He not only flip-flops, he lies

Not only is Obama flip-flopping all over the place, but apparently he can't (or doesn't want) to remember what bills he voted on.

In his "Country I Love" television ad, Obama says that he "extended healthcare for wounded troops that had been neglected" and cited Public Law 110-181 as proof of this.

The problem? Obama didn't bother to show up and vote for Public Law 110-181.

How is Obama like a fish out of water

He's flip flopping all over the place.

In a Washington Post Op-Ed piece, Charles Krauthhammer points out the follow changes Obama has made since "winning" the democratic nomination.

1. The Flag Pin. Obama had said he didn't wear a flag pin because after September 11th it had become "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism." Obama is now wearing a flag pin. I gues he needs to substitute something for his lack of true patriotism now.
2. Guns. When the Supreme Court came down in favor of Heller, and declared that the Second Admendment is an individual right, Obama declared that he agreed with the Supreme Court decision. However, he is previously on record as having stated that the D.C. gun ban is constitutional. Additionally, Obama is probably the most anti-gun politician out there next to Carolyn McCarthy and Mike Bloomberg.
3. NAFTA. Told the Canadians, his anti-trade rhetoric was just populist posturing.
4. Warrentless Wiretaps. Obama now will vote in favor of the new FISA bill.
5. Campaign Finance Reform. Changed opinion on public financing when he released that he needed to abandon public financing to maximize how much money he could take in.
6. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Talks would no longer be unconditional. How long until there will be no talks?
7. Iraq. No longer unconditional fixed 16-month timetable. He now states "we've got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable." and that "when I go to Iraq . . . I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." How long until reality meets Mr. Obama and he realizes that you can't have a fixed timetable.

Obama is a slick orator. Obama is charismatic. Unfortunately these thing don't help you be a good leader.

The Roberts Court seems to get it

I have to applaud the Roberts Court, they really seem to be beginning to undo some of the damage done by previous courts and the Bush administration.

First of all we have the D.C. v. Heller decision.

The right of habeas corpus was restored in Boumediene v. Bush

In Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics the court also is beginning to reign in patent abuse.

Hopefully the court will continue to promote liberty and reign in the executive branch.

Think of the children, burn the books and games.

I don't understand book burnings. If you don't want your children to have a book or game, then don't get it for them. It seems that people including Rev. Richard Patrick, don't want to take responsibility for actually engaging with their children and discussing what they read and see.

I'm a parent, I have a 3 1/2 year old and a 9 month old. I know how busy parents are, but being busy doesn't change the fact that I am still responsible for teaching my children.

I had plenty of exposure to violent books, video games, and movies when I was growing up, and I didn't turn into a thug. I wonder if it possibly had something to do with having a stable family with parents who were engaged with me.

Getting businesses to take security seriously

Over at the Armchair Generalist is a post about security chemical facilities. The DHS is requiring 7,000 facilities to improve the security of their chemical storage and manufacturing.

Having worked in computer security in the past, I know that most business don't take security seriously until after they have an incident. Even then it isn't all that important. The problem is that most people don't think about security when making purchasing decisions.

Since security failures often effect people other than the producer and consumer of a companies products. With the chemical facilities, it may impact many other people that don't have anything to do with the facility or their products.

The threat of lawsuits could convince some companies that they need to improve security, but as we've seen with the airlines and 9/11, the government is too willing to bailout companies with poor security when there is a terrorist attack.

One Third of United States is Predujected

A poll by the Washington Post and ABC News indicate that racial bias is alive and well in the United States. As part of the poll they categorized the population with a "racial sensitivity index". The bottom group (which consisted of one third of the total population) in the racial sensitivity index had a 2 to 1 preference for John McCain.

This is a sad commentary on ourselves. Race, in and of itself, should have nothing to do with deciding who to vote for. I don't like Obama, but not because of race, rather because he has very little experience, no foreign policy position to speak of, believes that only parts of the bill of rights should apply to the people and will greatly expand government.

Bloomberg for NYS Governor

A recent poll found Mike Bloomberg, NYC mayor is the favorite for New York State Governor. If he does run, and wins, the citizens of New York State can kiss there liberty good bye. Let us look at some of th actions he has taken as mayor of New York City.

