Category → Government Of the People…
Josh versus CeaseFirePA and Obama Cop
Josh versus CeaseFirePA and police chief Tom Hyers.
http://m.video.witf.org/video/2335658815/
Josh appearing on WITF tonight
Josh will be appearing as a guest on tonight’s live WITF Smart Talk TV program hosted by Nan McCormick Abom. On Channel 33-5 in the Harrisburg, the show runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm and will take calls.
Will CeaseFirePA Join the Militia, Please?
“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…. I ask, who are the militia. They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table [the Constitution] gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor….”
–George Mason, Founder of America, 1788
Dedicated to Shira Goodman
“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.”
–George Mason, Founder of America
“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”
-James Madison, Founder of America
“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Founder of America
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
-Elbridge Gerry, Founder of America, refused to sign the US Constitution because of the creation of a federal army
Take It From The Pro
Nothing like hearing from professionals on a subject.
Dr. Benjamin Carson at a prayer breakfast with Obama, speaking about health care. Carson is a neurosurgeon.
Patriot News Article on Eastern Outdoors Show Cancellation
“The British didn’t understand Americans in 1776, and they don’t understand us in 2013″…my favorite quote ever.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/assault_weapons_tactical_ban_b.html
The Joe Paterno Empire Strikes Back
The family of late Penn State University football coach, icon, leader, and hero Joe Paterno has struck back at the “investigative” report by former US FBI director Louis Freeh.
Releasing an analysis of Freeh’s report that is similar to one posted on this blog last year (https://joshfirst.com/blog/2012/08/16/the-sandusky-disaster-kids-lose-penn-state-loses-ncaa-loses-theres-still-no-lesson-here/), the Paternos have taken an important step in regaining lost ground.
Lost ground was rapidly created by an uncritical press, willing to serve up maudlin caricatures of what may have happened around convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky, rather than carefully scrutinize the facts and evidence we have in front of us, and then wait for the facts and evidence that we do not have but yet expect to see come out in the upcoming trials of Spanier, Curley, and Shultz.
A rush to judgment has never been so well documented, and then so well defended by a sea of armchair quarterbacks using 20/20 hindsight. Analyzing the comments on internet sites, like Forbes, ESPN, and any other reporting or opinion venue, you’d think that Joe Paterno was the real culprit, and not Sandusky.
Freeh’s report is as bad as a report can get. It is more representative of a Kremlin kangaroo court than the best America has to offer. After a career-start seven-year stint in Washington, DC, spent writing federal policy and law, my take on the Freeh report is that it is outrageously flawed.
Its worst defect is its use of wild conjecture (e.g. relying on hearsay in one email from Tim Curley to Graham Spanier and Gary Shultz about an unnamed “coach”). Nowhere does it say “While key facts are lacking or presently unknown, it is prudent to await casting judgment….” Rather, Freeh’s report is judge, jury, and executioner all at once, and it clearly aimed to destroy one person: Joe Paterno.
Importantly, Freeh’s report exonerated the sitting PSU trustees, most of whom had sat idly by and never challenged Spanier, even when one or two trustees began to ask him hard questions. Were those lazy trustees culpable? Why not?
Most important, Freeh was used by PSU and the NCAA to lower the standards bar, to decrease expectations in college football, rather than to elevate them. By arguing that Joe Paterno was deeply flawed and a hypocrite, Freeh made the classic morally relative argument that we are all pathetic losers, that there are no real heroes, that there are no really good men, and that no one should expect any to show up anytime soon.
Finally, if the PSU trustees fell down on the job and used the Freeh report to cover up their failings, one cannot escape the sense that at least some of the Paterno family members do not grasp the positive way that Joe Paterno is still viewed by many of us Nittany Nation members.
Last year, while communicating with one of the Paterno kids, I was struck by his inability or unwillingness to recognize the breadth of Joe’s legacy. That is, if Joe Paterno left a legacy, then it is beyond the family to solely claim, because it is carried by his believers. Joe’s legacy belongs to all of us, because he was representative of all of our values, hopes, and expectations, and our support is not about the family, but about the symbol that was Joe Paterno.
To that end, wouldn’t it be refreshing to see the family rally the troops, rather than look so deeply inward. Casting the Freeh report as a culture war attack on rare core values, rather than on a person, would more accurately frame this subject.
