Posts Tagged → rights
The importance of Sunday hunting – come join us
Hunting is more than recreation. It is more than even “making meat,” so your family can survive.
Hunting is one of the few authentically human of activities left to us, we modern humans, shells of our former paleolithic selves that we are.
Today, in America, we hunt to be fully human, to demonstrate that we are still engaged with our ecosystems as the predator we became so many thousands of years ago.
Wild animals are still the cleanest, healthiest source of protein available. Getting your own meat through hunting is the most honest way to get food.
Sunday hunting here in Pennsylvania is nearly verboten. Somewhere in the 1860s a wave of religious commitment (a good thing) swept through America, and with it came “Blue Laws,” a very bad thing. Blue Laws are artificial contrivances to more or less force people to stay away from commercial activity on Sunday.
Here in PA we still cannot buy a car on Sunday, nor can we hunt for anything more than coyote, crow or fox.
Using the force of law to deprive the citizenry of choice on something like hunting, when it is really a private property rights issue, is simply wrong. Blocking private landowners from hunting on their own land on Sunday is bad law, bad government, and it must be changed, for so many reasons.
Providing more Sunday hunting opportunities will open up about 50% more hunting time for Pennsylvanians, who typically can only hunt on Saturday, if they even have Saturday off from work. We are losing hunters, we need to recruit more hunters, and this is the biggest step we can take toward getting hunters back into the numbers where we are a measurable force for conservation and gun rights.
At 2:00 PM on March 11th at the PA Game Commission headquarters here in Harrisburg, a meeting is being held about how to get the Sunday hunting effort moving forward again. Some may recall I served as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit several years ago. So much effort was put into that, and then RINO Yvette Kane struck. Kane, now a federal judge who openly accepts valuable gifts of jewelry and cars from law firms doing business before her bench, said that Sunday hunting was not a federal religious freedom issue, and sent us to state court, which said it was a federal issue.
We cannot get justice anywhere.
And this is the conundrum we face. Pennsylvania is one of the very last hold-outs on Sunday hunting in America. All but a few states allow full Sunday hunting, during hunting seasons, which are typically during the Fall and winter. Every state surrounding us is a commie state, and yet they allow meaningful Sunday hunting. Only PA is stopping a million of its citizens from fully realizing their recreational dreams and best family time.
Please come join us on March 11th at the PGC HQ, at 2:00 PM, to work on the political solution to this silly problem. Your grandchildren will thank you.
Liberals are filled up with hate, over nothing
Several years ago we caught two local guys stealing oak firewood, tree tops set aside along a field edge for cutting and splitting. By us, the owners.
Despite posted signs, the two men helped themselves, relying in their own minds on an old, long-gone approval they had enjoyed years and years prior, and which I had already revoked and conditioned on prior approval in the future.
These are not run-of-the-mill guys. Both are highly educated, tall, big, strong, married guys with plenty of confidence and income.
One, S, is a successful attorney, who risked his law license over some “free” firewood.
The other guy, J, is a historian, a curatorial professional with a government job, which is also at risk for committing theft. He’s no dummy.
When confronted, the lawyer left six voice mails on my phone, asking forgiveness. Months later, we encountered one another at a land protection dedication ceremony, and he came right up to me and said “We need to talk.” His remorse was evident, and I declined to talk further about it, because my prior experiences with him had demonstrated that his remorse and appreciation has previously been short-lived. And sure enough, his wife then acted unpleasantly, as if I had done something wrong when I next encountered her. As if!
Here’s the rub and the point of this: Both men (and their wives) are politically liberal. When I say liberal, they are as liberal as I am conservative-libertarian. They are both gun owners who denigrate the NRA, which is freeloading, in my opinion, but I have never brought it up with them. On almost all other issues they are very liberal.
We three are polar opposites, politically, which never bothered me and which I had always taken in stride. We rarely discussed politics in social contexts, preferring to talk about hunting, fishing, the kids, etc.
The difference is that I do not judge people based on their politics, and whether or not we disagree, or agree. These differences are as natural and naturally variable as enjoying chocolate versus vanilla ice cream, family backgrounds, etc. Rather, I mostly enjoy people in all their diversity.
Well, back to the firewood.
Much of the resolution to the firewood theft was conducted through emails.
The emails that I subsequently received from J were unbelievably vituperative, aggressive, accusatory. No remorse for his bad behavior, none, and filled with hate and criticism for me. He called me a “bad person,” though I have no criminal history or record, having NEVER been arrested or charged with a crime.
