Friday, January 4, 2013
That depends on the game being hunted
Via WRSA
Yesterday, we talked about the bizarre lengths to which anti-gun politicians in Illinois
are willing to go in indulging their hatred of America's armed
citizenry. Anti-gun senators took bills, passed with broad bipartisan
majorities in the House, to improve nuclear power plant safety, and to protect children from sexual predators, and gutted them, turning them into nearly unprecedentedly oppressive gun bans. One of the primary characters in these attacks is Senator Antonio Muñoz (a Chicago Democrat, of course).
During debate in the Senate Public Health Committee (in which every Democrat voted for these bans) Wednesday, Muñoz apparently thought he had just the rejoinder to put NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde in his place. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The third response to Muñoz's little quip is to point out that when the game one is "hunting" is an oath-breaking aspiring tyrant, perhaps riding in an armored limousine, rifles chambered for the .50 BMG cartridge can be just the ticket.
During debate in the Senate Public Health Committee (in which every Democrat voted for these bans) Wednesday, Muñoz apparently thought he had just the rejoinder to put NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde in his place. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
"You don't hunt with a 50-caliber weapon, my friend," Munoz derisively told NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde before the panel voted for the weapons ban by a 6-4 vote.First, Muñoz is dead wrong. Second, no serious Second Amendment scholarship argues that the Founding Fathers devoted 10% of the Bill of Rights to the sport of hunting (although with some creativity in defining "sport," there might be a case to be made).
The third response to Muñoz's little quip is to point out that when the game one is "hunting" is an oath-breaking aspiring tyrant, perhaps riding in an armored limousine, rifles chambered for the .50 BMG cartridge can be just the ticket.
More @ Examiner
Trophies of the Victor
The
United States Constitution provides that States cannot be forced,
invaded, or their republican form of government changed; and the
Constitution itself cannot be amended unless three-fourths of the States
freely ratify the change or changes. The three wartime amendments were
forced upon defeated States whose citizen militias had been overwhelmed
by the superior military force of the federal agent which they had
helped grant limited power to in 1787.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Trophies of the Victor:
“Time
had indeed shown – a mere decade of it, from 1858 to 1868 – a Civil War
and an attempted overturn of the American form of government. The South
had been charged, she would “rule or ruin”; but it is shown the North,
“taking over the government,” as [South Carolina Senator Hammond]
stated, did “rule and ruin” nigh half a great nation.
As
the truths of 1861-65 emerge, we see but a barren Pyrrhic victory won
on false pretenses, and memorialized on labored perversions and
obscurities, a Lincoln of fabulous creation and facultative dimensions, a
false god of idolatrous devotees, and “Olympian” that never was!
In
his last address Washington had cautioned against “any spirit of
innovation upon the principles of the Constitution, however specious the
pretexts….Facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and
opinion exposes to perpetual change from the endless variety of
hypothesis and opinion; and, in any event, should a modification of the
Constitutional powers be necessary, it is to be made in the way the
Constitution designates….but no change by usurpation.”
What
but “usurpation” of the rights of three fourths of the States by making
such changes were those three postwar amendments? Eleven States had no
say whatever, except the raw pretenses of seizure of power, about their
own ratifications; and these States were those most intimately and
immediately affected. It would seem as if efforts to abolish republican
forms of government or to destroy equality (e.g., in the Senate) should
not be subject to deliberation.
Three
unconstitutional amendments, incorporating the final results of the
so-called “Rebellion,” are in summary the treaty between the
belligerents – a duress. In them are the trophies of the victors, but no
mention of the cause, the real cause, of the conflict – States’
rights. One observer commented that “….of the war waged ostensibly to
maintain the integrity of the Union, and in denial of the dogma of State
sovereignty, the future historian will not fail to note that the three
amendments are silent on this subject….