1. He raised the city's portion of the cigarette tax from $0.08 per pack to $1.50 per pack and want to raise it again to $2.00n per pack. So you can expect him to raise taxes on anything he doesn't like.
2. He has aggressively attacked the second amendment, including suing gun manufacturers and running out of state sting operations against federally licensed firearms dealers in an attempt to single handedly shutdown the gun industry. Don't expect a pesky thing like to constitution to stop Mike Bloomberg.
3. He replaced the school board with direct mayor control. Expect him to take over any government agency he feels is under performing. With his management style and desire to assume direct control, if he could, he probably would impose Martial Law on New York State. It would be easy, as once he is done with his gun control inititives no one except him and his troop will have any weapons.

So do you still want Mike Bloomberg as Governor?

On his blog Lew Rockwell says:

McCain seems to despise the Constitution and America's founding traditions, for one thing.

But is this really true? Granted McCain isn't as pro-liberty as Ron Paul, but then again who is? Out of the candidates that stand a chance of winning the election, McCain is most likely to support the Constitution, what you think Obama is going to respect the bill of rights?

It is about who you dislike the most

Apparently this election cycle is not about which candidate will do the best job, but rather which candidate you don't want to see win. Case in point, Hillary supporters for John McCain. Apparently, there are a number of Clinton supporters who so dislike Obama, that they would rather see a Republican win. Likewise, there is often much talk in the media about right winger's who would rather see a Democrat than vote for that "Aisle Crosser" John McCain.

Personally, I'd rather see McCain win than Obama, because I think Obama will increase the size of the Federal Government greatly, McCain not as much. I guess for me, it is also who I dislike the most.

Writ of habeas corpus restored

With the Supreme Court decision handed down on June 12th, I feel that some of the damage done to our country by the Bush administration is beginning to be repaired. As Justice Kennedy said:

The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times

Hopefully, the court will do the right thing with the upcoming decision in Heller v. D.C. and again reduce the power of the federal government back to its constitutionally defined levels.

Mark Ellmore is the apparent Republican Candidate

The Washington Post has called the VA 8th District Republican primary for Mark Ellmore. Hopefully mark will be able to defeat Jim Moran, one of the most anti-liberty congressmen.

Religion and the Constitution

Religion Clause is an interesting blog focusing on the first amendment to the Constitution. It isn't focusing on the free speech, but rather as the name suggests the religion clause of the first amendment.

There are a number of articles relating to the Presidential candidates pandering to one religious group or another. As a religious and spiritual person, I find this pandering to be offensive. I always thought the religion clause was meant to keep government out of religion and religion out of government, unfortunately, it does nothing about keeping religion out of politics.

What is wrong with Obama

My Brother recently asked me to help him decide which Presidential candidate he should support. He didn't want me to tell him positive things about the candidates, but rather wanted me to give him a list of 10 things that are wrong with a candidate. I listed a number of problems I felt the candidates had, and continued to think about this for a while.

Well I just found Apocalypse 2008: Obama. This blog has a number issues with Obama, in particular:

1. Associates:
• Rev. Wright
• Tony Rezko
• Hatem El-Hady (former head of a Hamas connected organization)
• Bill Ayres
2. Weak on terrorism, Hamas would like Obama elected
3. Weak on foreign policy

plus many other reasons. Definitely worth a look.

Gun ban in Seattle

Over at The High Road they are reporting that Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle has issued an executive order baning guns in the city.

Previous on December 23, 2007, Mayor Nickels office released a press statement that:

the City of Seattle [...], with funding from the Joyce Foundation

With funding from the Joyce Foundation, very interesting. First of all, why is a private organization funding a city event? Secondly, the Joyce Foundation want to end gun violence, by ending the right for american citizens to keep and bear arms.

According to the Joyce Foundation's mission statement they are focused on issues related to the area around the great lakes, so what are they doing in Seattle? And who exactly is the Joyce Foundation. Well among some of the groups they support include the Violence Policy Center, one of the most anti-gun groups in Washington, D.C. (and interestingly enough, the holder of Federal Firearms License in the District of Columbia). And who do you think was on the board of the Joyce Foundation? None other than Mr. Change himself, Barack Obama.

I guess if you want to see more total gun bans, in blatant disregard of the Second Amendment, then Obama's your man.

Well it could be worse

Over at the Jed Report, in response to a post of use of the N-word on McCain's site and antisemitism on Obama's site, debrazza said:

You should try looking up "Aunt Jemima" on the McCain website. That is a blatantly racist smear.

Well. all I can say is at least they didn't say macaca.

Hillary as a Supreme Court Justice?

