Category → Government Of the People…
Militia
Militia
By Josh First
January 3, 2013
[PHOTOS ARE COMING]
Along with other beautiful stained glass windows dedicated to free speech and religion, “Militia” is just another large, elaborate stained glass window in the Pennsylvania State Capitol building (photo above).
This window’s prominent place in the Capitol is no accident, as the free citizen militia were fundamental to being an American citizen, and formative in founding the nation. After all, it was a free citizen militia (photos below) that was so determined to hold on to their liberties (now yours) that they literally faced down the world’s greatest super power, shooting only when they saw the whites of their hardened enemy’s eyes.
Like the other rights in the Bill of Rights, belonging to the militia is an individual right. No central or national army can supplant it. It is the exact purpose of the citizen militia to act as a counterweight to a centralized army or National Guard. As the Second Amendment so clearly states, you can’t belong to a militia unless you are armed with a military-quality arm, that you own and keep in your possession, as the original militia did.
Militia is not the heavily regulated, structured, centralized Army or National Guard of today; well-regulated meant muster rolls were kept. Militia was always a grass roots, citizen-led counterbalance to national governments, whether of Britain or the new United States. Unless the National Guard reports only to the local citizens or state governors, then it is not the heir to or the modern representation of the founding militia. The militia were and must remain separate from the central (national) government and its standing army.
The Bill of Rights does not describe governmental rights. All ten of its amendments describe and reserve citizens’ individual rights and liberties, and set limits on government power. Who creates a “Bill of Rights” that grants the central government the “right” to make an army and disarm the citizens? The fact that Americans have owned firearms since the beginning demonstrates the clear intent of the Bill of Rights. Whether or not some of today’s Americans are aware of, or comfortable with some Constitutional rights and obligations, they exist nonetheless. This is who we are. It’ll take a Constitutional amendment to change the Second Amendment, if you don’t like it. And changing it could lead to a second civil war, because the Second Amendment guarantees all the other amendments, and, like the Revolutionary War militia, free citizens are still willing to fight for their liberties.
Let’s talk more about that supposed potential change to the Constitution.
Gun prohibitionists are now pursuing an orgy of unconstitutional laws that exponentially grow government intrusion and end citizenship as defined since the birth of America. Do gun prohibitionists and anti-gun politicians really believe that freedom-loving Americans will just roll over and “turn them all in,” as US Senator Dianne Feinstein so casually says? I guarantee you a massive, defiant, and probably violent dissenting reaction across the nation in response to such an effort, if not an outright armed rebellion. Political elites like Feinstein and their fellow urbanites have little contact with “fly-over country,” so they do not know, care, understand, or respect the views of their fellow citizens there.
Statists, like Feinstein, whose greatest goal is a big government involved in citizens’ lives from cradle to grave, are deaf and blind to the kind of vehement resistance now brewing among tens of millions of citizens. Many, many Americans feel and see the America they knew and loved being transformed into an unrecognizable juggernaut aimed at controlling citizens’ lives and erasing their liberties. Seething beneath the surface of daily life is an increasing, simmering frustration and mistrust. It’s one thing to beat them at the ballot box. It’s another thing altogether to aim to disarm them.
These citizens know that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. The more the government does, the less the citizen can do. To them, government is a direct threat, not a solution.
Gun control already exists in overbearing quantity; new laws that would take away guns from law-abiding Americans are exactly the kinds of unconstitutional assaults on individual liberty that the Second Amendment was designed to repel and that the citizen militia was created to address. Using democracy to achieve undemocratic results has been the method of extremists from both Left and Right; with the latest wave of proposals, gun prohibitionists reveal their own extremism.
Draft resistors, anti-government dissenters, and assorted protests have been historic hallmarks of one part of the electorate. Will Second Amendment-rights activists have to carry their God-given guns on a Million Man March to Washington, DC, carrying today’s equivalent of the 1776-era military-grade musket, the AR-15, to get their point across?
Pro-abortion activists have long stated matter-of-factly that legally prohibiting abortion won’t end abortion, and that those who want one will seek it out, legal or not, safe or not. Well, folks, tens of millions of Americans are about to have that equivalent experience with their guns, taking them into the back alleys, yards, and woods, where they will have them, despite whatever the government may say. Such defiance is what created America. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up re-creating it.