What
was to be the government and who were to comprise the constituency –
hence the sovereignty – in 1866, of eleven American States? Was it
proposed to take these endowments away and to install the tyrant’s whim
and rule? No wonder chaos reigned in all departments of the federal
government in 1865! Nothing was said then about the right of secession;
if that right existed, it exists now, so far as any declaration in the
organic law is concerned. It has not been renounced, and the supremacy
of the “nation” has not been affirmed in the Constitution. Truth crushed
to earth will rise again…..
Determination
of such a constitutional question as the permanence of the Union can
never be decided by four justices [Texas vs White, 1869] of the Supreme
Court, leaving unheard about forty million citizens. By the
Constitution, seven men could not abolish the States of the Union, but
three-fourths of those States could abolish that court and all its
judges. And, along with it, all the Lincolns that ever sat in the White
House and all the Sumner’s and Stevens that ever sat in the House or
Senate.”
(The
Constitutions of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, A Historical and
Biographical Study in Contrasts, Russell Hoover Quynn, Exposition Press,
1959, pp. 45-49)
Are you willing to die to take my guns?
Via NC Links
If they come for our guns then it is our constitutional right to put them six feet under. You
have the right to kill any representative of this government who tries
to tread on your liberty. I am thinking about self-defense and not
talking about inciting a revolution.
More @ The D.C. Clothesline
September 1944 in St. something, France.
My dad, Horace Sr,. is the black haired man on the far left with the 1911 on his right hip. Every time I look at this picture I remember John the Baptist's words about Jesus, the latchet of whose shoes he was not worthy to loose. I feel that way about all these guys and I went to enough Company G reunions at Myrtle Beach with Dad to feel that way about the whole WW II Fourth Infantry Division. I think you know better than I what they went through to get to this place in September after hitting the beach under those concrete bunkers in June.
-- Horace Smith
The Daily Kos advocates the most violent approach to anyone who might technically "violate" the new (Gun) rules
Via southwind
You'll need to calm down as much as possible before you read "Sporks" threatening words. Bill Anderson was all over the Duke Lacrosse frame. A good man.
As one who
does not care much for American Progressives, I do read their sites
on a regular basis. Not only does that mean reading Paul Krugman’s
columns, blog posts, and occasionally his television appearances.
(I cover Krugman and other "economic Progressives" in
my website, Krugman-in-Wonderland.)
Another site I visit infrequently is the Daily Kos, which is one of the most influential Democratic Party sites and receives huge amounts of daily traffic. The Daily Kos does not repeat Democratic "talking points;" it generates political talking points that later are found in mainstream publications and from Democratic politicians themselves. Thus, when the Daily Kos not only calls for prohibition on all privately-owned firearms and lays out the political and legal road map on how to accomplish that political goal, Libertarians and others need to pay attention. These people are serious and are willing to use violent means to accomplish their ends.
We should not be surprised that Progressives have this goal, nor should we be surprised when they deny it and call us "paranoid" and "whack jobs" for believing what Progressives always have believed: all individuals should be firmly and absolutely made subservient to the State, and part of subservience is being disarmed and unable to defend oneself from other predators. Only the State is fit to protect us, even if the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled that police have no legal obligation to protect anyone.
The writer, identified only as "Sporks," begins with explanations about why an assault weapons ban won’t have any effect upon crime in general or spree shootings in particular:
Like so many government actions that start out being "voluntary" and later become mandatory, the author calls for a national registry emphasizing "voluntary" compliance that then turns into something else:
You'll need to calm down as much as possible before you read "Sporks" threatening words. Bill Anderson was all over the Duke Lacrosse frame. A good man.
Another site I visit infrequently is the Daily Kos, which is one of the most influential Democratic Party sites and receives huge amounts of daily traffic. The Daily Kos does not repeat Democratic "talking points;" it generates political talking points that later are found in mainstream publications and from Democratic politicians themselves. Thus, when the Daily Kos not only calls for prohibition on all privately-owned firearms and lays out the political and legal road map on how to accomplish that political goal, Libertarians and others need to pay attention. These people are serious and are willing to use violent means to accomplish their ends.