At dinner last night a Washington D.C. insider reported to me rumors of behind the scenes deal between Obama and Clinton. Supposedly, Hillary agreed to endorse Obama, if he promised to nominate her for the Supreme Court. Found a page supporting this idea over at buzzflash. I could only imagine how much this combination of Obama in the whitehouse and Clinton on the Court would set back liberty in country.

Earmarks by State

Instapundit points to an interesting map of earmarks by state. I the Texas ranking very interesting, as I normally think of Texas as one of the more libertarian states, but it ranks 2nd overall for total earmark dollars.

What if the First Admendment was treated like the Second

I saw an amusing analogy using what Obama is proposing regarding the second and applying it to the first amendment.

It would include:

1. Free speech, would require a permit, with education requirements, before a person may criticize the government.
2. Imprisoning anyone who "falsely accuses a government official of misconduct"
3. Outlawing "speech that offends anyone without reasonable cause

Extending the analogy I would add:

1. Permitting a person to only criticize the government once a month.
2. Requiring any written speech to be stamped with a unique identifier which identifies the speaker.
3. Banning the poor from having free speech.
4. Banning criticizing the government within 5 miles of schools
5. Banning of hiding documents on your person which are critical of the government.
6. And banning free speech to individuals 21 years old or older.

Gun laws and war

Most states in the United States allow citizens to use a gun to defend themselves. When you can use a gun for self defense is subject to restrictions. The most common restriction is that when you use a gun for self defense it must be in response to an imminent perceived threat of bodily harm. That is to say, a reasonable person in your situation, must believe that they are about to lose life or limb.

In his article "Government, War and Libertarianism", the Cato Institutes Justin Logan states

In the international arena, it is important to note that security—the first-order concern of any state—is ultimately contingent on a state’s ability to defend itself.

So should a state be subject to the restriction that it only go to war when it perceives an imminent threat to the loss of life of its citizens?

This is the position of Randy Barnett in his book The Structure of Liberty. Barnett states that this is a reasonable restriction

because of the enormous knowledge problem that would be confronted if we were to permit self defense actions prior to a threat becoming imminent.

There are two key points to the restriction.

1. There must be a perceived threat, one that a reasonable state would make given the same information the available prior to going to war.
2. And the perceived threat must be imminent.

In light of these two key point lets take a look at some recent actions by the United States government.

The war in Iraq
So, is the war in Irag justifiable as self defense? Was there a perceived threat? We know that the United State Government believed that Iraq possessed Chemical and Biological weapons. But were they threating to use them against the United States? Not that the public was informed of. Were they giving them to terrorists, and training the terrorists on how to use them? Again, not that the public was informed of. So the war in Iraq fails to meet the criteria of self defense.

The war in Afghanistan
What about the invasion of Afghanistan? Was the Afghan government threating the United States? Not directly, but they were harboring agents (Usama Bin Laden and associates) who were threating the United States. They were providing areas for them to train in the use of arms in order to wage war against the United States. So it can be argued that a threat existed.

Was the threat imminent? This is a harder question to answer. We do know that Special Forces were in Afghanistan prior to the main invasion. If there was an imminent threat in Afghanistan it is conceivable that these forces could and would address it with use of deadly force. But the overall invasion was a slower process and not designed to eliminate an imminent threat. So the main invasion was not justifiable as self defense.

But was it justifiable? It was designed to capture fugitives that killed citizens of the United States. The threat from these fugitives was real, if not imminent. The United States Governments actions can be justified by looking at the September 11th attacks as murder and the Afghan government as an accomplice to the crime.

What is wrong with Washington D.C.'s government?

Washington D.C.'s government is a joke. Recently, in the name of cutting down on crime, they decided to restrict access to certain parts of the city to people with a "legitimate reason". Is the "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" a legitimate reason? Does anyone in the D.C. government know what the constitution says?

Taking Responsibility

In her most recent post Debsweb: The Ostrich Mentality Deb comments that

With every vote, filibuster, and action, the Republicans show they don't care about the future of man. Or women. Or children.

Is it that they don't care, or is it that it is not the responsibility of Government to solve every crisis. People are acting on their own to reduce or mitigate their carbon emissions, using cars like the Prius and services like TerraPass.

Why do people expect the government to solve every problem for them. Why won't people take responsibility?

Death of an Immigrant

Recently Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez fainted on farm east of Stockton, CA and died a few days later. This incident is disturbing on many levels. She was working in a field, where the temperature was above 95 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a ten minute walk from where she was working to a water cooler. She became dehydrated and eventually passed out due to heat exhaustion. Delays in getting her proper medical attention eventually lead to her death.

