Pat Shannan's MUSINGS
NRA's DUBIOUS LEADERSHIP
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Constitution Hall in Philadelphia in late 1789 on the day the final draft for the Constitution was completed, a woman confronted him on steps of the now famous building. "Oh, Dr. Franklin," she asked, "what have you given us?" "A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it!" the old philosopher quickly replied.
Republics, Monarchies, Oligarchies, and every other system of government known to man had been tossed around in debate over the previous two years in that meeting hall and the very least considered was a democracy. The founders knew that democracies lead to "mobocracy." In a democracy, a system that most dumbed-down Americans are so proud to proclaim today, the "laws" change with the wind and opinion of the current majority. Within a majority rule, 50.1% of the people can legally force the other 49.9% to obey the whim of the moment, irrespective of the latter's moral code and Biblical law. A democracy is brutal and does away with the fairness in Biblical law as absolutely as would the most tyrannical czar - only more quietly and surreptitiously. The democratic system was abhorred and quickly rejected by the founding fathers, and a brief scan of Madison's Federalist Papers (#10) will prove it to any scoffer.
John Adams said, "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
Alexander Hamilton concurred with, "It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would the be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."
In 1928, the War Department issued a training manual for new recruits which defined the two forms of government for the uninitiated befuddled: DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meetings or any form of direct expression results in mobocracy. Attitude towards property is communistic - negating property rights. Attitude towards the law is that the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, and anarchy.
REPUBLIC: Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure. Attitude towards law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought with ins compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty ,reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Yet the same manual, published by the same War Department in 1952, had somehow evolved into the words: ". . . Since the United States is a democracy. . ." Hmmm. Did someone switch us over and not bother to tell us?
During the last half of the 20th century, politicians have plowed the ground for great bureaucratic harvests over the years by parroting "our great democracy." Ronald Reagan would further bastardize our system with great "conservative" speeches praising "our American democracy as the envy of the world," to the resounding cheers of a million hero-worshipping morons. During the great flag debate a decade ago, Ted Kennedy regurgitated up his rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance on national television by saying ". . . and to the democracy for which it stands." The conspiracy to defraud us of our liberties is bipartisan.
The Constitutional Republic of the United States of America was set up with a rule by law, with that Constitution being "the supreme law of the land" (Article Six). The majority rule ends at the ballot box, where we elect our representatives to oversee that Republic and its laws. (At least prior to computer vote fraud.) Each elected representative takes an oath to "uphold and defend the Constitution of [for] the United States." When that Republic evolves into a democracy, such as what is imitated in America today, it becomes no longer a rule by law but a rule by the whim of man, and only the bureaucracy flourishes.
"Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit." Freda Adler
All of the foregoing is not news to the majority of our loyal readers, but what follows may be.
On May 28th, Charlton Heston, the ear-tickling, Ronnie Reagan imitating, former ultra-liberal civil rights demonstrating Dr. Feelgood, who somehow inveigled his way into the position of high-ranking muckety-muck and spokesman for the National Rifle Association, appeared on CBS-TV's 60-Minutes with Mike Wallace. As with most government-planted frauds, 95% of what the movie hero said was warming to the ears of the defenders of the 2nd Amendment. However, his bluff was called when he overplayed his hand with his historical re-write of the Franklin story above.
Fifty million Americans swallowed the deception again when they heard the canonizing voice of "Moses," roar once more. He replayed the scene from the steps of Constitution Hall with great aplomb, except when the woman asked Ben Franklin the titillating question, the Academy Award winner fabricated the outlandish lie that Franklin had replied: "A democracy, Madam, if you can keep it!"
One more nail in the coffin of truth. How many Americans have already repeated this lie with conviction? Perhaps the same obfuscation is already being taught in the public fool system, and Heston only reminded them of what they had already read somewhere. I don't know. I do know that I never read the true story in any schoolbook, but from the government's perspective, the deceptive twist is ideal for today's students.
A longtime social activist supporting liberal causes, Heston was a vociferous endorser of Lyndon Johnson's 1968 gun-control statutes. "I was young and foolish," the chameleon says today. For the record, Charlton Heston was 45 in 1968, being born in 1923. If that is "young and foolish," then by now, at 77, he must have regressed into early childhood.
