In his article entitled “The Artist Formerly Known as Dissent”, Patrick Courrielche wrote of his growing discomfort with the role that artists are playing under the Obama administration. He warns: “the art community is not meeting its duty of always questioning those in power. And I say duty because the art community, as a counterpart of the press, has been given special rights written into the Bill of Rights, known broadly as freedom of the press, for the explicit purpose of keeping power in check.”
He continues: “Throughout modern history, art typically enters politics on a mass scale in two fashions: first, as a check on power; second, as a tool used by those in power.”
Courrielche then examines the hysterical and furious response to the only artistic challenge laid against the Obama administration—the infamous image of Obama as the Joker from the Batman series—and responds to the attacks on the anonymous creator. “Can you blame the artist for wanting to remain anonymous given the irrational and racially-charged criticism the poster has received?”
He ends his article with a brilliant admonition to the artists who continue to produce art celebrating Obama, rather than applying their talent to question “the ruling class”:
“It's time for the art community to return to its historical role in political affairs, which means speaking to power, not on behalf of it. Which leads me to the second case where art enters politics on a mass scale. The power of art, in combination with the suppression of free speech or a free press, has been used as a tool by authoritarian governments to control their citizens. From Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, art has been used to deify leaders while preserving the position of the ruling class. Most artists would not want to be referred to as tools of the state, but in the case of Obama's administration, that's exactly what they've been so far.”
Courrielche’s article, it turns out, was both timely and insightful, for reasons I shall explore in a moment. But before I do, and because Courrielche mentioned him in his article, I’d like to quote der Furer’s philosophy on propaganda, as stated in Mein Kampf.
"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas.”
Courrielche has initiated what I hope will become a national dialog among American artists about their roles either as a “counterpart of the press” in defending democracy and our Liberty. But I fear that today’s artists—just like most of their counterparts in the mass media—have gleefully surrendered their independence from the current administration. The situation is growing so dire I dare say that it appears that McCarthy was right; Hollywood truly has become a socialist propaganda machine!
Consider the new film by Michael Moore, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, in which Moore “sums up his disgust with corporate America and its devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people…Ending on the notes of the ‘Internationale’ as Moore theatrically encircles New York banks with crime scene tape, the film launches a call for socialism via a popular uprising against the evils of capitalism and free enterprise.”
In keeping with Hitler’s advice for creating quality propaganda, Moore does not try to simply show a number of failures in order to fix capitalism. No, he creates a one-sided, emotionally charged piece intended to encourage the abandonment of capitalism and implementation of socialism, employing a nearly cartoonish montage of images to drive home his propagandistic point:
“Simplifications are Moore's stock-in-trade, and his documentaries are not known for their impeccable research and objectivity. But here his talent is evident in creating two hours of engrossing cinema by contrasting a fast-moving montage of 50s archive images extolling free enterprise with the economic disaster of the present.” And as you might expect of a Nazi propaganda piece, it would not be acceptable to criticize the Führer: “Though it blames all political parties, including the Democrats, for caving in with the bailout, the film is careful to spare President Barack Obama, who remains a symbol of hope for justice.”
Lest you think this is an isolated case, Moore is not the only Hollywood film-maker producing socialist propaganda: Now we find out that Oliver Stone has just completed his new film (“South of the Border”) that glorifies Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Like all the great socialists before him, Chavez is a student of history and has always directed a well-oiled propaganda machine employing the best liberal artists he can find in Venezuela. This propaganda machine has had two major intents: 1) to create the appearance within Venezuela that he is a man of the people waging a tireless struggle against the evil forces of capitalism and “the Empire” (AKA: the USA), and 2) to counter growing international concern that he has supplanted Venezuelan democracy with totalitarian rule.
To this end, Chavez has carefully orchestrated a number of events to present himself to the world as a great champion of human rights, defender of the environment, and a soldier for the people. His ultimate goal has been to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for which his loyal followers have nominated him. Stone has apparently bought into this hook, line and sinker. “If you look now, there are seven presidents, eight countries with Chile, that are really moving away from the Washington consensus control. But in America, they don't get that story." When asked if he had tried to portray a realistic view of events in Venezuela, including Chavez’s “dark side”, Stone responded: "A dark side? There's a dark side to everything. Why do you seek out the dark side when the guy is doing good things? …He is a democrat and there is opposition to him, and he's not perfect. But he is doing tremendous things for Venezuela and the region… He's not a dictator."
