxes, and requirements that a machine-gun purchase be approved by your local chief of police constitute “infringements” of these rights? Where in the Constitution are such restrictions authorized?
• The Fourth Amendment says a house cannot be searched without a warrant “particularly describing … the person or things to be seized.” Yet police routinely seize firearms found during searches, even when no firearms are specifically listed on the search warrant. Is this constitutional? Can the courts waive such restrictions without going through the amendment process stipulated in Article V?
• A constitutional amendment (the 18th, since repealed) was required to outlaw alcohol nationwide. When was the constitutional amendment ratified which authorizes the similar outlawing of marijuana, cocaine, and opium? What is its number?
• The 13th amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Are compulsory schooling or military conscription consistent with this provision?

Not so dry and dusty, any more, is it? Better to stick with condemning the founding fathers as slave-owning misogynists, perhaps.

Anyway, again, while I was looking for that quote I came across the Joseph Sobran essay from which Vin Suprynowicz derived his paraphrase. It is called “How Tyranny Came to America.” I don’t know when it was written, but based on the content it was sometime between Ross Perot’s 1992 run for the presidency and Ron Paul’s entry into the current race. Toward the end of it Sobran strikes me as being almost prophetic because he seems to be describing the tsunami that is rapidly approaching, mostly unobserved expect among a small group of fanatics, but will soon break across the American political scene once the primaries begin.

Can we restore the Constitution and recover our freedom? I have no doubt that we can. Like all great reforms, it will take an intelligent, determined effort by many people. I don’t want to sow false optimism.

But the time is ripe for a constitutional counterrevolution. Discontent with the ruling system, as the 1992 Perot vote showed, is deep and widespread among several classes of people: Christians, conservatives, gun owners, taxpayers, and simple believers in honest government all have their reasons. The rulers lack legitimacy and don’t believe in their own power strongly enough to defend it.

The beauty of it is that the people don’t have to invent a new system of government in order to get rid of this one. They only have to restore the one described in the Constitution — the system our government already professes to be upholding. Taken seriously, the Constitution would pose a serious threat to our form of government.

And for just that reason, the ruling parties will be finished as soon as the American people rediscover and awaken their dormant Constitution.

I suggest you go read the whole thing here. You might start to get a clue about why so many people like me are so excited. Or you might recoil in horror because for those on the outside, for those who feel the have so much at stake in the status quo–whether they reside on the left side of the herd or the right–the American Revolution just might look like the end of the world as we know it.

Me?

I feel fine.

This following essay by L. Neil Smith is perhaps a pipe dream, but a couple of brief excerpts could be classified as a fascist test:

• [T]he Bill of Rights means what it says, and not what some lawyer, judge, or socialist academic can twist it into.
• Judging by what we know of the Founding Fathers, the Bill of Rights was clearly meant to be read and understood by everybody, not just by those same lawyers, judges, and socialist academics who almost invariably claim that it doesn’t mean what we all know perfectly well it does…
• The Bill of Rights must be subjected to no “interpretation” of any kind except in terms of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, a group of individuals [who] had just barely defeated the most overbearing, ruthless, and dangerously violent government in the history of the world.

And

• The Founding Fathers didn’t say that your church or your religion must be recognized by the government before it’s real; the Founding Fathers didn’t mean for some kinds of communications to be permissable and others to be banned; the Founding Fathers didn’t say you need a permit to get together, and then only under police supervision. They said that we all have a right to worship, speak, and assemble as we will. Period.
• The Founding Fathers didn’t say that the people have a right to keep and bear arms–subject to regulation by the government–the Founding Fathers, pure and simple, wanted us to own and carry weapons. “Take a gun with you on every walk,” was the way Thomas Jefferson put it. Period.
• The Founding Fathers didn’t say minions of the government could search us if they were sufficiently sneaky about it, or that they could search us if they didn’t touch us, or that they could search us if we wanted to travel freely by whatever means. The Founding Fathers, pure and simple, didn’t want the government to know what’s in our pockets. Period.

If you have a problem with any of the foregoing, then, my friend, you might just be a fascist.

At any rate, enjoy.

Toward an International Bill of Rights Union
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

First published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

The internet is an interesting thing. You can be communicating with somebody across town today, somebody in another state tonight, and somebody on the other side of the world tomorrow, all with equal ease. In fact if their e-mail address doesn’t show it, and you don’t know how to read that routing gobbledygook at the top of the message, you can be doing one of those three things and not know which one it is.

