African Piracy and the Second Amendment
The Saudi oil tanker is in the hands of Somali pirates; and in international waters well removed from Somalia off the coast of Tanzania. Here’s Powerline. Here’s a ship that’s worth the better part of a billion dollars carrying a cargo of about 100 million dollars worth of oil. And, it crewed by just 25 men.
I’ll also hazard to guess, other than a random smattering of pistols between the captain and two or three other ranking officers, the ship and crew are completely defenseless.
I’ll not get into the details of what it would take to defend a ship against boarding on the high seas. Or, whether a firefight on board a tanker would actually result in a massive confligration or explosion. But, even if the Saudi owners did not value the lives of the 25 crew members, one still wonders why it would not take better care of an investment in ship and cargo that costs a significant fraction of a billion dollars. But, it seems to me that these crews need to be enlarged to mount a more effective watch. These crews need to be armed and trained to resist and repel pirates. Armed merchant ships are not a historical anomaly.
Why, are these ships, or at least the crews not armed? We know, when it comes to crime at home that calling 911 will not necessarily save your life from criminal predation. And, the police have no legal liability to protect you from a criminal. In a similar fashion, one cannot expect naval forces to be in everywhere, patrolling thousands of square miles of seas and accounting for tens of thousands of ships that pass through the sea lanes along the east coast of Africa. Or, has the 911, call the police to protect me mentality, so permeated the merchant marine as to think that you can operate in international waters in a personal crime-free bubble.
Or, are the tyrants and dictators of these countries that own and flag these respective ships so afraid of an armed citizenry that the loss of 25 crew and a supertanker are a small price to pay to keep their restive subjects under their thumb? Perhaps, arming the crews may not have any material impact on their political control since these armed agents are at sea. But, these crew come home with dangerous and heady ideas of having control over their lives that can only come with the possession of lethal force. Dangerous ideas of why can’t I have the same control over my life at home as on the high seas.
Obama and the Tyranny of the Majority
Here’s Obama, on September 15th in Colorado (hat tip; Hugh Hewitt):
“The bottom line is this. If you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here’s another thing you’ve got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn’t get it done. I don’t have the votes in Congress.”
Get that: “I don’t have the votes in Congress” to take away your guns. Rights are secured by the Bill of Rights. They are not granted by our government. It seems, in Obama’s world view that rights secured by the Second Amendment only exist until Obama can cobble a congressional majority to restrict or eliminate them. And, this comment came in the context of the post-Heller world.
Here again we have the UN Secretary General, vying for for the Oval Office, with an attitude towards the US Consittution that befits a tin-horn dictator from the third world. Rights are gifts of the state. Rights can be voted in and out of existance merely by rounding enough votes in the House and Senate.
This was another unguarded phrase that speaks volumes of the man and his attitudes. Are the freedom of speech or free assembly to be treated in a similar cavalier way? With Obama, I suspect so. Here’s some of Michelle Obama’s thoughts on her husband, the prospective UN General Secretary of the United States:
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
We have a man who has very definite ideas as to how our society should be ordered. You may not be “isolated” or “cynical.” You will never be “allowed” to be “uninvolved.” You are commanded to “engage.” This speaks of a man with very little tolerance for any objections to his Orwellian world view. So plan to show up for your required daily “Two Minutes of Hate.”
There’s also a serious prospect that the “fairness doctrine” will be re-established if Obama can pony up the votes; so much for the First Amendment.
There is a real litmus test regarding a politician’s respect for the limits of governmental power; the Second Amendment. It is the canary in the coal mine. What you do to the Second Amendment can, shall and will be done to the rest of the Constitution.
Guns; the Other Reason to Hate Palin
The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state’s totalitarian reach.
A Nation of Cowards; Jeffrey R. Snyder
Palin’s own life is a rebuke to the liberal mindset. Her decision to knowing carry to term a Down’s baby was a slap in the face of the NARAL crowd. And, that has been commented upon by many others.
But, little mention is made about guns. The Democrats make little mention because their last anti-gun crusade lost them both houses of congress in 1994. Their fellow travellers in the MSM tiptoe around the subject for the same reason.
Oh, to be sure, Palin’s moose hunting skills are news in the MSM. Such highlighting adds “color” to the story. And, such highlighting, in the minds of the MSM, without saying as such, is there in order to portray Palin as a missing-tooth rube. But, once again, gun ownership and Palin’s marksmanship skills are common in red-state America. What may be a slight intended for the oh-so-knowing bi-coastal elite only serves to emphasize the commonality that Palin has with the rest of America. If the MSM is not careful, it only serves to further emphasize the “bitter” comment Obama made at the Getty San Francisco digs.
