Yes, he can: executive orders on guns?
Ace points out the same thing that commenter “carl in atlanta” alluded to a moment ago—that this administration has declared some interesting intentions on gun control:
“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”
“Executive orders” and “executive action” on guns? That should come as no surprise, if it does happen. That’s the way around the legislative process, and if Obama can get away with it he will—on any topic.
That has been clear for a long, long time, and I’ve been expecting much more of it in his second term. I remember writing (although I can’t seem to find the post) a year or two into Obama’s first term that the prospect of his getting a second one was frightening, since he would no longer be restrained by the need to appeal to the public because he had to be mindful of re-election. He would essentially be unchecked.
Who’s going to stop him if he wants to do something by executive order? Congress? When the Senate is in Democratic hands? The Supreme Court? Don’t make me laugh.
To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the Court have?
That isn’t to say that recently the Court has been especially weak on Second Amendment rights so far (see this, for example; although that wasn’t exactly the same Court as now, it was a Court with a similar number of liberals and conservatives). But in recent years Obama has been successful in his campaign of Court intimidation, and I don’t think the Court would have the courage to defy him.
At any rate, how much longer can all the conservative Justices, and Anthony Kennedy, hold onto their health? None of them is exceptionally old. But nobody’s getting any younger.
The most credible — and disturbing — thing I read (somewhere) in this regard is the administrative reclassification of, for example, all semi-automatic firearms as class 2 weapons to subject them to all the regulations/limitations of fully automatic machine guns today.
I haven’t done any checking to see if this is accurate or what the real implications would be, but it caught my attention.
Per the other thread, I hope everyone sees the current headline over at Drudge ( while it lasts):
http://www.drudgereport.com/ [Still up as of 2:49 PM]
Think what you will about Matt Drudge’s wisdom, posting those two photos above the link took some guts.
Remember, they grabbed the guns before exterminating the scapegoat oppressors…
if it saves one life… than its worth it… says obama while signing abortion laws, murder by drone, and not removing cars from highways or hammers as they are used in more crimes and cause more deaths.
your about to find out that the constitution died a while baxk
as his signing statement will pit the office against the paper that created the office…
Voorwooorts!!!!! Vpred!!!!
Shoa II – not prevented because we gave up on merit
and without merit, you cant even decide to prevent it!!!
let alone have the tools, knowledge, and self organizing around the capable..
smoke them if you got em
as the carnage will start this year
which is what i said back in 2008
while people claimed i claimed it because of the mayan calendar!!!
i wonder what huxley the reasonable is doing now that things are way past reasonable and he and his kind are the most responsible… they are the ones that kept people from crushing bugs before the plague would rise from said bugs
Oh… i said this was a process
refuse to learn the process, you refuse to learn where the process will take you, regardlss of the chaff it puts out to stop you from stopping it or recognizing it.
we are all equal… the idiots and the knowing
so nothing wins the debate or organizes the opposition
as idiocy, fantasy, musings, hypothesis, are all equal to knowing, experience, and merit…
am i still negative for saying this is where we would be when i said it? before it was insulting as i was telling people with modern self esteems that they would not rise to the occaision, bugt will mill about and not get to it and not really do anyting but talk… they dint like that truth about themselves… so they said i was negative. I said no… its not negative to say something bad will happen if people keep heading towards bad… that used to be called a warning, not negativity
last time this happened, over 40 million had to die before it resolved itself…
how many will it be this time as the population of the planet is a lot higher, the weapons are a lot better, and the morals all around are feminist morals (much lower than before when the morals were oppressive), and the majoirty of the men do not want to fight for the society that hates them, for wives that dont need them and a state that punishes them.
oh, the wailing of the more than equal will be loud
I’ve said pretty much all I can say on this issue, in that previous thread (too old to scroll down to) which totaled I think approximately 60-70 comments.
I don’t think there will be blood in the streets, a revolution, or that it will be 1776 all over again. Well fed middle class working people with mortgages and big screen t.v.’s tend not to riot. Espcially during footbal playoff season. And especially when the media tells them that only extremist kooks would have a problem with this.
However, there will be tens of millions of newly created “Felons” who will NOT obey orders to turn in their weapons (of any sort); and millions upon millions of canoe tipping accidents, and “lost” guns. The real blood in the streets will start picking up later, I expect, when some of those millions (after getting tired of stashing their weopons under the bed or in the garage) decide to quietly sell them for cash, on the black market — to people who WILL then use them for mayhem. Helllooo Mexico!! The number of illegal semi-automatic guns, which will be “off the books” but in the streets will be really really astronomical.