One must wonder why Stone failed to mention that the Chavez regime recently shut down over 40 radio stations that broadcast opposition perspectives to his policies, and this week his ministers warned they were about to close another thirty. Would Stone have overlooked similar excesses from the Bush administration?
Film-makers are not the only artists who are openly propagandizing for socialism. And in a new and deeply disturbing revelation, the Obama administration may actually be conspiring to convert the National Endowment for the Arts into an unofficial propaganda bureau.
For our good friend Patrick Courrielche has written another article in which he warns that the NEA is reaching out to the art community to create art that supports the Obama agenda. Courrielche reports:
“I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries ‘to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.’”
“Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were ‘health care’ and ‘energy and environment.’ The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans. “
Courrielche intuitively and quite accurately senses the moral (and probably legal) conflict of interest: “In my view, power tends to overreach whenever given the opportunity. It’s a law of human nature that has very few exceptions. …Could the National Endowment for the Arts be looking to the art community to create an environment amenable to the administration’s positions?”
He reports that during the call, there was much talk about “‘leveraging federal dollars’ to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.”
If this is true, then the Obama administration appears to be secretly re-writing the NEA’s mission statement, redirecting its purpose from supporting the arts to instead supporting his personal political agenda! What’s more, it’s a covert method of directing federal dollars into a propaganda effort without asking for or receiving permission from the Congress.
We must issue a Clarion Call to the citizens.
Not only did the socialist threat not die off with the collapse of the Berlin Wall; it is back, in a more dangerous and insidious form than ever. Our national media and our art community are conspiring with socialist politicians to destroy America’s capitalist economy and undermine the constitution. They are using our own tax dollars against us as they unleash new weapons to beguile and confound us. And just as Oliver Stone said, why should we consider the “dark side” to their methods, when they intend to “do good things”?
The ends justify the means.
Wake up, America!
***UPDATE***
Blogger Ben Smith reports that the NEA communications director has had to resign after issuing the communication that the NEA would help redirect federal dollars to artists so they would "work to further President Obama's legislative agenda."
Smith adds that "Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reported that Sergant had been "asked to resign," and played it as another scalp -- like Van Jones' -- for Glenn Beck." Additionally, "Senator John Cornyn had also pressed the White House on the issue in a letter Tuesday."
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Global Trend Toward Fascist Restriction of Speech
Imagine for a moment a world in which individuals who do not believe that the Holocaust occurred are jailed for publicly stating that belief. Well, that doesn’t take much imagination; this can actually happen in Europe, where laws in some EU nations prohibit individuals from denying the historical basis for the claims of systematic mass-murder against the Jews.
So, imagine now a world in which it is forbidden to deny that global warming is caused by human activity, and could be penalized—even jailed—for daring to speak out against the anthropogenic theory of climate change. That could never happen, right? I mean, that’s the kind of thing that happened to heretics during the inquisition, but surely that would never be done by open-minded, secular governments.
Well, think again.
We have all been witness to the recent, systematic discrimination and disenfranchisement of scientists who have begun to rethink the current global-warming dogma. Former Vice-President Al Gore has repeatedly denigrated these scientists as “Flat-Earthers”, as described in an article by James Murray:
“In an interview with Lesley Stahl to air on "60 Minutes"…, Gore piously declares those who don't buy his climate change theories are akin to crackpots who believe the earth is flat and don't believe man landed on the moon in 1969.”
At subsequent events, Gore maneuvered to deny access to these heretics, in order to avoid embarrassing disagreements over the accepted liberal environmental canon.
The Global-Warming hysteria is reaching the point at which proponents believe that their cause will “save the world”, and therefore, anyone who opposes them must threaten the world, and should therefore be treated like criminals, almost as terrorists. James Nash, writing for Environment, said:
“The British foreign secretary ‘has said that skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and denied access to the media,’ Doctors for Disaster Preparedness report in their January newsletter. George Monbiot wrote in England’s “Guardian” that ‘Every time someone drowns as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.’”
Read that again, and consider very carefully the wording: skeptics should be treated like terrorists and their access to the media should be blocked! In Britain, Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the government, went on record as saying that, "Global warming is worse than terrorism."
How ironic that global warming skeptics are to be treated “as terrorists”, since the liberals are perfectly willing to invest time trying to sympathize with the real terrorists, in order to understand what we did wrong to make the terrorists hate us, but won’t think for one moment why some scientists are skeptical about the anthropogenic causes of global warming!
But the excesses do not stop there. Brendan O’Neill, in his article “Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech”, writes:
“The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.”