Her finance, who was working side by side with her, claimed that the foreman wouldn't give them a long enough break to go to the water cooler and get water. Since they were both in the country illegally, they feared losing their employment and possibly being reported to immigration if they didn't do exactly as the foreman said.

That is the first tragedy. Our immigration laws do little to keep immigrant out of the country. What they do is make it possible for employers to exploit labor. Employers can under pay labor, or even break their (oral) contracts with the laborers by not paying them after the laborer has performed the work. Since they are illegal, the laborers don't have much recourse in this situation.

When my Grandparent arrived in the United States, less than 100 years ago, there were few immigration restrictions. Basically, if you were healthy and were not a known criminal, you were let into our country and could work any job you could get. This helped build our country. Many of these immigrants started out as street vendors or working in poor conditions. They lifted themselves out of these conditions by entrepreneurial spirit and organization of labor unions. Eventually, the labor unions found that they could turn the tables on employers by getting the government to pass labor laws that tied the hands of employers.

Getting rid of labor laws which restrict who can work and getting rid of immigration laws which restrict who can come into the country could have prevented this tragedy.

But that is not the only way that this tragedy could have been prevented. Would productivity really dropped that much if the foreman let people move the water cooler closer to where the laborers were working?

Is any job worth dying for? To make matters worse, Maria was two months pregnant. Is any job worth killing your unborn child for? Why didn't she disobey the foreman and go get water? Is fear of immigration that great? If it is, it only goes to reinforce the need to dismantle our current immigration restrictions and enforcement policies.

The President’s 2008 budget, provides $13 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, including $1 billion to construct fences. Can't this money be better spent, or returned to the taxpayers? Think about it, taxpayers are spending several billion dollars to allow business owners to exploit their workers by creating an unlevel playing field.

Is this really the American dream? Always remember the Declaration of Independence says:

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 is all men, not just the people who happened to enter our country before a certain date.

Bailouts

Why is it that the government keeps bailing out failing corporations? Whether it is Chrysler, the Savings and Loans, Airlines, or Bear Sterns? And now Congress is suggesting bailing out people who took out mortgages that they could not afford?

Since deregulation the Airline Industry as a whole has not been profitable, having lost a total of $13 billion over approximately 30 years. Yet time and time again, the government has bailed out the airlines. If the airlines had been left alone, many would have failed and the market would have corrected itself, but since the government is artificially propping up failing business, they don't change, knowing Uncle Sam will be there to get them out of a jam. This has kept airlines from reworking the basic business model so that they can make a profit.

Looking at the so called mortgage crisis, talk once again turns to the government bailing out institutions and individuals that made bad decisions.

Mortgage Lenders (such as Fannie Mae) made bad assumptions about the economy and the housing market and the rate of default. Why did they make such bad assumptions? For one thing, they figured that they would be able to reduce some of the risk by packaging loans into bundles (bonds) and selling the loans. The lenders then told the investors in these bonds, that they has certain risk associated with then and a certain interest rate, but didn't tell the investors what the model was that they used to come to these conclusions.

The investors (such as Bear Stearns) didn't question the lenders, they assumed that since the lenders had been right in the past, they would still be right, and bought these loans without proper investigation, or any contractual obligations to insure that the lenders packaged the loans correctly and modeled for situations such as the housing bubble bursting. Everyone, knew that there was a housing bubble, and it would eventually burst, but the investors figured that they would be able to make there profits and not be effected by a burst. They assumed a risk, in exchange for the potential of higher rates of returns. Professional investors should understand this, but in reality, professional investors saw only upside potential and reacted by seeing other professional investors putting money into these securities, and they didn't want to miss the boat.

Why should these investors now be bailed out by the government for making a poor decision? This will only reinforce this bad behavior.

Now lets look at the people who took out loans that they couldn't afford and are now facing foreclosure. Should they be bailed out? The mortgage documents that they signed clearly spelled out the risks associated with potential rate increases. They knew what there income and expense were (or should have). They could easily figure out what would happen if the interest rates rose, they even had a lawyer present (the closing attorney) to advise them. So why did they enter into the bad contracts. Again, they looked only at the upside potential (we can always resell the house for more money) and they saw their neighbors purchasing larger and larger houses and decided that they didn't want to miss the boat.

Once again, if the government bails them out, it will only reinforce bad behavior.

