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Home » The Slaughter solution, constitutionality, and precedent

The Slaughter solution, constitutionality, and precedent

The New Neo Posted on by

Many have questioned whether the Slaughter solution, if used, would stand the test of constitutionality. Although no one knows, here’s a post at Volokh about a possibly relevant case, Public Citizen v United States District Court for the District of Columbia, that occurred back in May of 2007.

This was the situation in Public Citizen [emphasis mine]:

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit turned away Public Citizen’s challenge to the validity of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) in Public Citizen v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. According to Public Citizen, the DRA was invalid because the House and Senate did not both approve the same version of the DRA. Rather, due to an alleged clerical error (that nonetheless altered substantive provisions of the bill), the two versions were different. This means the DRA never became a law, according to Public Citizen, because the bill signed by the President did not first pass both the House and Senate in accordance with Article I, section 7 of the Constitution.

The D.C. Circuit, in an opinion by Senior Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, upheld the district court’s holding that the claim was foreclosed by Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, an 1892 case in which the Supreme court held that “the judiciary must treat the attestations of ‘the two houses, through their presiding officers’ as ‘conclusive evidence that a bill was passed by Congress.'” Once a bill is signed by the leaders of the House and Senate, it is an attested “enrolled bill” that “should be deemed complete and unimpeachable” for purposes of the Constitution’s bicameralism requirement. This “enrolled bill” rule precludes the sort of challenge Public Citizen sought to advance. Public Citizen sought to distinguish its case from Marshall Field in various ways, or suggest that the decision had been tacitly overruled, but the D.C. Circuit rejected these arguments…

The Court rejected the idea that the judiciary should challenge the validity of laws that the two political branches attest were passed in accordance with the relevant constitutional requirements. Such a “spectacle” would subordinate” the legislature to the judiciary and “disregard” its coequal position in the government. Moreover, it could lead to unnecessary uncertainty in the law.

In the case of Public Citizen, the discrepancy between the two bills involved a minor clerical error. The passage of HCR by the application of the Slaughter solution would involve a very different set of facts, but if it came to a constitutional test the Court might still consider that it shouldn’t declare Slaughter unconstitutional for similar reasons as in Public Citizen—separation of powers and the need for certainty in statute laws of the land, once a bill had been declared (or in the case of Slaughter, “deemed”) passed by both houses and then signed by the president.

But here’s a fascinating comment to the Volokh post—and remember, it was written in May of 2007 [emphasis mine]:

…I think it’s always an open question how much bad faith would really be tolerated.

Consider what happened here: the House and Senate passed two different bills, different because they contained two different dollar amounts in one spot. The Republican leadership knew that that one specific dollar figure hadn’t made any real difference in getting the bill passed, but that it had been a tough vote nonetheless and they really didn’t want to hold a new vote and face the possibility of defections. So instead, they just signed a false attestation that the House and Senate had passed the same bill, and the President, either not knowing or not caring, signed it into law…

But you could easily imagine a scenario with far worse bad faith than that. Let’s say Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sign an attestation falsely claiming that the House and Senate have passed a bill to nationalize health care, even though the bill was never even considered by Congress, and President Hillary Clinton signs it into law. Would the courts really stay out of the issue, even if it was this bad?

If they wanted to, I’m sure the courts could manufacture some distinction that would distinguish the previous cases where the bad faith wasn’t so blatant. On the other hand, maybe their thinking is that if the bad faith is this clear, there’s going to be a political remedy (like impeachment), and thus maybe they should just steer clear rather than issue a decision that might just be ignored.

And then there’s this comment on a recent thread at Volokh about the Slaughter solution. The commenter offers the following quote from the Appeals Court’s 2007 ruling in Public Citizen (otherwise known as the “enrolled law” case). Here is what the US Court of Appeals wrote back in those naively trusting days, before the team of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid got together and cooked up certain schemes [emphasis mine]:

It is said that…it becomes possible for the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate to impose upon the people as a law a bill that was never passed by congress. But this possibility is too remote to be seriously considered in the present inquiry. It suggests a deliberate conspiracy to which the presiding officers, the committees on enrolled bills, and the clerks of the two houses must necessarily be parties, all acting with a common purpose to defeat an expression of the popular will in the mode prescribed by the constitution.

The US Court of Appeals judges didn’t seem to be very prescient there, did they?

[ADDENDUM: I’ve been informed by a commenter that apparently that last quote was from Marshall Field (Justice Harlan) rather than Public Citizen. Since Marshall Field was decided in 1892, I guess Harlan couldn’t be expected to have seen that far ahead.]

Comments

The Slaughter solution, constitutionality, and precedent — 78 Comments

  1. Neo,

    This is why I like what you write.

    Relevant. Informative. Opinion based on facts.

    Everywhere I go I often find myself saying, “This person doesn’t seem to get it.”

    Points to consider:
    1) NOBODY knows what the House and Senate and President will do.
    2) SOME people assert that we are protected by the courts from these people
    3) THIS is proof that it’s NOT SO MUCH PROTECTION.

    I read your piece about Bush v. Gore with interest the other day and like gcotharn (sp) was unable to find an honest democrat at the time to read about their reaction.

    I couldn’t understand why re-counting in certain counties only over and over and past the certification deadline was viewed by Democrats as a stolen election when the Supreme court ruled 7-2 and 5-4 on two separate issues in that decision. And honestly, I couldn’t understand why the 2 and 4 justices simply couldn’t apply the law.

    While I admit I view the world differently than a liberal and as a liberal in 1991 I would’ve probably seen the entire saga differently – it gets harder and harder to see the Democrat mindset.

    I can understand to some extent the problem some like Huxley have with seeing these tyrannical examples and erosion of freedom’s. Maybe it’s the word tyranny itself.

    Just like “harsh interrogation” tactics is transformed to the word “torture” by other people.

    So…. what do we call this? Soft tyranny. Blessed tyranny. Well-intentioned tyranny. The word is starting to look funny now. Where does the word even come from?

    It looks like nanny state with ty in front of it. Tyranny is thenanny state.

    I can only say that unless the aircraft carrier is reversed – our AAA credit rating will be reduced – our obligations to entitlement payees of Medicare, Social Security, SCHIP, etc will not be able to be met.

    And how is that in the interest of anybody?

    I can fully understand a disagreement on whether we should’ve ‘gone’ to Iraq. That ship has sailed though. We’ve been there and done that. Moving forward – I just can’t understand why ANYBODY can agree with the direction of the Democrat party on this Health care legislation.

    It doesn’t include tort reform or more freedom. It includes mandates. It includes sweetheart deals left and right to buy votes of certain senators. It ADDS to the pot of obligations of the federal government during a time we can ALL SEE that the federal government can’t meet current obligations….

    I care about people. I care about people who can’t afford care. People who are poor have options. People who are children have options. The elderly have options. It’s the people in the middle making poor choices with their $60,000 in income that have less options due to the federal governments imposition in the market place and making COSTS RISE.

  2. Pingback:Why ‘deemed passed’ is unconstitutional

  4. Paul Ryan’s opinion piece on HCR. 🙂

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031401388.html

    second to the last paragraph:
    If this debate had actually been about health care, we could have worked together to get a grip on costs, make quality care more accessible, address exclusions for preexisting conditions and realign the incentives of insurance companies with those of patients and doctors. Yet this process — including its embarrassing conclusion — demonstrates that the debate has never been about health-care policy but, instead, paternalistic ideology.

  5. I would suggest that if and when the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case that would arise out of the Slaughter House Rule, their recent experience of having been publicly “dissed” by Obama in his State of the Union Address will weigh heavily on their minds.

  6. Indeed. One might be tempted to ask “what kind of person would even think such extra-constitutional things, let along try to implement them? Wouldn’t an honest man or woman, particularly a congressman or senator who, presumably, is reasonably well informed about the Constitution and their role in upholding and protecting it (something about swearing an oath should come to mind at this point), realize that even thinking such thoughts is a violation of the core principles of American governance and shy away from speaking such things lest their colleagues censure and shun them? Shouldn’t they know that what they are contemplating is also indecent, the legislative equivalent of screaming obscenities in church? Apparently, not so much.

    It may be useful to consider the wisdom of our mothers who commonly let us know that we are known by the company we keep. It is one thing to hang out with those of poor, even dangerous character, for one might be thought to be like them. It is quite another to wholeheartedly embrace their principles and actions, indeed, to engage in them, for such actions will convince others of a total lack of character.

    And so it is with the Dems who answer to a higher power than an oath, than America, than democracy, decency, character, than common sense, fiscal responsibility, telling the truth, and even rationality. The fish does indeed rot from the head down, and as The One considers himself to be far, far above the inconsequential office of the President of the United States, his followers consider themselves to be above and beyond the wishes of their constituents, pathetic God and gun clingers that they are. They know that because they are intellectually and morally superior beings, beings possessed of only the purest motives toward the unenlightened, nuance-challenged proles unable to understand their own self-interest, no rules, no moral or constitutional strictures, even the highest law of the land, apply to them in their ceaseless labors to establish the Worker’s Paradise.

    Let us remember Hubert Humphrey (for the younger among us, a staunch, but congenial Democrat)–the Dems won’t–who said that tyranny seems remote in contemporary America, but it is always a possibility. The founders foresaw this and understood that in the future it may be necessary for the people to once again rise up and abolish a tyrannical government. Such is the birthright and obligation of free men, of Americans, unique in all of human history.

    There are some lines no sane, decent man crosses. Many Dems are intent on crossing them, and they may reap the whirlwind. Americans will put up with a great deal, and will exhaust every constitutional, legal avenue to overturn tyrannical ambitions and enactments, but the time will come–if they persist in their indecent, unconstitutional ambitions, when our would-be monarch and his courtiers face an aroused citizenry intent on remaining free men.

    Give thanks for the wisdom of the Founders who established the First and Second Amendments that such would be possible if necessary. And reflect on the unceasing efforts of the Dems to destroy both amendments, particularly the Second. Give thanks also that Americans are not Europeans and that enough Americans may always exist to prevent America from becoming an enervated European social welfare state, yet another feckless polity interested only in pathetic self-interest.

    And let me anticipate those who might recoil in horror at what I write. Revolution is not a foregone conclusion. It may not be necessary, and remember that I’ve said that Americans will exhaust all reasonable alternatives first. But those who recoil in horror are horrified at the very foundation of America, at our basic, foundational political principles, and the natural rights of free men to live in peace and freedom and to take the steps necessary to secure that state of being. Grant that it never becomes necessary, but grant that if it does, sufficient Americans will have the will and the means to live up to the example of the founders and to demonstrate to the world and to history that we are equal to the character and fortitude of our ancestors.

  7. What is unclear to me is how voting for the Slaughter stunt would be advantageous for Democrats in November as compared to voting for the Senate bill. It would seem to me that such a vote “passes” the bill AND is an act of cowardice designed to undermine the constitution. How does that help with the voters?

  8. .