Unlike the vast majority of people with an opinion on this subject, I have actually read the Freeh report. It sucks. It is unprofessional. It is unworthy of Louis Freeh’s name, and it is unworthy of Penn State University’s name. It is nearly useless in understanding all of what happened with Jerry Sandusky, and how he continued to molest and rape little boys when some adults around him either suspected or had been told he was a pedophile. Shedding light on 33% of an issue raises more questions than it answers. Truth is not what was sought, but it is what is at stake. Bigger truths, like traditional core values that are under attack everywhere, suffer from this.
So, it is my hope that the Paterno family, and former governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, will continue their efforts, and also expand them to encompass the bigger picture. Good luck, folks, we are standing with you.
Why I am against “gun control” in a nutshell
I am against “gun control” because it has no correlation with crime control.
Police are not required to protect individual citizens from harm, but rather to provide for the general peace.
So now we have government officials who want to remove my ability to defend myself. But they will not provide for my defense, nor will they be accountable for either failing to protect me, or for eliminating my ability to protect myself.
This is the definition of failed government. It is all about control, and nothing about serving the citizens that give it legitimacy.
This is the situation in England, where law-abiding citizens are disarmed, and self-defense is punishable and is actually often punished more harshly than the criminal act that initiated the defense.
British activist Piers Morgan pretends to be a journalist, but he is an advocate for policies that clearly violate America’s Constitution, a document created to protect Americans against people like Mr. Morgan.
That’s why I am against “gun control.”
Freedom! Braveheart Arrives in Pennsylvania
What joy to buy beer at Giant. What freedom!
Why shouldn’t a free people be able to buy beer easily, especially for a celebration like SuperBowl Sunday?
Historically, beer and spirits were widely available in early America. Ben Franklin quipped that beer was proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. How could a nation conceived in liberty become so shackled?
Last week Pennsylvania took a step toward more freedom, when governor Tom Corbett proposed to liberate alcohol from the clutches of government stores. America is based on competition and free enterprise, and government has no business doing business, so it’s a good thing to see this issue finally floated in a meaningful and substantive way.
Pennsylvania is one of only two states nationwide to be in the alcohol business. Obviously there’s no strength in those numbers.
Some political observers say this is about a public employee union. Say what? Who with a straight face can argue that the citizens are best served under this current state of state control? All other issues fade away, vanish, under real considerations.
Good luck, Guv.
We who join Ben Franklin in his observation that a beer or tip o’ the cup are part of being human tip our cup to you, Governor.
Back in 2009…
Back in 2009, after only six months of the Obama agenda, steam started involuntarily pouring out of my ears. So much was wrong that I couldn’t put my finger on any one issue, and I ended up running for US Congress later that Fall in an attempt to contribute toward the nation’s healing process. In 2010, driven by the Tea Party, the Republicans took back the US House and stemmed the tide.
Today we see the awesome power wielded by the executive branch. Almost like a dictator or a monarch, the president can engage in all sorts of decision making that fails to enforce laws, or which create rules and regulations that have the force of law. All without any input from the Congress.
Now, the military force tasked with protecting America is being told to train to the lowest physical capability of its volunteers. Women make excellent pilots and can function at the highest level in combat roles that do not involve sleeping among men or peeing next to men or bleeding next to men in close-combat situations.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration now says that all combat roles will be open to women. Women are obviously far weaker than men, and pregnancy is a force management challenge any time women and men serve closely together. Unless the administration is going to support women-only combat units, like Israel has, then this is just one more move aimed at undermining America. Because by deeply eroding America’s ability to fight wars, America is weaker.
Our military is not a social experiment or a social statement. Black men (and Asian et al) can kill American enemies just as well as Caucasian men, and when all-male combat units head out into combat together, the issues facing unit cohesion are straight forward and tough enough. Now, unit cohesion is under attack in a way that it may never recover from, once again by our very own anti-American Obama administration. Women and men are fundamentally different from one another, and millennia of social mores have developed to respect those differences. The Obama administration is now telling us that those differences do not matter, no matter what Mother Nature says.
If you are happy with this, if you are willing to sacrifice combat readiness and effectiveness, and place America at a grave disadvantage, then you really do hate the original America, and you want something else in its stead. You might be a traitor.