Over at MediaFreedom.org, a new site devoted to fighting the fanaticism of radical anti-media freedom groups like Free Press and other “media reformistas,” I’ve started rolling out a 5-part series of essays about “The Battle for Media Freedom.” In Part 1 of the series, I defined whatreal media freedom is all about, and in Part 2 I discussed the rising “cyber-collectivist” threat to media freedom.  In my latest installment, I offer an analytical framework that better explains the major differences between the antagonists in the battle over media freedom.

Understanding the Origins of Political Struggles

In his many enlightening books, Thomas Sowell, a great economist and an even better political scientist, often warns of the triumph of good intentions over good economics. It’s a theme that F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman both developed extensively before him. But Sowell has taken this analysis to an entirely differently level in books like A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, and The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Sowell teaches us that no matter how noble one’s intentions might be, it does not mean that those ideas will translate into sound public policy. Nonetheless, since “the anointed” believe their own intentions are pure and their methods are sound, they see nothing wrong with substituting their will for the will of millions of individuals interacting spontaneously and voluntarily in the marketplace. The result is an expansion of the scope of public decision-making and a contraction of the scope of private, voluntary action. As a result, mandates replace markets, and freedom gives way central planning.

Sowell developed two useful paradigms to help us better understand “the origins of political struggles.” He refers to the “constrained” versus “unconstrained” vision and separates these two camps according to how they view the nature of man, society, economy, and politics:

The Unconstrained Nature of the Cyber-Collectivist Vision

Sowell’s taxonomy provides a useful frame of reference for today’s debate over communications and media policy. The unconstrained vision crowd here might best be labeled “cyber-collectivists.” This collectivism is not necessarily the hard-edged Marxist brand of collectivism of modern times. It is more the collectivism of Plato’s rule by “philosopher kings” as much as it is modern European “social democrat” collectivism. It generally rejects outright State ownership of the means of production, although there are some exceptions. (Free Press founder Robert McChesney, for example, would go much further than most other collectivists in having the State intervene and directly control or even own media and communications outlets and infrastructure).

Like their many “unconstrained” intellectual predecessors, what unifies the cyber-collectivists is the belief that the State should have a hand in guiding market outcomes toward a “fairer” end. The cyber-collectivists, for example, get indigestion over unequal patterns whether we are talking audience shares or technological diffusion. They are quick to allege “market failure” when some of their preferred media voices only capture miniscule audience shares (even when it’s just the result of consumer demand in action). And when some people or communities gain access to a network or new technology quicker than others, they are often quick to conclude some nefarious plot by greedy capitalists must be to blame.

Of course, in reality, this is just the way things in a free society have always worked. “Liberty upsets patterns” the late Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick taught us in his 1974 masterpiece “Anarchy, State, and Utopia.” What Nozick meant was that there is a fundamental tension between liberty and egalitarianism such that when people are left to their own devices, some forms of inequality would be inevitable and persistent throughout society. Correspondingly, any attempt to force patterns, or outcomes, upon society requires a surrender of liberty.

All of this is equally true for media and communications policy. Just as there will never be perfect equality of outcomes in the provision of homes, cars, or incomes, there will never be perfect equality of tech gadgets or audience shares for media speakers / outlets.

Speech Redistributionism

The cyber-collectivists are not content with that, however. Just as they call for a redistribution of wealth to rectify the supposed injustice of unequal incomes, so too they call for “something to be done” to “balance” outcomes and ensure “fairer” outcomes. We might call this “media redistributionism” or even “speech redistributionism.”

Consider, for example, a proposal set forth by Cass Sunstein, the prolific University of Chicago law professor (and now Obama Administration official). In his 2001 book Republic.com, in which he suggests that government should consider requiring “electronic sidewalks” in cyberspace to encourage more balance on Internet websites. The state would impose the equivalent of “must carry” mandates on popular or partisan websites, forcing them to carry links to opposing viewpoints. In the name of “media access” or “fairness,” Sunstein and others are apparently willing to let the state impose tyrannical mandates on private website operators, forcing them to open their private property to use by others. Essentially it’s a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet Age.

Elsewhere Sunstein has argued in favor of greater “public interest” regulation to actually change public attitudes and tastes, claiming that there “is a large difference between the public interest and what interests the public.” [See: Television and the Public Interest, 88 California Law Review 499, 501 (2000).] He and many other cyber-collectivist scholars claim that they have a better idea of what interests the public. Essentially, the public doesn’t know what’s best for them, so someone else must tell them—and potentially even force supposedly better choices upon them. For example, Ellen P. Goodman of the Rutgers-Camden School of Law, and currently an adviser to the Federal Communications Commission, believes that, “a proactive media policy must not only correct a poorly functioning market, but also provide diversions around existing media markets and tastes. Proactive media policy can do this by changing consumer wants.”

The thought of having government “change consumer wants” is positively Orwellian and raises the obvious question: according to who’s tastes and values? The viewing and listening public has a broad array of interests and desires that cannot be easily gauged by congressional lawmakers, and certainly not by five unelected bureaucrats at the FCC. As media scholar Benjamin Compaine has correctly noted, “[i]n democracies, there is no universal ‘public interest.’ Rather there are numerous and changing ‘interested publics.’”

And, more practically, how should such goals be accomplished in an age of information abundance? The sheer scale and volume of media activity taking place across an unprecedented variety of communications platforms makes it difficult to imagine how a scarcity-era regulatory regime will be applied going forward. Are we going to have speech patrols standing on every cyber-corner policing the Net for “fairness” violations or determining what is and isn’t “in the public interest”?

Opportunity, Not Outcome, Is What Matters Most

Those of us who subscribe to a more “constrained vision” understand that what is really important is equality of media opportunity, not equality of media outcomes. A focus on the latter is both foolish and destructive. It is foolish because media equality is an impossibility absent extreme measures, which in turn explains why it is destructive.

Read the rest at this link.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported on July 25 that “there are 72 fusion centers around the nation, analyzing and disseminating data and information of all kinds. That is one for every state and others for large urban cities.”

What is a fusion center?

The answer depends on your perspective. If you work for the Department of Homeland Security, it is a federal, state, local, or regional data-coordination units, designed to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism and anti-crime data in order to make America safer. If you are privacy or civil-rights advocate, it is part of a powerful new domestic surveillance infrastructure that combines data from both the public and private sectors to track innocent people and so makes Americans less safe from their own government. In that respect, the fusion center is reminiscent of the East German stasi, which used tens of thousands of state police and hundreds of thousands of informers to monitor an estimated one-third of the population.

The history of fusion centers provides insight into which answer is correct.