All those bitter clingers, clinging to their guns and bibles that Dear Leader and the elites don’t care for? Marginalize them. (Racist Tea baggers?) Then…Criminalize them!!
If you’re a Democrat in congress from a state other than California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, or a handful of other small northeastern states, how much trouble might you get in supporting aggressive gun control laws? Is the EO a way to get gun control laws without Democrats having to put their neck on the line?
southernjames: agreed.
I’m also not at all sure how fast Obama will go on this right now. I think he has the intent, but he may think the time is not yet right. I’m about 50/50 on whether he’ll actually do anything like this now, and on exactly what the executive order would be. My guess is that it would be something that expands gun laws about so-called assault weapons and the size of magazines, rather than being anything more sweeping.
That would be for later.
I think Biden is throwing this out there and testing the wind, and seeing what the reaction is, and also trying to intimidate Congress into passing something by saying “If you don’t do it, we can do it without you.”
Without getting into specifics this situation could get ugly. Most gun owners are well behaved and law abiding. Some unknown number are not.
Biden is such a clown. “Executive Action” was a 1970s synonym for assassination.
I wonder if any liberal would admit that this issue, while important to them, is not actually a pressing concern for the nation. I mean, what is going on here?
Executive Orders are supposed to be internal guidelines for how the government operates. To change rules that affect outside stakeholders (citizens) directly is such an affront to limited government that it is worthy of impeachment.
holmes: Obama could be impeached, but he will never be convicted unless the composition of the Senate changes dramatically in favor of the GOP. Which isn’t going to happen.
And when I write “never,” I mean “no matter what he does.”
Barack may not care, but how many Democratic Senators up for re-election in the Red and Purple states in 2014 care would be an interesting question.
There are more powers than just executive orders buried away in the USC. Karl pointed out yesterday that the Gun Control Act of 1968 vests the Treasury Secretary with the power to ban importation of all arms that he determines ‘don’t have a sporting purpose.’
And an Executive Order that changes the administrative rulemaking process seems per se unconstitutional, or else the whole farce that is the administrative state would come crumbling down. These things are supposed to be done on the sly with dummy email accounts, and then a rule proposed for comment.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 is unconstitutional under Heller.
Strange – I seem to recall arguing on this very site that the unconstitutional executive powers that Bush & Cheney claimed and Obama inherited were a threat to our liberty.
I asked if you were comfortable with a socialist like Obama wielding the power to indefinitely detain Americans, and the consensus was, “Oh, those measures only apply to Muslim extremists!”
So here we are with the prospect of rule by imperial edict. And folks wonder, “How did that happen?”
OR- I think a lot of people had an issue with the indefinite detention of citizens. But the indefinite detention of foreign persons taken into custody in a battle zone is a different issue. The executive has near plenary power over foreign affairs, which is one of the great irony of our times since our sole focus during elections is domestic policy, where Congress is supposed to lead.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your “I told you so!” moment. It must have been cathartic for you.
American totalitarianism is now well underway.
Conservative constitutionalists will become the New Jews. Drudge has it right.
I think an executive order for gun control, or even just the threat of it, is to incite the right and pro-gun thinkers into making an otherwise unforced foot fault. They’ll reclassify certain weapons, or create some sort of new federal registry, with the hope that the resulting protest will be so “out of balance” that there will be splinters in the pro-gun movement. If he can simply get portions of the pro-NRA group to disagree with each other publically in response to his executive order, it will have been worth it for O. Remember: Fast and Furious was about gun control, intended to create a public outcry against guns and no crisis, i.e., Newtown, should ever go to waste.
I have disagreed with a number of things this administration has done and has proposed. The budget is recklessly out of control, the ACA is an abomination, etc., but this might be the first time I’ve been truly alarmed.
Well I dunno. I don’t like to live in Tinfoil Hat Town, but this is all starting to make me wonder what the heck actually happened in Aurora and Newtown. There are plenty of oddities, such as the relationships the two shooters’ fathers have to the Administration. And Fast-and-Furious had already made it clear that these guys don’t mind putting together some pretty convoluted and illegal conspiracies to promote their anti-firearms agenda. It could almost make you suspect that there are some fairly intricate False Flags blowing in the wind.