But what if the government doesn't bail anyone out? Will the economy collapse? I think not. For one thing, the investors will be much more willing to renegotiate the mortgages to make them more affordable to people who really can repay their loans. The profit won't be as high, but it will still be greater than if the mortgage is allowed to go into foreclosure. The people who took out these loans would rather pay a higher rate than they initially assumed that they would, but get to keep their house. Over time things will balance out, and everyone will have learned to look at the downside as well as the upside of contracts in the future.

Let people and corporations take the risks, and let them fail when things don't go right. In the short term there may be some (significant) pain, but in the long term the economy will be healthier for it.

Gun Rights

I've been finding that lately I've been questioning basic assumptions that I've held since I was young. One of those assumptions is that Gun Control is a good idea and helps reduce crime and protect the general population. I know that this assumption came from my parents. When my parents moved to Florida several years ago, my father meet several people in his community that regularly went Trap Shooting. My dad tried this and enjoyed it, eventually purchasing his own shotgun. When he passed, I inherited his shotgun. Now that I was a "gun owner" I thought that it was import that I reflect on how I feel about owning a gun. After much thinking and research I came to the follow conclusions:

1. guns are not inherently "evil"
2. most gun control laws were initial written or enacted to allow for groups to commit human rights violations. In the United State, especially in the south, many gun control laws can be traced to keeping guns out of the hands of African Americans so that members of the KKK would not get shot when they went to lynch someone.
3. Self defense is a basic human right
4. During the 20th century more people have been murdered by there own governments (http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm) than have been murdered as a "crime" by fellow citizens. These murders are always proceed by gun control. One of the goals of the Nazi gun control laws were to make resistance to the Nazi government impossible. This is one of the reasons that uprisings among the Jewish population in Nazi occupied lands were very uncommon.
5. Gun control laws don't prevent criminals from obtaining or using guns to commit crimes. If someone intends to commit a crime such as armed robbery or murder, they generally will not be stopped by a law prohibiting ownership of a gun. Look at D.C., they have very strict gun control laws but still have a huge number of crimes committed with guns.

One of the problems is that groups that wish to control access to guns work to confuse the issue and the general population. The assault weapon ban of 1994 (which expired in 2004) was a perfect example of this.

There is a military class of weapons call "Assault Rifles" which an automatic M-16 would be an example. There is a similar rifle that is available to civilian as only a semi-automatic version called an AR-15, which has been referred to as an "Assault Weapon" but many people do use these rifles as hunting rifles. Cosmetically, the two rifles look similar, but functionally they are very different. The M-16 is a select fire weapon. That means that there is a selector switch which can be used to select how many bullets are fired for each pull of the trigger, with one of these options being fully automatic. A fully automatic rifle is one in which as long as you hold down the trigger, the gun will continue to fire until it is out of ammunition.

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle. For each pull of the trigger, the gun will only fire one bullet. If you want to fire more than one bullet, you must pull the trigger more than once, releasing the trigger between each pull.

Now with a name like the Assault Weapon Ban, you'd think that it would ban fully automatic assault rifles, but it didn't. In fact it did nothing about fully automatic rifles. If you could afford to purchase one, and pay a $200 transfer tax, you could still have an automatic rifle.

What it did do, is restrict inexpensive guns that had cosmetic similarities to fully automatic rifles. What I think is interested and appalling, is that the effect (and intent) of many of gun laws is to prohibit gun ownership by the poor. And in many respects a lot of gun legislation creates two classes of people, privileged and allowed to have guns and unprivileged and denied their second amendment rights.

Why is Senator Webb allow to carry a concealed handgun in the District of Columbia, but other CHP (Concealed Handgun Permit) holders are not? They have both been through the same background checks?

Why do states not honor the full faith and credit clause of the constitution when it come to a CHP? CHP holders are statically less likely to commit a crime than police officers, who are allow to carry concealed in all 50 states. States honor the full faith and credit clause of the constitution with driver's licenses, yet more people (by far) are kill with cars than with guns.

I heard a story on the radio the morning of April 30th about contaminated Heparin and how the wife of one of the victims realized that we are not safe and the government will not guarantee our protection. In particular she said

Quote:

"we have a false sense of security" in a land where people expect to be protected and safe.

When did we come expect the government to protect us? Why is she blaming the government for failing to protect her, but not blaming Baxter International, the company that manufactured the drug and ordered the components from a disreputable supplier?

This is an another example of people expecting to live in a Nanny State.

Constitutional, a walk through politics and government

Welcome to Constitutional. This blog is a walk through politics and government with an eye towards how current politics and government limits liberty.