Fusion centers began in 2003 under the administration of George W. Bush as a joint project between the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. The purpose (pdf) is to coordinate federal and local law enforcement by using the “800,000 plus law enforcement officers across the country” whose intimate awareness of their own communities makes them “best placed to function as the ‘eyes and ears’ of an extended national security community.” The fusion centers are hubs for the coordination. By April 2008 there were 58.

The growth has continued under the Obama administration. Indeed, Obama has also continued Bush’s concealment of domestic intelligence activity by threatening to veto legislation that authorizes broader congressional oversight or review of intelligence agencies by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). As a result of that threat, the GAO provision was removed from the Intelligence Authorization Act.

Due to secrecy, it is difficult to describe a typical fusion center. But if the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center is typical, this is what one looks like.

Indiana’s center has essentially become an arm of Indiana law enforcement…. It has 31 full-time staffers and two part-time employees. Some … are state employees. Others are assigned to the center from other agencies, such as the FBI, Transportation Security Administration, and Marion County Sheriff’s Department. They are joined by workers from the Department of Correction, the Indiana National Guard, the Indiana State Police, the Department of Natural Resources and local campus police…. There are also private sector analysts on contract. Previously those analysts were from EG&G Technical Services of California. The most recent contract with EG&G called for payment of $1.1 million….

Fusion centers invite reports from public employees such as firemen, ambulance drivers, and sanitation workers as well as from the private sector such as hospitals and neighborhood watch groups. They often operate tip hotlines; this means a “suspect’s” name could be submitted by a disgruntled employee, a hostile neighbor, or an ex-spouse who seeks child custody.

What or who is targeted by this sweeping coordination of data?

To get an idea, let’s look at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) program, which the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said “should be a national model.” In June 2008 the departments of Justice and Homeland Security recommended expansion of the LAPD program to other cities.

In April 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported on a new LAPD policy that compelled officers to report “suspicious behaviors” to the local fusion center. LAPD Special Order #11, dated March 5, 2008, defined a list of 65 suspicious behaviors, including using binoculars, taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value,” abandoning a vehicle, taking notes, and espousing extremist views. Local police were converted into domestic surveillance agents.

Voices of caution were present from the inception of fusion centers. Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr stated

Using the resources of federal and state law enforcement to encourage the citizenry to submit to the government information on the political, social and even religious views of other people, is in itself outrageous. For the government to then data-base that information, disseminate it widely, and clearly imply that views with which it may disagree provides an appropriate basis on which to surveil citizens and collect information on them, is beyond the pale. It is also a poor and inefficient use of police resources.

Political Abuse

Violation of privacy rights, excessive secrecy, lack of congressional oversight, the inevitability of inaccurate and noncorrectable information, the lack of due process for the accused, the encouragement of racial/religious profiling, the creation of a “snitch” nation, the merging of the military with the private sector, the political abuse of dissidents – the objections scroll on. Specific abuses scroll on as well. They include:

Maryland: Fifty-three nonviolent political activists, including antiwar and anti-death penalty activists, were labeled as terrorists and actively surveilled for 14 months.

Minnesota: Eight anarchist protesters who planned to protest the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis were preemptively arrested and charged with terrorism. In Minnesota, a crime can become terrorism if it disrupts the conduct of government.

Texas: A leaked intelligence bulletin from the North Central Texas Fusion System asked police officers to report on Islamic and antiwar lobbying groups

Missouri: Supporters of third party presidential candidates, pro-life activists, and conspiracy theorists were targeted as potential militia members.

Virginia (pdf): A terrorism threat assessment included certain universities as breeding grounds for terrorism, including historically black colleges.

A more comprehensive list of fusion abuse is available in the ACLU’s Survey of Reported Incidents (pdf).  See also the ACLU’s interactive map for what’s happening in your state.

Only Aberrations?

Clearly, the elaborate infrastructure of fusion centers has spied on peaceful citizens. Those who believe the abuses are aberrations, rather than an inherent or intended function, may argue that increased transparency will bring accountability and solve the problem. But that belief is naive. At least four reasons indicate that a lack of transparency and accountability are built into the system — the absence of real congressional oversight being number one.

Second, the ACLU and others have filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests. They have had to fight tooth-and-nail for any scrap of information.

Third, as the ACLU (pdf) notes, “[T]here appears to be an effort by the federal government to coerce states into exempting their fusion centers from state open government laws. For those living in Virginia, it’s already too late; the Virginia General Assembly passed a law in April 2008 exempting the state’s fusion center from the Freedom of Information Act. According to comments by the commander of the Virginia State Police Criminal Intelligence Division and the administrative head of the center, the federal government pressured Virginia into passing the law…. [T]here is a real danger fusion centers will become a ‘one-way mirror’ in which citizens are subject to ever-greater scrutiny by the authorities, even while the authorities are increasingly protected from scrutiny by the public.”

Fourth, much of the information used by fusion centers comes from private databases such as Accurate, Choice Point, Lexis-Nexus, Locate Plus, insurance claims, and credit reports. Moreover, the centers access millions of government files like the Federal Trade Commission ID theft reports and DMV records. Why is this important? The federal government has adopted various laws to prevent the maintenance of databases on average Americans, but if fusion centers access the other existing files, they would bypass those laws.

A massive database on peaceful citizens, a tip hotline that encourages turning in of neighbors, the casting of suspicion on daily activities, enlisting private workers as national surveillance agents — this is a police state in the making. And if its creation is invisible to most people, well, that is another characteristic of a police state. You are not a believer until it knocks on your door … in the middle of the night.

It was 2017. Clans were governing America.

The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.

As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.

With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.

The government was forced to print money in order to pay its bills, causing domestic prices to rise rapidly. Faced with hyperinflation, Washington took recourse in terminating Social Security and Medicare and followed up by confiscating the remnants of private pensions. This provided a one-year respite, but with no more resources to confiscate, money creation and hyperinflation resumed.

Organized food deliveries broke down when the government fought hyperinflation with fixed prices and the mandate that all purchases and sales had to be in US paper currency. Unwilling to trade appreciating goods for depreciating paper, goods disappeared from stores.

Washington responded as Lenin had done during the “war communism” period of Soviet history. The government sent troops to confiscate goods for distribution in kind to the population. This was a temporary stop-gap until existing stocks were depleted, as future production was discouraged. Much of the confiscated stocks became the property of the troops who seized the goods.

Goods reappeared in markets under the protection of local warlords. Transactions were conducted in barter and in gold, silver, and copper coins.

Other clans organized around families and individuals who possessed stocks of food, bullion, guns and ammunition. Uneasy alliances formed to balance differences in clan strengths. Betrayals quickly made loyalty a necessary trait for survival.

Large-scale food and other production broke down as local militias taxed distribution as goods moved across local territories. Washington seized domestic oil production and refineries, but much of the government’s gasoline was paid for safe passage across clan territories.