    I think it has to be made clear that the Democrats will not merely lose, but lose BIG if they attempt to do this. Not just in the next election, which they appear to be taking in stride, but for an extended period of time.

    I’ve set up a petition to that end, please read it and consider signing it, and encourage others to sign it.

    http://www.petitiononline.com/demresp/petition.html

    .

  9. One might be tempted to ask “what kind of person would even think such extra-constitutional things, let along try to implement them?

    ah.. FINALLY a thinking person!!!!!!!!!!!! the type of people that do that are the type of people that work for other state organs of intrigue!!!!!! whole departments of lawyers who serve people who have sworn over the past 100 years to destroy america. how else do you get a 2000 page law in 24 hours? it was produced by another country… they just put in what they wanted, and what fit the plan, and the left progressives just hand it in. which is also why they get surprised by their own work

    lots of this kind of stuff is easy to see once you no longer question yourself! there is even well known historical precidence for it. and not only that but the precedence is by a key man in the health care debate who just happened to die.

    ted kennedy

    The issue is a remarkable 1983 KGB document on Kennedy, which I published in my 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperCollins). The document is a May 14, 1983 memo from KGB head Victor Chebrikov to his boss, the odious Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov, designated with the highest classification. It concerns a confidential offer to the Soviet leadership by Senator Kennedy. The target: President Ronald Reagan. (A pdf file of the original Russian language document and an English translation are available here.)

    link to pdf: http://www.americanthinker.com/Kennedropov.pdf

    The document was first reported in a February 2, 1992 article in the London Times, titled, “Teddy, the KGB and the top secret file,” by reporter Tim Sebastian. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had opened the Soviet archives. Sebastian discovered the document in the Central Committee archives specifically. When his article appeared in the Times, other on-site researchers dashed to the archives and grabbed their own copy. Those archives have been resealed.

    as i have pointed out if you know the history and you have an eidetic memory like i do, very little slips by you. remember kennedy was one of the key big players of the bill… and remember how the bill was so huge and unread? there is just no way to list out ALL the information that some of us are using to make our conclusions. they include the stuff always talked about, but also little things like the size of documents and their overnight rework, and the inability to find what group actually worked on it since the billing for the politicos doesn’t include resources used for such things!

    but then knowing about left liberal progressive politicians having direct dealings with the KGB and FSB, that are secret and held such from the American public makes a difference in your conclusions! (or they should)

    as far as this being factual..

    Importantly, when I published the document, Senator Kennedy’s office didn’t dispute its authenticity, instead ambiguously (and briefly) arguing with its “interpretation.” This was clever. The senator’s office didn’t specify whether this interpretation problem was a matter of my personal misunderstanding of the document or the misunderstanding of the document’s author, Chebrikov. Chebrikov couldn’t be reached for comment; he was dead.

    Stalin: No man, no problem …when you read the story, it sounds EXACTLY like the left progressive socialist Obama speeches points as to who is to blame in world politics!!!!

    [again, tons of little things that you can list for pages and pages and pages… which is what you would expect to find as everything leaks a bit, and so what you would find is a trail of little things, not elephants in a row. if there was nothing, then the little things would be absent!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

    “Kennedy believes that, given the state of current affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan.” chebrikov

    step one would be for Andropov to invite the senator to Moscow for a personal meeting. Said Chebrikov: “The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they would be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.”

    second step, the KGB head informed Andropov, was a Kennedy strategy to help the Soviets “influence Americans.” Chebrikov explained: “Kennedy believes that in order to influence Americans it would be important to organize in August-September of this year [1983], televised interviews with Y. V. Andropov in the USA.” The media savvy Massachusetts senator recommended to the Soviet dictator that he seek a “direct appeal” to the American people. And, on that, “Kennedy and his friends,” explained Chebrikov, were willing to help, listing Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters (both listed by name in the memo) as good candidates for sit-down interviews with the dictator.

    Kennedy concluded that the Soviets needed, in effect, some PR help, given that Reagan was good at “propaganda” (the word used in the memo). The senator wanted them to know he was more than eager to lend a hand.

    and comments here that the lawyers are traitors… well if you cant get kennedy for colluding with the KGB to help with soviet active measures in the US..

    as i said… the only reason we are feeling the change is that its at the end and they cant hide it any more. just kennedy doing this, and it being public knowledge is enough to get weak willed politicians with a skeleton to easily see or believe which side would win, and who to help!!!!!! if we would have baked kennedy for this, you can be sure that today, health care and such would nto be the big issue that it is!!!

    main reason being that they would not have a health care bill that was worked on and returned each decade to ahve it always ready if opportunity showed up.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  10. Follow this link (http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/liar-obama-your-insurance-premiums-will-decrease-by-3000-under-obamacare-video/#comments) to see Obama tell a clapping, cheering group of brain dead supporters in Ohio a few days ago that, under his health care reform legislation, “a lot of people who get their health care through their employers will see their premiums decrease by as much as 3,000%”

    Sometimes I think that we as a nation are just “played out,” that the bloodline and heritage of those who founded this nation has thinned out over time and is getting close to being finally, terminally diminished, and that far too many of the Americans of this era are just “too dumb to live”; watching this video was one of those times.

  12. that the bloodline and heritage of those who founded this nation has thinned out over time and is getting close to being finally, terminally diminished

    no, its not that. the feminists marginalized those men who created this. they did it becasue they wanted to create a soviet state. at least thats what almost ALL the leaders say. especially in those tiny meetings in private (i worked for several when yougner and remember those meetings!)

    they arent the only ones… there are the race workers, and the civil rights workers, and the social justice people. but feminsits are the biggest most successful group as they pulled the lesson from the roman play Lysistrata

    that through baiting them through their vanity, you could get them to turn against their own families, mates and even children.. this was why women were traditionally not in politics, but shhhhh your not supposed to have a reason, its just supposed to be some meanness. of course history may have taught the men what happens to their families when this happens.

    without women, there is no reason to have a free state. remember the pin ups from wwii to show the boys waht they were fighting for back home? cant have those now..

    in fact everything in all these groups dovetaisl with the progressive ends dictated back to the 1800s!!! from marx wrong prediction that capitalism would fail fromt he inside and the people would rise up. so they corrected that… and said we exported it.. and when that didnt work… they then went to work unraveling the whole enlightenment!!!!!!!!!

    that is, if merit, principal, morals, and all those things lead to a logical conclusion that their progressive ideas were wrong… then it was not their ideas that were wrong, it was the concept of truth, morals, principals, etc… which is why then they went on to destroy them… with relativism, and other things.

    meanwhile… their followers dont even realize that they have abandoned all the ideals of the age of enlightenment, to pass through the romantics, and end up with the pomo who call themselves enlightened, but sit at the hegelian antithetical place of such, all to prove a defunct theory and do so on the backs and lives of people… who will either succeed in the impossible, or we will all die trying. ‘

    i don’t want to get into the discussion again on feminists… but thats the history.. here, england and germany (where much started including gay rights). but those histories are almost unknown here. heck, our history is almost unknown here. so people dont realize that at the same tmie in several countries the same movement was created.

    they can see a BAD form of such in the coffee movement… but if you watch… you will see that it will firm up, and so on.

    if you were there in the earliest days of progressive feminism… you would have seen the same thing. the same big lie… and you would have seen this mottled group firm up as other organizations in progressive scheme lend help to such as they were told to (we know they were told, we saw the archives, and others admitted it)

    we love our cancers too much to get rid of them and stand on their own. after all, where would feminism be if they could not make women all victims? where would racism be if they could not make peole of color all victims? where would labor movement be if they could not make employees all victims? where would environmentalists be if they could not make all animals victims? where would animal rights be if they could not make animals victims?

    the point is that if you fall into a category that lines up, you will see the others as i see them, but yours is an exception.. the fact that they all are following the same successful plan and methods that the nazis used, means nothing. it was the nazis who came up with the idea of disparate impact as a means of turning good people against jews and others by making them feel like they are cheated.

    and if you watch carefully, thats whats happening here. the poor feel cheated, and vicimized by those they are told made them that way… and the middle and wealthy feel that they are being victimized to pay for the lazy. the war of the sexes is a real war to them.. our families and relationships were the battle field and like flanders field all turned up and bloody… but we love our cancer

  13. demonstrates that the debate has never been about health-care policy but, instead, paternalistic ideology.

    sorry i have to disagree with this point..

    its no longer a paternalistic world, its a maternalistic feminist gslen world…

    paternalism had a better balance between risk, reward, freedom, and such.

    maternalistic is over the top over protective…

    note the use of rubber bumpers in England on poles and fire hydrants bcause people walk into them while texting and the state has to pay medical on it.

    nanny state is MATERNALISTIC (and stifling)

  15. two corrections, sorry

    we love our cancers too much to get rid of them and stand on their own.

    becomes

    we love our cancers too much to get rid of them and stand on our own.

    and

    where would environmentalists be if they could not make all animals victims

    becomes

    where would environmentalists be if they could not make all the earth a victim

  16. this may be why they are not worried about constitutional challenges…

    after miss “the RACE” is in…
    then this

    Pro-Abortion Supreme Court Justice Stevens to Decide Retirement Soon Washington, DC — Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the five members of the pro-abortion majority on the high court, says he will decide next month whether he plans to retire. Stevens is 90-years-old and speculation reached enormous heights that he would retire when he hired just one law clerk for the October 2010 term

    they may succeed where FDR failed. as FDR didnt have a previously stacked court…

    as i said…

    we are not looking at everything in a way that would tell us why they are willing to do something that we think is really bad…

    why we dont ask the question, what do they know we dont, or what are we not looking at, is beyond me.

    instead we tend to think they are stupid… about to take us and make us into slaves, but stupid. right?

    if a vote count reaches the supreme court and its loaded what happns? if redistricting is wrong, but it gets to this new court, what happens?

    stop thinking they are stupid, and start thinking that they are devious and you are ignorant of facts because your not looking beyond the magicians right hand.

    there are no more plays after they win. so thinking the game continues is wrong. they will not do this without the game being over.

    this means they ahve smoe trumps.. and the trumps come in the challenges to the birth cert because people may refuse to comply saying that obama didnt sign a law validly. this will bring that out, and a stacked court will do what?

    they are several steps ahead and i still cant get people to look forward to the things that would make their moves not only make sense, but work.

  17. Imagine if Bush had said a bill could lower premiums up to 3000%. The media would have been all over him like white on rice. It would be featured on SNL. How could a graduate of elite universities say something like that? Was his reference to 57 states during the campaign more than a slip of the tongue? Does this guy just make it all up? Houston, we have a problem.

  18. MikeMcDaniel–I believe that you give most members of Congress way too much credit. You seem to have an idealized view of them as experts on the Constitution; learned, wise, honorable, and far seeing statesmen, steeped in American history and tradition, servants of the People and the Republic, trying strenuously, valiantly and each and every day to uphold and defend the ideals and traditions of our Founders. There may be such paragons of virtue out there, but I have not encountered them.