In recent years, the NRA has become suspect. Has its leadership been compromised? Certainly its stand on the right to keep and bear arms has diminished.
In any case, we can be assured that this was no honest mistake on the part of Charlton Heston, a self-proclaimed student of history. Unfortunately for us, he is also a professional actor with 60+ years of experience, and when confronted with the truth, the charlatan will certainly attempt to wiggle out with some feeble excuse. In any case, at the next public NRA meeting where he appears to speak, let's give him the chance. Not only does he deserve an opportunity to rectify with an extenuation hearing for his ignorance, but I love to watch 'em tap dance.
Fed Court Coddles Its Own Saying the killer "acted within his constitutional authority," the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that FBI/HRT sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi is immune from prosecution in Idaho for the killing of Vickie Weaver in 1992. No kiddin'? Constitutional authority, huh? What was constitutional authority for the bloodthirsty dogs to even be outside the10-square-mile area of the District of Columbia? And how long would it have taken the court to drag Vickie off to the gas chamber had the situation been reversed and she had blown half his head off? Would the court have considered her constitutional, God-given right to self defense? The reality of our current situation is that our "not-so-secret-agents" now have a license to kill with impunity.
Before Idaho Deputy Prosecutor Stephen Yagman had even seen the opinion he was reacting negatively to reports about it. "As a child," he said, "my first whiff of (former FBI director J.Edgar) Hoover made me suspect the FBI was above the law, and nothing I've learned since then has caused me to think otherwise."
A couple of other points we should keep in mind: Vickie had been pre-targeted. The FBI profile showed Vickie as the "brains" of the group and referred to her as the "matriarch of the family." The HRT team had been well briefed on this. In the eyes of the assassin, she was the "prize." But by the time the swearing-in at trial came around, it was, "Oops! Sorry, but it looks like we accidentally got the number one target.
Horiuchi later incurred the ire of the Senate Investigation Committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment at the 1995 hearings and refusing to be a witness against himself. A prudent move. Gerry Spence had left him cut and bleeding in the Idaho courtroom in 1993. Horiuci may be crazy, but he ain't stupid. What fool would want to risk perjury by taking on the lengthy interrogation assault of nine senators, under oath and on national television, knowing there was no way he could come clean.
Also, it was reported that Lon Horiuchi had bragged that he could "shoot the nuts off a gnat at 200 yards." Judging this kind of self-proclaimed marksmanship, are we to believe his story that he was actually aiming at Kevin Harris but missed by two or more feet and accidentally hit Vickie, from only 50 yards? (Harris was hit in the chest by shrapnel and multiple bone fragments from Vickie's head and nearly bled to death.) It is easier to believe his exaggerated braggadocio than this lame excuse. Surely the FBI would not have continued to assign Barney Fife as a sharpshooter as they did Lon Horiuchi eight months later at - you guessed it - Mt. Carmel, Texas.
The lone dissenter on the court, Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of Pasadena, maintained that the Ruby Ridge suspects presented no danger to life and limb that would have warranted deadly force. "The authorities could have shut off water and electricity to the cabin, waited for the inhabitants to run out of food, or chosen any number of other non-lethal alternatives," Kozinski wrote.
The dissent also says the court's opinion conflicts with a 9th Circuit opinion in a related case three years ago. That opinion refers to the federal action at Ruby Ridge as "the Wild West School of Law Enforcement." It allowed Kevin Harris to press a civil suit for excessive force against Horiuchi and other federal agents. The suit is heading toward trial in Idaho. Harris was acquitted of all criminal charges in 1993.
The Ninth Circuit decision came down on June 14th - Flag Day. Perhaps we should mark that day in the future by flying our flags upside down, as a sign of a nation in distress.
If you listen to the establishment media on the subject, you might think that the entire issue of the Civil War comes down to race and slavery. If you favor keeping Confederate history, it somehow means you are a white person unsympathetic to the plight of blacks in America. If you favor abolishing Confederate History Month and taking down the flag, you are an enlightened thinker willing to bury the past so we can look forward to a bright future under progressive leadership. That's it in the simpleton's nutshell. "