We should not be surprised that Progressives have this goal, nor should we be surprised when they deny it and call us "paranoid" and "whack jobs" for believing what Progressives always have believed: all individuals should be firmly and absolutely made subservient to the State, and part of subservience is being disarmed and unable to defend oneself from other predators. Only the State is fit to protect us, even if the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled that police have no legal obligation to protect anyone.
The writer, identified only as "Sporks," begins with explanations about why an assault weapons ban won’t have any effect upon crime in general or spree shootings in particular:
It's nice that we're finally talking about gun control. It's very sad that it took such a terrible tragedy to talk about it, but I'm glad the conversation is happening. I hear a lot about assault weapon and large magazine bans, and whilst I'm supportive of that, it won't solve the problem. The vast majority of firearm deaths occur with handguns. Only about 5% of people killed by guns are killed by guns which would be banned in any foreseeable AWB.
Furthermore, there seems to be no talk about high powered rifles. What gun nuts don't want you to know is many target and hunting rifles are chambered in the same round (.223/5.56mm) that Lanza's assault weapon was. Even more guns are chambered for more powerful rounds, like the .30-06 or (my personal "favorite") 7.62x54R. Even a .22, the smallest round manufactured on a large scale, can kill easily. In fact, some say the .22 kills more people than any other round out there.
Again, I like that we're talking about assault weapons, machine guns, and high capacity clips. But it only takes one bullet out of one gun to kill a person. Remember the beltway sniper back in 2002? The one who killed a dozen odd people? Even though he used a bushmaster assault rifle, he only fired one round at a time before moving. He could have used literally any rifle sold in the US for his attacks.While one could use the above argument against an assault weapons ban, the Daily Kos continues with what it says will eliminate almost all crime:
The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence. (Emphasis mine)Although the writer says he believes that banning all civilian gun ownership will make us "truly" safe, it is hard to agree with such a statement, since murders and other violent crime still happen in countries that either ban civilian ownership or restrict it so that individuals effectively are kept from legal ownership of guns, including Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. The purpose, as one finds while reading this political screed, is for people the author hates – legal gun owners – ultimately to be imprisoned or killed violently by the police, as we shall see.
Like so many government actions that start out being "voluntary" and later become mandatory, the author calls for a national registry emphasizing "voluntary" compliance that then turns into something else:
Along with this, make private sales illegal. When a firearm is transferred, make it law that the registration must be updated. Again, make it super easy to do. Perhaps over, the internet. Dealers can log in by their FFLs and update the registration. Additionally, new guns are to be registered by the manufacturer. The object here is to create a clear paper trail from factory to distributor to dealer to owner. We want to encourage as much voluntary compliance as possible.
Now we get down to it. The registration period has passed. Now we have criminals without registered guns running around. Probably kooky types that "lost" them on a boat or something. So remember those ATF form 4473s? Those record every firearm sale, going back twenty years. And those have to be surrendered to the ATF on demand. So, we get those logbooks, and cross reference the names and addresses with the new national registry. Since most NRA types own two or (many) more guns, we can get an idea of who properly registered their guns and who didn't. For example, if we have a guy who purchased 6 guns over the course of 10 years, but only registered two of them, that raises a red flag.What happens at this point? Now the police become involved and........
More @ LRC
Liberty Under Attack
VERBATIM
As the crystal ball slowly descended in Times Square marking the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I couldn’t help but consider resolutions and plans for the New Year. Ignoring the predictable, common, and personal, my mind focused on our uphill battle to restore a moral and constitutional government, thereby preserving Liberty for ourselves and future generations.
As always, the struggle revolves around the right to own private property in all its forms and iterations and the efforts of the elite ruling class to limit and remove ours while preserving and enhancing theirs.
The Forced Redistribution of Wealth steals the fruits of our individual labors for the benefit of other unrelated persons. Equal opportunity has always been the cornerstone of the American Dream. Success was attainable by anyone who had personal ambition and perseverance, even if victory meant overcoming unfair obstacles along the way. Forcing equal outcomes reduces the value of individual achievement and redefines its value to that of the lowest common denominator.