    This may have been the idealized picture that our old civics texts–when we had them–said things were like. But just assuming that this is what members of Congress are like is just like thinking/assuming that a Minister is always a “holy man,” as opposed to seeing him as someone who is often just “doing a job,” and perhaps not particularly “holy.”
    My impression is that–especially in these latter days–there are very few of the intelligent, learned and wise Congressmen such as you seem to believe are strolling through the halls of Congress thinking deep thoughts, and consciously and conscientiously trying to be a credit to Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and Paine, and the ideals of the Revolution.

    Perhaps I am mistaken and too cynical, but I believe things are not so elevated–not many members are “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” (and given the veneer, the camouflage created by a good PR team, it is very hard to pick the real Mr. Smith out of the crowd) but many–as we see revealed more fully and clearly each day–are members of his opposition, and things are generally a lot grubbier and cut throat and less “idealized” than you might imagine. For, once a member gets accustomed to the power, perks and benefits of being a member of Congress, many, perhaps most people these days–whatever the causes and ideals they might have brought with them to Capitol Hill–soon switch priorities to trying to raise the money and votes to continue to ride the Congressional gravy train, and those causes and ideals soon fade and are often forgotten, and only reappear as a veneer and as protective cover. Moreover, from recent evidence, many members of Congress these days appear to think of themselves as forming some sort of “ruling class”; that we work for them and are their subjects, and not that they work for us and are our servants.

    Our Founding Fathers were intimately familiar with the history of Greece and Rome and political theory, and Washington was in fact often pictured as an old Roman. Well, in thinking of the situation on Capitol Hill today, think of Rome in the decades of its turbulent transformation from a Republic into an Imperium, and the early history of that Imperium. Think of congressmen having the skill set to win elections, rather than often having the different skill set to be good legislators, think of the predominance of ignorance over knowledge, of short term thinking vs. long term thinking–of “thinking of the next election, as opposed to thinking of the next generation,” think of congressmen often being handed and quickly memorizing a few talking points for the cameras prepared by their staffs, as opposed to articulating a reasoned position, based on experience and an intimate knowledge of the subject under discussion, arrived at after a mature consideration of the pros and cons, the good of the country, and long term effects and consequences, and think, then, of them moving on to another set of talking points on another subject.

  19. Alas, all this reflects a general malady of our time, common to all affluent democratic countries: lack of statesmanship. The present crop of politicians consists of mediocre through and through. The only exception, in my view, is Berlusconi.

  20. Way Back Machine Time: Guest Who Was Against Slaughter Rule In 2005?

    Time to take a trip down memory lane. It was five years ago, with Republicans having pressed the need to raise the debt limits for the USA. The GOP used a rule in order to protect both the Republicans and the Democrats. It took a certain Democratic supporter to make a make such a BIG STINK about it in preparation for the then 2006 midterm elections.

    With MANY THANKS to Ed Morrissey of Hot Air:
    “And now for the kicker, guess who joined Public Citizen in that suit with amicus briefs:

    Nancy Pelosi
    Henry Waxman
    Louise Slaughter”

    Also adding further:
    “If the Pelosi/Slaughter/Waxman argument against using a self-executing rule against a debt limit increase measure sounds familiar, it should because it’s the same argument now being used by Republicans to oppose the Slaughter Solution for moving Obamacare through the House.”

    So what we are dealing with in other words, is hypocrisy of the highest level, which is IMHO, stinking BIG TIME to high heavens. This is DISHONESTY of the highest level and doing by FORCE what the American people DO NOT WANT.

  21. Thanks Bob from Virginia.

    In 1994 I moved from Virginia. My family is there. So… I could call myself Baklava from Virginia.

  22. There may be such paragons of virtue out there, but I have not encountered them.

    i have.. they gave up politics, and now play games in the basement since marriage is a bad deal! 🙂

    they are into D&D, SCA, Daneslaw, and all those areas, they play games…

    they gave up on this world when they were marginalized by their future mates.

    but you can see them full of honor, and the right thing and wanting and playing like that and serous about such moral things.

    its just that since we went matriarchal and they are all rapists, the concept of such things being fought for in real life just isnt worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    let me put it a way that the useful idiots get.

    men would fight and honor
    Vivien Leigh
    Hedy Lamarr
    Ava Gardner
    Rita Hayworth
    Ingrid Bergman
    Susan Hayward
    Betty Grable
    Veronica Lake
    Linda Darnell
    Lauren Bacall
    Katharine Hepburn
    Olivia de Havilland
    Lucille Ball

    those were worth fighting for and such… no?

    and today?

    Courtney Love
    Angelina Jolie
    Nicole Kidman
    Tina Fey
    Jennifer Anniston
    Queen Latifiah

    yeah if we look hard we might find some that hold up, but thats not the same as so many.

    whats there to fight for or be nobel about?

    without the women, there is no reason to do so. there is nothing in it for these guys who for not being gay are assumed to be morons and such.

    who wants to fight for the respect of someone who things your a moron outright for defending them and their lives?

    so, as planned, when the women did this, the motivation for the good and just to build a better world, went with that.

    just as a famous feminist said
    if it was up to women, we would still be living in grass huts and have no society.

    well, from the start of progressive feminism to now, we sure have been moving towards the grass hut level and have never returned near to the highly productive days.

    and we wont.

    I know those kids..
    i was a bit of an early form of them
    my son is a more refined member

    the young guys basically have the attitude that the girls are not much worth it.

    die for what?
    battle a life of politics and noble causes, for what?

    before you belittle me, give me an answer to those two things.. and realize we are in a lot more trouble.

    to win the heart of a woman who has a 40% chance of a std at 14? who has pulled a train in grade school (and if not, no way to tell either way). who want what a provider can give, but despises such provision. who competes, belittles, and talks down as a matter of social interaction. who think they are rapists, pedophiles, people not to be trusted, and so on.

    the dishonorable have a lot to fight for.
    money, greed, ability to hurt people, ability to enjoy perversions and victimizing people, etc.

    why battle them for nothing?

    now you know where the honorable have gone…

    they were taken out of the game first by the ideological games of feminists, and people like Bella dodd in the teachers union.

    after all, such things as going on now would not and could not be done with everyone loving their home, having a family to fight for, and so forth.

    who needs to take away the guns when you disarmed their purpose and desire first?

  23. The Slaughter Rule will only be used by Pelosi if she cannot get the votes needed to pass the Senate bill.

    Their willingness to consider even the use of the Slaughter Rule is an indication of just how desperate is their situation and just how obsessed their fixation upon passage of this bill.

    That obsession is for liberals a reflection of universal health care being the ‘holy grail’ of liberalism.

    But the obsession of Obama, Pelosi and Reid is that of leftists who perceive this bill to be the linchpin upon which their entire strategy for fundamentally transforming America depends.

    Perhaps their impatience and hubris, the looming deficit, decline of the MSM with the rise of the Internet… have led them to the belief that it is now or never but whatever the case, their goals shall prove to be unobtainable, for they have fundamentally misjudged the current character of the American public.

    If the Democrats use the Slaughter rule to impose ObamaCare upon an unwilling public, a ruling by the SCOTUS finding it to be unconstitutional would be helpful but whether ruled so or not, certain consequences shall result.

    Using the Slaughter Rule will be considered unconstitutional by the public, regardless of any ruling. It will result in even greater gains in November and will have massive repercussions into the 2012 elections.

    It shall lead to legislative changes that prior to Obama’s election and actions as President would have been unthinkable.

    Executive orders reviewed for Constitutionality, elimination of entire federal departments and even entitlement programs will now be open for reform, modification and elimination. Earmark reform, mandatory term limits, gerrymandering eliminated, and needed federal union reforms will be implemented.

    Complete transparency in all political campaign donations and mandatory disqualification for any candidate in violation of the law.

    A fairness doctrine applied to the MSM.

    Nationalization of trial lawyers with compensation limited to public defender salaries.

    New amendments to the Constitution will be contemplated, initiated and implemented, such as a balanced budget amendment that can only be overridden by a ‘super’ majority of 67 Senators. Caps on taxation and what percentage of the budget can be devoted to social entitlement programs.

    The leftist/liberal ideology of the Democrats is leading them into increasingly unconstitutional actions and methods. It is further polarizing the electorate and the ‘fuse’ that they lit last year of political protest is about to ignite the powder keg of active civil disobedience.

    They are inadvertently preparing the ground for a firestorm of political protest that will be impossible to extinguish.

    Leftist’s and liberals have been and are playing with fire, they’re going to ‘reap the whirlwind’ and are about to get badly burned.

  25. Deem we already voted them out.
    Deem we voted on the jury and found them guilty of treason.

    To deem, is to do. Or doo-doo.

    Who may deem? How many might a deem encompass?
    Is deeming a right, privilege, enumerated power, finding, process, what?

  26. Geoffrey,

    While I would be happy to see many of the consequences you propose happen, I think you overestimate the public’s reaction.

    Have you polled any of your firends, colleagues, etc.? I got a lot of blank stares when mentioning the Slaughter option. People with normal lives who don’t have our interest in politics, are not paying attention. And, I assume that’s part of the Dem’s strategy.

  27. School House Rock – I m Just A Bill
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ

    Laws are such friendly things..

    Perhaps everyone in congress should get a copy…

    as a bonus i would have them watch this…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNb9AoY5XXE

    Wouldnt it be great if we could get the tea party people to just sing the preamble from this cartoon…

    and have groups sing it outside the offices of our ‘elected’ officials..

    “Madam, you have a republic if you can keep it.”
    Ben Franklyn

    The shot heard round the world..
    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Schoolhouse+Rock&search_type=&aq=f

    its time to remember what we will lose
    Schoolhouse Rock – The Great American Melting Pot
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJ4udW41Ns&feature=related

    “They heard about a country where life may let them win… ”

    or so the legend told…

    [The joke is on the Marxists… America and its capitalism and freedom allowed them to achieve what no other Marxist state could with socialism!!!
    the irony is that when they are done, they would have destroyed the only state that actually tried to meet their ideals (and everyone else s too). the only reason it took this long was that it met their demands over and over and over again, and still didn’t break. But the infinite goof is on them!]

  28. They are inadvertently preparing the ground for a firestorm of political protest that will be impossible to extinguish.

    Leftist’s and liberals have been and are playing with fire, they’re going to ‘reap the whirlwind’ and are about to get badly burned.

    and as i said long ago, the people will facilitate their own binding with their actions and inaction.

    impossible only for those with morals…

    Stalin killed 10 million in one winter and barely fired a shot… that Austrian dude did similar… (in fact they are copying him since he is the model of how to get a population to be in some way complicit with their own change to totalitarian control)

    [in case you haven’t noticed, schools and even the tax man has been buying short ended shotguns…]

    you may find it hard to grow tomatoes on the roof of an apartment building in winter… and with the water and electricity cut off…

    its EASY to get huge swaths of the population to comply… in our world of facebook… they would know who you are friends and family with, and so, you have to be willing to write them all off.

    the point is not to get there in the first place.

    not assume that once your there your going to win the fight so it doesn’t matter.