Adam Lanza’s insane massacre of school children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, is so painful, so emotionally scarring that I will never be the same person I was the day before it occurred. My three children are as gentle, innocent, defenseless, and precious to me as those children were to their parents, and the thought of losing mine or theirs in such a cruelly violent way is too much to contemplate. My heart aches for the Sandy Hook parents. My fury rises at the incompetent parole board that unleashed murderer William Spengler to murder again, this time the brave firefighters who rushed to douse his arsonist blaze in Webster, NY. Blame enough to go around, but the actual problem-solving is hard.
Let me try: Does Hollywood really have an unfettered, unaccountable right to use its power of suggestion to continually encourage cruel, unchecked violence across America? During the recent Benghazi debacle, weren’t we told that the First Amendment doesn’t necessarily confer a right to make a movie that might incite violence? Thus, if Hollywood wants to continue marketing sadistically happy murder carnage from Django Unchained and the equally moronic Gangster Squad, why don’t all movies and video games with a modern gun in them have to pay a 50% ‘violence mitigation fee’ on each ticket sold? Use that money to put armed guards in schools, gratis Quentin Tarantino and Sean Penn.
In sum, disarming innocent citizens will not succeed, at least not without forcing millions into long-neglected, perhaps forgotten, well-regulated militias to defend their rights. Using emotional crises to immediately demand sweeping new laws is irresponsible. Can cooler heads prevail? Let us hope and pray so.
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The Militia:
You, the citizen, are still the militia. America is yours.
Happy New Year, Everyone
Although 99% of my subject matter is usually politics in some form or another, there are times when words should fail and feelings must dominate. Thus it has been these past eight days, consumed with irreplaceable family time, visits with dear friends and distant family, and with no time or stomach for debate or bickering. Charles Dickens challenged his readers to find some time to respect and love one another, to take a break from the mundane and instead exalt the simple pleasures of life. And unless a person is a Scrooge, how can we not happily embrace this time of the year, and but smile at those around us?
Happy New Year, everyone. May your new year be successful, pleasant, and filled with the love and respect of those you care about. Here’s to you…
Sandy Hook Tragedy Has Me on “Hold”
The Sandy Hook tragedy has me on hold right now.
Several friends have asked when I will write a piece about the massacre, and all I can say is that neither I nor the situation are right. Yes, some tasteless people immediately jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon, but what do you expect from Senators Schumer, Feinstein, and Boxer? From Obama? Their agenda is anti-freedom, and they are ready to pounce at any moment, ready to exploit any crisis for political gain.
Guns are dangerous tools, and I can tell you about my own close calls with guns throughout my life, a life of hunting, target shooting, and self-defense. Guns require diligence and caution always, and the second you let down your guard with a gun is the moment your life will change for the worse. But that is not a reason to try and ban them.
A well-written article is coming out soon, just as soon as I can clear the pain and horror from my mind. I am a father of three kids, and that’s all I can think about: Those little kids, and their parents. No policy, no politics can share room in my head and heart with that, yet.
Merry Christmas, friends, Merry Christmas.
News about Islam: It Ain’t Pretty
Western Main Stream Media obsess about presenting Islam “fairly” and in an unbiased way. Nothing of the sort is done, of course, because that would mean reporting the cold, hard, painful, scary facts about Islam. Rather, Islam is whitewashed and mainstreamed every day by Western MSM. Here are two recent non-MSM stories about Islam that shed light on what is at the heart of the culture clash between Islam (jihad) and Western democracy.
Turkey is Islam’s most advanced, civilized nation, supposedly with some veneer of the rule of law. Ha…Ha…Haaaaa. Read on at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163368#.UNMr73dgK8A
And then it turns out that Islam’s holiest Holy Warriors are actually a bunch of dirty, chronically sick, unhygenic drug addicts who rape and sadistically abuse women: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/253747#.UNMuJndgK8A
Militia
“Militia” is an oval stained glass window in the Pennsylvania Capitol. Its prominent place is no accident. The militia were formative and fundamental to being American.
Anyone with an interest in the US Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution can look up what ‘militia’ means. All citizens are members of the various militias that have existed since our founding. All militias were mustered with the requirement that each member of the militia provide his own personally owned military grade long arm. The militia provided sufficient shot and powder for the coming engagement.
Whether or not Americans are aware or comfortable with the Constitutional requirements, they exist nonetheless. This is who we are.
Mr Obama, Mrs Feinstein, are you mustering us up?