I, like Artfl, sometimes wonder what Huxley is up to, what he thinks of all this. A couple of years ago, he was pretty confident that all we needed was an election, that that would put things right. He had precious little patience with anyone who saw trouble on the horizon–the sort of trouble we now bid fair to have.
betsybounds: I think you are venturing into 9/11-truther territory.
Those events were horrific incidents that the left sees as opportunities to push a certain wished-for agenda.
Yes. Well. As I said, I know it’s Tinfoil Hat Town, and I don’t much like it. And it’s a sometime back-and-forth over whether these guys are setting these things up or whether they’re just very good opportunists. Most of the time I think it’s the latter but every now and then I wonder, is all.
I will just add that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a 9/11 truther.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
T. Jefferson
Mr. Frank: It’s harder to for the people to protect themselves from tyranny if they fail to recognize it as such before it’s gone too far.
It’s also hard to see how, if the government went into full-court-press tyranny, a citizenry armed with guns could resist, if the government was willing to be brutal enough.
I’m now reading a lot of people on Twitter who are saying it’s basically a strategic ploy- to cajole Congres into action. Who does that? Who feints at what is clearly an unconstitutional overreach to score political points? Oh right, same people who have a filmmaker jailed and scapegoated for ME violence. My bad.
For what it is worth, I wrote to my Senator–Feinstein–and to my Congressman. You can see how desperate my situation is, because I did not write to my truly looney other Senator; and my Congressman, who is a Republican, seems to be a figment of my imagination for all of his impact.
Mr Frank is correct that this may get very ugly. But, I do not mean that there will be effective resistance. Oh, a few may try; but, even if our government cannot defeat a third world insurgency, it has demonstrated that it can destroy domestic fringe groups pretty effectively. I meant that it can get ugly for the democratic process and for constitutionally protected freedoms. For the Leftists, the fox has broken cover, the chase is on; loose the hounds. Tallyho!
I agree with southernjames, there is a lot of big talk, but again, how many will conceal their guns, and risk becoming a felon and sacrificing the good life in support of a principle? I suspect relatively few.
holmes: I wrote something similar to that here.
Neo said,
It’s also hard to see how, if the government went into full-court-press tyranny, a citizenry armed with guns could resist, if the government was willing to be brutal enough.
Yes. It would have to be like against the Nazis in the Balkans only much worse. Modern technology and communications give a government overwhelming power. Right now every email sent in America is stored by the government.
Oldflyer, it is alway the relatively few that act in any situation. The real question is whether there is general support among the people to support acts in defense of freedom and liberty. There were enough in 1773 to bring about a profound change that was unthinkable. There are those who will not go quietly down the road to serfdom and tyranny today as well. In DC on 9/12/09 and was astounded by the crowd and how civil it was. I live in an area with a large mititary presence. These people will sacrifice life for principle. Bet on it.
EO’s were issued by Clinton to ban the importation of certain rifles deemed “assault weapons”. If I am remembering correctly, GHW Bush issued at least one EO on importation. But anything major, such as registration, is not going to sit well with democrats running for office in red states. I think the danger lies with levying taxes on guns and ammo.
Keep your powder dry. And, by all means let your governor, senators, and representatives know that you support the 2nd.
Gun laws regarding registration, regulating concealed carry, etc are decided at the state level. Will states cooperate with the federal regulations that are imposed by executive order or will they pass laws explicitly forbidding cooperation? I predict the latter. I think the response will be strong and clear. And I think the states will prevail if and when they take on the feds in court.
Steve Says:
“Gun laws regarding registration, regulating concealed carry, etc are decided at the state level. Will states cooperate with the federal regulations that are imposed by executive order or will they pass laws explicitly forbidding cooperation?”
I’ve been saying for awhile that we have to follow the left’s lead with immigration and pot. Just stop complying. Obamacare, gun control, forget it… not going to comply.
Betsybounds – suburban upper middle class white kids is what happened. I Dont mean on any level it was not horrific, but where is the outrage about the thousands of minority kids killed every year by guns? The media and the democrat politicians couldn’t give a damn about them.