According to O’Neill, one Australian columnist proposed outlawing the public expression of “climate change denial”.
Ian Murray, in his analysis of the behavior of the environmental inquisitors, quotes the Times' economics editor having described the fervor of the environmentalists pushing these policies as being similar to "the medieval monks who favored self-flagellation as the road to virtue. For a Government to enshrine such thinking in policy is truly perverse." He continues: “In equally medieval fashion, adherents of the environmentalist religion have launched an inquisition against scientific views that they consider heretical.”
The trend for secular governments to adopt a popularly held belief and penalize opponents appears to be growing. Muslim nations have managed to convince the United Nations that the world is suffering from Islamophobia, and are pushing for the criminalization of any speech they believe “offends Islam.” A simple cartoon by Jyllands-Posten of Prophet Muhammad triggered violent reactions by Muslims around the world. So what is the natural reaction among “freedom loving” nations in the UN? Ban any criticism of Islam. No such support for Catholicism will be forthcoming, allowing artists like Andres Serrano to continue display more “Piss Christ” creations. Perhaps, if Catholics burnt a few art museums and murdered the artists, they would get the same sympathy the Muslims do.
And now the UN “torture envoy” has declared that the United States must prosecute the Bush administration lawyers whose only “crime” was to offer legal advice that certain “enhanced interrogation” techniques were legal.
“Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal. …‘That's exactly what I call complicity or participation’ to torture as defined by the convention, Nowak said at a news conference. ‘At that time, every reasonable person would know that waterboarding, for instance, is torture.’”
The most recent example of the chilling effect these attitudes have on open and reasonable debate can be found in Andrew C. McCarthy’s letter to Attorney General Holder, in which he rejects the invitation to participate in the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy. “The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls ‘individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.’ “
Why?
“Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people.”
More importantly, McCarthy explains that the current administration’s openness to prosecution of Bush-era lawyers who advised the President about the legality of using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on the al Qaida detainees in Guantanamo Bay prison:
“Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.”
Western values are at risk of being subverted by ecstatic fervor of liberals who are so convinced of their own moral certitude, they are willing to silence any discussion on the topics, punish lawyers who provide legal opinions that differ from their own (which is not a crime, by the way), and treat the skeptics worse than terrorists.
***UPDATE***
As if to prove my point, the English Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said "she decided to publicize the list of 16 people banned since October to show the type of behavior Britain will not tolerate..."
Number three on that list is conservative talk-show host Michael Savage.
Savage responded reasonably: "She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?...It's interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values – borders, language, culture – who is now on a list banned in England," Savage said. "What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me."
Why did Smith do this? In an interview with the BBC, Smith said Savage, the No. 3-rated radio host in the U.S., is "someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."
We again see that the "progressives" are willing to ban free speech if it might make certain "communities" uncomfortable. And YET they don't ban the "free speech" of Muslims who call for the destruction of Western civilization and repeatedly call for Jihad!
We need to update the dictionary, and add "cowards" as a synonim for "progressives".
So, imagine now a world in which it is forbidden to deny that global warming is caused by human activity, and could be penalized—even jailed—for daring to speak out against the anthropogenic theory of climate change. That could never happen, right? I mean, that’s the kind of thing that happened to heretics during the inquisition, but surely that would never be done by open-minded, secular governments.
Well, think again.
We have all been witness to the recent, systematic discrimination and disenfranchisement of scientists who have begun to rethink the current global-warming dogma. Former Vice-President Al Gore has repeatedly denigrated these scientists as “Flat-Earthers”, as described in an article by James Murray:
“In an interview with Lesley Stahl to air on "60 Minutes"…, Gore piously declares those who don't buy his climate change theories are akin to crackpots who believe the earth is flat and don't believe man landed on the moon in 1969.”
At subsequent events, Gore maneuvered to deny access to these heretics, in order to avoid embarrassing disagreements over the accepted liberal environmental canon.
The Global-Warming hysteria is reaching the point at which proponents believe that their cause will “save the world”, and therefore, anyone who opposes them must threaten the world, and should therefore be treated like criminals, almost as terrorists. James Nash, writing for Environment, said:
“The British foreign secretary ‘has said that skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and denied access to the media,’ Doctors for Disaster Preparedness report in their January newsletter. George Monbiot wrote in England’s “Guardian” that ‘Every time someone drowns as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.’”