  29. be aware that what is below was how compliance works. its how they got the educated to take to the rice fields, its how they got people to load others into ovens. its how they got men to work till they dropped.

    remember… without the US no other state ever fell from totalitarian comman.. and the US cant call the US

    Sun Tzu’s book The Art of War, earned him an audience with the King of Wu, who said, “I have read your books, may i submit your theory of managing soldiers to a small test?”

    Sun Tzu replied “Sir, you may.”

    The King of Wu asked “Can the test be applied to women?”

    Sun Tzu replied that it could, so arrangements were made to bring 180 beautiful women from the palace. Sun Tzu divided them into two troops with one of the King’s favourite concubines at the head of each. He the made all of them take spears in their hands and spoke to them: “I presume you know the difference between front and back, right and left?”

    The women replied, “Yes. Of course”
    Sun Tzu continued, “When to the sound of drums I order ‘eyes front,’ look straights ahead. When I order ‘left turn,’ face toward your left. When I order ‘right turn’, face toward your right. When I order turn around, face around to the back.
    After the words of command had been explained, the women agreed they understood. He gave them spears so he could begin the drill. To the sound of drums, Sun Tzu ordered ‘right turn.’ In response the women burst out in laughter.

    With great patience, Sun Tzu said, “If the instructions and words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.” He then repeated the explanations several times. This time he ordered the drums to signal ‘left turn,’ and again the women burst into laughter.

    Then Sun Tzu said, “If the instructions and words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if the commands are clear and the soldiers disobey, then it is the fault of the officers.” He immediately ordered the women who were at the head of the two troops to be beheaded.

    Of course, the King was watching from a raised pavilion, and when he saw that his two favourite concubines were about to be executed, he was alarmed and swiftly sent down a message: “We are now quite satisfied as to the general’s ability to manage troops. Without these concubines, my food and drink will not taste good. It is the King’s wish that they not be beheaded.”

    Sun Tzu replied, “Having received the sovereign’s commission to take charge and direct these troops, there are certain orders I cannot accept.” He immediately had the two concubines beheaded as an example and appointed the two next in line as the new leaders.

    Now the drums were sounded and the drill began. The women performed all the maneuvers exactly as commanded. They drilled perfectly in precision and did not utter a single sound.

    Sun Tzu sent a messenger to the King of Wu saying, “Your Majesty, the soldiers are now correctly drilled and perfectly disciplined. As sovereign, you may choose to require them to go through fire and water and they will not disobey.”

  30. “I think you overestimate the public’s reaction.

    … People with normal lives who don’t have our interest in politics, are not paying attention. And, I assume that’s part of the Dem’s strategy.” physicsguy

    A lot of people aren’t paying attention and, the MSM is doing its best to maintain that disinterest, so I’m sure that’s part of the Dem’s strategy.

    Perhaps you’re right or might you be underestimating the depth of provocation? There’s no way to hide from people what this bill does to those who have health care and pay taxes.

    Come the spring, we shall know; if the Tea Parties remain the same in volume of attendance, then you shall be correct. But if the volume of attendance at the Tea Parties swells greatly, then the democrats are starring into the abyss.

    In my judgment, being forced to pay for abortions will be an unacceptable anathema to many, many millions of Protestant Christians and Catholics.

    I think that when millions of Seniors discover what has been done to Medicare, they will be outraged at the betrayal.

    When that sleeping public of ours discovers that there will be bureaucrats on ‘death panels’ deciding what treatments & benefits you get, based upon its cost/effectiveness and therefore whether you live or die, people will be really upset.

    I judge that when people learn that a ‘National ID Health card’ will be issued and that the Gov’t will have direct access to your bank accounts for elective funds transfer, it’s going to really piss people off.

    I believe when people look at the increase to the deficit and the increased taxes they will now pay, they ain’t gonna be happy.

    The Democrats, out of ideological blindness, think they’re sticking their heads into a hornets nest and that they’re just going to get stung a bit.

    But it’s a bear den with Momma and her babies they’re stumbling into and they’re going to get fatally mauled.

  31. I heard a commercial on the radio today. It was a commercial for the Chevy Malibu. A man and a woman spoke, alternately. Each claimed to have been a loyal customer of Toyota for many years, never having driven anything else. Then each claimed to have recently bought a Chevy Malibu, and spoke of the Malibu’s virtues. These included style, power, luxury, and safety. They spoke, each, several times about their new Malibus, emphasizing safety. They each claimed they would never buy a Toyota again, but instead said that when their Malibu aged, they would go buy another one. A Government Motors Malibu Not a Toyota. For safety.

    I was stunned. I haven’t been able to shake a suffocating feeling since, for the rest of this whole day.

    I felt, for the first time, that surely the day of a Police State is dawning. Here.

    In the United States of America.

  32. @Artfldgr

    Thank you for your words. It is a fearful thing to be so far outside the camp in knowing the truth that those inside the camp think you are mad. How pleasant would it be to call the truth you are blessed to know a lie and slip back into camp.

    This is fear and trembling.

    What fortified city can survive when it ignores its sentinels or calls them mad?

  33. Artfldgr,

    This ain’t China, it’s still America. It’s not the concubines that would lose their head, it would be Sun Tzu…

    You posit that simple fear, watching their Commanders head chopped off will cause American soldiers to kill their own relatives and civilian friends… civilians who are simply demanding that their rights under the Constitution be honored and that the consent of the governed is the only lawful basis for any Gov’t.

    You posit that soldiers and policemen will betray their oaths and ingrained cultural values, as mere robotic automatons.

    How little you understand your adopted land.

    Could you FINALLY say something intelligent without condescension?

  35. Well, maybe (to be honest 🙂 ) not entirely for the first time. But for the first time with such suffocating certainty. It’s a strange feeling, like being twisted out of true.

  36. njartist49,

    Dittos.

    Geoffrey, Geoffrey, Geoffrey. Artfldgr isn’t positing that American soldiers will kill their families out of fear for themselves, and I don’t think he’s being condescending–at least not in the event. 🙂

    But, on the other hand, he is saying something about how people respond to, um, motivation. And he is quoting Sun Tzu–who did know something, after all, about The Art of War.

    And never THINK these guys aren’t waging war.

  37. Geoffrey Brittain – Your post reminded me of the quote from Yamamoto: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

    At least I hope that is what’s happening.

  38. njartist49, njartist49, njartist49…

    Perhaps, we can agree to disagree about Artflgr?

    Most especially as to his not infrequent condescending commentary (on this thread) in which he indicates that anyone of a different opinion is either irredeemably uneducated or lacking in the requisite intellectual capacity to understand…

    His Sun Tzu allegory was a metaphor for the suggestion that American soldiers and policemen could be easily induced to give complete obedience to Obama regardless of the violent criminality required of them.

    I disagree, not in an individual circumstance, as the Kent State incident shows but in the implied assertion that a leftist totalitarian seizure of power from the American people would be supported by them such that a consolidation of that power could be attained.

    It’s not Artflgr’s judgment as to the nature, motivations and activities of leftists which I question, it’s his insistence that America is merely another Russia, wearing different clothes.

  39. I agree with Geoffrey. Theres nothing about the dynamic the dems are pulling that anyone over 30 being raised in a free market country doesn’t fully understand as the back door powergrab it is.

    We can sit around and foretell incredible disasters in the past or we can put our shoulder to the grindstone like Americans always do and solve this problem.

  40. “They are inadvertently preparing the ground for a firestorm of political protest that will be impossible to extinguish.”
    -Geoffrey Britain

    They are advertently pushing for a firestorm, as it is a quick and localized geographical event. Firestorms happen to dry and static deadwood, and are contained by massive response of directed force. Firestorms are a pointless destructive blaze of glory. Just what they hope for.

    But we can ‘deem’ tyranny to the dustbin of history for another few generations with a widespread resolute and vigorous rejection of tyranny. It’s been done before: ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ is the Virginia state motto.

    “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
    -Ronald Reagan

    =-=-=-=-
    Yamamoto: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
    At least I hope that is what’s happening.
    -LisaM

    Yup.

    “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…”
    …
    And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
    -T. Jefferson, et al, Declaration of Independence, 1776

    “If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.”
    – Samuel Adams

  42. http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/03/16/replacing-the-old-guard/

    Look I’m of 2 minds here:

    I don’t like earmarks and these 15 Republicans need to have a good explanation for this.

    But We need the 41 Senators – all 41 and the biggest priority is stopping this HCR bill and then Cap and Tax and whatever other big government / economy wrecking legislation coming down.

    we can’t be fracturing Republicans. We need every one. Let’s have a discussion with these Republicans for sure. But let’s be nice.

  43. I fear I owe njartist49 an apology, please consider it rendered. I mistakenly addressed my comment (not post) to him rather than correctly to betsybounds, though the substance of my comment remains.

    And betsy, I do consider what the Democrats are doing to be ‘war’ upon the Constitution, nor shall I forget it.

    Some, perhaps the majority, do so out of being ‘useful idiots’ some, such as Obama, Pelosi and Reid I find impossible to imagine as anything but doing so intentionally.

  44. His Sun Tzu allegory was a metaphor for the suggestion that American soldiers and policemen could be easily induced to give complete obedience to Obama regardless of the violent criminality required of them.

    BUZZZZZZZZZ wrong answer..

    As i have said, there is expereince out there in how to maintain control over large groups of people.

    and betsy had it better than you…

    motivation

    you all think that if things get nasty, the rest of the stuff you rely on will still be there.

    but when things get nasty, they have the strings. they get to say which neighborhoods and what distribution levels get what… they get to decide how to have rolling brownouts.

    and what are you going to do? riot to force farmers and others to bring their produce into cities in which large swaths of the population relies on state checks?

    NY has 8 million people… given national stats that means about 3 million don’t work… 1 million are on state aid. and there is only 4 days of food in this city (disaster planning estimates).

    just have to do like with katrina… stay back, close off the roads, bar escape, and wait till it burns itself out..

    we live in a modern society, with a complicated infrastructure that depends on stability to function correctly…

    and the people as a group are not like the people in the past. they are much more dysfunctional in general when that stable structure is disturbed.

    this is not to say there hearts are not there, they just have few skills to rely on outside a very narrow set.

    so its all about motivation..

    go back and read tsun tsu

    he needed motivation, and had certain means

    the people we are talking about dont have that free of means, but they do need motivation, and they do have other means.

    the problem is that everyones idea of how this works is hollyweird fantasy. you cant get off your only possible way is a betraying army, and so forth. the jack boots appear suddenly after midnight kind of movie theme.

    its not how it happens.

    tsun tsu also said the pinnacle of war is to defeat your enemy without causing ANY damage or loss.

  45. Geoffrey,

    I agree.

    On the scale of -10 to +10 (-10 being Stalinist Russia and +10 being free markets and personal responsibility ruling the day) we are far from that -10.