J was simply angry at me and caustically critical because of my political views. He labeled me a bad person because of my views, not my actions. He did not object to the (gentle) way we had resolved the firewood debacle.
Even S eventually fell back onto this same approach, bad-mouthing me to anyone who would listen to him, even people he saw in downtown Harrisburg on the street. Perhaps S feared being outed, and went on the offense in an effort to “inoculate” himself.
Many of these people he talked with naturally reported back to me on what they were hearing from S, wanting to know what could lead to such a raw outcome between us. I never told anyone the full story, because I did not want to impugn either of the men, though they had both earned it. Especially in the aftermath of the original theft. From what people have told me, S’s criticism of me is primarily rooted in his visceral distaste for my political views.
The difference between our behaviors in this case are a microcosm of the larger divide between liberals and everyone else in America, and this double standard is not working. It is not good.
Through constant bombardment in public schools, colleges, the media, and the entertainment industry Liberals have been taught and conditioned to utterly hate and despise conservatives, Republicans, religious Christians, and now even “white” people.
To Liberals, the moderate Republican Koch brothers are evil, cruel, mean, despised, demonized, even when they donate hundreds of millions of dollars, but equal billionaire capitalists Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are lauded no matter what they do.
ANTIFA and BLM’s violent war on free speech and the First Amendment rights of political opponents is an epic example of the natural results of modern Liberalism. They actually go so far as to say that their suppression of other’s rights is “resistance” and “self defense.” That is pure crap.
This unhealthy dynamic and double standard has reached the point where merely disagreeing with a liberal on policy issues results in someone being branded racist, homophobic, mean, sexist etc etc etc. This is utter crap, of course.
Used to be that Liberals were open-minded, considerate, reflective, etc. Those qualities are now long gone, and they have been replaced by naked contempt and hate for people who disagree with them and their policy goals.
Ironically, the more rational and articulate the disagreement, the worse the liberal’s hatred. Wanting my son’s Boy Scouts troop to be free of anything sexual, because it creeps me out that some adults want to sexualize little kids, has liberals branding me and others nationwide as “haters” because we want the BSA institution to remain above politicization.
This Liberal hatred is a form of intense bigotry, and it has deeply divided Americans, corroding our national soul to the point where everyone is feeling raw and angry. It has caused liberals to go on murderous rampages with guns, shooting people with whom they have a political disagreement.
For a long time conservatives thought they were merely under disagreement with liberals, whereas Liberals were at war. Now we see it; we are at war.
And now we have arrived at the latest results of that war, 59 dead and about 600 people wounded in Los Vegas.
Liberals need to ask themselves if this is really, truly what they want. If it isn’t, then the time for soul-searching and making amends has arrived.
Liberals who disagree with this politically correct war on America and Americans, your voice is needed.
A Flyers’ Bill of Rights
If you fly on planes to get long distances, then you know the experience has changed dramatically over the past fifteen years. Ever since 2001, flyers have become suspects, meals have been removed, and it is no longer a fun or exciting experience.
The reduction of personal space allotted to seats, i.e. the increase in the number of seats per plane without increasing the size of the plane, has made it a much more cramped experience.
For most people, flying has become a tense and uncomfortable undertaking.
With United Airlines’ recent assault on the most innocent and gentle Dr. Dao, who suffered a concussion and knocked out teeth because he dared to sit in the seat he had purchased on a United Airlines plane, a national discussion has begun.
This discussion is about what rights do passengers have, and what duties do airlines have.
Shouldn’t passengers have lots of rights?
Shouldn’t airlines have lots of duties to their paying customers?
If the way its staff treat its passengers, United Airlines is an especially poorly run company and is downright dangerous for the passengers. Go online and search out “United Airlines violence passengers” and you will see plenty of videos of innocent flyers who have been targeted by rude, impatient, bullying stewardesses, captains, and other flight staff. The smallest of perceived slights often result in the flight staff accusing the passenger of being “disruptive.”
March in the muscle, and beat the hell out of the person who paid for their seat and wanted to stay there.
United Airlines has cultivated a culture of viciousness against its own flyers.
So much for flying the friendly skies!
Two weeks ago United Airlines booted a just-married couple headed to South America for their honeymoon. The facts are all on the side of the couple. They encountered an especially crabby stewardess who was having a bad day, could not control herself, and who picked a fight with the couple. Even when the couple retreated to their seats and cowered, the stewardess was unrelenting. She was on a power trip.
