Truth, Lies and In Between

Today is Independence Day. Many call it the 4th of July, which is wrong in my book. We don’t call Christmas the 25th of December, we shouldn’t call Independence Day by its date either.

What it’s really about: Liberty.

The freedom that so many take for granted every day.  Freedom of speech, religion, the press, the right to keep and bear arms, along with many others that were later spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Remember that this freedom was brought to you by many Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen throughout America’s 232 year history.

Here it is:

Here’s what it says:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Here are the 56 signers:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

56 brave souls indeed.

They put everything they owned and their very lives on the line to secure liberty for America.

Here’s a good source for our founding documents:

Charters of Freedom

Remember, Freedom isn’t free.

Another loser bites the dust.

John Lowell shot two robbery suspects in a local Subway in Plantation, Fla. He was the lone customer in the shop.
Mr. Lowell having a concealed weapons permit shot the two shitheads as they were trying to herd the employees into the back of the shop.

Mr. Lowell shot the first asshole, Donicio Arrindell in the head, (nice shot), who died at the scene. He also shot the other asshole, Fredrick Gadson in the chest, who, unfortunately, survived. Imagine the savings the state of Floriduh would have had if he had killed both of these scumbags.

The grandparents of the shithead that survived are in all a twitter over their grand-asshole being shot during the robbery attempt. Boo-fucking-hoo. You should have thought of the consequences of this asshole’s likely career choice during his, I am sure, upstanding citizenry as a child in that loving environment that I am sure you shit heads afforded him.

At least there is one less asshole in the gene pool. Let’s hope that piece of shit hasn’t procreated already.

Mr. Lowell by the way is 71 and a former marine.

That is all.

In celebration of my God given right to keep and bear arms, I went out Thursday and fired all my guns and enjoyed it even more than usual.

Laws impinging on the Second Amendment can receive no lower level of review than any other “specific enumerated right” such as free speech, the guarantee against double jeopardy or the right to counsel (or the right to keep and bear arms. See United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, n. 4 ( 1938 )

The majority opinion ties the Second Amendment to the same standards and precedents as freedom of speech, the guarantee against double jeopardy, and the right to counsel and in no small terms opens the door to more litigation against those cities that have enacted bullshit laws restricting gun ownership.

I believe there is one already filed in that loser town of Chicago. May Mayor Daly lose his liberal mind to the onslaught.

This is probably one of the paragraphs that will go against the Nazi regime of Kalifornistan.

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

Here are a few blogs that talk about it:

Of Arms and the Law is all about this topic.

SCOTUS Blog has a much more detailed analysis.

Apheca

Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler

Argghhh!

The Other Side of Kim

Are there any question as to why we should have been doing this the last 10 years?

Are there any questions why we should not start now?

Can anyone still think that America can become independant of foreign oil? It won’t happen. If it were announced tomorrow that we will drill of the continental shelf and ANWR, the price in oil would drop 30% from the speculation alone.

Add refineries to the mix and we have a bloody gold mine.

That and we could also endeavor to switch over to nuclear energy for our electricity needs. It is clean and doesn’t use much in the way of fossil fuels to produce. And we know how to do it safely!  Hell, I spent the weekend right next to a nuclear power plant and I actually survived with everything as it should be.

Wake the hell up dummycrats! Quit cock blocking the big boys.

Hope you rag head douche bags riot over this!

Pig and his Koran.

(***Warning***: May be too graphic for the kiddies and the lemmings on the left).

I still cannot fathom how half the population are a bunch of lemmings that continue to vote for democrats.

In this issue, we discover a couple of the asshat lefties think that nationalizing our oil refineries would be a good thing. I suppose you’ll be subsidizing it next.

Maxine Waters is a complete idiot communist and the people that voted for her, aren’t any brighter. Another moron on the left is Maurice Hinchey.

Hey dumb asses! Take a look at Venezuela and see how well nationalizing their oil has worked out for them.

You douche bags on the left really are fucking retarded.

I’ve been away from the computer the last few days. Actually, Friday through Monday, but I was burned out.