When did it become the constitutional duty of the federal government to pick life’s winners and losers, especially when that decision is based on illogical guidelines established by untouchable bureaucrats? The President demands a tax increase on an arbitrarily selected group of productive individuals he disingenuously calls “millionaires and billionaires” even though he knows it will fund the government for only eight days. Demonizing wealth and success is part of his class warfare strategy of misdirection to hide the theft of our individual liberty by the government . . . I would rather be mugged by a thief on the street. At least the thief had the guts to act personally to steal money from me rather than have it handed to him without effort.
The Fourth Amendment was written to protect “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures”. Advances in technology such as red light cameras, video surveillance in public places, full body scanners at airport security, Google Street-View, and the recently added specter of unmanned drones with attack capabilities, all represent a gross usurpation of power by the government that is blatantly unconstitutional.
The Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) have continued the massive erosion of our civil liberties.
Under Section 1021 of the NDAA, persons who are merely “suspected” of sympathizing with or supporting groups the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations may be imprisoned without charge or trial “until the end of hostilities.”
Because the “war on terror” is a war on a strategy, not on a country, it has no boundaries or timetable. Consequently, this law can be used by authorities to detain, perhaps forever, anyone the government considers a threat to national security and stability – potentially even demonstrators and protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.
The NDAA neither excludes nor protects US citizens from arrest and detention. Having no geographic limitations, it can be used to detain people captured anywhere. You don’t have to be on a battlefield or even directly involved in armed military combat to be subject to US military authority or outright aggressive action.
The NDAA provides a structure to habituate Americans to the concepts of indefinite detention, assassination, and extra-territorial rendition.
Guns in the hands of individuals, clearly protected by the Second Amendment and the writings of our founders, present the greatest single threat to tyrants. And they know it. Armed with a fabricated “crisis” and false myths about personal gun ownership, the political elite and their media sycophants are pushing again for legislation to endanger law-abiding American citizens by disarming them.
Disarming citizens has always been a prelude to slaughter, as proven by the fate of the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, the “useful idiots” in Stalin’s Russia, the educated in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and the peasants in Mao’s Red China. Millions of dead innocents bear silent witness to consequences of personal disarmament.
A “No Guns Allowed” sign is an invitation to thugs, criminals, and psychopaths who avoid armed confrontation for their own safety. Signs don’t deter psychopathic killers. Their rampage can only be stopped by return fire.
When you think about it, true “gun free zones” in locations such as the White House, Congress, Airports, Court Houses, and State Capitols are enforced by men with guns. Armed guards protect the president’s daughters in their school. Hollywood stars and politicians who rail constantly against private gun ownership hire men with guns for the personal protection they would deny to each of us.
Are their lives more valuable than yours? The hypocrisy of the global elite is overwhelming.
In 2013, the battle for America’s soul will continue here on Dr Dan’s Freedom Forum and on Freedom Forum Radio as we examine and discuss, without trepidation, our alternatives to preserve Individual Freedom.
Obama's Family Vacations to Cost Taxpayers More Than $20 Million
President Barack Obama’s four vacations to Hawaii since becoming president may cost taxpayers “in excess of $20 million, and possibly much, much more,’’ the White House Dossier reports.
A breakdown by the Hawaii Reporter shows his trips in 2009, 2010, and 2011 cost about $4 million, much of it for Air Force One. But that doesn’t include costs like flying in advance teams and separate flights Michelle Obama twice took.
When Obama returned from Hawaii to work on the fiscal cliff deal last week and then jetted back to Honolulu, the second roundtrip flight added about $3.24 million to the tab, bringing the 2012-2013 vacation to over $7 million, the Reporter said.
More @ Newsmax
GOA and Rand Paul: Whether the Semi-Auto Ban Passes May Depend on What Happens to the Senate Rules
McCain may be working to stab us
in the back
But first, here’s some good news.
GOA activists like yourself are having an impact!
But Politico, which is one of the official papers of Capitol Hill, reported yesterday that Reid still doesn't have the votes -- despite having a Democrat majority.