Other airlines have the same kinds of problems, though not nearly as violent as United Airlines, and thus has the demand begun for a flyer’s bill of rights.
Here is a try:
Declaration One: If a passenger buys a seat on a plane, and arrives there during the seating period, then the passenger is entitled to stay in that seat the duration of the flight.
There can be no bait-and-switch by airlines. If they sell you a seat, then that is your seat.
Declaration Two: Airlines cannot compel passengers to leave their seats for “overbooking.”
Overbooking is gross incompetence, or criminal theft, where the airline tries to hedge its potential losses by taking on more passengers than it has seats for on a plane, and then blames the paying passengers for having bought a seat. The airline then engages in all kinds of bribery and threats. This is where the sad Dr. Dao got tripped up and professionally beaten to a pulp.
Declaration Three: Airline staff who falsely accuse passengers shall be charged with felony assault and shall pay treble damages to said passenger.
One of the classic tricks these evil airline staff do is start a dispute with a passenger, and then blame the passenger. They accuse them of being “disruptive.” A flight passenger is in a precarious and especially vulnerable position. When flight staff exploit that weakness and falsely accuse the passenger, a bright line separating civilization from barbarism has been crossed. The right kinds of disincentives have to be created to dissuade flight staff from acting like petty tyrants, and to behave professionally.
These declarations might sound simple and obvious, but apparently the law of the jungle is not working on our airplanes right now, and we have to start somewhere to reintroduce basic human rights and civility.
And to think that when I was a kid I looked forward to getting on a plane!
UPDATE April 22: Now American Airlines has new video and still photos of a flight attendant gone wild, a burly man who hit a passenger, a mother carrying twin babies. He hit her on her head with the metal stroller her kids had been in, and then he challenged other passengers who objected to fight him, and then threatened to have them thrown off the plane. Folks, what we are seeing is the result of too much leeway, responsibility, and decision making being given to people with no background, experience, or training to handle it. As a result, the powertripping opportunities and ego rushes take over, and these flight attendants go bananas on people who are literally flying from one end of the earth to the other. We deserve a Passenger Bill of Rights.
Exercise the power of the People to impeach and remove bad judges
Both the United States Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution make plain that American and Pennsylvania state governments derive their power from the People.
But my, oh my, have we not seen a tremendous erosion of privacy and basic individual rights and liberties over the years as government power to regulate and surveil expands. Much of this starts with local law enforcement.
Over and over again we read with amazement how some official government regulatory or law enforcement arm commits another over-reach deep into some poor citizen’s life. And then with even greater amazement we read how some judge, especially federal judges, uphold what would appear on its face to violate the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. Here are some headlines:
“Ohio Court upholds police forced entry into private home over failure to signal at traffic light…”
“New Jersey Federal Court Upholds The FTC’s Authority To Regulate Data Security”
“Judge Upholds Police ‘Code of Silence’ Ruling…U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve decided Thursday decided not to toss out part of a jury’s decision that found Chicago police operated under a “code of silence,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
Last month, a jury found the police department obstructed the investigation into the beating death of bartender Karolina Obrycka at the hands of off-duty police officer Anthony Abbate in 2007.
U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve decided Thursday decided not to toss out part of a jury’s decision that found Chicago police operated under a “code of silence,” according to the Chicago Tribune.”
“Police can forcibly take DNA samples during arrests, judge rules”
“Federal Judge Upholds Warrantless Hidden Surveillance Cameras On Private Property”
“Court upholds dismissal of ticket quota lawsuit”
“Utah Cops Arrest Teen for Recording, Judge then Orders Teen to Admit Guilt before Trial”
“Law-Breaking Judges Took Cases That Could Make Them Even Richer
Federal judges aren’t supposed to hear cases in which they have a financial stake. Dozens do it anyway.”
And the granddaddy of them all, a truly unbelievable case in which a federal judge recently decided the police can simply take over your home and eat your food without any reason whatsoever:
“The Nevada case of Mitchell v. City of Henderson still slogs through the Nevada Federal District Court. This case has one unusual feature. It accuses police in two cities of quartering themselves in two private houses without the consent of their owners. This would breach the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which deals with quartering of soldiers. The defendant city officials say police officers are not soldiers. But the Mitchells actually have a thirty-two-year-old precedent on their side. That case says one need not be an active-duty U.S. armed service member to be a “soldier” under the Constitution………………….the police in Henderson wanted to “stake out” the Mitchells’ neighbor. They forced the Mitchells (and Anthony Mitchell’s parents) out of their homes, moved in for the time of their stakeout, and helped themselves to whatever was in their refrigerators and pantries. They even arrested Anthony and Michael for obstructing the police. Those charges could not possibly stick, so the city dropped them. But the Mitchells are still suing, on every ground they could possibly cite.