Supporting Political Courage
Governor Tom Corbett deserves credit for refusing to participate in the ridiculous scheme foisted upon the U.S. Taxpayers known as ObamaCare. Corbett swatted the unfunded mandate ball directly back into the Obama Administration’s court, and Pennsylvania will not develop its own health care exchange.
While the Corbett Administration staff have let me down from the beginning, I give credit where it’s due. Political courage is rare and deserves to be recognized, no matter who has it.
Politicizing A Tragedy
Wasn’t it just a few months ago that people said we aren’t supposed to politically exploit tragedies? Wasn’t Mitt Romney excoriated by his political opponents for asking basic policy questions about the declaration of war and murderous assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya? So why now should these same exact people and politicians be trusted to lead us down the right path on the discussion about what happened at Sandy Hook?
Emotion is the wrong approach to policy solutions. But feelings and emotions have always been at the heart of liberalism, not rational thought or careful reason.
My heart aches for the Sandy Hook victims and their families, and as a parent of small children, I will never forget this event.
Sandy Hook
Today’s massacre of small children in their school at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, is an unimaginable horror. My heart and soul go out to the victims and their families. Gun control creates soft targets, and bad/ insane people pay no attention to legal restraints. Regulating guns more will have zero effect on the safety of places like Sandy Hook. It’s a debate for the period after grieving, and as a parent myself you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll argue for maximum protection. Again, the pain I feel about this event is indescribably bad and deep, and I wish I could console the families.
The Mayans Were Wrong; William Penn Was Right
Today is both the 12-12-12 date that, according to the dyslexic Mayan Calendar, marks the end of the world, and it is also the anniversary of Pennsylvania’s official entry as a State into the United States.
Delaware beat Pennsylvania as the first state in the Union by a day or two, but nevertheless, the Keystone State is as old as America gets.
That day in 1787, who could have imagined that hand-held gadgets and computer screens would today dominate our materially wealthy society, not just injecting but wrapping citizens in their individual cocoon of fantasy and imagination as real as the reality around them? If personal accountability is at the heart of America’s political and entrepreneurial system, these little gaming gadgets are on the periphery, acting more like huge celestial bodies teasing apart the fabric of the universe through tremendous gravitational force than as some sort of glue holding it all together. Subterfuge and pretend have replaced face-to-face and voice contact between humans. Reality is nearly impossible to define.
When William Penn founded Penn’s Woods, Pennsylvania, he envisioned and then successfully implemented a society where individual liberty was the standard, not the rare exception. Hard work, risk taking, and some personal sacrifice could yield tremendous material benefits to those immigrants willing to undertake them. We proud Pennsylvanians now, his spiritual and physical heirs, try to carry on that tradition amidst a strange array of colliding beliefs, allegiances, and competing values. One such competitor are these little gadgets we all use. Yes, they add efficiency. No, they don’t necessarily add value or depth of understanding. It’s one of the reasons that I do not “friend” people who live near me on FaceBook; if you want to be my “friend,” call me, and let’s schedule some time together with a cold beer and some hot food. There is no substitute for face-to-face time with another person who you value.
Another competitor is the fractured belief system that many new Americans bring with them and that many young Americans now embrace. Young people tattooing their bodies with Japanese and Haida Indian religious symbols, to which they have no connection either ethnically or ideologically, is a substantive example. Another example is the actual widespread fear caused by the Mayan prediction that this day ends the world as we know it. If you are paying attention to the Mayans today, maybe you might consider that their cruel society died out long ago, victim to human sacrifice and poor ecological planning.
This casual rootlessness is not good for America, and it does not reflect the greatness we inherited from those brave founders who stood fast and strong in 1787, against a mighty international British empire that indeed could have ended the world as our founders knew it then and there.
Today, the world will not end. Rather, Pennsylvanians and other Americans will go about their business, quietly drawing on a ever diminishing bank account of sorts to carry us through to the next day, the next transaction, the next political race. Our traditional culture is a metaphorical bank account, a repository of the guiding values and achievements of our progenitors, the people who created the roads, bridges, schools, political infrastructure, and businesses which we now use and take for granted every day. Failing to make deposits into this bank account, and yet withdrawing from it daily, will lead the account to become overdrawn, to become empty, to go bankrupt, and to fail.
That, and not the Mayans, is the great threat staring us in the face now.
Republican Reconciliation or Irrelevance?