No tears or vigils or endless attention from the media for the lesser people. It’s not happening in places they live. When liberal media people and politicians see this happen, they see themselves as vulnerable – this is a community where they might live, the kind of idyllic neighborhood so many of them live in. At least that’s some of it. White kids = terrible tragedy, but minority communities don’t, and wouldn’t get the same kind of sensationalism.
Obama did call conservatives “enemies,” that pretty much tells you how he sees the people who did not vote for him.
I’ll agree that the intent of the founders was to give the citizenry the power to stand against a tyrannical government, but that is not even possible without a very widespread rebellion. Folks who huddle together to resist will be surrounded, tanks will roll over you, and what’s left will be scraped away. Anybody remember Waco during the Clinton years? Janet Reno just smugly quoted her mama “atta girl”, and that was the end of that.
Where this really matters is the right to defend yourself and your home from unlawful intruders. And like all things of the modern left, they want to reserve that for themselves. Everyone else can call 911 and take a #.
Karl Denninger wrote another great Ticker this morning: Fox Gets It Right (!) On Guns
It’s long, but well worth reading. As usual, Denninger inserts reason and common sense into the discussion. He makes the interesting point that once an individual has decided to commit murder, all his other law violations are “free”. You can only be imprisoned for life or executed once. So no amount of laws can dissuade him. I’ve never heard it put quite like that before.
He also points out that the Columbine massacre occurred during the assault weapons ban in the 1990s, and they used 10-round magazines. So the ban on “high capacity” magazines did nothing to prevent Columbine. It only takes a couple of seconds to change a magazine, regardless of the capacity.
Southpaw, he also addresses your point in detail.
Finally, don’t miss Geschrei’s comment. He put together some eye-opening graphs comparing rates of gun homicide vs. gun ownership in various countries.
Obama will not make a EO that really means anything or would be questionable enough to raise EO as a thing to be valid and move to a legal realm to decide. ie. no challenge, no end to it.
but given the way our system works, and looks at those things (which is a power not granted constitutionally if i remember), its existence is the freedom to end the state and take it all – even if we do not reference the EOs that technically already give powers to the office.
here is the EO of usurpation…
part 1 – this EO declares that all legal entities related to the state that oppose this EO would be replaced.
part 2 – this EO declares that there is no more supreme court and that the choices made by such now rest in the hands of the president.
ok.. now stop that one. the supreme court that is dissolved cant judge the validity, and the judges that would freeze it are out before it can be tested.
given our adherence to the return of writ of kings, we are also subject to the rules we allow in such, and the rules are that the court responds, not anticipates. and so, such a power can dissolve that which would respond.
then what?
any argument that just declares it cant happen (without explanation of reason), is in the same class of arguments that got us to the point of talking this stuff rather than doing other things in our lives.
The point of my post was not to actually create a proper no break EO… but to say that one exists and if so, what then can the people do if implemented in one move, or in many parts.
so any argument to break the EO, would really be part of a discussion to actually make that kind of eo and address each point till it doesnt fail.
but the larger question of what such power potentially allows and its ability to negate the powers that would or could rescind, change, or negate the power in total).
and lets really spice things up with our look to a future where the US has strife and is weak and no longer organized.
Retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, also said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon that U.S. and Western arms specialists have dramatically underestimated China’s nuclear arsenal. Beijing’s warhead arsenal, he said, likely is between 1,600 to 1,800 nuclear warheads and bombs.
and one should note that the agreements that mutually limit the US and Russia (if they follow it), do not limit china…
oops..
I owe nine weapons…. Only two have ever been registered. This seems to be the story with my friends. Old weapons that were passed down from grandpa or dad.
My two registered guns were stolen from my car…… A few years ago when driving through another state, mr lae enforcement dude
“I own”….. “Mr. Law enforcement dude”…. Damn small iPad keyboard
oh… and if you want to know where they think they are taking us, just read
The Road We Are Traveling by Stuart Chase
http://ia600204.us.archive.org/22/items/TheRoadWeAreTraveling/TheRoadWeAreTraveling.pdf
Familiar?
guns would stand in the way of the goal of such a well regulated society…
(so does the constitution, religions, etc… )
and the idea of owning nothing but controlling everything..
“I want to own nothing but control everything” Rockefeller
“The secret to success is to own nothing, but control everything” – Nelson Rockefeller
Despotism’s look alike, and do much the same thing, due to the requirements
the ideas that pretend to be their raison detre do not define the creature
form follows function, to the task fits the tool – for which the particular strain of justification serves only to make it all seem so legitimate.