I guess that fits somebody’s definition of a Global Village.

The Village appears to be Global in more ways than just that. People from various places around the world (the latest one was an Australian) have pointed out to me that what’s going on politically in the United States–the seemingly inexorable Nazification of a once-free civilization–is going on practically everywhere else, as well.

Sadly, it’s true. Almost every day the news is filled with clear indications that–to any extent that they weren’t always that way–governments everywhere around the world have suddenly gotten too big for their breeches. Every day you read about the choke-chain being tightened a little more around everybody’s throat. Fingerprint records failed to violate the fundamental human right to privacy and anonymity sufficiently, so now they’re planning to start taking DNA samples at birth.

More and more spy cameras are going up everywhere every time you turn around (Not-So-Great-Britain holds first place for that variety of lunacy just now) and facial recognition software gets better and better. Which is to say, from a freedom-friendly viewpoint, worse and worse.

For a long time now we’ve all had to obtain–and often pay dearly for–all sorts of permission from the government to do all the ordinary things that living, and improving our lives, requires, from owning and driving a car, to building and maintaining a house, to keeping housepets. In Singapore, it’s illegal to be caught chewing gum. A driver’s license, once a simple certificate of proficiency, now threatens to become–as our credit cards and telephone records and Internet activity have–a vile leash, an observer of everywhere we go, everything we do, approved or not, and a potential witness against us.

Meanwhile, politicians and bureaucrats positively ache to tattoo our kids as if they were already the concentration camp inmates the government plans for them to be someday. Or they want to inject radio transponders under their skin–and how long will it be before such a device can deliver a healthy shock if you won’t do whatever’s required of you? Much that we buy today has been similarly lowjacked; virtually all of our personal electronics have been redesigned to government specifications to betray us whenever the government wishes to track us down.

Everybody I discuss this situation with dislikes it intensely (I don’t know that many “useful idiots”) but nobody appears to know what to do about it. I do know that the only hope we have is the Internet, but so do the badguys. New York’s Commissioner of Police has reported that the InterNet is “the new Afghanistan” where Muslims are perfectly free to radicalize American youth and turn them into terrorists. The problem, he says, is that you can’t actually do anything about such communication because, until a certain point, nobody has committed a crime.

Apparently he wants to arrest people before they commit a crime. Wouldn’t it be infinitely better to teach–and behave consistently with–a set of values that our kids couldn’t be talked out of by anybody?

I’m just old enough so that I’ve heard every bit of this garbage before–only the last time, it was the Communists who were going to kill us and cook us and eat us. Of course the real threat to America is the Commissioner, himself–and all of the other vicious parasites like him who depend on human cowardice and stupidity to write their paychecks–not his imaginary youth-radicalizing digital Muslims. Listening to this man–giving him any credence or credibility at all–is how the light of civilization starts to go out, all over the world.

I have been thinking about politics–specifically, the politics of individual liberty–for almost half a century and after all that thinking, I am convinced of one thing. None of this would be happening if the Founding Fathers hadn’t made one simple, fundamental, possibly fatal mistake: not writing a stringent penalty clause into the Bill of Rights.

Forget “stringent”–how about “draconian”?

If, for example, the first time Abraham Lincoln had attempted to suspend the right of habeas corpus, or initiated an income tax or military conscription, officers from the Department of Bill of Rights Enforcement had frog-marched him out of his office in belly-chains, manacles, and leg-irons, our subsequent history would have been very different.

You can make up similar scenarios about politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, who hated the Constitution because it got in the way of his Progressive ambitions, or Woodrow Wilson, another Progressive, who used World War I as an excuse to rape the Bill of Rights, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who did much the same and more, including outlawing the possession of gold, or Harry Truman, who killed a quarter of a million individuals with a single signature and used the army to break strikes, or Richard Nixon, who believed that firearms in private hands are “an abomination”, or Lyndon Baines Johnson, who persecuted his critics untill they killed themselves, and had people’s mail opened by the post Office, or Jimmy Carter, either of the George Bushes, Bill Clinton, or any of the other “great men” in our bloodsoaked history who’ve based their “legacies” on using the Bill of Rights for toilet paper.