Read that again, and consider very carefully the wording: skeptics should be treated like terrorists and their access to the media should be blocked! In Britain, Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the government, went on record as saying that, "Global warming is worse than terrorism."
How ironic that global warming skeptics are to be treated “as terrorists”, since the liberals are perfectly willing to invest time trying to sympathize with the real terrorists, in order to understand what we did wrong to make the terrorists hate us, but won’t think for one moment why some scientists are skeptical about the anthropogenic causes of global warming!
But the excesses do not stop there. Brendan O’Neill, in his article “Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech”, writes:
“The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.”
According to O’Neill, one Australian columnist proposed outlawing the public expression of “climate change denial”.
Ian Murray, in his analysis of the behavior of the environmental inquisitors, quotes the Times' economics editor having described the fervor of the environmentalists pushing these policies as being similar to "the medieval monks who favored self-flagellation as the road to virtue. For a Government to enshrine such thinking in policy is truly perverse." He continues: “In equally medieval fashion, adherents of the environmentalist religion have launched an inquisition against scientific views that they consider heretical.”
The trend for secular governments to adopt a popularly held belief and penalize opponents appears to be growing. Muslim nations have managed to convince the United Nations that the world is suffering from Islamophobia, and are pushing for the criminalization of any speech they believe “offends Islam.” A simple cartoon by Jyllands-Posten of Prophet Muhammad triggered violent reactions by Muslims around the world. So what is the natural reaction among “freedom loving” nations in the UN? Ban any criticism of Islam. No such support for Catholicism will be forthcoming, allowing artists like Andres Serrano to continue display more “Piss Christ” creations. Perhaps, if Catholics burnt a few art museums and murdered the artists, they would get the same sympathy the Muslims do.
And now the UN “torture envoy” has declared that the United States must prosecute the Bush administration lawyers whose only “crime” was to offer legal advice that certain “enhanced interrogation” techniques were legal.
“Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal. …‘That's exactly what I call complicity or participation’ to torture as defined by the convention, Nowak said at a news conference. ‘At that time, every reasonable person would know that waterboarding, for instance, is torture.’”
The most recent example of the chilling effect these attitudes have on open and reasonable debate can be found in Andrew C. McCarthy’s letter to Attorney General Holder, in which he rejects the invitation to participate in the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy. “The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls ‘individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.’ “
Why?
“Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people.”
More importantly, McCarthy explains that the current administration’s openness to prosecution of Bush-era lawyers who advised the President about the legality of using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on the al Qaida detainees in Guantanamo Bay prison:
“Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.”
Western values are at risk of being subverted by ecstatic fervor of liberals who are so convinced of their own moral certitude, they are willing to silence any discussion on the topics, punish lawyers who provide legal opinions that differ from their own (which is not a crime, by the way), and treat the skeptics worse than terrorists.
***UPDATE***
As if to prove my point, the English Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said "she decided to publicize the list of 16 people banned since October to show the type of behavior Britain will not tolerate..."
Number three on that list is conservative talk-show host Michael Savage.
Savage responded reasonably: "She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?...It's interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values – borders, language, culture – who is now on a list banned in England," Savage said. "What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me."
Why did Smith do this? In an interview with the BBC, Smith said Savage, the No. 3-rated radio host in the U.S., is "someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."
We again see that the "progressives" are willing to ban free speech if it might make certain "communities" uncomfortable. And YET they don't ban the "free speech" of Muslims who call for the destruction of Western civilization and repeatedly call for Jihad!
We need to update the dictionary, and add "cowards" as a synonim for "progressives".
Friday, April 3, 2009
The tyrants fear our weapons
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
This right, enshrined in the constitution to prevent the government from infringing upon it, had its clear intention to maintain an armed populace to be able to maintain a free state, both from outside interlopers, and from the natural process that all governments display toward tyrannical usurpation of rights and powers. In other words, the framers of the constitution did not write the second amendment to allow people to keep guns for hunting: they intended the people to be able to defend themselves from criminals, or their own government, when it has become despotic.
Modern liberals think it totally barbaric that average citizens keep and bear arms, and consider the second amendment an inconvenient anachronism that must be eliminated. Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court recently upheld the interpretation of the second amendment to mean that individual citizens shall be given the right to keep and bear arms, and not just “militias” (interpreted by some as National Guard and other state-run organizations).