The Politico headline blared: "Reid expected to Postpone Filibuster Rule Change: May buy time for a bipartisan bill."
This is somewhat good news, as it means that Reid still can't cram a rules change down our throats, limiting the ability that pro-gun Senators have to filibuster (or kill) anti-gun legislation.
But here's the bad news: Reid is working on a "compromise" where certain RINO's like John McCain will help Reid do his bidding.
What's at stake?
Well, The Blaze reported yesterday that Vice President Joe Biden “guaranteed” to ailing Boston Mayor Tom Menino that sweeping gun control legislation would be passed by the end of January.
How sweeping?
A quick look at Feinstein’s semi-auto ban legislation suggests that up to 75% of all handguns currently in circulation would be banned, along with as much as 50% of all long guns.
Depending on its configuration, the AR-15 you already have would probably be treated like a machine gun. You would have to be fingerprinted, background checked by the FBI, and undergo a six-month license application process to keep it. And when you die, the government will seize it.
If you don’t get an NFA license, you can expect the SWAT teams to descend on your house.
But, you ask, how could such rabidly anti-gun legislation ever get past Congress? Well, legislators could simply follow the path they took on the fiscal cliff, where they bludgeoned a minority of Senators into accepting several, coerced short-cuts in regard to the Senate rules.
However, these forced short-cuts would now become mandated and set in stone if Harry Reid & Co. get their way.
Under one new “compromise” being floated on Capitol Hill, the Senate would change its rules so that it could pass a gun ban with only 50 votes (plus the vote of Vice President Joe Biden). Or legislators could write the gun ban in a House-Senate conference committee on a "must-pass" bill, employing a tactic that is frequently used to pass controversial legislation. Democrats like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Nevada’s Harry Reid, and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey -- who will not have to run for reelection for a while -- will cast “courageous” votes for this gun ban.
And it will hit the House with enormous momentum -- momentum which House Speaker John Boehner (who has already called for a dialogue on gun control) may not have the courage to resist.
But the first step will be to demolish the Senate rules so that gun control only requires 50 votes -- or so that gun control can be inserted in a House-Senate conference report on a must-pass bill. And this is where John McCain comes in.
GOA working with Senator Rand Paul to preserve the filibuster
McCain is now working with Leftist anti-gun Senator Carl Levin on a series of rules changes to make gun control a lot easier to pass.
The first McCain-Levin rules change would make it impossible to fight -- what's known in Washington as -- the "motion to proceed." Remember ObamaCare? Our last real shot to kill ObamaCare was by filibustering the "motion to proceed" to that anti-gun legislation. Once the motion was adopted, the bill became amendable and Harry Reid could play “let’s-make-a-deal.” So this change would eliminate our last real opportunity to set up a roadblock and keep anti-gun legislation from even being considered.
The second McCain-Levin rules change would make it easier to add gun control to a bill in conference. Currently, senators can block a House-Senate conference from considering an anti-gun bill. But if the McCain proposals are adopted, a "must-pass" bill could be sent to conference ... amended in conference with a draconian gun ban ... and then sent back to the House and the Senate on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
McCain will try to tell you that that inserting a gun ban into a bill that is sitting in a House-Senate conference would be outside the “scope of conference.” But that would be a lie, because as any Senator knows, "scope of conference” rules are never followed. For example, the Gramm-Rudman spending guidelines were written in conference from the ground up.
The third McCain-Levin rules change would block any amendments except for those offered by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or Floor Manager John McCain. All other senators would be left out in the cold.
This McCain-Levin package must be stopped.
We are currently working with Senator Rand Paul, who is planning to offer a GOA-originated amendment requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate before any anti-gun measure can be passed.
We know. We know. If it were up to us, gun control would not be able to be passed with 100 votes. But we need to propose something which will pass the Senate.
So we need your help in opposing the McCain package and supporting the Paul amendment.
ACTION: Click here to contact your Senators. Demand that they (1) oppose the McCain-Levin package to make gun control easier to pass, and (2) support the Rand Paul amendment to require a two-thirds vote to enact gun control.