Yep, Art, from my reading of Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”, Mussolini–who was a socialist in his youth–regarded fascism as a “new, improved” version of socialism.
I do not think Obama will issue an executive order regarding guns. I believe this is a way of getting people to tolerate more restrictions; propose an extreme and anything less will seem more acceptable.
Regardless, I’ve put off buying a new handgun for several years now because of the cost. Biden’s hot air has finally pushed me to act. I have Friday off, and money set aside for a new computer which instead I’ll use for a Glock. I figure that before too long I won’t be able to buy a gun at all (SoCal is bound to lead the country on any gun sale crackdown) so I’d better do it while I still can…similar to the way I stockpiled incandescent lightbulbs when they started pushing the damned CFL ones on us.
holmes,
No, I don’t take any more pleasure from being proven right than Ethan did in Jurassic Park.
You do know that the NDAA authorizes the indefinite detention of American citizens.
Don’t you?
It’s also hard to see how, if the government went into full-court-press tyranny, a citizenry armed with guns could resist, if the government was willing to be brutal enough.
With all respect, I disagree, neo. In fact, to the contrary, I don’t see how a government could become tyrannical with an armed citizenry, brutality notwithstanding.
As evidence I cite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Now God knows no one can bring the brutality like progressives, but even with 100,000 troops the liberals could not impose their will on 23 million Afghans.
If every late night knock on the door were met with hot lead moving in the opposite direction, pretty soon it’d be hard to get people to knock on anybody’s door. The fragmented nature of the resistance would actually be a strength as well as a weakness; it would be like a meadow filled with grass as opposed to a tree. Cutting down a tree is easy; cutting every blade of grass, one by one, is hard.
And, paradoxically, the more brutal the government’s action, the more resistance it would engender, because it would be more apparent that those opposed had little to lose.
So while it would be ghastly, I think the citizenry would ultimately prevail.
Or so I hope.
Old Rebel is correct, the NDAA allows indefinite detention without specific charges and no counsel. The nebulous catch all phrase is strong evidence the citizen has “substantially supported” terrorists. Somehow I get the feeling this is not directed at members of CAIR.
If that provision is allowed to stand this will be used against citizens deemed to be dangerous to the agenda. How about the shop owners who originally sold the weapons and ammo the terrorist used to murder 26 in Newtown? Would it be a stretch to accuse them of having “substantially supported” the young mad man? I can, and I’m most us can to, think about many situations where this provision could be used.
I agree with Occam. .gov would lose. The Blight Bringer would be impeached. Of course it would just be a formality as he would already be in a military prison. The Senate would convict because Dingy Harry Reid would be in the cell next door.
John Ross, broker and investment adviser from St Louis, wrote a very lengthy novel about the gun culture as experienced by the main character who started shooting as young boy and remained a shooting enthusiast his whole life and became a licensed dealer. The plot takes into account the ever more restrictive laws and regulations enacted from 1930s up to the present day.
Then one evening a BATF team arrives late at night to plant large amounts of money tainted with cocaine, large bags of cocaine, schematics of government building, illegal guns and gun parts to plant at the shop when they think no one is present. He simultaneously learns by cell phone that BATF is planning 2 other busts on near by dealers. He decides he isn’t going to let this happen to him. After this incident the story changes from his joy of shooting to his plans to take on the BAFT.
Unintended Consequences is well thought out and realistic. If you’re not interested in the tactics this rebellion uses, you might find the historical aspects (all accurate) to be of interest. I have a few ‘gun nut’ relatives and friends. If they don’t own a copy, they’ve read it and understand the tactics and how to select targets. In the book BAFT agents remain their main targets but they also go after politicians with vehement anti-2nd legislative records. And no, all the assassinations are not carried out with a firearm. Lots of quiet lethal tactics were used. Hundreds of thousands of serious firearm owners see this book as a textbook The beauty of the strategity is those in on this crusade work as individuals or groups of 2 or3. They don’t know the names of the other teams or where they live. They communicate through faxes sent to on line blogs dealing with firearm issues.
Pardon my jump around with this ‘review’ and going off on tangents. Its good read and I guarantee you will have a better understanding of gun culture and the wide variety people all across the country who engage in firing millions of rounds honing their skills and taking tactical lessons. Its a rather large, wide spread potential guerilla force. Many are ex military of ex cops. But most are people who do not want to let the 2nd be emasculated. And these are not stupid people looking to down in a blaze of glory. They want to hit the target and quietly disappear.