Most of the troops in Washington’s overseas bases were abandoned. As their resource stocks were drawn down, the abandoned soldiers were forced into alliances with those with whom they had been fighting.

Washington found it increasingly difficult to maintain itself. As it lost control over the country, Washington was less able to secure supplies from abroad as tribute from those Washington threatened with nuclear attack. Gradually other nuclear powers realized that the only target in America was Washington. The more astute saw the writing on the wall and slipped away from the former capital city.

When Rome began her empire, Rome’s currency consisted of gold and silver coinage. Rome was well organized with efficient institutions and the ability to supply troops in the field so that campaigns could continue indefinitely, a monopoly in the world of Rome’s time.

When hubris sent America in pursuit of overseas empire, the venture coincided with the offshoring of American manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs and the corresponding erosion of the government’s tax base, with the advent of massive budget and trade deficits, with the erosion of the fiat paper currency’s value, and with America’s dependence on foreign creditors and puppet rulers.

The Roman Empire lasted for centuries. The American one collapsed overnight.

Rome’s corruption became the strength of her enemies, and the Western Empire was overrun.

America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many. Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.

Globalism had run its course. Life reformed on a local basis.

The memory of man runs not to a time when an elected representative faced an ethics inquiry over official actions involving the theft and redistribution of the property of other people.

By way of illustration, consider — if you can stand to — the career of the late Robert Byrd. The former Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan “redeemed” himself by spending more than a half-century building monuments to himself out of wealth pillaged from other people. Byrd’s memorials include a statue of himself he inflicted on the West Virginia state capitol, in violation of a law forbidding such acts of taxpayer-funded narcissism by living politicians.

Former Exalted Cyclops, now immortalized in bronze.

During his long reign as West Virginia’s pompadoured paladin of pork, Byrd never
faced an ethics inquiry. This is because the erstwhile Klansman was a dutiful servant of the Plunderbund.

By way of contrast, Idaho state representative Phil Hart finds himself arraigned before the ethics commisariat because he provoked the hostility of the tax-extraction bureaucracy.

His “offense” was to questioning the constitutional and legal premises on which that bureaucracy was built. Quixotic though his campaign might be, Hart has never been guilty of corruption or criminal conduct. Yet his supposed allies in the state Republican Party seem determined to expel him from the legislature.

Rep. Hart, who represents a northern Idaho town called Athol in the state legislature, has been uniformly execrated in the courtier press as a “tax cheat” and “scofflaw” by the media in both Idaho and Washington.

It is true that Hart — an engineer by education and professional background, a reluctant politician by conviction — withheld tax payments while mounting a constitutional challenge to the federal income tax. However, after exhausting his judicial remedies in 2004, Hart filed a tax return and has since then paid more than $120,000 in combined taxes, interest, and penalties.

This isn’t the behavior of a determined “tax cheat” (an expression that connotes a moral delinquency on the part of someone trying to protect his honestly earned wealth from the designs of government-sanctioned robbers). Furthermore, there’s nothing criminal or corrupt about mounting a constitutional challenge and losing in the courts.

Rep. Hart’s actual offense was not withholding payment of taxes, but rather refusing to surrender to the IRS the names and contact information of the thousands of people who purchased his self-published book Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any?, a detailed, scholarly examination of the history of the federal income tax.

In writing that book, Hart applied the mental discipline of a trained engineer to the task of examining the convoluted legal and political history of the income tax.  This included a study of every available legislative debate over the 16th Amendment, as well as contemporaneous media accounts and the official transcripts of the relevant Supreme Court decisions. Many of the documents Hart examined were found only through exceptionally devoted research and had never been read by eyes other than his.

Hart’s conclusion was that “there is no evidence upon which the government can rely for their claim that the American People desired to have their wages and salaries taxed…. It was never the intention of the American People for the 16th Amendment to confer the new power upon Congress that the bureaucracy says it has.”

“Among the states which purportedly ratified the 16th Amendment, at least four of them have overturned state income taxation on the basis that earning a living is a fundamental right which cannot be taxed,” continues Hart. A tax on one’s wages is a form of slavery; it is literally a tax on a person’s right to exist.

The original intent of the 16th Amendment, as one Congressman pointed out during a 1943 congressional on the House floor (see Congressional Record, March 27,1943, p. 2580), was not to impose a tax “on income as such,” but rather to impose an “excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges which is measured by reference to the income which they produce.” In other words, the income tax was applied to income derived from the privilege of acting as a government-created corporation.

As is the case with much of what happened in annus horribilis 1913 — the Federal Reserve System being the most notable example — the income tax was sold to the public as a way of protecting the common people from the predations of the super-wealthy.

Currently burning in hell: Nelson Aldrich.

At the time, the Republican-created tariff system that amounted to “a tax placed on the American people not by government, but by business,” writes Hart.

The income tax was designed to target those who profited from government-created and tariff-assisted monopolies. This was the “bait.” The “switch” came once the 16th Amendment was ratified, when legislators in thrall to what used to be called the Money Power (with the detestable Nelson Aldrich playing a key role, as he did in the creation of the Federal Reserve) retrofitted language into the tax code that defined “wages” as the revenue source targeted by the income tax.

Hart’s analysis is similar to, but more comprehensive than, many other critiques of the income tax system. He is optimistic that the system can be reformed if he and others can cultivate sufficient awareness of the original intent behind the income tax, and the institutionalized fraud committed by the current tax bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, he seems to have radically overestimated the system’s capacity for institutional reform, while radically underestimating its capacity for institutionalized malice toward those who pose a substantial threat.

“I read your book `Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any?’” Hart was notified in a letter from IRS agent Barbara Parks announcing that the state-sponsored terrorist clique employing her was beginning an “investigation” of the book. The purpose of that inquiry, she continued, was “to determine whether or not your statements are commercial speech and whether this activity causes harm to the government.”

With the help of the Center for Individual Rights, Hart successfully sued the IRS to interdict the agency’s demand that he turn over the names of everybody who had purchased his book. Four years later, the IRS retaliated against Hart by issuing a final audit report denying all of his business deductions for eight years, hitting him with an additional tax liability of roughly $125,000. When he protested his treatment to the IRS, an official with the agency gloatingly explained: “When you don’t give us everything we ask for, you get all of your deductions denied.”

“During [my] four year audit, I provided the IRS with all my canceled checks, receipts, invoices and so on — boxes worth,” Hart recounts. “Yet these deductions were denied solely for political reasons.”

Certified Public Accountant Paul J. Desfosses, a retired U.S. Treasury Agent residing in Pocatello, Idaho, sustains and elaborates on Hart’s conclusion that he has been targeted for retaliation by the IRS “for failing to `snitch’ on and provide the names of those Citizens who might have dared to buy and read [his] book with its critical history and assessment of Federal Income Tax Law.”