    We are in a state of creeping socialism each and every decade where are freedoms and prosperity keep eroding. Is it -1, -2 or -3?

    My brother works in security. I have friends who are in law enforcement. There is not going to be an Order # 270 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._270 in this country or any variation there-of.

  46. “They are inadvertently preparing the ground for a firestorm of political protest that will be impossible to extinguish.” -Geoffrey Britain

    “They are advertently pushing for a firestorm, as it is a quick and localized geographical event. Firestorms happen to dry and static deadwood, and are contained by massive response of directed force. Firestorms are a pointless destructive blaze of glory. Just what they hope for. sofa

    If they believe this ‘firestorm’ to be brief and quickly over, I believe they will be found to be greatly mistaken. They have pushed too far, too fast and done so by impossible to accept means.

    Closed-to-all-but-them deal making chambers, backroom deals exposed, massive bills with vague language easily interpreted as they wish, utter opaqueness in the legislative process, little to no time to examine the bill before voting upon it, blatantly untrue claims as to its protections and substance unconscionable arm twisting and finally, elevating a technical voting process to include passage without directly voting upon it…which is a direct violation of the constitution.

    This is not law-making through consent of the governed, it is rule by minority, over the governed.

    Plus, does anyone think that if Obama does sign into law an illegal bill passed through the ‘Slaughter Rule’, that they will stop there? No, Cap and Trade, immigration ‘reform’ and a whole raft of increasingly radical legislation awaits us, Obama is utterly sincere in his desire to fundamentally transform America into ‘his image’. But that guarantees a firestorm because the Democrats will be providing the fuel to keep the fire burning.

    And if a firestorm be “contained by massive response of directed force” what ‘massive & directed force’ do you allude too? Kent Sate writ large across the nation? If so, that shall never stand, with impeachment the least of the consequences down that path.

  47. “And he is quoting Sun Tzu—who did know something, after all, about The Art of War. ”

    You know – that is the single most important text ever written. I do not say “in my opinion” but state it as a universal fact. There is a certain amount of wiggle room in interpretation, but for the most part not much there.

    After reading my first translation of it I noted how many times I had (in hindsight) been wrong and a strong application of that text would have avoided it, I was shocked. After reading several different translations of it even more so.

    It isn’t simply “war” he talks of, while parts of it are at that level (I recall passages about backs to the water and such) a great deal of it is on how to *think* in a way that beats your enemy.

    I find what he says deeply inherent in even logical issues (I’m mainly a Software Engineer) let alone things like marketing. I’ve had to learn that in my current job and I’ve made great strides in the last couple of months for nothing more than noticing the book laying on a counter and recalling what he wrote.

    At times like this I’ve always thought his essays would better be called the “Art of Conflict” even if the proper translation is “war”. There is a great deal that *is* only war, but most is simply managing conflict.

  48. “NY has 8 million people… there is only 4 days of food in this city (disaster planning estimates)…just have to do like with katrina… stay back, close off the roads, bar escape, and wait till it burns itself out.. “ Artflgr

    You’re overlooking, (perhaps because it doesn’t fit your scenario) that FOX News alone and the Internet, with blogs such as this, would never acquiesce to condoning that eventuality and, should leftists attempt coercion on such a level, the truth of what actually happened would prove impossible to contain.

    You evidently do not comprehend the level of adoration that Americans invest in the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    It is literally, an American dogma, and utterly religious, in connotation, even among secularists. For most significantly, not just among conservatives but among liberals as well…all hold to that view.

    With the exception of the most rabid of leftists, every American pays homage to those fundamental American precepts. There is literally unanimity of agreement and consensus with those premises and precepts.

    It is the very heart of our cultural foundation.

    No one, would even think to disputing it and, all would literally fight to the death to defend it.

    The argument between liberals and conservatives does not consist of disagreement as to substance but rather, upon how most to honor the Declaration of Independence’s spirit.

    And because those fundamental precepts are so honored and revered, socialism/communism cannot prevail upon this ground.

  50. There is another case relevant to this discussion wherein the majority of the Court ruled that a valid act of Congress had to pass both chambers with the same text in order to be presented to the president. The case was the line item veto law during Clinton’s term: CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. v. CITY OF NEW YORK ET AL. This was discussed on Powerline in a post on March 16: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025842.php

  51. Artfldgr needs to join the local gun club. There he will find the smoldering embers that Geoffrey is talking about. Every puff of tyrannical wind from DC causes those embers to glow a bit brighter.

    At the club I belong to, we have a number of local police as members, and more joining. I’ve talked to these people and cannot imagine them turning their weapons on their fellow citizens. And this is in very blue New England. I can imagine what it might be like out in Texas.

  52. Geoffrey Britain: I hope you are right about the Americans love of liberty but we see Obama has the support of 45% of the public and 90% of the MSM.
    Frankly I am pessimistic.

  53. The fact that the courts wouldn’t entertain a challenge to the Slaughter Slaughter presents an opportunity for the GOP. Once they win back Congress, they can pass a resolution saying Obamacare was not properly enacted pursuant to Const. Art. I, Sec. 7, and therefore won’t be further recognized or funded by Congress. It will lay there like a dead letter.

  54. Physics Guy,
    I am not denying any of the things you are saying. i am saying that Germany had men like that do. so did Latvia, so did Estonia, so did Cuba, so did Venezuela.

    they make little difference because of very good reasons.

    however you don’t accept that rationing food and losing a that source for you and your whole family in a land where there isn’t enough, has a way of compelling good people do do bad things on behalf of others (and imagine that they are not part of it because they have no choice)

    read the Stanford Experiment http://www.prisonexp.org/

    the point is that your point doesn’t hold up. its completely ignorant of history. its basses its validity on a set of false assumptions about others.

    What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.

    How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Philip G. Zimbardo

    six days… it only took six days

    ever watch the film where a teacher (cant remember her name, sorry), convinced the kids that kids with blue eyes were better than kids with brown eyes?

    by the end of that class, she had them ready to go at each other, and they were tiny children.

    and THIS is the difference between a hsitory of remembered facts and dates, and a more detailed history that talks about how things happened, how people where, and such,.

    the first leaves you to fill in those things and its those fill ins i am battling…

    in essence a fill in is a bridge over information

    and usually when it has to do with the ideological bound, whats under the bridge is something they are hiding.

    I dont like firearms that much.
    do not get me wrong, its because i am over 50% deaf and they are not exactly the best thing for me.
    but i love the good ol boys, and the gun collectors, and have spent some days doing trap shooting, shooting at a range, going target shooting on family friends property (back then we knew someone with a federal collectors license and it was fun shooting the automatic weapons).

    again…

    you will not peg me into a class category other than classical Renaissance man… and as long as you try to place me into these other thigns which people pretend tell them all they need to know, you wont understand me as a person at all.

    i am not common… never was, never will be.
    [neither are other people]

  55. You’re overlooking, (perhaps because it doesn’t fit your scenario) that FOX News alone and the Internet, with blogs such as this, would never acquiesce to condoning that eventuality and, should leftists attempt coercion on such a level, the truth of what actually happened would prove impossible to contain.

    I am sorry but there is no polite way to tell you that your wrong, and I respect your writing too much to be obtuse about it.

    I have lived through several inner city riots in my lifetime. No one came to help, no one cared… anyone remember “The Bronx is burning”? (not the play the actual event) I remember sudden tiny riots over bs. But I remember what happened the power went out. before that day, you could stroll down the street with your wife or honey, and you could “window shop”, seeing what you might want to buy or imagine. After that day, everything had to have iron gates. I watched them overturn cars for fun, torch family stores that have been there since before 1900. They ransacked everything.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/features/bronxisburning/blackout/index.html
    Fires of all kinds raged through New York in the Summer of 1977: in the looted storefronts during a crippling blackout, on the streets prowled by the Son of Sam serial killer and in the rhetoric of mayoral candidates.
    “We’re reporters,” we said.
    They shrugged if they had any reaction at all and then returned to what they were doing, which was stealing every single thing they could get their hands on. A multitude of voices chanted a single word.
    “Broadway! Broadway!”
    They had swarmed onto Bushwick’s main street and started looting immediately after the blackout hit, almost as if they had been rehearsing.
    “Broadway! Broadway!”
    The first items to go were Pampers, and people emerged from supermarkets and pharmacies with as many as they could carry. The layaway stores were next, and these were hit with marked enthusiasm, particularly one that had a sign reading “Open for Payments.”
    Many of the shopkeepers had pulled gates over the storefronts and a man began ripping them away with a chain lashed to the rear bumper of his car. He hit the gas a little too hard in one instance and plowed into the store across the street, opening that up as well.
    Others were inspired to follow his example, breaching two storefronts with a single appropriated car. Each two-fer was greeted by cheers from those poised to pour inside.

    I remember what it was like. It changed my life.
    The lights went out… and there was a kind of silence. People on the streets were stirring.

    I don’t know how long it took, but the longer they were off, the more people wondered whether they would come on soon. Then they realized that the phones were dead too, that meant there were no alarms…

    Then all hell broke loose…

    You are completely not trying to understand the way it works OTHER than the singular vision YOU have. so you keep thinking soldiers go in. you keep thinking things that just don’t happen. soldiers didn’t come in then. soldiers drove people back over the bridge into Katrina area rather than rescue them. They prevented civilians from rescuing people and bringing aid.

    I keep saying that its OUR behavior that will make it happen NOT THEIRS.

    And you keep saying… if THEY do this, everyone will not let it happen.

    I keep saying that the people who smashed windows FOR THEM, will be so upset at how things are and the shrinking pie that THEY will do these things. add to them the gangs and outside governmental players (of which the US has a lot with its open borders), with a huge swath of people who are on aid and feel entitled (like the crowd back then).

    Yes, NY experienced a second blackout and it was nicer. But the differences were that the later blackout happened during pretty good times, while the one in 77 happened during stagflation and turmoil more like today, than a few years ago with the more recent blackout.

    You evidently do not comprehend the level of adoration that Americans invest in the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    I do sir. Do not insult me. my point is that you are underestimating your opponents who have been following a 100 year plan. Go read back to the precursor and origins of the progressive movement (Ingersoll), and their 60 year plan for transforming the United states from what it was, to what its about to finish becoming. The end period of that 60 year plan, almost to the day, was the arrival of FDR and the Great Depression.

    I have linked to the stuff from FDR and the continuance of that plan, with the work of Stuart Chase. Did you bother to read and study that? Did you bother to know the people who you’re up against? Or do you prefer to sound smart among the ignorant for your imaginative ideas of how things work?

    I told you my family was part of the Latvian forest people, and other historical things. Occam bothered to read. Did you? You talk about a period in history that is not today, that is more than 100 years ago. I am talking about my grandfather and family fighting that same fight against Stalin (he died between Hitler and Stalin’s second occupation). A more brutal man than King George and with a lot more interesting weaponry thanks to a man named Maxim. I never knew my grandfather; but I did get to meet many men who did similar things.