Reconcile the Republican Party & Republican Voters
By Josh First
December 11, 2012
Things are not all good here in Republican land. Mitt Romney received fewer votes than John McCain received in 2008, even as attack dog Obama also received far fewer votes than his all-positive 2008 campaign. Despite Obama’s catastrophic economy, foreign policy failures (Benghazi), gaffes (“You didn’t build that”), corruption (Solyndra), and bizarre running mate (Biden), Republican enthusiasm for Romney was actually lower than Republican enthusiasm of four years ago. So even with all that was on the line, Republican voters were unwilling to go to the polls.
Recriminations abound about what caused Mitt Romney to lose: Incompetent staffers, inaccurate polling, a prolonged primary, poor ground game by complacent Republicans, uninspiring and flaccid moderate Republican, etc. Rather than re-hashing excuses and assigning blame, here’s one thing we can change for the next big race: Fixing the increasingly broken relationship between many Republican voters and the Republican Party establishment that is becoming an open contest.
The Republican Party ‘establishment’ includes the careerist elected officials, party bureaucrats, pollsters, financers, lobbyists, apparatchiks, consultants, and other functionaries and rock star groupies whose often low-risk, insulated careers and financial interests comprise the don’t-rock-the-boat wing. Registered Republican voters and principle-driven tea party activists, the “grass roots,” are not necessarily included in this group.
Because the Republican Party here is run as an enterprise, this contest has been cast as profit vs. principle. The Tea Party emerged from Central Pennsylvania, as fiscally conservative voters increasingly demanded responsible habits by the Republicans they had volunteered for, contributed to, and voted for, and across Pennsylvania and the nation it’s rapidly becoming a battle between them and the Party establishment, forget the Democrats.
Hitting the nail on the head back in February, Lehigh University professor Frank Davis said “There seems to be a struggle within the Republican Party between the traditional leadership and the conservative grass roots individuals and groups that are probably more mobilized now than they were a few years ago….the Republican Party has used these grass roots individuals to further the party establishment’s interests, and I think these people may want to [now] choose their own representatives, rather than rely on the leadership.”
Running a gazillionaire for president during the worst economy in 70 years, where his wealth contrasted with citizens’ daily reality, made sense early to the Party establishment, which was long ago greasing the skids for Romney staffers into county Party offices well before the primaries ended. Sure, I like Romney, admire his business acumen, donated to his campaign, went door to door for him, blogged for him, and voted for him. But someone more blue collar, more authentic is going to be more believable, more welcomed by Middle America.
Republican grass roots candidates lost several recent US Senate races, which establishment candidates would have had no greater chance of winning, but the establishment demanded they step aside. Here in Pennsylvania, candidates hand-picked by Republican Party leaders were also disastrous failures, from the primary to last month’s general election. These candidates made perfect sense to insiders. But when trotted out into the public venue, voters shot these perfect candidates down in flames. Does either camp have a corner on the market?
The onus for reconciling the two groups is fully on the Republican Party establishment; the “professionals.” Many Republican Party leaders have engaged in high-handed, controlling behavior that has alienated a growing number of registered Republicans, even the most dedicated. Republican voters and volunteers have been treated as wind-up toy soldiers, turned in a direction and told to march. Party intervention in primary races is one of the worst abuses. No matter how much the establishment may want Yes men to support the establishment’s intertwined political and business interests, the cost of alienating the base is too high. If the Party stays out of primaries and gives the people a voice, they’ll be rewarded with more inspired voters, more volunteers on the ground, more elections won.
The professional class of Republicans say they know what they are doing and everyone just needs to move out of their way and let them do their job. Maybe it’s true that the new grass roots activists lack credentials, but the professional class suffers from an inspiration gap, often pushing bland, plain vanilla, pre-fabricated, cookie cutter candidates who are “supposed” to win, but who fail after spectacularly expensive investments. The Republican Party does actually need Republican voters to get their candidates across the goal line, so will the Party leaders listen to the Party voters? For good reason, Democrat analyst Patrick Caddell recently asked “Can the Republican Party Avoid the Fate of the Whigs?”
Let us get an honest answer here: Is there sufficient humility among our Party leaders to learn from these mistakes, to look inside themselves, and take the necessary steps to reconcile?
If Republicans want to win elections, they need to be the Party of Opportunity, allowing the more conservative, independent-minded members to have a shot at full participation. If we are all in this together, then let’s start acting like it. Otherwise, factionalism and political irrelevance are staring us in the face.
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