The Third Amendment portion of the Mitchell complaint has been dismissed as of February 2015. The judge held that police officers are not soldiers for the purposes of the Third Amendment; he also expressed doubt that occupying the property for less than 24 hours would constitute ‘quartering’, although he did not specifically rule on that aspect.”
And so on. You can do your own Internet search on this subject and read the stories behind these headlines and many more. The purpose here is to call attention to the problem of judges who clearly allow unconstitutional government behavior to proceed.
And what is to be done with US Supreme Court justices who lie under oath in their nomination and confirmation hearings, in order to be confirmed, and then begin ruling exactly the opposite of what they testified to in the US Senate?
In all these instances, the People – us, the voters, taxpayers, and citizens of America – should take the necessary steps to legally remove these failed public servants from their benches. These are no longer judges in the essential sense of the term, and they certainly no longer look out for the basic rights and liberties of the People.
So they must be impeached or recalled.
Going where no Western man has gone before
Each day this past week I have waited for the other-other shoe to drop. And sure enough, each day some new incomprehensible surprise greeted us.
Obama’s most endearing trait is his public persona. His smoothness. His likeability. But what has come out more in the past week than in the past six years is how treacherous Obama is, how deliberately two-faced he is, how big of a blatant liar he is, how evil he is and how intent he is upon tearing down America and replacing it with…God knows what.
In his rapprochement with genocidal Iran and his war on Western Civilization Israel, Obama is dragging the United States into a place no Western human has ever gone before: Down.
Obama is dragging all of us into an abyss from which our nation will not climb out, if Iran gets to own nuclear bombs. And it is clear that Obama wants Iran to have them, just as it is clear that he resents Israel having them (note the release of Israel’s deepest nuclear secrets by Obama’s Pentagon this week).
Odd as it is, Obama’s supporters still include most American Jews, whose recent brushes with genocide would under normal circumstances remind them to place their sympathies elsewhere. However, political correctness is the new religion of the people formerly known as American Jews, and political correctness demands utter fealty to The Human One, whomever that may be at any given time, not The One who created Heaven and Earth. This is a sad development because so much of America’s intelligentsia is represented by the people formerly known as American Jews, such as academia and the media.
In going Down, instead of on the Upward trajectory Western Civilization has carried all of us over the past thousand years, minorities are most likely to suffer badly, one way or the other. One of the largest minorities in America today are Caucasians. How will they fare under the new America? Will there be a place for them? Will faux “White Guilt” force them to become willing slaves? Are they becoming that already, working as they do to support a tax-heavy government intent on wiping away their free speech and self-defense rights?
So many have placed their trust in a Muslim Marxist, whose mask is beginning to fall away, and yet they hope, in vain, that the dirty deeds he does now will not really exist later on. That’s the hope they voted for.
Just as surely as you can keep your doctor and your health plan, you can bet on everything working out just fine, folks. That’s the change we got.
Obama formally seeks to control the Internet, alter the biggest Free Speech forum on the planet
Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Obama administration has issued a proposed rule that will dramatically change the Internet and everyone’s experience on it.
Seeking absolute control of the one information source not controlled by the Left, Obama’s FCC now seeks to tax internet use and establish 322 pages of rules and regulations.
The Federal Elections Commission is also pursuing regulation of political speech on the Internet, like this blog. Can you imagine? It is totalitarian behavior.
If there is one defining characteristic of the Internet now, it’s that it is a free place, a frontier, a free market, open to as many people as could possibly participate. Surely the utopians among us will be dissatisfied but it’s an incredible feature of modern life.
The Internet needs no regulations. No one will benefit from these regulations, except the Left, because the Net has allowed millions of political activists to circumvent the establishment media, which is 100% in the pocket of and an arm of one liberal political party.
By regulating the Internet, the FCC will determine what is political speech, and whether or not that violates some rule.
Can you imagine putting government bureaucrats in charge of your free speech rights?
No, neither can I, but it’s the Left’s dream to control all communications so their message of forced peace and equality at any cost will find fewer opponents.