    You sir are VERY insulting. You were probably born here. You didn’t CHOOSE your home. You didn’t risk your life to get here. Your family didn’t die, being tortured to death so that the rest can make it. Your family didn’t have to give up their language, their friends, their family, their home for MILLINEA, their fortunes, and fight to survive to get to the United States.

    SIR we immigrants are fighting harder for your country than you are. We have some experience with the people you’re dealing with. Do you know how many immigrants come here to serve in our military when many of our own wouldn’t come to your defense? And don’t tell me it’s for citizenship, since that is not automatic, even if you serve.

    I am not an immigrant, I grew up here and was reared (not raised) before many of the changes, I got a classical education that people USED to get. It consisted of arts, languages, sciences, sports, the classical cannon, great literature, and so forth. An education that kids today would not sit still for to have.

    I know more of my history than you do. I also know more of Russia history, Chinas, and Europe’s than most here too. and you DARE Tell me that I don’t know what will save you?

    You’re a fool… because the united states is made up of all these same people. they have no special quality that imbues them with special ability. you confuse the product of freedom with the ability of people.

    With the exception of the most rabid of leftists, every American pays homage to those fundamental American precepts. There is literally unanimity of agreement and consensus with those premises and precepts.

    BS… I call you out on it. Period. They can’t even answer question of their own history, they can’t pay homage to what they don’t know. They hear the president say SOCIAL JUSTICE… and think it’s a good thing… they don’t remember the NAZI father COUGHLAN… do you? They don’t know the text that Ratzinger wrote explaining it and its PRAXIS. Did you or do you know any of that?

    [edited for length by n-n]

  56. As I see, it the problem with protesting and getting those protests heard and acted on is this; we have assumed since the Revolution that our representatives will act in “good faith,” and that they will respond to correction, and truly endeavor to carry out the will of the people who elected them, and when individuals didn’t, they have been voted out of office. But now we are faced with a whole political class of Democrats–members, accomplices and captives of the Far Left–who are acting in “bad faith,” who are betraying their oaths of office, the American people, the country and our Republic by deliberately ignoring the wishes of the majority of their constituents, and trying to use unconstitutional means to force what would be an essentially irreversible Revolution down our throats.

    However, major factors that were necessary for that traditional system to correct errant members of Congress are no longer in force, and in many cases they have been deliberately transformed and weakened or eliminated; changed by the Left and its Progressivism/Postmodernism.

    The mass of educated citizenry that is absolutely necessary for a Republic such as ours to function is generally no more, and deliberately so; to “get real” the general level of actual, solid education in those skills and the essential knowledge necessary to be a participating, aware, effective citizen–in reading, writing, comprehension, basic math, logic, rhetoric, American history, civics–is very low when compared to what it once was.

    The innate love of country, and the cohesiveness and self-identification as Americans that used to be taught in our schools and churches and homes is largely gone too, and ethnic/national identity, race and class warfare and envy has been promoted to Balkanize us and to weaken us. Moreover, we now have large minorities of Hispanic and other illegal aliens who have no allegiance to the U.S. in our midst (see, for instance, recent polls in which an overwhelming percentage of Hispanics from Mexico–many legal immigrants–said their allegiance was not to the U.S., but to Mexico) or who are are also actively hostile (see the increasing count of Muslim Jihadi attacks against “unbelievers”in our country) as are Muslims.

    As well, the toughness, the skill sets, the self-reliance and independence of will that used to characterize our forbearers–mostly tough, hard working pioneers, immigrants, settlers and farmers–has also been diminished as we have “progressed,” have gone through the bloody, harsh and strenuous process of going from an agricultural, to a manufacturing, and, now, to a service economy.

    The Christian spiritual foundation of our country that was of primary importance as a motivator behind the success of our Revolution, and which provided the unique American viewpoint and morality that has been one of the major reasons for our success as a nation has been under constant assault from the Left, and has been largely driven from and erased from the public square.

    The proportion of those who are productive in our society to those who don’t produce but only take (see illegal aliens above)–i.e. they pay no taxes–now stands at a little under 40% takers to 60% makers, and is slated to go to 50/50 under Obama; as Franklin said, once people discover that they can vote themselves money, the Republic is finished, and if 50% of the populace can get by without paying taxes (or even working) by just voting in people who will keep the checks coming, we are, indeed, lost.

    Despite Constitutional guarantees of the right to bear arms, and to abolish our government if it is not providing us with “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” the State has a monopoly on truly destructive force, and today’s citizen is not nearly so rebellious or bloody minded as were our predecessors in the formative decades of our country and in 1776.

    I suggest that, given all these developments, this “progress,” we as citizens are in a much weaker position, that enough of us do not have the knowledge, the requisite steely determination and bloody mindedness to enforce our will against Democratic “representatives” intent on Revolution, that we would have had even as recently as WWII, and that it will be a tough fight indeed and a lot of crockery will be broken.

  57. “Once they win back Congress, they can pass a resolution saying Obamacare was not properly enacted pursuant to Const. Art. I, Sec. 7, and therefore won’t be further recognized or funded by Congress.”

    Well, given how much guts the Republicans have I wouldn’t hold my breath.

    However, what I would find highly amusing is if they did that and had to do it through reconciliation and having “deemed” it passed through the house.

    Personally I think the process being used is *significantly* more destructive than anything the health care bill will do.

  58. here is another piece of evidence that what is being relied on doesnt exist!!!!!!!

    Contestants turn torturers in French TV experiment

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100316/ts_afp/francetelevisionpsychologyentertainment

    Game show contestants turn torturers in a new psychological experiment for French television, zapping a man with electricity until he cries for mercy — then zapping him again until he seems to drop dead.

    “The Game of Death” has all the trappings of a traditional television quiz show, with a roaring crowd and a glamorous and well-known hostess urging the players on under gaudy studio lights.

    But the contestants did not know they were taking part in an experiment to find out whether television could push them to outrageous lengths, and which has prompted comparisons with the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

    “We were amazed to find that 81 percent of the participants obeyed” the sadistic orders of the television presenter, said Christophe Nick, the maker of the documentary for the state-owned France 2 channel which airs Wednesday.

    “They are not equipped to disobey,” he added. “They don’t want to do it, they try to convince the authority figure that they should stop, but they don’t manage to,” he told AFP.

    and thats exactly what happens.

    the behavior your talking about is nearer saints, not common man, and so the REASON saints are saints, is that they will refuse and do so till death.

    this is not true of the common man, especially if he or she has entanglements elsewhere in which they can also lean on.

    but note that in many such tests the majority fail.

    in a group of 100, you only need 3 or 4 of such people to control the whole group..

    and yet, more than 80% will meet your needs if randomly selected!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    you just ahve to do what they have been doing to police (like firing that police officer for refusing to taze a 70+ year old man!).

    you forget they are currently building the youth brigade!!!!!!! and dont think that that is somethign we wont do either.

    the DARE program mobilized kids to turn in their parents and report on them for decades.

    Nick and a team of psychologists recruited 80 volunteers, telling them they were taking part in a pilot for a new television show.

    The game: posing questions to another “player” and punishing him with up to 460 volts of electricity when he gets them wrong — even until his cries of “Let me go!” fall silent and he appears to have died.

    Not knowing that the screaming victim is really an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants yield to the orders of the presenter and chants of “Punishment!” from a studio audience who also believed the game was real.

    Nick said 80 percent of the contestants went all the way, zapping the victim with the maximum 460 volts until he appeared to die. Out of 80 players, just 16 walked out.

    out of 80 only 16 walked out…

    want to know how to get the 16 to stay?

    tell them that if they walk out they go into the chair next.


    One contestant interviewed afterwards said she went along with the torture despite knowing that her own grandparents were Jews who had been persecuted by the Nazis.

    “Since I was a little girl, I have always asked myself why they (the Nazis) did it. How could they obey such orders? And there I was, obeying them myself,” said Sophie, quoted in a book by the film makers.

    but the mythical American something will waft down and save us.

    when you say we wont, i am sitting there going.. but Weisel put his wife into a gas truck… but men did what they were told because soviets drove nails into the tops of the skulls of their family members if they didnt.

    watch the new show “the pacific”

    look carefully… they come across a body and they were VERY clever in how they showed it. if you KNEW the real history, you knew what you were looking at. if you didnt, you didnt notice it in plain view.

    the scene with the decapitated soldier. he was decapitaed alive, ergo all the blood. but befoer that, his balls and penis were cut off, ergo all the blood at the waist. and if you look at the skull onthe ground. look carefully and you will see they put the balls and penis in the mans mouth.

    the japanese at the time were mostly buddists.. but they rewrote budist stuff to make this kind of thing possible (reading about it is intriguiing)

    “I was worried about the contestant,” said another contestant. “At the same time, I was afraid to spoil the programme.”

    she was willing to kill because she was unwilling to spoil everyones fun!!!!!

    how willing when their lives are on the table (and as i have said, by means of circumstance, not the people who come later)

    The experiment was modelled on an infamous study at Yale University in the 1960s, which used similar methods to examine how obedient citizens could come to take part in mass murder.

    Some observers were sceptical of the manipulative way the participants were handled.

    Jacques Semelin, a psychologist and historian who studies genocide and totalitarianism, pointed out that the participants were made to sign a contract obliging them to obey the presenter’s instructions.

    “There are elements of manipulation from the start,” said Jacques Semelin, a psychologist and historian who studies genocide and totalitarianism.

    “They are obedient, but it’s more than mere obedience — there is the audience, the cameras everywhere.”

    by the way…
    you will find that a plethora of such studies were done in the progressive centers… that they have ALWAYS used the social studies, and psychology as tools of manipulation and control of others.

    as long as people rely on people standing up by themselves alone to be the moral wall against the state, all those nice things about the few, wont mean didly.

    the majority that will vastly outnumbers the minority that wont.

  60. We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!
    – Henry Morganthau, Treasury Secretary, May 1939

  61. Artflgr,

    My intent was not to insult you. Nor I believe have I offered insult. You do, often, accuse others of stupidity. Frequently making brief but snide comments that belittle others knowledge, education, opinions and positions on issues.

    Your comment above is just the latest example.

    You do insist that the left could seize power and that America’s police departments and military would support the overthrow of the Constitution.

    If objecting to your slurs upon other’s intellectual capacity is an insult, then so be it. And I stand by this statement;

    “It’s not Artflgr’s judgment as to the nature, motivations and activities of leftists which I question, it’s his insistence that America is merely another Russia, wearing different clothes.”

    I’m well aware of the dangers of the mob and of our cultural decline. Nevertheless, foundational cultural assumptions remain. Liberals take for granted their right to speak out and to enjoy the freedoms that the left would deny them. Nor would liberals dream of abolishing the Bill of Rights.

    There is a fundamental difference between liberals and leftists; liberals are about justice and fairness. Leftists, as you point out are about power. Liberals, while misguided and easily fooled, will not support the left beyond a certain point.

    Even illegal immigrants, take for granted certain cultural assumptions about America being a land of freedom and laws quite unlike Mexico and South America. These assumptions are valid because they are formed from what America in its essence is, the land of the free.