New Gun Laws: "........a large percentage will refuse to comply........"
“Between the first significant school shooting, in 1966, and enactment of the 1996 (Gun Free School Zones Act], media summaries reveal eight shootings with 134 victims killed or wounded – a rate of 4.3 victims per year,” said the letter to members of Congress and other leaders.
The point?
“Members of the National Coalition to Stop the Gun Ban demand that Congress refuse to use lawful gun owners as political scapegoats and instead reduce school violence by …. Defeating any attempt to pass gun control including, but not limited to, banning semi-automatic firearms or magazines, or requiring private gun transfers to be registered through the National Instant Check System; and repealing the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1996.”
The letter is signed by leaders of the Firearms Coalition, Gun Owners of America, Rights Watch International, Second Amendment Sisters and USRKBA.org and dozens of state groups.
“Researchers John Lott and William Landes, then at Yale and the University of Chicago, respectively, studied multiple victim public shootings. Said Lott, ‘Gun prohibitionists concede that banning guns around schools has not quite worked as intended – but their response has been to call for more regulation of guns. Yet what might appear to be the most obvious policy may actually cost lives.
When gun-control laws are passed, it is law-abiding citizens, not would-be criminals, who adhere to them,” the letter explains.
“Examining data from 1976 to 1995, they discovered that mass homicides in states adopting concealed handgun laws declined by 84 percent, deaths plummeted by 90 percent and injuries by 82.5 percent. Crediting the reductions to deterrence (even suicidal maniacs avoid armed victims), Lott and Landes called their findings ‘dramatic,’ concluding: ‘[T]he only policy factor to have a consistently significant influence on multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws,’” the report said.
Meanwhile, one Marine is warning Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that he won’t allow her gun control proposal to disarm him.
The gun groups’ letter is just one response Americans are delivering to plans in Congress to tax, register and ban weapons in reaction to the massacre at the Newtown, Conn., school that left 20 children and six adults dead.
Investigators have not determined why a suspected gunman shot and killed his mother, then went to a nearby school and killed children and administrators.
Feinstein’s proposal would ban 120 specific weapons and would impose background checks on owners that would include registration of a firearm serial number and positive identification of the owner, including a photograph and fingerprints.
The American public already has made a statement on guns. The FBI says the number of background checks for Americans buying guns set a record in December.
The FBI recorded 2.8 million background checks during the month, beating November’s record of 2 million. December 2011 saw 1.9 million checks. In Colorado, there was a backlog of tens of thousands of gun owners waiting to pick up weapons they had purchased. State agency officials asked for an extra $500,000 to make sure the work, which was behind by about 10 days, got done.
More @ WND
A Young Man Enamored of Naval Power
Author
John T. Flynn brings to question the sort of person Americans raise to
high leadership positions, and what little qualifications those people
may possess. FDR was a dangerous man to raise to the presidency, and by
1935 was using the communist-infiltrated American labor unions and their
immense financial power to control the Democratic party and the federal
government. Flynn was being generous to FDR is stating that he did not
realize “the peril to which he and the labor leaders were exposing both
the unions and the country.” He further stated that “Roosevelt, through
a combination of events and influences, fell deeper and deeper into the
toils of various revolutionary operators, not because he was interested
in revolution but because he was interested in votes.”
--Bernhard Thuersam
A Young Man Enamored of Naval Power:
“At
Columbia, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s studies took about the same course as
his journey through college. He did not seem interested – rather bored.
He studied but little and was never able to graduate. He was admitted
to the bar later by taking a bar examination without his degree.
His
career as a lawyer was more or less casual. He got a place in the Wall
Street firm of Carter, Ledyard and Milburn [a firm which would usually]
select their young law clerks from among the honor men in the leading
Eastern law schools. Roosevelt was not an honor student, didn’t even
graduate. But his family influence was sufficient to replace these
qualifications.