“I wish I could say that Representative Hart is wrong and that the IRS does not demand the names of Citizens who read disparaging comments about the Federal Income Tax, the IRS, or `big brother government’ in general,” writes Desfosses. “The truth is, that does happen….”

“While assigned to the Internal Revenue Service Idaho District, I was a National Treasury Employees Union Official and I routinely acted as the Union Steward in situations involving IRS employees who had been ordered to commit reprehensible and often felony criminal actions by their IRS managers or other IRS top officials,” Desfosses elaborates. The agency “collected and compiled huge lists of citizens who were then targeted for audit and harassment for having bought and read a book such as Representative Hart’s,” or because they were perceived to be “a `threat’ to the Federal Government’s power” by IRS supervisors.

Representative Hart isn’t the only recent victim of this treatment, Desfosses continues. “In April I attended a U.S. Tax Court trial involving an Idaho State University Professor who had obviously been targeted by [the] IRS at the request of a Federal District Court Judge whose past criminal actions the professor had exposed in a newsletter,” thereby resulting in the denial of an appointment to the Appeals Court. But abuses of this kind — against both tax victims and IRS employees still burdened with a functioning conscience –are commonplace, Desfosses concludes.

In persecuting the Plunderbund’s enemies, the IRS can rely on the support of minor-league predators in state-level positions. So it’s not surprising that the Idaho Tax Commission, after learning of the IRS’s assault on Hart, gleefully piled on, demanding its cut of the fraudulently inflated “taxable income” and barraging him with tax liens.

Since abandoning his constitutional challenge, Hart ruefully observes, none of the more than $120,000 he has paid “has been used to offset any of the lien amounts.” His ongoing legal struggle with the Tax Commission provided the pretext for the ethics investigation against Hart.

In Idaho, as in other states, legislators are protected from any “civil process” while the legislature is in session (vide the Idaho State Constitution, Art. III,  Sec. 7: “Senators and representatives in all cases … shall not be liable to any civil process during the session of the legislature, nor during the ten days next before the commencement thereof….”)

Invoking that long-established principle, Rep. Hart sought to postpone his protracted legal struggle with the Idaho Tax Commission until after the end of the legislative session. This was somehow transmuted by his critics into an attempt “to obtain special treatment from the Idaho Tax Commission.” Likewise, Hart’s service on the tax policy committee was described as giving the appearance of an attempt “to set aside the tax law and obtain personal financial benefit.”

The second charge is facially ludicrous. In describing Rep. Hart’s supposed offense, Idaho House Minority Leader John Rusche complained that the committee assignment creates “the perception of a conflict of interest.” But neither he nor any of Hart’s other critics can specify the “financial benefit” Hart supposedly receives from that post. Indeed, Hart’s service has done nothing to stanch his financial hemorrhage, much less provide him with some ill-obtained emolument.

As Washington state legislator Matthew Shea observes in a tightly-reasoned essayexamining the principle of legislative immunity in light of precedent and practices in other states, Rep. Hart’s legal position is unassailable.

“Rep. Hart has relied on the legislative immunity provision of the Idaho Constitution to postpone working on his own tax issues, which have been ongoing for a few years,” writes Rep. Shea, who is also a practicing attorney. “There is no question that it is within the sovereign power of the states to afford this protection. Furthermore, the law seems to be clearly on Rep. Hart’s side. So why does the witch hunt continue?”

“Not only are Rep. Hart’s accusers in error,” concludes Rep. Shea, “but the entire situation substantiates the very reason legislative immunity was written into the constitution in the first place — to prevent political persecution.”

In an interview with Pro Libertate Rep. Hart — a political ally of several insurgent candidates in the recent Idaho Republican primaries — expressed the view that the ethics complaint was confected by enemies within the statist elements of the state’s Republican establishment. This is an entirely plausible explanation for the otherwise inexplicable decision of the Republican-dominated legislative leadership to stage an ethics inquisition on the basis of terminally flimsy charges.

Already under siege by the world’s most despicable terrorist syndicate (no, not al-Qaeda — the IRS),  Hart now has to contend with spurious charges of seeking “special treatment” and “financial gain.” Yet state Rep. Ken Roberts remains secure within the Idaho Republican Party in spite of the fact, recently disclosed by the Lewiston Tribune, that Roberts has received nearly $370,000 in farm subsidies since 1995.

Roberts, who ritualistically reviles subsidies directed at others, insists that when he’son the receiving end of plunder he’s not redistributing wealth, but rather “recycling wealth.” Predictably, nobody in the state Republican leadership has proposed that Roberts be subjected to an ethics inquiry.

The Idaho Falls Post-Register notes that “three of the four members of the House GOP leadership team have cashed federal farm checks.” A total of 36 current members of the state legislature have received federal agriculture payments (including disaster assistance and conservation reserve payments) since 1995. Of that number, 19 received subsidies — and 18 of the Welfare Queens are Republicans, the people who “led the mostly ceremonial fight against the federal government during the 2010 legislative session,” observes the Post-Register.

Phil Hart’s fight against federal tyranny was substantive, not ceremonial — and that’s why he’s taking fire not only from the agents of the Plunderbund who confront him, but also from the less principled Republicans who are cowering behind him.

Thirty states will be encroached upon by Obama’s Executive Order establishing the National Ocean Council for control over America’s oceans, coastlines and the Great Lakes. Under this new council, states’ coastal jurisdictions will be subject to the United Nations’ Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) in this UN Agenda 21 program. America’a oceans and coastlines will be broken into 9 regions that include the North East, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, West Coast, the Great Lakes, Alaska, the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii) and the Caribbean.

Because of the decades of difficulty that the collectivists have had trying to ratify the Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST), Obama is sneaking it in through the back door, by way of this Executive Order establishing the Council. Because LOST is a treaty, Obama’s Executive Order is not Constitutional as treaty ratification requires 2/3 approval from the Senate. Michael Shaw said that the Agenda 21 Convention on Biodiversity treaty of 1992 failed to pass Congress so it was executed through soft law and administratively on local levels, and Obama’s Executive Order is a similar soft law tactic to enact the LOST treaty.

In fact, our Constitutional form of government is being completely destroyed because buried in the CLEAR Act (HR 3534) there is a provision for a new council to oversee the outer continental shelf- it appears that this Regional Outer Shelf Council will be part of the National Ocean Council. This means that if Congress makes the CLEAR Act into law, then the implementation of the UN Law Of Sea Treaty, as part of the National Ocean Council’s agenda, will be “ratified” in a convoluted and stealth manner, in full opposition to the Constitution and its intent.

The excuse for this extreme action is because of the emergency in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama and Congress have always had the legal and military power to force BP Oil to take all necessary action to stop the gusher and clean the oil spew. While there is evidence that the problems in the Gulf have been a result of collusion and planned incompetence, it begs the question, why in world should America’s oceans and resources be controlled by Obama appointees?