If violating any of the first ten amendments to the Constitution–even a little–meant they’d automatically be humiliated and thrown into jail, they’d probably never have run for office in the first place, and history would not have been the same at all.

Happily, I do know how to get from here to there in reasonably short order, and that’s by organizing an International Bill Of Rights Union.

There is plenty for such an organization to do. To begin with, without without anybody’s help, you could go the the website of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. At www.jpfo.org/bor.htm, you’ll find the Bill of Rights translated into sixteen languages so far. If you have an Aunt Bogdana, she might enjoy reading the Bill of Rights translated into her native Romanian. Otherhandwise, if she’s your Grandma Beliita, she might like to translate it for JPFO into Chechen.

You’ll also find an almost unknown Preamble to the Bill of Rights, explaining that they were written and ratified because: ” … a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers … ” How strange: I never saw that in public school, did you?

Members of an International Bill of Rights Union could seek the adoption and reaffirmation, of the Bill of Rights at the state, county, and municipal levels–or at the equivalent levels in other member countries. The last time I counted, there were something like 3088 counties in this country, so the undertaking could go on for many decades, during which everybody will come to a new appreciation of the document.

Activists within an International Bill Of Rights Union might even try persuading corporations–or any private organization (fraternal groups, for example, whose members routinely start their meetings by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance)–to adopt and affirm the Bill of Rights.

Another worthy project would be a revision of the formal oath that politicians are supposed to take before assuming office, to mention–and perhaps even to read aloud–each article of the Bill of Rights separately. Imagine the hilarity when Hillary or Chucky or Nancy or Chris choke over the phrase “the right of the People to keep and bear arms.”

The ultimate goal, however, of any International Bill Of Rights Union must always be the correction of the Founding Fathers’ two century old mistake by writing and ratifying an effectively stringent penalty clause for politicians who violate the highest law of the land.

An International Bill Of Rights Union should be based upon certain principles. The first is that the Bill of Rights means what it says, and not what some lawyer, judge, or socialist academic can twist it into.

Judging by what we know of the Founding Fathers, the Bill of Rights was clearly meant to be read and understood by everybody, not just by those same lawyers, judges, and socialist academics who almost invariably claim that it doesn’t mean what we all know perfectly well it does.

The Bill of Rights must be subjected to no “interpretation” of any kind except in terms of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, a group of individuals [who] had just barely defeated the most overbearing, ruthless, and dangerously violent government in the history of the world. Even the British people were having trouble with it at the time.

The Bill of Rights represents an historic bargain between those who advocated a strong central government–and whose political ideas and wishes are expressed in the main body of the Constitution–and those who did not. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution ceases to be valid; any legitimate authority that derives from it ceases to exist.

Importantly, there has never been any legal provision for setting aside the Bill of Rights in an “emergency”. To do so is a violation of a politician’s oath of office and a crime. Nor is it up to government to regulate or limit the Bill of Rights the way that former Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed could be done with regard to the Second Amendment.

Ashcroft, you may recall, briefly made a big hero of himself (to those who don’t think clearly or have a habit of grasping at straws) when he announced that the Second Amendment does. indeed, protect an individual right–which the government may regulate whenever it feels an itch. That’s the same protection, I’m given to understand, provided by the Canadian constitution, which says, yes, Canadians have rights–subject to cancellation at their government’s slightest whim.

Of course a regulated “right” isn’t any kind of a right at all; a right is something that’s inherent simply in your existence as a human being. A regulated “right” is nothing more than a government-granted privilege you usually have to beg for, and may be taken back at any time.

That, believe it or not, is the sole contention in the celebrated Parker case, in which a lower court has ruled that Washington D.C.’s handgun ban is an unconstitutional violation of an individual right protected by the Second Amendment. Now the enemies of liberty–many of them afraid, no doubt, that laws like New York’s Sullivan Act will be next–are headed for the Supreme Court where they hope to see the right to own and carry weapons converted back into a collectivized privilege.

Another point: although many of us may have strong feelings with regard to certain issues, an International Bill of Rights Union cannot–must not–entangle itself with unrelated subjects (especially those that have traditionally divided the general freedom movement) like abortion, immigration, or global warming. It must always remain on-topic: the adoption, affirmation, and enforcement of the Bill of Rights.

But why, I now pretend to hear you asking, should the inhabitants of other countries be interested in adopting the American Bill of Rights?