    No ‘man who would be king’ is going to rule over us by fiat. No American police force is going to shoot Seniors and Children in jackbooted imitation of the KGB. No American army is going to enforce with violence against those opposed, permanent martial law with Obama as dictator for life. Nor are the police and military going to cooperate in the starvation of millions of people in a major American city.

    It’s just, not. going. to. happen.

    You can trot out all the stories and ‘logic’ constructed to prove your thesis that you wish but ‘that dog don’t hunt’ and all of your voluminous words won’t make it so.

    I don’t read most of what you write nor link too because I find your generally disjointed commentary and long lecturing simply too tedious. I find comments that are snide and uncalled for to be rude and boring.

    And, that’s an observation not an insult.

    I disagree with your conclusion that the left could successfully seize power because I disagree with your premise that America is just another Russia, wearing different clothes.

    And because I disagree with your premise, I find all the 100 year conspiracy’s to which you point, to be less than convincing.

    We simply disagree; I maintain that the American military is NOT going to kill millions of Americans imposing a dictatorship of the left upon America.

    If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, time will tell which of us is the more realistic. I spent 4 years in the Navy with two tours of Vietnam. I know from which end of the gun the bullet exits and if necessary, far more millions will fight for freedom, than against it.

  64. requently making brief but snide comments that belittle others knowledge, education, opinions and positions on issues.

    But am i right? and i dont belittle OPINION unless it masquerades as a fact, or hypothesis.

    You do insist that the left could seize power and that America’s police departments and military would support the overthrow of the Constitution.

    then you did not carefully read what i said (was it edited out by neo, i didnt check)…the police and military have not stopped the contradictions to the constitution yet. have they? have they stopped Czarssigning statements? Obamas end around process? at what point are you going to realize that the point your making has already failed?

    If objecting to your slurs upon other’s intellectual capacity is an insult, then so be it. And I stand by this statement;

    then freaking show the capacity that people are claiming to have. get ahead of the game, for peters sake, haven’t you realized that we are over a year in and we are still discussing the same things from PRIOR to the election?

    what i am getting offended at are people that pose at being smart. it really irks the people who have spent YEARS of their lives actually reading and studying and knowing the facts. in fact, if you read the post i was answering AND read my post again, you will find you didnt get it. In fact i can bet that you DIDN’T actually read it all

    Liberals take for granted their right to speak out and to enjoy the freedoms that the left would deny them. Nor would liberals dream of abolishing the Bill of Rights.

    which liberals are we talking about? the original liberals or the progressives who took up the label? if your talking john steward mills, then the paragraph doesnt make sense, and if your talking progressives, using the wrong label they presented you doesnt help either. and if you dont know what i am talkign about, then your proving my point as to investment in time to get the facts. you cant get them from osmosis.

    There is a fundamental difference between liberals and leftists; liberals are about justice and fairness. Leftists, as you point out are about power. Liberals, while misguided and easily fooled, will not support the left beyond a certain point.

    sorry.. again, you have the smart sounding statemetns of someone that doesnt knwo the details. sounds like most others that dont eitehr. iberals are about justice and fairness? now again, are we talking john steward mills type? then i would agree… if not, then your confusing the ideals of useful idiots as the ideology of those who pull their traces.

    Even illegal immigrants, take for granted certain cultural assumptions about America being a land of freedom and laws quite unlike Mexico and South America. These assumptions are valid because they are formed from what America in its essence is, the land of the free.

    thats the old pre postmodern view.. that doesn’t apply anymore… period.

    Mexicans are claiming California and Texas as theirs… that doesn’t sound like people loving America. no.. they dont see america as a place to come to to settle and become citizens. i know a lot of them… at what part did your knowlege of my families immigrant status, and such with new members might have given you a clue that i know a lto about it.

    i can give you the difference.. they come now to tap the maple tree… they work, steal, save, and send the money back home. they do not desire to move here!!!!!!!!! they go back and forth when they can (i know a guy that returns to Mexico and his family once a year, then comes back). they HATE the US as social justice and other things have dominated in south America since the US stopped caring whether countries became communist

    when my grandparents came here, and parent.. and cousins and such… they all adopted americanized names. why? because they did not want to be thought of as from someplace else. today? they don’t even want to learn the language!

    i have said in detail where i am from… the burned out buildings of the bronx… want to tell me where the largest population of illegal immigrants outside of california are? i am from an immigrant family who WANTED to be here. and i am telling you that this condition has changed. the immigrants of the past do not look kindly on the immgrants of today, who do not understand, want to understand, and are wholly willing to help tear the place down.

    No ‘man who would be king’ is going to rule over us by fiat. No American police force is going to shoot Seniors and Children in jackbooted imitation of the KGB. No American army is going to enforce with violence against those opposed, permanent martial law with Obama as dictator for life. Nor are the police and military going to cooperate in the starvation of millions of people in a major American city.

    It’s just, not. going. to. happen.

    who said by fiat? Obama is already ruling a bit like a king… he certainly is not GOVERNING… and the cartoonish view of that, has no bearing in reality to the KGB… i may not like em, but i don’t disrespect them. you are not REASONING to an end… you are ASSUMING against a condition you cant comprehend. and the assumption of such is a key ingredient to their success.

    one does not defend against what one does not believe can happen. as an ex emt, i can tell you that most fo the people i had to deal with thought what happened couldnt or wouldnt happen to them. i am asking for real reasons as to why. all your saying is that through your personal experience (in which you seriously self sort who you are with and who they know), you think that the americans are going to stand up as they have in the past.
    , and i dont fault them for that, i fautl them for imagining what the other groups are like and not experiencing them.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  65. 6 years in the Navy and I know – you simply cannot obey an unlawful order.

    a agree..

    but what happens when you refuse a legal order that’s immoral?

    see Germany 1942 for the answer..

    they only have to make the unconscionable legal and people will do it.

    ergo forced sterilizations continuing till 1983 in some places.

    but i also think that you understand what i try to say more than others baklava.

  66. Pre-Crime Policing

    Allegedly “disgruntled” man has his guns seized, and “voluntarily” surrenders to two SWAT teams and dozens of police officers for a crime that hadn’t been committed

    http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/16/pre-crime-policing

    The subject had recently been placed on administrative leave from his job, was “very disgruntled,” and had recently purchased several firearms. “Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers,” the release said. Fortunately, Pyles “voluntarily” turned himself over to police custody, and the legally purchased firearms “were seized for safekeeping.”

    Oregon’s Mail Tribune why the operation was such a success: “Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach.”

    There’s just one problem: David Pyles hadn’t committed any crime, nor was he suspected of having committed one. The police never obtained a warrant for either search or arrest. They never consulted with a judge or mental health professional before sending out the military-style tactical teams to take Pyle in.

    didnt someone say that the police would not go after the citizens? that the wouldnt break the law and follow bad orders. no search warrant… i thought the police wouldnt do that? no crime committed… isnt that wrongful arrest? didnt they do that in the other states you say we are not turning into? confiscation of property arbitrarily? i thought someone told me that would never happen? seems to me that the police and many of the others will do exactly what they are told… EVEN if the acts are not legal. otherwise this could not happen.

    “They woke me up with a phone call at about 5:50 in the morning,” Pyles told me in a phone interview Friday. “I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team pointing their guns at my house. The officer on the phone told me to turn myself in. I told them I would, on three conditions: I would not be handcuffed. I would not be taken off my property. And I would not be forced to get a mental health evaluation. He agreed. The second I stepped outside, they jumped me. Then they handcuffed me, took me off my property, and took me to get a mental health evaluation.”

    what? do you think we are still INNOCENT until proven guilty? i had already explained that the precedence changing that came from family court where its ok to err on the side of caution.

    well, here they are applying the same thing…err on the side of caution and presumption of good intent trumps FREEDOM.. well… he is lucky.. he eventually was let out of the mental institution, and he did get his guns back. but as a test case, its a great success…the police did illegal acts when they were told.

    “In my opinion, the apprehension of David Pyles was a violation of Oregon’s kidnapping laws,” says James Leuenberger, a criminal defense attorney who is also advising Pyles. “He definitely deserves to be compensated for what they did to him, but even if he wins a civil rights suit, that will just result in the officers’ employers paying for their mistakes.” That of course means the final tab will be paid by Oregon’s taxpayers, not the offending cops. “I want these law enforcement officials held personally responsible,” Leuenberger says. “I want them criminally charged.”

    so he will win a lawsuit? of course not

    It’s hard to see that happening. Joseph Bloom, a psychiatrist at Oregon Health & Science University and a specialist in civil commitment law, says the police who apprehended and detained Pyles were likely acting under the cover of Oregon law. Bloom says the police are permitted to make a determination on their own to take someone in for a mental health evaluation–there’s no requirement that they first consult with a judge or mental health professional. Bloom believes this is a wise policy. “It’s important to remember that this is a civil process,” he says. “There’s no arrest, these people aren’t being taking to jail. It’s not a criminal action.”

    but if he stood up for his rights to be innocent till proven guilty they would have killed him and he would have been remembered as the nut job!!! …

    Even if the apprehension of Pyles was legal, the seizure of his guns wasn’t. Because civil commitment laws aren’t criminal in nature, they don’t carry authorization for the police to search a private residence. According to Pyles, he closed the door behind him as he left his home. Because the police didn’t have a search warrant, they had no right to even enter Pyles’ home, much less seize guns inside that he bought and possessed legally.

    i have proved my case that many of the people we trust will follow orders. they are absolved from responsiblity. here they have no name. who are they? why arent the names of the accusing officers printed (right to know your accusor?) while i do not make the argument that it will go down with orders like that, quite the contrary. but when property is being destroyed in protest… they are not going to not do anything. meaning they will do something. and thats the tinderbox we are heading to.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  67. Artfldgr,

    You ask, “But am i right?” in response to an accusation of making snide comments. If you’re right, there’s no need for derision. And much of your commentary are facts in search of a hypothesis.

    “then you did not carefully read what i said”
    I’ve previously and just now admitted that I don’t read most of your commentary and offered the reasons why.

    “the police and military have not stopped the contradictions to the constitution yet.”
    No they haven’t because it would be inappropriate, the level of criminality hasn’t risen to the needed level.

    “at what point are you going to realize that the point your making has already failed?”
    That point is clear and simple; when they use force in a clearly illegal manner or where they attempt to use force to resist any legal or legislative actions brought against them.

    And, if they are as you portray them, that day will surely come because their nature will not allow them to refrain from the use of force.

    “it really irks the people who have spent YEARS of their lives actually reading and studying and knowing the facts.” Given your erroneous conclusions as to the willingness of our military to cooperate in the overthrow of our Gov’t…it’s clear that you have spent years selectively choosing that content which fits and supports your thesis. It’s a classic mistake in reasoning and indicative of a certain tendency toward paranoia.

    “which liberals are we talking about? “
    The many millions of ordinary, well meaning, liberal Americans who were duped into voting for Obama.