NATIONAL OCEAN COUNCIL MEMBERS:

John Holdren, Obama’s science and technology advisor, is the co-chairman of this new council. He is also a depopulation enthusiast and advocates sterilization by way of using infertility drugs in water and food as well as forced abortions which he describes in his book “Ecoscience”.

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Department of Interior, and its subagency, MMS (Minerals Management Service) has authority over offshore drilling and responsibility for enforcing spill prevention measures. The Department of Interior’s BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is the entity that controls federally managed land extending across 30% of America in 11 western states. Last week, Congressman Louie Gohmert said that Ken Salazar personally prevented drilling on land in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, thereby also preventing energy independence. In addition, the federal lands have been grossly mismanaged and present fire dangers. The federal government is $3.7 billion in arrears for maintenance of the federally managed lands.

US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, by way of the US Forestry Service and US Fish & Wildlife Service, has been complicit in the decline of our country’s food independence. For example, US Fish & Wildlife (along with the Department of Commerce) shut the water off in California using Endangered Species Act; it was later proven that partially treated sewage was the primary culprit in killing the salmon and delta smelt that was previously blamed on farmers. This is phony environmentalism. The US Forestry Service has also misused the Endangered Species Act to limit farmers and ranchers. Remember that the USDA co-owns the Terminator Gene patent with Monsanto that makes seeds sterile.

Lisa Jackson is the EPA administrator who has threatened to impose 18,000 pages of new regulations to curb global warming which is based on lies, claiming that carbon dioxide is a danger to human health.

Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: it is unclear how these two federal appointees will enhance environmental ‘sustainability’ over oceans and coasts. Traditionally, national security threats (like the War on Terror) have been used by the federal government to take control of resources. For example, many years ago when the interstate highway systems were first being built, the Feds got in on the action by claiming that they were building a defense highway system, and they encroached into an area that belonged to the states. Interestingly, there were no overhead structures on highways originally because of the Feds’ claim that large missiles would be transported on these “defense” highway systems.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, a leading globalist, is likely to plunge our country into international entanglements and subjugation, based on her past performance; an example is her support of the UN Small Arms Treaty, which is contrary to the Constitution.

Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are logical choices for this destructive council as some of the planned funding for this program will come from permits and leases (oil drilling leases, for example). These agencies will limit America’s energy independence.

Click here to see the full list of the 24 member council.

THE SMOKING GUN:

Agenda 21 Sustainable Development is the overarching blueprint for depopulationa and total control, and the National Ocean Council is clearly an Agenda 21 program:

The National Ocean Council is headed by John Holdren, an avowed eugenicist which is selective breeding through brutal means like forced abortion.

The National Ocean Counci’s own report (Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning, pg. 8) incorporates a section of the 1992 Rio Declaration which is an original UN Agenda 21 document!

In fact, the report says that it will be guided by the Rio Declaration in cases “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” (pg. 8) This means that regulations will be imposed even if the science is not understood or if the science is based on global warming manipulated data.

The 3 primary tools of Agenda 21′s phony environmentalism are global warming, water shortages and the Endangered Species Act; the National Ocean Council intends to exploit all of these tools to their full extent.

The National Ocean Council’s main objective is to sink American sovereignty through the United Nations Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) with the intended result of domination by the UNover our coasts and the Great Lakes. LOST originated in the 1970s as a wealth redistribution plan to benefit Third World countries. LOST sets rules for commercial activity beneath the high seas and establishes new international bureaucracies and a tribunal to interpret and apply rules to sea activity. And LOST can proceed with those rules, even against US objections! LOST threatens to complicate deep sea mining. LOST sets a precedent that US rights are dependent upon the approval of international entities. LOST also extends to ocean flowing rivers.

REGIONALISM:

Michael Shaw pointed out that non-elected councils are increasingly expanding their jurisdiction through air quality boards, water quality boards, sewer systems, transportation districts, metropolitan planning, etc. to gain control over resources. Often, large corporations and financial interests form Public- Private Partnerships with the government within these councils.

Breaking areas into regions and placing authority with non-elected councils is a Communist trick used to hijack resources, thereby usurping local and state power by re-zoning the areas that do have Constitutional authority. Appointed bureaucrats are untouchable because their jobs are not dependent upon serving the voting population. And they are usually inaccessible to the public and do not have to face those who are affected by their “insider” decisions. When state and local governments become corrupt, the public is able to confront them eye to eye, but distant bureaucrats can avoid accountability. Regionalism is used as a psychological tactic to intimidate state legislatures into creating the system for a new political and economic order.

Obama’s Executive Order that has created the 9 new regions amounts to re-zoning, and his appointed bureaucrats are answerable only to him. In DavidHorton’s testimony in 1978 on regionalism, he said that the State of Indiana made this declaration, “Neither the states nor Congress have ever granted authority to any branch or agency of the federal government to exercise regional control over the states.” Horton further stated that Congress holds all legislative power that is granted in the Constitution, as opposed to Executive Orders that are not legislative. Therefore, Obama’s Executive Order for re-zoning and appointing a governing body to usurp state and local power is Constitutionally invalid.

The public must become aware of state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment to demand that state and local governments assert these Constitutional laws and principles.

COASTAL AND MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING REPORT:

This is a general overview of the new National Ocean Council’s goals based on its 32-page report that uses indirect language and acronyms in order to confuse the public and local lawmakers. Depopulation advocates, globalists and collectivists, like John Holdren, faced opposition a few decades ago when they clearly expressed their objectives, so now documents are written in complicated and clouded language to fool those they wish to control.

This report states that the Council’s jurisdiction will extend from the continental shelf to the coast AND additional inland areas will be involved. The National Ocean Council identifies “partners” as members of each regional planning body that will include federal, state, local and tribal authorities, with a top-down hierarchy of control.

The intentions of the Council are stated on page 8 of the report that include implementing LOST and other international treaties.  The report also states that the Counci’s plans shall be implemented by Executive Orders, in addition to federal and state laws.  This section mentions ‘global climate change’ which is a new term used as a substitute for ‘man made global warming’ after manipulated data and lies were exposed in numerous global warming scandals.  ‘Climate change’ is blamed for sea level rise and acidification of oceans; evidence exists that these are more global warming deceptions.

The stated goals of the Council include regulating investments, collaborating with unidentified international agencies, controlling public access to oceans and “protecting” ecosystems. This means that commerce and trade will be controlled by the Council, the UN will gain power over American oceans and the Great Lakes through UN subagencies, public access will be limited and the Endangered Species Act will be unleashed, with heavy regulations. Incidentally, the Endangered Species Act is based on 5 international treaties. It has never had a successful result: of the 60 species that have been de-listed, not a single species was saved as a result of any restrictions stemming from the Endangered Species Act!