We have a state senator here in central PA who campaigned with his name below the Obama name on yard signs. It will be very interesting to hear what this senator has to say about this, because as a member of the Left he stands to benefit from it, but as a representative of the people, he must advocate for their interests, especially their Constitutional rights.
Is it time for civil disobedience and ignoring kook judicial holdings?
Civil disobedience, non-resistance obstructionism, and peaceful protests against clearly unfair laws and violent government agents is time-honored in America.
Civil disobedience works because it appeals to the higher mind, it appeals to the best, highest conscience in Western Civilization. You have to have an open mind to have civil disobedience work on your political views so that you vote for change from the status quo.
It won’t work in a Muslim country, where civil disobedience will just get you locked up and tortured, or summarily killed.
It did work for Ghandi in India because the 1940s British empire valued democracy and voting rights, and the public cry at home over images of British soldiers shooting peaceful protestors in Delhi’s public streets threatened to up-end political control at home.
Americans have successfully employed civil disobedience since the 1920s: Segregation laws, no voting rights for women, a lack of equal rights or opportunity across so many sectors of society… the causes were real and political changes were needed for America to live up to its promise.
And ain’t America an amazing place that it is designed to change and heal old wounds, to become a better place?
Because the original use of civil disobedience was so righteous, because so many of the laws being protested in the 1920s through the 1960s were so outrageously unjust, the behavior eventually took on a connotation of being above the law and always justified. In fact, over time even violence became justified in the name of Marxist versions of “justice,” and pro-violence slogans like “No Justice, No Peace” evolved.
Today, violent, fake civil disobedience has been employed by the “Occupy Wall Street” thugs, and by the violent criminals in Ferguson, Missouri. These events always start off as a routine, rote, formula civil disobedience act, and then they quickly devolve into destruction, arson, violence, beatings, attacks on bystanders….all in the name of some Marxist version of “justice.”
Inevitably, politically allied elected officials have begun to implement their jobs in a similar fashion. No matter what the law says, they ignore it, and make a big public deal about subverting the law. As if they are justified. They actually take pride in failing to implement the law as they are supposed to.
Examples of elected officials ignoring and subverting the law are a county clerk of courts issuing same-sex marriage licenses, despite Pennsylvania law saying it is illegal. Or Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane refusing to defend state laws, because she personally disagrees with them. Or California banning state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts. Or the Obama administration willfully failing to implement immigration law. Or Harrisburg City mayor Eric Papenfuse refusing to rescind city ordinances that are plainly illegal under state preemption law, because Papenfuse holds certain personal views about guns.
This lawlessness by the very people entrusted with safeguarding and implementing the law is dangerous. These wayward officials stand on quicksand, because the basis of our republican form of democracy is the rule of law – equal application of the law, irrespective of what one personally believes.
If government officials begin ignoring laws they disagree with, and implementing law that was not voted into being by the consent of the voters, then the rule of law is over, it has ended. The glue that holds America together is corroded, and the whole edifice can come down.
But let’s ask why only one side of the political debate does this. We know they get away with this because the mainstream media protects them, but the MSM veil has been pierced by the Internet, so the flow of information is no longer completely bottled up by fellow travelers.
Put another way, why don’t other people, say people like American traditionalists, “conservatives,” engage in the same behavior?
Here is an example of what could be done: Last week a federal judge ruled that Arizona must issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Never mind that these people are in America ILLEGALLY, the claims they make for their applications could be and often are fraudulent, and the cost of these services is unfairly covered by taxpayers.
Why don’t the good officials of Arizona simply ignore that judge’s insane ruling? That judge has no ability to actually make Arizona issue drivers licenses, and if I worked in Arizona government, or if I still worked in federal government and had something to do with allowing illegal immigrants in, I would simply ignore that judge’s crazy ruling, or the illegal commands of the occupant of the White House.
There, folks, how do you like the taste of that medicine now?
Think of the many kook, nakedly political judicial decisions that are handed down, contrary to law and policy. Why reward these dictatorial jurists by following their dictates? Why not simply ignore them? God knows, they are earning it.
Civil disobedience and official lawlessness is a game that everyone can play, and at some point the people who have been acting like adults will recognize they only stand to lose by following the rule of law while their opponents exploit their fidelity, and only by fighting fire with fire will they make it clear that everyone must follow and implement the law, no matter what their personal views are, or everyone loses.
Or, people can do it the old fashioned way, and work to get the law changed one vote at a time.