In the first place, most of them are probably even more unhappy with today’s newly-fascistic politics than Americans are, and more interested in limiting the power of their politicians. Although we often think of America as a young country, our 218-year-old Bill of Rights is the political basis for one of the world’s oldest continuous governments.

Individuals in other countries who understand economics know that the Bill of Rights is the source–or at least a manifestation of the source–of America’s historically unprecedented prosperity and progress.

Properly respected, the Bill of Rights is a potential deterrent both to runaway authority and runaway democracy. It’s also a far more desirable alternative to–possibly a preventive or a remedy for–the involuntary democratization and forcible “regime changes” that are all the rage today. Thus, from a non-American viewpoint, it could help to get the United States back under control again, which, in their terms, means not dropping bombs on them or starving their children to death.

Who needs a corrupt, freedom-hating United Nations cluttering the political landscape? Who needs a European Union or a North American Union? What the world truly needs is an International Bill of Rights Union.

Some closing thoughts:

The Founding Fathers didn’t say that your church or your religion must be recognized by the government before it’s real; the Founding Fathers didn’t mean for some kinds of communications to be permissible and others to be banned; the Founding Fathers didn’t say you need a permit to get together, and then only under police supervision. They said that we all have a right to worship, speak, and assemble as we will.

Period.

The Founding Fathers didn’t say that the people have a right to keep and bear arms–subject to regulation by the government–the Founding Fathers, pure and simple, wanted us to own and carry weapons. “Take a gun with you on every walk,” was the way Thomas Jefferson put it.

Period.

The Founding Fathers didn’t say minions of the government could search us if they were sufficiently sneaky about it, or that they could search us if they didn’t touch us, or that they could search us if we wanted to travel freely by whatever means. The Founding Fathers, pure and simple, didn’t want the government to know what’s in our pockets.

Period.

This essay has focused mostly on the United States, but we should consider, for a moment, the effect a successful International Bill of Rights Union might have in other places, too. Would Vladimir Putin or the Russian Mafia still run Russia? Would Castro’s blabbermouth hand-puppet, Hugo Chavez retain power in Venezuela? And what about the heirs of Mao Tse Tung? The question need only be asked in order to be answered.

And, given the fact that every major mass-atrocity in recent history has been preceded by a period of weapons confiscation–as opposed to the Second Amendment’s mandate for a universally armed populace–it could mean there will never be another genocide, ever again.

If that seems like a good idea, and you’d like to do something to make it happen, you might start by sending this essay to everybody you know. We have a lot of work ahead of us, getting from here to there, and we’re unlikely to see the end of it, ourselves, although if we do our job right, our children or grandchildren will. And in a society built on the Bill of Rights, a society of peace, prosperity, progress, and above all, on freedom, maybe we’ll still be around to accept their thanks.

Or maybe we’ll have taken off for the stars.

All Rights Reserved 2007 JPFO

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
Fax (262) 673-9746
jpfo@jpfo.org

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been called one of the world’s foremost authorities on the ethics of self-defense. He is the author of 25 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website “The Webley Page” at
lneilsmith.org.

Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil’s 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas was recently completed and is presently looking for a literary home.

Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. “Baloo” May.

The stunning 185-page full-color graphic-novelized version of The Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was published by BigHead Press www.bigheadpress.com has recently won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, at www.Amazon.com, or at BillOfRightsPress.com.

Article I, Section 8 - Powers of Congress

(1) The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

(2) To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

(3) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

(4) To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

(5) To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

(6) To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

(7) To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

(8) To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

(9) To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

(10) To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

(11) To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

(12) To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

(13) To provide and maintain a Navy;

(14) To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

(15) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(16) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

(17) To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

(18) To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Hoowah!

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Friday refused to reauthorize major portions of the USA Patriot Act after critics complained they infringed too much on Americans’ privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders.
In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill’s Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47.
http://tinyurl.com/bmd5q

In isn’t enough, but every little bit helps.

The Patriot Act needs to be repealed in it’s entirety and the “Enumerated Powers Act” needs to be passed.

It’s a shame that it was introduced by a Republican and as far as I can tell all the cosponsors are Republican, but in a way that’s also a good thing, because it means that at least some Republicans aren’t blindly following George W. Bush and his sycophants in Congress in gutting the Constitution.