The targeted areas for Endangered Species Act regulations are the the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, South Florida and the San Francisco Bay (the Bay Delta is where the irrigation water for farmers was was cut off using the Endangered Species Act, causing food shortages, an increase in food imports and massive economic devastation).

While this report does not clearly outline how the National Ocean Council’s schemes will be financed, regulatory permits for all activity on the water and mining (oil) leases will play a part, along with tax increases. The report does indicate that grants and assistance programs will be available so that state, local and tribal authorities will support the Council’s “efforts”. In other words, the Council will try to buy off the state and local governments to “collectively use” them for a base of support and influence. (pg. 28) Strings are always attached to federal money. The federal government and the Council are reliant on state and local governments for implementation through state and local legal authority, which means that state and local authorities hold the power to implement or refuse the Council’s directives, especially under the Tenth Amendment.

However, the report does state that disputes will be settled by consensus, if consensus fails, then the decisions will ultimately be made by the President. He is Commander in Chief of the Navy and has the power of the military behind him. Further, the report indicates that legislative changes and more Executive Orders may be necessary to achieve control.

An important point is made on page 5, which states, “Strong partnerships among Federal, State, tribal and local authorities, and regional governance structures would be essential to a truly forward-looking, comprehensive CMSP effort.” This means that the states, local governments and tribes have power. Our collectivist government needs the consent of the state, local and tribal authorities, to implement this scheme, otherwise, the feds wouldn’t bother to include these Constitutional authorities. If the state, local and tribal authorities are aware of, and willing to act on their Constitutional authority, then they can limit this federal power grab through the Tenth Amendment.

The report further states that signing onto the Council’s plan would be an “express commitment by the partners to act in accordance with the plan…” (pg. 20) Therefore, it is imperative that all of the states be aware of the Council’s intended usurpation and carefully protect their Constitutional jurisdictions and sovereignty. There are 30 states that will be affected by this new council. (pg. 12)

The Council’s strategy plan will go into effect immediately, fully developing Agenda 21 objectives and undue UN influence within 5 years. Interestingly, one article said that if state, local and tribal authorities choose not to participate in in writing the plans, the plans would be written without them. Therefore, it bears repeating that state and local governments must protect their Constitutional authority when dealing with the Council. The Constitutional authority that states and local governments have can only be taken if the power is given away.

SAVING OUR COUNTRY:

If your freedom is important to you, the most effective action that you can take is to e-mail this article and Michael Shaw’s “Understanding Agenda 21 Sustainable Development” booklet to all of your State Legislators, County Commissioners/ Superintendents and City Council members.

Tell all of your friends, co-workers and neighbors about Agenda 21 Sustainable Development and how it is destroying our country. The National Ocean Council is detrimental on so many levels and the time to act is now. If state and local officials refuse to stand up against this federal incursion, they must be thrown out of office in favor of representatives who support the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.

Be sure to check back with www.MorphCity.com on July 30th to watch a special video presentation about how a local official stood up against encroachment by the federal government.

The Establishment is Fighting to Stay Alive as the Globe Reaches a Critical Juncture in History

The world, it seams, is reaching a critical juncture in history. Current trends are pointing towards dramatic changes in government and society. Long standing institutions are scrambling to stay afloat as new rivals challenge old ideas. Meanwhile, the global elite, foreseeing these changes, is fighting to retain control over a global system that is being torn apart by economic meltdown and a global political awakening. As top global strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski have admitted, cracks are forming in the many bases of establishment control.

Global Political Awakening

Global governance has been a long term goal of elites for decades. However, a global political awakening is taking place that is proving to be a major stumbling block under the feet of the world’s elite. During a recent Council on Foreign Relations meeting in Montreal, Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that, “Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” stating that a fractured elite “…makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”

In an earlier speech in 2009, Brzezinski elaborated further, saying, “…in early times, it was easier to control a million people, literally it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today, it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. It is easier to kill than to control….”

An example of Brzezeinski’s lamentations can be seen in the failing European Union. The EU, an admitted brainchild of the Bilderberg Group, is a globalist pet project that was to be a model for global governance. Today however, the EU is suffering an economic meltdown and discord that is bringing a backlash against the collectivist ideology behind the union. Global and regional governance faces an additional problem, specifically the fact that without the perception of an outside threat the coherence of the system falls apart. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization and frequent attendee of Bilderberg meetings, stated in a November 2009 speech that,

“The anthropological dimension of supranationality has probably been underestimated. Once the imminence of the menace of a new war has disappeared from our horizon, it is as if the glue that holds Europe together as a community will also disappear. As if there were no common myths, dreams and aspirations.”

Lamay further stated that “…We are witnessing a growing distance between European public opinions and the European project.”

Indications of a fractured and apprehensive elite were abundant during the 2010 Bilderberg meeting in Sitges Spain. Public awareness has spread significantly enough for several Bilderberg attendees to decline invitations to the annual meeting this year, fearing reprisal upon returning home.

While the global political awakening is breaking methods of control that have worked in years gone by, the current financial crisis and the resulting power grab by global bankspresents another problem for free peoples world-wide.

Dinosaur media bites back

A brief look at the failing mainstream media will unveil one of the top trends indicating this historical time period. Sensing the rise of alternative news sources, government is moving to tax news websites in an attempt to stifle competition. At the same time, several newspapers are moving to online content and charging for the service.

In the 21st Century, Online media and news websites have become the dominant provider of information. China has blocked a large portion of the internet from its citizens for this reason, seeking to maintain control. The future of the internet world-wide, according to author and “web critic” Andrew Keen, will be monitored by “gatekeepers” to verify the accuracy of information posted on the web. The “Outlook 2009″ report from the November-December issue of The Futurist reports that,

“Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen believes that the anonymity of today’s internet 2.0 will give way to a more open internet 3.0 in which third party gatekeepers monitor the information posted on Web sites to verify its accuracy.”

Blogger Andrew Steele writes, concerning a recent incident involving Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, “Because cameras are more widely available to the average consumer and because of the popularity of user fed sites like YouTube, citizen journalists have become abundant in America over the past decade.” Steele continues, “This phenomenon has weakened the controlled media’s power to influence and shape reality, as well as the power of politicians to control their exposure through that media.”

The current consensus among the intelligentsia in government - Obama regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein for example – is that information must be filtered in the new media age. “Conspiracy theories” are becoming too prolific, and an intellectual elite must guide society toward “right ways” of thinking. This type of social engineering is the driving philosophy behind many of the current initiatives coming from the Obama White House.

While the mainstream media will attempt to hold its position and stifle the growing juggernaut of alternative media, its growth has proven too explosive to be contained. Bloggers and alternative news websites continue to break stories of significance across all spectrums of society. An example; BP’s recent attempt to use photoshopped images to give an exaggerated impression of its oil cleanup efforts was exposed by a blogger.