Who’s going to stop him if he wants to do something by executive order? Congress?
I have even less faith in Congress on this than you do (as the Indonesian should have been impeached many, many times already – regardless of whether a Senate conviction would be had). The cowards in the House GOP couldn’t even be moved to do anything about Barky taking America to war in Libya without Congressional approval or his insane executive order to just legalize all illegals Barky personally felt deserved legal residency. Those are just two of literally tens of clearly impeachable acts done by the Indonesian Dog-Eating Imbecile and the House GOP has just stood by and said NOTHING.
In any event, if the House ever finds its balls, they do have simple recourse to Barky’s dictatorial moves that don’t depend on the Senate for anything – shut the feral government down. Turn off the money. Stop the funding. End the Executive branch’s checks. Period. Defund everything they can (in whatever budgets they might elect to pass) but other than that just don’t raise the debt limit and stop the flow of funds (as the House STILL holds the purse strings and that is the most powerful point of government).
Unfortunately, I don’t expect any action like this out of the cowardly eunuchs in the GOP House … but they could do this if they had any brains and wanted to defend America and could force the Indonesian back into his Constitutional box. Of course, if this were even a possibility we wouldn’t have the Weeping Boner holding the Weepership in the new House after he’s been such an abject failure as Minority leader and then Weeper of the House …
It’s really past time for a national divorce. Time to start anew.
This just my opinion so I offer the advise to step back from buying the AR platform and stay away from semi-auto handguns right now. In many locations these guns are out of stock, with long waits for new supplies. And they are expensive due to the panic. If you absolutely feel you need an “assault rifle” buy a surplus Russian SKS. Compared to everything else it will get the job done just as well as an AR out to 200 yards.
If the gun is something you want to use for defense of your home buy a 12 gauge and shells of different varieties. 5 boxes of#4 buckshot, a box of #00 double ought, 2 or 3 boxes #6 birdshot, and perhaps a box of slugs. The longer shells pack more lead but you will have to check to see what shell lengths you gun can digest.
If you want a handgun and you want it now go for a used 357 revolver in good condition. I’m not going to go into how you can test the wheel gun but you will find lots of info at the NRA or other gun rights organization. I guess it comes down to what application you want the gun to fulfill.
If you who are currently looking for firearms and know more than I do about common firearms please ignore my advise.
If it gets to the point that private ownership of semi-automatic weapons is banned by this government, no-one should turn their weapon(s) in until any politician or governmental official gives up their security personnel. If we don’t have the right to personal protection, why should they?
As an aside, the Affordable Care Act has caused a $4000.00 per year per employee premium increase for my employer. That’s only a $6500 differential compared to what was promised by dear leader. Since we’ve had it so good for so long, it’s time we get reduced to third world status, apparently. It’s not fair, Americans are so rich, ya know?
0bomba is creating Chicago on the Potomac…
Wherein one is perpetually in thrall to City Hall.
Endless salami-slice restrictions create an age which permits a ‘right thinking’ Gregory to break the law…
Whereas, Joe Nobody is pounded into the pavement.
Like the Terror of Stalin — 0bomba’s endless sea of regulation and agitprop has all of society focusing its attention on the ‘wrong hand.’
And so, without publicity, more crony-capitalist shakedown gambits can be erected.
Grifter in Chief…. That’s it.
brinster,
I would add that we should demand that Diane Feinstein, Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emmanuel, and Nanny Bloomberg should go unarmed into South Chicago with a bag full of money to buy back guns from the gang members and then inspect all their apartments and cars and certify them as gun and dope free. Make them show us how well these ideas work. Fllowing this, they can give up their dy jobs (they have “enough” money) and open and work in a food store in a high crime neighborhood.
following and day jobs in the last sentence.
expat, it’s too bad the odds of that happening are about equal to winning Powerball or Megamillions.
rickl Says:
“Yep, Art, from my reading of Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”, Mussolini—who was a socialist in his youth—regarded fascism as a “new, improved” version of socialism.”
I had a econ prof that taught the regulated utility concept came right from the nazis.
Then later when I read about Mussolini I began to see that we might have gotten the idea for administrative law / agencies from him….