What
practice he did was in admiralty law. And always he continued to buy
naval pictures – engravings of old battleships and books on naval
history. He was never a reader of books. He did not give much of his
time to the reading or study of history or the history of government.
Such reading as he did was rather in the field of military and
particularly naval history. But it would be a mistake to describe him as
a student of these things. It was a hobby, a form of pleasure and not a
field of study or research.
In
New York City and State one of the master politicians of our history
was towing the Democratic party, with Tammany [Hall] as his tractor.
This was Charles Murphy….[who] skillfully managed [the Democratic ticket
in New York]…and young twenty-eight year-old Franklin D. Roosevelt was
swept into the State Senate [in 1910] on the crest of that wave.
I
think we shall be fair to Mr. Roosevelt if we say at this point that
there was no special reason why he should be named to the Senate. He had
taken no part in politics. He had no career of any sort. He ran for
reelection in 1912 and, in that great Democratic year, was re-elected.
He
became enthusiastic for [Woodrow] Wilson and made an effort to organize
a Democratic movement for him in New York States. He had been a
delegate from his district to the Baltimore convention which nominated
Wilson [for president] and there had met Josephus Daniels and other
national leaders.
[Roosevelt]
belonged to that element in New York that might be called the “social
welfare” school. It was made up largely of wealthy people who were
interested in doing something for the poor with private funds. It was
based, of course, very solidly upon the complete defense of wealth
accompanied by a generous sense of obligation to use that wealth in the
public good.
Politics
afforded that easy-going mingling with people, talking, going to
meetings, holding conferences, sitting around, making friends, having
one’s say, without digging or that severe discipline essential in the
professions or business. When Roosevelt got to Washington, what he
wanted was offered to him. Josephus Daniels had been selected by Wilson
as secretary of the navy. Daniels had asked Wilson if he would approve
the appointment of young Roosevelt as assistant secretary….Wilson liked
the idea of a Democratic Roosevelt in his administration.
The
day of the inauguration Daniels offered the post to Roosevelt – asked
him if he would like it. “Why I would like it!” rhapsodized Roosevelt.
“I’d rather have that place than any other in public life….All my life I
have been crazy about the navy.”
The
Assistant Secretary of the Navy is a very important person. One wonders
what training or experience this young man had had that supported his
claim for this post. He had never had any administrative experience
whatever. He had literally no career outside a brief political one in
the State legislature. His sole work in private life had been as a law
clerk….for a couple of years, to which job he devoted but little of his
time and that without interest. He had no experience around the navy. He
had merely collected a lot of pictures of battleships and some books on
the navy.
He
was chosen, of course, because of two utterly hostile forces – Woodrow
Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt – the Wilson tide that washed the
Democrats into power; the Roosevelt name in New York that invested this
untried youth with a special value to the Democrats.
As
soon as he found himself in that [Navy] office he did, of course,
precisely what you would expect of the youth who wanted to go to
Annapolis, who collected naval battle scenes, worshipped warships. The
world was in profound peace. But before he was on the job a month he
began to clamor for a big navy. Roosevelt became almost the only
exponent of a big navy in the [Wilson] administration. Secretary Daniels
was suspicious of the idea as well as of the big shipbuilding and steel
interests that were interested in the subject. So Roosevelt was looked
upon in the department as God’s gift to the admirals.
On April 11, only weeks after he was sworn in (when there wasn’t a war-cloud in the world), he said:
“This
[need for a large navy] is not a question of war or peace….We are
confronted with a condition….We want the country to feel, too, that in
maintaining a fighting force of the highest efficiency we are at the
same time educating thousands of young men to be better citizens.”
[He] wrote in the Scientific American, February 28, 1914:
“In
time of war, would we be content [to see] an enemy supersede us in
every outlying port, usurp our commerce and destroy our influence as a
nation throughout the world? We must create a navy not only to protect
our shores and our possessions but our merchant ships in time of war, no
matter where they may go.”
Here,
twenty-six years ago, before the World War was launched or even dreamed
of – this young man, enamored of naval power and of ballet squadrons,
was talking about national defense. But he explained very clearly that
he [was speaking] about naval power upon all the seas of the world,
great enough to assert our might everywhere, “running a thousand miles
out to sea.”