Looking to the future

During the past few years, several reports have been released from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense, the Washington Post, the U.S. Army War College, and the Rockefeller Foundation in conjunction with the Global Business Network that outline potential futures for humanity. Ominously, they all carry strikingly similar dystopic themes.

As Old-Thinker News reported in March, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense published the Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2040 report. This report was an update to an earlier 2006 MoD report - DCDC Strategic Trends 2007-2036 – which extended its strategic vision to 2036, depicting flash mobs, brain chips and revolution.

The updated Out to 2040 report covers a wide swath of societal and technological issues, and anticipates an exaggerated rift between haves and have nots. The MoD also saw “…the emergence of a global elite, a powerful network of individuals and institutions that sits above the level of individual states and influences the global agenda…”

Analysts writing in the 2008 U.S. Army War College paper “Leadership in the Era of the Human Singularity: New Demands, New Skills, New Response,” portray a future in which multiple scenarios are possible. One sees a new renaissance and unprecedented human development aided by technology, the other a new dark age of world-wide high tech totalitarian control.

In the Human Singularity paper, Dr. Barton Kunstler documents the impact of ESI’s (Enhanced Singular Individuals), as well as the profound effect on society that human-enhancing technologies may have. Kunstler states,

“This is the crux of power and also a focus of much futurist thought. Technocracy has long been depicted as uniform and oppressive, with social control the primary aim. In broadest terms, ESIs will influence social organization to reflect and favor the expression of their outsized talents. This shift could imply a commitment to creativity and innovation, with society organized to favor artists, visionaries, scientists, and inventors… Or it could result in 1984-like scenarios due to the power endowed by invasive, body -and psyche- penetrating technologies.”

Kunstler continues, foreseeing a possible scenario of “…absolute totalitarian global control.”

“The level of intelligence and physical well-being ushered in by the human singularity could lead to another type of singularity, a “historical singularity.” It could turn out to be a condition of absolute totalitarian
global control. Or we may witness its opposite: a dramatic rise in collective wisdom…”

Yet another recent report released in May 2010 from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network presents a disturbing future. Among the many issues raised, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development”outlines a world in which low level conflict spreads world-wide while,

“The global have/have-not gap grew wider than ever. The very rich still had the financial means to protect themselves; gated communities sprung up from New York to Lagos, providing safe havens surrounded by slums. In 2025, it was de rigueur to build not a house but a high-walled fortress, guarded by armed personnel.”

On April 27, 2008 the Washington Post printed a lengthy report titled “Washington’s Future, a History“. The article is the product of a collaborative effort of various experts from governmental and business positions. The report outlines two future scenarios played out over the next 17 years. One of them features an America in which national ID cards have been adopted; citizen journalists are monitored and censored by round the clock internet police; cities have become locked down zones riddled with checkpoints (which can be breezed through by those who have the proper electronic implant), and the standard of living for the majority of the population has dropped dramatically while a wealthy elite flourishes.

The Post article follows the footsteps of various fictional characters in a future dystopia, one of whom is Victor. This particular character is responsible for monitoring citizen journalists. He is

“…assigned to monitor and massage bloggers and citizen journalists who wrote about and took shots at the feds. Just as the work of journalism had devolved to a ragtag crew of volunteers working out of their cars and bedrooms, now the government was outsourcing much of its effort to communicate with voters, and Victor was supposed to be on round-the-clock patrol to catch any opinion wildfire that might be threatening the policymakers in his assigned sector.”

Elsewhere, security clearance implants allow “officials” to move freely through checkpoints. The Post article continues,

“The privatization of the roads and transit lines Paula would have to use to get to Konterra, the nation’s burgeoning satellite capital in northwestern Prince George’s County, made a commute from Washington all but impossible. Only the top ranks in her agency could possibly afford a long commute during premium-priced rush hour, and Paula could hardly switch to all-night work hours with the kids at home. The drive from Washington to Konterra took long enough; now, the checkpoints at the gateways that controlled movement in and out of the inner District could stretch any workday by two or three hours, especially for people like Paula who still had no security clearance implants and little prospect of being able to afford any.”

The report further describes this society in collapse as energy rationing and “cyber meltdowns” spark protests. The poor and lower classes are effectively walled off from wealthy elites living in high tech cities.

If there were ever a time for activism and involvement in the direction of society, it is now. While the future may not look exactly like the picture painted here, there is a reason that multiple reports over several years carry such similar language. Will the internet remain uncensored? Will the press remain free? Further down the road – but not very far in the distant future – how will we deal with technologies that will intrude into our bodies and minds? Will a tyrannical global elite – as envisioned by papers published by the Ministry Defense, Army War College and others – dominate the globe in a technocratic scientific dictatorship? We face complex and multifaceted issues that need to be addressed.

——————————

A message from Daniel Taylor of Old-Thinker News:

Dystopia or renaissance, tyranny or freedom? Our world is set to undergo dramatic changes. We face difficult choices.

How are you treating others? How are you living your life? One of the greatest challenges over the coming years will be the prospect of retaining our humanity. It is easy to harden your heart toward others, the world, and yourself. You can change the world by starting with the world inside you. Set a humble example for others to follow and carry the fire.

——————————

“Dream of the future,
yes, dream.

Let the glow of visions gleam
and brighten your tomorrow.

Reach for far off places,
yes, reach.

Let your vision teach
Enlightenment for humanity.

Believe in hope and love,
yes, believe

Let visions of hope and love weave the fabric of your life.”

- Charles W. Taylor

Jeff Yago, Backwoods Home’s energy writer, recently completed a couple of concealed carry handgun courses. The classes apparently left some questions hanging in the air, and Jeff passed along a request through Dave Duffy for those questions to be addressed in this space. Here goes.

Question 1: “What are the basic differences in handguns to help determine which is better for home defense, ease of operation (single versus double action), male or female, caliber, number of cartridges?”

The question covers a lot of ground, so the answer has to be a bit basic.

A double action revolver with swing-out cylinder is easier in terms of administrative handling (loading, unloading, checking, cleaning) than any semiautomatic pistol. This is a decisive advantage for new shooters, or those who don’t spend much time maintaining their handgun skills. Many of today’s auto pistols are extraordinarily reliable, but if you compare all revolvers with all “automatics,” the revolvers win out in terms of certainty of firing without malfunction. Revolvers are also less maintenance intensive: they don’t need constant lubrication because they don’t have the long bearing surfaces that are at work within an autoloader’s mechanism as it is operated.