Occam’s Beard Says:
“Cutting down a tree is easy; cutting every blade of grass, one by one, is hard.”
I love the metaphor for another reason. The Yamamoto quote. Its multi leveled!
brinster Says:
“As an aside, the Affordable Care Act has caused a $4000.00 per year per employee premium increase for my employer. That’s only a $6500 differential compared to what was promised by dear leader.”
While grumbling myself I would like to make one point (and no; I mean it / it is not spin or sarc). At least this huge expense implies we will still get real healthcare (unlike what people get in the UK, France, et cetera).
My biggest fear, all along, was that once healthcare was made ‘democratic’ (left spin for not someone you could make choices about) that the majority (who are not ill) would decide saving money was better than treating the sick (as in what has happened in almost all of Europe.. a couple countries will oil aside). I want real insurance that I paid for; not for the majority to decide whether I’m worth the expense.
expat Says:
“I would add that we should demand that Diane Feinstein, Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emmanuel, and Nanny Bloomberg”
Drudge Dred came to mind. Here; take this volume of our laws and go for a walk beyond the wall. 🙂
Blert- perfect.
Voice of experience….
This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not
Washington’s clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently – Pravda
Artfldgr: well, this is a first, I think.
I wrote this post before I saw your comment right above.
But not only are we linking to the same article in Pravda, but we use the same phrase to describe it: the voice of experience.
@Brinster: No, you will not get real healthcare. All that money will fund a massive, intrusive, bureaucratic machine that will get in the way of real healthcare. The British NHS is the third largest bureaucracy in the world, after the Chines Red Army and the Indian railways. It is fully unionized and a massive voting block for the Labor party. It also delivers mediocre healthcare. Trust me; I’ve experienced British healthcare. The NHS is the model for Obama’s healthcare reform. It isn’t about healthcare; it is a about power and control and creating reliable Democrat voting blocks.
Re: Guns. Far more people are killed by drunk drivers than by guns. Should the Government outlaw alcohol? Oh, it did, and we all know how that worked out. It’s not the gun nuts we have to worry about; its the nuts with guns. If Obama wants to lose the Senate in 2014, he should go ahead with heavy gun regulation. If he was serious about stopping gun violence he’d work on mental health issues and gang violence. But we know he won’t do that.
Pat Says:
“@Brinster: No, you will not get real healthcare. All that money will fund a massive, intrusive, bureaucratic machine that will get in the way of real healthcare.”
Yeah; it will end up that way I have no doubt (ah la the public school path). But it will take a few years to get fubar. Maybe enough to find an exit… since as of now there is not one in place.
One major dangerous aspect of our current situation is that the Congress – the House and the Senate – don’t seem to have a strong sense of identity as members of the House and members of the Senate first with the prerogatives that go with their positions. Members see themselves first as leftist Democrats and right wing Republicans — houses divided cannot stand against a determined aggressive President no matter which party.
In more ‘normal’ times a President who goes too far has to be concerned that the Congress will overlook their party differences to defend their branch of the government from encroachment. When there were more moderate members holding the center this was a likely and natural response to an aggressive President.
When the Congress can’t find common ground to take care of obvious problems in dire need of some action – as we have now – it is tempting for the President to take action via EO pathway, and to the extent he is seen as fixing some obvious problem facing a divided paralyzed Congress he might well find significant public backing.
And as for the Supreme Court acting as a check – we’ve already seen Roberts in the face of a divided country and Congress attempt to create a common ground ignoring the Constitution – somewhat – on the ObamaCare issues before the court. IMO Roberts wasn’t so much attempting to interpret the Constitution as he was trying to fashion a least disruptive compromise which he then justified after the fact.
This is extremely dangerous and as Congress and the President fail to deal with the debt accumulation/spending problems and a shutdown gets closer look for the President to apply some imaginative interpretations of e.g. the 14th amendment. We’ve already gotten a taste with EO moves on immigration and Biden is threatening unilateral moves to impose the leftist worldview solution on gun violence on the country. It’s a bit scary how the left can find the right to privacy in the Constitution and fight to the death to protect it, but can’t seem to find the provision regarding the right bear arms.
“At any rate, how much longer can all the conservative Justices, and Anthony Kennedy, hold onto their health? ”
When there is no convenient emergency to take advantage of, the Left will be motivated further and further into creating it out of whole cloth. What they cannot take advantage of, they will generate all on their own.