    People like my parents in their 80’s and my young daughter and her fiancee. All good people, whose exposure to information is almost solely through the MSM and who simply couldn’t believe the things that I was saying about Obama because it was so at odds with what they were exposed too.

    They simply couldn’t credit that Obama would vote for infanticide. They couldn’t believe what Rev Wright demonstrated about Obama or that Obama started his political career out of Bill Ayers’ living room. It couldn’t be true because surely ABC, CBS, NBC, the newspapers, 60 minutes and NPR would be reporting it.

    But those same voters are not going to support the repeal of the Bill of Rights or the complete nationalization of the economy. They’re not going to support forced federal funding of abortions. Nor are they going to support death panels.

    I too am the son of an immigrant and I’ve lived in Southern and now Central California for 35 years. I’m just as familiar with Mexican immigrants as you and while many are as you portray them, many are not.

    I am not ASSUMING against a condition I can’t comprehend but I am disagreeing with you as to both premise and an important qualifying condition.

    The ‘condition’ is that in order for the left to take over this country, the military has to be supportive, as it cannot be done otherwise.

    Your premise is that the military, if ordered to do so, would be willing to kill millions of Americans so as to make that overthrow permanent.

    I simply disagree, that’s not the country, nor military I know and thus I can state, “No American army is going to enforce, with violence against those opposed, permanent martial law with Obama as dictator for life.”

    It.is.just.not.going.to.happen.

  68. Artfldgr said on Mar 17th, 10:00 AM:

    “SIR we immigrants are fighting harder for your country than you are.”

    Next paragraph:

    “I am not an immigrant, I grew up here and was reared (not raised) before many of the changes, I got a classical education that people USED to get.”

    lol

    Artfldgr at 3:36 PM:

    “Mexicans are claiming California and Texas as theirs… that doesn’t sound like people loving America. no.. they dont see america as a place to come to to settle and become citizens. i know a lot of them…”

    Yes, this is obvious. But too many of our citizens are blind to it. I see the Mexican flags all over my area. I see the red, white and green color schemes all the time the same way Americans would display red, white and blue.

  69. My only act in my entire life of what might be called “civil disobedience” involved Mexican flags. One night I was driving home around the time of the 2007 “Immigration reform” bill. On the way home I saw a couple of Mexican pride related things. I stopped by the Wal Mart to get something or look at something and happened to walk by the flag section. There were as many mexican flags for sale as there as American ones. I just couldnt take it anymore. Somehow all the Mexican flags were on the floor when I left. lol

    I am someone who has had many “hispanic” friends over the years. Dated one “hispanic ” girl. But come into our country and fly your flag yet eat from the fruit of this land—-makes my blood boil!

    On the one hand the Amercian annexation of the southwest was not pure. The natives were wronged very badly. But I seriously doubt the Commanche, the Siuox, the Apache, etc Natives considered themselves “Mexican”. Certainly there were natives that were absorbed by the Spanish in its religious missions- such was the Early history of the place we call the Alamo- “Cottonwood” tree in spanish by the way. And these natives became “Mexicans” when Mexico got its independence from Spain in 1821. But many of the Mexicans joined the Anglos and fought for Texas independence in the 1830’s. If you read the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American war of 1848 you will find that the indians are named as a third party by the Americans and the Mexicans. Seems the Commanches were pretty rough on the Mexicans! I also find it interesting that the Cannon at Gonzales that triggered the battle some call ” The Lexington of Texas” was a cannon that was given by the Mexican government to the settlers to defend themselves against the real natives of Texas. An attempt by the new Mexican dictator Santa Anna to repo that cannon in 1835 triggered the battle.
    The “Come and Take It” Flag associated with that battle I have seen at a Texas Tea Party. Its used as a sort of pro 2nd Amendment flag.

    http://www.comeandtakeit.com/txhist.html

  70. i might have gotten my wish!!!

    in this thread:
    neoneocon.com/2010/03/16/the-slaughter-solution-constitutionality-and-precedent/#comment-150182

    i commented:

    “Perhaps everyone in congress should get a copy…”
    [referring to some school house rock links on law and early America]

    on free republic tonight

    “”I’m just a bill” schoolhouse rock lesson right now on House floor”

    This is Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, speaking now. He had the cartoon bill from the “I’m just a bill” tune displayed a minute ago – with a voice bubble saying something like “I don’t wanna be deemed.”

    http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

    now what i am hoping for (well since it sort of worked once 🙂 ) is something similar to the flash mob that does the song from the sound of music… but instead a flash mob thats singing the preamble of the constitution from school house rock. say in grand central station… or central park…

    you would be surprised how many people know those words by heart from hearing them over and over again sat and sun mornings…

    [lightning doesn’t strike twice does it?]

  71. “SIR we immigrants are fighting harder for your country than you are.”

    Next paragraph:

    “I am not an immigrant, I grew up here and was reared (not raised) before many of the changes, I got a classical education that people USED to get.”

    my wife and many of my friends are immigrants. in fact nearly a majority now… i am the first born and so i am in the middle, i don’t belong with the natives, as i love America too much to be with them given their hate and ignorance.

    so if there is one natural born person and 10 immigrants in a group, is it right for me to say WE natural born people?

    or is it more accurate to say we immigrants, and type too fast forgetting to end it with and their CHILDREN?

    whats your point?

    that i am not perfect so everything i say is a wash?

    that immigrants dont care?

    that those who are more than 2nd generation are the real patriots and not the leftist progressive idiots who are demanding communism?

    WHAT IS THE POINT?

    you clearly prove my case in the other thread where we are trained like Pavlov to hurt those who are not equal, to drive them to the same level.

    at some point my ethics and values will just crumble as i said, screw it. why should i work so hard to educate and save people from themselves and their own ignorance.

    if this place really goes full bore, what do you think will happen to me for writing all this? think i could tell them that i was joking?

    or did i burn my bridge when i made my choice and technically put my life on the line for people who beat me up for not pretending i am equally ignorant?

    maybe you didn’t mean any harm.

    maybe your just joking

    but after so many games and abuses because i know things they dont, and they have to take me down a peg out of reflex rather than lift themselves up

    you want to know why we are all in this situtaion?

    you’all are the crabs in the bucket pulling down any one that might get out and then be able to help you out. inable to cooperate, you get no where, as everyone wants to be captain and no one knows how. those that know how, are not willing to fight dirty to take the seat.

    why should they?

    when i walk away from here, or other places
    even if i am chased out by abuse

    i know that unlike those others, i CAN do things, i DO have options they dont have, and so i dont get upset after a short while.

    i get sad.

    and i leave them in the bucket for the chef and find another bucket to try to save some crabs.

  72. Artfldgr,
    My problem with you is you are a condescending and arrogant. I actually agree with a lot of the things you say, but you seem to revert to the whole, “I am the only one that sees what is happening because I have studied so much history” – and then you repeatedly run down those who have been here for multiple generations. Im sorry if the people you hang around with dont see what is happening. You apparently live in a not so “far right” part of the country.
    And then there is this from one of your post above:

    ” Do you know how many immigrants come here to serve in our military when many of our own wouldn’t come to your defense?”

    I did serve in this country’s military. As did my Father, and my father’s Father- on Iwo Jima no less. In my 15 years in the Texas National Guard, some of it active, some of it not, some of it attatched to the Minnesota National Guard, several reliefs in place with units we were relieving or being relieved by us, I heard very few non-American accents, unless you count the “hispanics ” as non American.

  73. Artfldgr, you are falling into the habit of taking and giving offense. You have a lot of insights to share, based on your experience and your deep study. So far very good. But you shouldn’t overgeneralize about old-stock Americans, and that is what you are doing. Jon Baker is a member of America’s Martial People, of which you will have seen little in, is it the Bronx? There are more of them than you know, and God bless them for their patriotism and service.

  74. thanks oblio..

    the thing is that i get mroe than my fair share. .
    and when one person is playing games, its hard to tell if the next person in the same thread is joking or dog piling on the rabbit.

    in general.. when they start their crap..
    i stand almost alone
    and when there is no response, you get a few of them joining in.

    so its rough.

    whats rougher is that i am so much on the side of freedom and am a huge source ofinformation…

    why do i keep having to go through trial by fire just because i have such a memory

    the truth is such a memory is a freaking curse. i am always drowning in information. its very hard to wade through it.

    lets just say that when someone is busy defending himself from a few comers, that isnt the time to walk up behind them and tap on their shoulder to make a joke.

    and to john. i apologize..

    well, where were you when i was being pummeled during those times..

    i seldom if ever saw you come to my aid and agree with me publicly… i tended to stand alone…

    betsy has said a lot more!!! (and i am very greatful for it – and a few others ahve too).

    but if you agreed. if you were on my side..

    then why did so many leae me out to dry and let me think that like william wallace there was no army behind me when it counted?

    ===========================

    i had hoped that people who the words didnt pertain to, would be smart enough to realize that i wasnt referring to them.

    for people who agree with me, many sure dont say a thing.. they instead wait till i am trying to prove a case with a huge post…

    after all, if i had 3 others that would stand up and confirm a sentence, then why would i have to post a page alone as my only empirical evidence?

    sorry john
    and thank you for the insight oblio!

  75. Artfldgr,
    Sorry you have felt alone. I read a lot of your post, sometimes I just scan them.

    My understanding of your overall view is that America and the West in General have been weakend from inside by the rewriting and/or ignoring of History in our schools, feminism, a gradual infusion of incremental socialism, multiculturalism, etc. And I think you believe many in DC are communist and many people in America just refuse to believe it.

    If that is your view I agree mostly with that.

    You seem, from what I recall, to also think that the Russians have it in for us still. I think elements maybe in the government yes-they are cozying up to the Iranians.

    You also seem to think efforts are afoot to establish some sort of Communist Western Collective- ie- the US and Europe absorbed under one collective roof- if the Rusians and Muslims and maybe the Chinese don’t get us first–am I wrong? If so, I think possibly you are right.

  77. If the democrats attempt to pass a bill using the slaughter solution then any law could be changed depending on who controls congress, just because the democrats pass health care today doesn’t mean the republicans could change it tomorrow, the president and the democrats are acting in a reckless manner just to pass this one piece of legislation, their folly will destroy the democratic party for years to come.

  78. You evidently do not comprehend the level of adoration that Americans invest in the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    It is literally, an American dogma, and utterly religious, in connotation, even among secularists. For most significantly, not just among conservatives but among liberals as well…all hold to that view.

    With the exception of the most rabid of leftists, every American pays homage to those fundamental American precepts. There is literally unanimity of agreement and consensus with those premises and precepts.

    It is the very heart of our cultural foundation.

    No one, would even think to disputing it and, all would literally fight to the death to defend it.

    Being arrogant and self righteous when making wrong proclamations and predictions gets kind of boring, doesn’t it.

    These mythical “liberals” must be letting bakers have a conscience then or promoting freedom to fly your Confed battle flag.

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