When
the war in Europe began, Mr. Roosevelt became immediately one of the
most bellicose of the administration group in Washington. He continued,
after the war was over, to clamor for more ships and more fighting men.
One
of the strange episodes of the Navy Department occurred after the war
was all over. During the war there had been an immense haste [to build
ships, but by June 1919,] when the terms of the Treaty were settled….the
Navy Department went ahead with its war building program as if nothing
had happened. The keels of ninety-seven destroyers were laid after the
armistice, costing $181,000,000. There was of course no justification
for this. Ten cruisers, costing about ten millions of dollars each,
were also rushed ahead after the war was over. [The young secretary]
was merely carried away by his enthusiasm for warships. It was this
which made his office so hospitable a place for the shipbuilders.
[Roosevelt]
had never been in any business. It is a singular feature of his career
that his first administrative post was one that involved the expenditure
of countless millions and under circumstances that suspended all the
normal and necessary restraints and cautions. Money was no object
alongside of victory. In a speech later in the Brooklyn Academy of Music
he told with a great deal of satisfaction how he had thrown money
around during the war. On another occasion he boasted that he had paid
no attention to rules, regulations, and laws – that he had broken enough
laws to be put in jail for 999 years.
It
is a fact of importance that in the shaping of his public career his
first experience in administration should have been under circumstances
where ordinary prudence, the rules of the department, the normal
scrutinizes of business and the very laws themselves could be daily
thrown into the wastebasket. It made a profound impression upon his
habits of thought and his methods of doing things.
It
was therefore a simple matter, when the war was over and the need had
passed and the public attention was directed elsewhere, that in his zeal
for war vessels, his ambition for a vast naval establishment, the
“greatest in the world,” capable of extending its power over the oceans
“a thousand miles out to sea,” able to defend our ships “no matter where
they may go,” he should be willing to slip over these hundreds of
millions of contracts.”
(Country Squire in the White House, John T. Flynn, Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1940, pp. 8-14; 16-23)
Judge Slaps Down EPA Bid to Regulate Water as a Pollutant
A federal district judge Thursday shot down a “novel” EPA attempt to regulate the flow of water as a pollutant, stopping dead in its tracks what otherwise would have been a major regulatory expansion.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady handed a significant legal victory to Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who is running for governor of the Commonwealth.
Cuccinelli personally argued the case before O’Grady on Dec. 14, warning the EPA’s attempt to regulate the flow of water into state waterways would amount to a “tremendous expansion” of its regulatory power.
More @ Newsmax
85-year-old man in jail, accused of felony assault for hitting person with his cane
Via Horace Smith
His family says what is even more absurd than the allegation is the
way Denver police officers hauled him out of bed in the middle of the
night and took him away.
The family says the incident with the cane took place more than two weeks ago and the family thought it was just a minor parking issue.
They said the man would’ve been happy to go in and talk to police if they had only asked him to do that.
The first time family members were aware an investigation was underway was when police showed up in the middle of the night Wednesday, got the elderly man out of bed, arrested him and took him away in handcuffs.
John Copeland leaned on his walker and slowly made his way to the podium in the courtroom Thursday afternoon.
His family says Copeland is nearly deaf and he told the judge he couldn’t hear what the judge was saying.
An 85-year-old man who admits he smacked someone with his cane was
in jail Thursday accused of felony assault with a deadly weapon.
The family says the incident with the cane took place more than two weeks ago and the family thought it was just a minor parking issue.
They said the man would’ve been happy to go in and talk to police if they had only asked him to do that.
The first time family members were aware an investigation was underway was when police showed up in the middle of the night Wednesday, got the elderly man out of bed, arrested him and took him away in handcuffs.
John Copeland leaned on his walker and slowly made his way to the podium in the courtroom Thursday afternoon.
His family says Copeland is nearly deaf and he told the judge he couldn’t hear what the judge was saying.
More @ Fox 31