The downside of the revolver is less firepower: in the calibers you’d want for self-defense, cartridge capacity is somewhere between five and eight. Even with a speedloader, a revolver is slower to load and reload than is the semiautomatic, with its fast-inserting cartridge magazine. Under stress, you want to shoot the revolver double action, which means a long, heavy trigger pull for every shot. Most auto pistols are “self-cocking,” so at least after the first shot, and with some designs even with that first round, you have a shorter, lighter trigger pull that is easier for most people to manage when trying to shoot accurately at speed.

The semiautomatic generally holds more cartridges and is faster to reload, and can be had in models with a manual safety catch feature. This device can slow down an unauthorized person who doesn’t know that particular gun, gets his hands on it, and tries to shoot it. Many cops, and some armed citizens, are alive today because the homicidal felon who got their gun away from them and tried to shoot them with it didn’t know how to release the thumb safety.

Male or female? It’s less about gender than about hand size and shooting experience. A home defense gun is a “pool weapon,” like the shotgun in a police patrol car that’s on the road for three shifts a day: multiple individuals may be resorting to the same weapon. This means that the gun’s size and power have to be tailored to the smallest, least physically capable shooter who is authorized to use it. A large man can easily shoot his wife’s short-stocked 20-gauge shotgun or her slim-gripped SIG P239 9mm, but she will be awkward, clumsy, and poorly prepared to defend herself with his long-stocked 12 gauge, or his fat-handled .50 caliber Desert Eagle, which also requires a long finger to properly reach the trigger.

How many cartridges? I personally like a high capacity semiautomatic for home defense, because when you grab a gun in the middle of the night there isn’t always time to grab spare ammo. However, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of home defense applications of a gun are over in less than five or six shots. The revolver has a good history in defending home and hearth.

I would recommend the .38 Special (revolver) or 9mm Luger (auto) as minimum caliber in a defensive handgun. The smaller the caliber and the heavier the gun, the lighter the recoil; the more powerful the cartridge and the lighter the gun, the harder it will “kick.” The rule of thumb is that you should choose the most powerful gun that can be controlled in accurate rapid fire by the least physically capable person who is authorized to use it. The .40 and .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols aren’t hard to control with proper techniques and a good level of familiarity. Larger caliber revolvers kick more and require more training and practice to control and hit with at high speed.

Question 2: “(Please discuss) basic types and calibers of ammunition, and which is better for home defense, target practice, varmints, etc.”

Home defense rounds should be hollow points (HP), for the same reason that this type of ammo is universal among American police. The HP is designed to expand into a mushroom shape as it passes through flesh. This slows it down and reduces its penetration, making it unlikely that the projectile will pass through the felon’s torso and go on to strike a bystander who was blocked from the shooter’s position by the bulk of the criminal he shot.

Shaped like a cookie cutter at its nose, the hollow point is less likely to ricochet at a dangerous and unpredictable angle because where a round nose bullet might glance, the HP tends to bite into the surface and buries itself safely there. The expanding bullet also creates a wider wound channel that imparts more force to the intended target, helping to ensure a more rapid cessation of hostile activity. This is why HPs are better “man-stoppers” than standard ammunition.

There are some exotic cartridges sold for defense, such as ultra-light projectiles designed to break up on impact at extremely high velocity. The trouble with these is that they don’t always work in semiautomatic pistols, having a different pressure curve than the standard ammunition that the weapon’s slide mass and spring compression ratio were developed for at the factory. They are also very expensive, and it can cost up to $600 to run the requisite 200 rounds of the “carry ammo” through the gun to be certain that it will work reliably. For this writer, that factor alone lets out the exotic self-defense loads.

For practice or training, once you know your pistol will work 100% with your chosen defense load, it’s much more economical to buy generic full metal jacket ammo. The more “trigger time” you deposit in the “long term muscle memory” bank, the more swift and skillful you’ll be if you have to fire an accurate rescue shot in the course of an emergency.

Reloading your own ammo is a fun hobby, and fits perfectly in the self-reliance mode that runs through the whole backwoods home ethos. At the same time, generic factory produced cartridges are so cheap these days, particularly in 9mm and .38 Special, that when you figure in what your time is worth, it’s often more cost effective to buy your practice ammo in bulk instead of making your own ammunition.

Consider special needs. In bear country, you want deeper penetrating bullets, and probably more powerful cartridges, than what you’d want for defense against a 200-pound erect biped. If there are poisonous snakes on the property, a revolver loaded with snake-shot cartridges for at least the first couple of chambers makes a lot of sense. There are many semiautomatic pistols that won’t cycle with snake-shot loads, which tend to have too light a recoil impulse to cycle a semiautomatic pistol’s slide. If the first shot at the cottonmouth misses, it’s a lousy time for your handgun to jam.

Read the rest at this link.

Oh, if only the Left was right and people were infinitely malleable blank slates! My heart would soar if it was true. All the differences between men, women, races and ethnic groups – if they were all environmental, just twiddle some societal knobs, and presto-chango! We’d get just about as close to Heaven on Earth as we’re going to get.

But the Left isn’t right. Actually, they are as wrong as can be, which makes their Procrustean attempts to level people always lead to cultural and societal suicide. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are gone, China has given up its blue Mao uniforms, and Cuba will collapse soon after Castro shuffles off. The United States ain’t in such good shape, either.

But if the Left believes we are John Lockean wax tablets, why is it so obsessed with envy? Leftism, in fact, in based on eliminating envy – making us all identical and equal, like quarters, or those Stormtrooper clones in Star Wars.

Is envy inborn in us? One of the oldest stories in the West, that of the Garden of Eden, tells us it is. Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent, a symbol of envy. Worse, murder enters the picture through their children, when Cain kills Abel because of his envy of him.

What a story! The introduction of evil and murder into the world through envy and blaming your problems on other people – through scapegoating. All of it is explained in a short story about four people. Shakespeare should have been so succinct.

Too bad people these days have so little understanding of the destructive effects of envy (and the Seven Deadly Sins in general). Perhaps our “religious leaders” aren’t doing their jobs and are instead regaling their flocks with fantasies about the Rapture and Tribulation.

It’s bad enough when individuals blame their problems on innocent people, but it’s far worse when groups do it. People are herd animals, social, imitative and hierarchical – and herds don’t have much more brains than a sea squirt, though they’re far more dangerous.

Herds not only barely have any brains, they have no gratitude. Not a drop. You can’t be grateful and envious at the same time.  Herds embody the worst qualities of mankind and none of the better. Even Aesop noticed that thousands of years ago.

So when one more successful group tries to help a disadvantaged group, it doesn’t work. It not only doesn’t work, it backfires in a big way. What it creates, like clockwork, is ingratitude.

“It is astounding that countless benefactors allow themselves to be persuaded over and over that ingratitude with the resulting hatred is a rare and special case,” writes Helmet Schoeck in his magisterial book, Envy.

Read the rest at this link.