Took the family on a trip to San Onofre. We stayed at Camp Pendleton. They have a couple camp sites there.

It was a good trip, all except on Sunday, my son and I were pulled out by a rip tide.

At first, I got to shore, turned around and saw that my son (9) was going the wrong way. I jumped back in and swam after him. I finally caught up to him and grabbed ahold of him. I told him, “what ever happens, do not let go of that board!” He had his boogie board and I had mine, which in my opinion, saved our asses. God was definately watching out for us.

It took me 20 minutes of swimming and pulling my son along, who helped with kicking, to get to shore. There were two other people stuck in this rip tide as well. One fat lady that had no floatation device, and her son, who had a floatation device.

As soon as my son and I got to shore, three lifeguards jumped in and pulled them both to shore.

After that workout, I had had enough for one day.

We went back the next day and moved further down the beach to a better area. My son and I jumped right in and proceeded to boogie the waves. He did really well. The three years of swimming lessons for my son paid for themselves this weekend, in my opinion. He was treading the waves like a champ.

I’ll get back into beating on the politics and stuff of the day shortly.

Don’t even get me started on the Supreme Circus of the United States.

That is all.

This should be a must read, I am placing the whole thing here: (Emphasis mine).

How to Avoid Being Bamboozled in ‘08
By Dr. Marvin J. Folkertsma

What a difference a century makes, specifically a turn of the century. Shortly after the 19th century ended, the United States had a president who was the real deal, whose honesty, sincerity and courage would be challenged only by those willing to take a chop in the jaws delivered personally by the commander in chief himself. It was a time when reference to the “Fantastic Four” meant school children’s appreciative knowledge of any quartet that included Hawthorne, Poe, Dickenson, Emerson, Whitman, Crane, Melville, Twain, Stowe, Howells, and many others. Most especially, the equivalent to reality TV meant that you or your parents had survived Shiloh, Gettysburg, Antietam, Richmond, or any of the scores of sites leveled by the first, horrific manifestation of modern war, Sherman’s March.

Heroes were unmistakable. Youngsters knew that the republic survived its early days by the strength of character of its founding fathers, particularly George Washington, the “closest thing to a self-evident truth” in American politics, according to author Joseph Ellis. You marveled at the intellectual honesty of Alexander Hamilton, whose brilliant first Federalist Paper warned about how arguments on both sides of the ratification debates could be compromised by clever rationalizations of individual desires. In short, we are all affected and often blinded by the perils of selfishness and egotism, regardless of our best efforts to squelch these demons of human nature.

Further, young and old stood in awe of Abraham Lincoln’s eloquent wisdom, as expressed, for instance, in the Gettysburg Address, his two inaugural speeches, and an earlier address he gave at the Young Man’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. “With the catching end the pleasures of the chase,” Lincoln said, warning about the dangers of ambitious men, who would be as willing to apply their skills to destroy a republic as much as to build it up.

For skeptics, no one could rival Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., whose cynicism about human nature made Mark Twain seem like an optimist. Nihilists could only admire Holmes’s disdain for those who “seem to believe in some form of the absolute,” making him wonder if he “lived on a lower plane,” or if instead “they are churning the void in the hope of making cheese.” Every age has its curmudgeons. But they were wise curmudgeons, and we all admired them, learned from them, and quoted them to make profound points. In short, they shaped our minds, our thoughts, and imparted wisdom.

Today at the dawn of the 21st century, “Where shall wisdom be found?” asks Harold Bloom in a book with that title, which answers this question with an exploration of the Western Canon from the Bible through Proust. His advice is desperately needed, particularly for a generation that thinks Hamlet is a baby pig and that a tragedy occurs when you miss a text message. Young minds now seem formed by video games and reruns of “Friends;” too many of our youth think like Seinfeld and talk like Scooby Doo. Spare time is invested in “co-curricular activities” (whatever that means), while role models are confined to the latest entry in American Idol or whoever succeeds in the most preposterous task in a televised contest about nothing. The question is whether antidotes exist for such flimflammery.