But, this skillful gun handling bothers the Obama’s fellow travelers in their drive for a statist utopia. The first reason is the mere fact that lethal force in the hands of the private individual creates a barrier to have some of Obama’s more objectionable ideas forced down unwilling throats. Since the founding of our republic, the armed citizenry has always provided a quiet and unspoken check against a temptation against excesses, that in other countries, have degenerated into bloodbaths–the reign of terror in the French Revolution, the Final Solution or Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. The Second Amendment’s purpose was to allow for self-defense against criminal threat whether from the common street variety or agents of a criminal government.
The temptation remains. Look at this quote from Michelle Obama (via power line):
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
No, this isn’t from the man running for president, but this is from a person who has actively campaigned for him. More importantly, it represents a mind set that you will do what we think is good for you. It’s frankly Orwellian. And, it contra this mind set; it is this reservation of the person, the individual outside the totalitarian reach of government; that most upsets the statist mindset. It is the individual that defines the state; not the other way around.
And, excuse me, but I’ll be just a cynical or as isolated or as comfortable as I choose to be. I’ll push myself to be better because I choose to be. I’ll engage when I feel like it. No, I’m not going to show up for a daily shout-fest like the Two Minutes of Hate.
A firearm is not a talisman that will allow you to shoot your way out of any problem. Rather, it creates a clarity of mind that comes by having the means to handle the situation should it degenerate into the gravest extreme. But, free of the paralyzing fear of the gravest extreme, you can consider other options to face the problems that the world may throw at you.
It also starts to leak out into other arenas. An independence of thought that begins to pervade into a lot of other areas not just related to self-defense. And, it begins to reflect an independence in action and deed. Heck, you’re already politically incorrect as hell by just having the fire stick. What does it matter if the rest of you becomes politically incorrect as well?
At the very least, Palin can feed her family with out resorting to food stamps.
As a parting thought, it is interesting to note the fear, deference and self-censorship many publishers and newspapers have shown in the face of jihadist threats. Dhimmihitude. The Mohammed cartoons come to mind. Or, Random House’s spiking the release of The Jewel of Medina. It’s no concidence that the editorial offices of these publications are in Second Amendment-free zones. I very much doubt that such jihadist threats would carry a lot of water in the editorial offices of Guns and Ammo.
Sarah Palin; Escapee from the Liberal Plantation
Break out the blood hounds. And, while your at it beat up on a pregnant 17 year-old. Another designated “minority” has escaped from the liberal plantation and is actually thinking for herself–and succeeding.
She has the temerity to actually make her own decisions and not check in with the proffered wisdom of NOW and NARAL. She’s got five kids and should, in deference to NARAL, aborted the last. She’s supposed to be a ward of the state with all those kids; but instead of collecting food stamps she shoots a moose and feeds her family with said animal. We’ll pass on the Second Amendment implications integral to the moose murder.
Sarah Palin is a big threat to the Obama campaign. Even before her selection as McCain’s running mate, Obama’s campaign was running on fumes. What was supposed to be a triumphal coronation was turning into a squeaker. And, the Democrats are beginning to realize that the Messiah is really damaged goods from the Chicago Democratic political machine.
Obama’s just like Jimmy Carter back in 1976. He sounded fresh and new. But, under the hood it’s just the same liberal boiler plate. Back then, the MSM was able to hide Carter’s true liberal bona fides and maintain the southern born-again Christian facade; at least until after the election. Thanks to the internet, the MSM’s monopoly on information control is broken and we know of Obama’s less than sterling “post-partisan” credentials.
Enter Palin. She’s serves to highlight Obama’s weaknesses even further–chief being his inability to reach out to the other half of the Democratic party that voted for Hillary. And, her two year tenure as governor is experience that only further highlights Obama’s lack of accomplishments.
But, Palin’s real crime is her divergence from the holy scriptures of the liberated woman; Democratic style. It’s okay to be conservative if you’re white and male. But, if you fall outside that demographic, the liberal establishment is going to be particularly vicious in beating down the upstart. Savaging conservative minorities is no longer reserved for blacks. This is a successful woman who presents with credentials that would go entirely unrecognized on Martha’s Vineyard or the Hampton’s. And, this is a successful woman who is pro-life and shoots a gun and looks good all at the same time.
This is a woman who, in the eyes of the bicoastal elite is way off-script. An affront. She’s supposed to be divorced, have bad teeth, smoke, maybe with a GED, who’s supporting her kids checking out groceries at the local supermarket. This is a woman who must be destroyed immediately. Strangled in the cradle. Even if you have to drag her pregnant 17 year-old daughter into the fray to make the kill.