Yes, they do, but with a curmudgeon alert: most readers will not like what comes next. First, join the military, any branch, for at least four years, and learn what real courage, honor, and duty are all about. Second, since ignorance breeds gullibility, read every book cited by Bloom. Then read Walter McDougall and every book he cites in his three-volume history of America (third volume forthcoming). Third, start a movement to raise the voting age to 25, soldiers excepted. Fourth, dismiss 90 percent of what you hear on the news as the shameless propaganda that it is. Fifth, reject out of hand the superstitions of the age. For example, if someone asks you what you’re doing for the environment, say: “Nothing. The environment exists for me, not me for it. That is my only interest in preserving it.” Or, if someone wants to “celebrate our diversity,” the multiculturalism cult, then dismiss that person as a moral illiterate, because anyone with any sense knows that cultures differ tremendously in their accomplishments and respect for what Americans value most—freedom, human life, and individual rights.

Finally, in this election year, evaluate the candidates warily, which means sifting their words carefully; too much of what they say is bunk aimed at those who know nothing. Rather, read what others have to say about the candidates, observers with no axe to grind, with no personal interest in the outcome.

When all that is done, sit back and relax, because you’ve earned a break. For my part, I intend to delve into Evelyn Waugh and Bugs Bunny and learn from two masters of the art of bamboozlement.

In order to commemorate the D-Day landings, I have decided to direct your attention to a couple of Ronald Reagan’s 40^th anniversary speeches. Here’s the first of two:

40th Anniversary of D-Day (Omaha Beach)

Remarks at the Normandy Invasion Ceremony
Omaha Beach Memorial at Omaha Beach, France.
June 6, 1984

President Reagan addressed an audience at the United States-France Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-Day. 1,031 words

Mr. President, distinguished guests, we stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet of–or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their ranks. About them, General Omar Bradley later said, “Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero.”

No speech can adequately portray their suffering, their sacrifice, their heroism. President Lincoln once reminded us that through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion.

Today we do rededicate ourselves to that cause. And at this place of honor, we’re humbled by the realization of how much so many gave to the cause of freedom and to their fellow man.

Some who survived the battle of June 6, 1944, are here today. Others who hoped to return never did.

“Someday, Lis, I’ll go back,” said Private First Class Peter Robert Zanatta, of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and first assault wave to hit Omaha Beach. “I’ll go back, and I’ll see it all again. I’ll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves.”

Those words of Private Zanatta come to us from his daughter, Lisa Zanatta Henn, in a heartrending story about the event her father spoke of so often. “In his words, the Normandy invasion would change his life forever,” she said. She tells some of his stories of World War II but says of her father, “the story to end all stories was D-Day.”

More

Here’s the second:

40th Anniversary of D-Day (Pointe du Hoc)

Remarks at the U.S. Ranger Monument
Pointe du Hoc, France
June 6, 1984

One of two speeches commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, this speech was delivered at the site of the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc, France, where veterans of the Normandy Invasion, and others, had assembled for the ceremony. Later during the day, President Reagan spoke at Omaha Beach, France. 1,988 words.

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers–the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

More.

Here’s some more good news out of Iraq.

U.S. Captures Al Qaeda, Shiite Militia Leader in Iraqi Raids

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military captured two Al Qaeda in Iraq bombing suspects and a Shiite militia leader in separate raids Tuesday north and south of Baghdad, the military said.

One of the men, arrested along with four aides, is believed to oversee security for Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch in Mosul — one of the terror network’s last urban strongholds where U.S. and Iraqi forces have waged fierce battles against militants in recent months.

The man is also suspected of masterminding bombings targeting Iraqi police in the area, according to a U.S. military statement.

The other Al Qaeda in Iraq suspect was captured along with an assistant in Tikrit, a Sunni Muslim city north of the capital. He allegedly facilitated suicide bombings and “foreign terrorist movement” for Al Qaeda, the statement said.

The military said it also captured a suspected Shiite militia leader Tuesday south of Baghdad.

The U.S. refers to such fighters as members of Iranian-backed “special groups” who are defying a cease-fire order by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many of them are believed to have fled recent fighting in Baghdad’s Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City.

More.