But it is clear that liberals, also known as socialists, have every hope of finding a way of restricting citizens’ rights to their weapons, and President Obama is no exception. A liberal friend of mine naively stated that the guns are safe; the liberals cannot take them away. But this silly argument overlooks the historical fact that in the 1990’s, under the leadership of President Bill Clinton, the government did in fact place a temporary ban on what they called “assault weapons” (AW). They believed that this was a “reasonable” restriction, and that “reasonable” people would see that there was no real need for the people to keep and bear “assault weapons”. So if they did it before, why could they not do it again?
If there were NO comments by Obama administration leaders, then I’d agree that it’s just hype. But when the Attorney General E. Holder says he would like to reinstate the AW Ban, but make it permanent, and then Sec. of State Clinton blatantly distorts the statistics on weapons decommissioned in Mexico to make it sound like the weapons being used come from the USA, it sure sounds to me as if there is a clear intention of infringing on the rights of citizens to possess this class of weapons.
In order for this discussion to be more instructive, I’d like to clarify some terms.
“Assault Weapons”: Defined in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to include “certain semi-automatic so called "assault weapons" including military-style semiautomatic rifles, derived from assault rifles but with lesser capabilities. There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" prior to its enactment, but assault rifle is a technical term referring to rifles capable of semi-automatic and full-automatic fire…”
The first problem I have is with the term "military-style" weapons. Think about it: every rifle and pistol in use today had its origins in military designs. From the lever-action rifle, designed by Henry Firearms during the Civil war or the bolt-action hunting rifles that originated as infantry rifles and later became preferred as "sniper rifles", to revolvers and the semi-auto Colt 1911 .45 caliber pistols, from which the ubiquitous 9 mm semi autos evolved. The only difference between the lever-action or bolt-action rifles and the "assault rifles" is the self-loading nature of the newer designs, allowing more shots to be fired more quickly.
These are precisely the types of weapons that an armed populace would need in order to defend itself from the heavily armed gangs, such as the drug trafficking organizations that have spread around the country, or to combat a despotic government intent on oppressing the citizenry. In other words: these are just the latest evolution in firearms that the Founding Fathers wanted to defend, in order to keep a free people free!
The recent Supreme Court decision makes it much more difficult to ban the weapons outright. But there are other ways of making it difficult or impossible for citizens to acquire these weapons. One sneaky way is to tax them so heavily that the average citizen cannot afford to possess or fire them.
Some liberals claim that it is a myth that Obama is trying to tax guns and ammo. A Washington Post article supports that idea, and tries to debunk the “myth”. But there are some interesting misstatements. Obama was accused by the NRA of voting
…"to ban virtually all deer-hunting ammunition" and supporting "a ban on shotguns and rifles most of us use for hunting." The deer-hunting claim is based on Obama's support for an unsuccessful Senate amendment by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would have expanded the definition of "armor-piercing" ammunition. The other claim refers to semiautomatic rifles and pistols covered by the assault weapons ban, which expired in March 2004.
Contrary to Rusch's claim, the Kennedy proposal of July 2005, SA 1615, was not aimed at "virtually all deer-hunting ammunition." Instead, it would have authorized the attorney general to define types of illegal ammunition capable of penetrating body armor commonly used by law enforcement officials. During the Senate debate, Kennedy said that his amendment would "not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles," a point contested by the NRA.
However, what’s wrong about this article is that any common “assault rifle” ammunition defeats the most common law enforcement body armor because it does NOT contain metal plates (see info on the North Hollywood shootout). The 7.62x39 (AK round), as well as the common US military round (.223) both defeat their armor. The police armor is only rated to stop handgun rounds, such as the 9mm, .32, .38, and I think the .40 Colt and .45 ACP. “Deer hunting” rounds start at .243, .270, and up to the .308 (which just also happens to be the NATO military round). My 1944 Mosin Nagant bolt action 7.62x54 (equivalent to .308 round) would easily defeat their armor, especially in full metal jacket (FMJ).
There are many semi-auto big-game and varmint hunting guns that are used in the legal and sporting taking of game, but which could be banned if they reinstate the previous “assault weapon” ban. AR-15s, SKS, and AK-47 are used nowadays to hunt varmints (such as coyotes) and deer in some states. They are not full-auto, just semi-auto. Ballistically, they are less powerful than other semi-auto rifles used regularly for hunting such as the Remington 760. Even the US M-1 Garand, which uses a 30-06 round and was the standard issue battle rifle of the military in WWII, would be legal and can be found for about $900. There are 9 mm carbines that would bypass the ban but would be just as deadly in a killing spree. So banning AKs and SKS or AR rifles makes NO sense!
Further study shows that FactCheck also tries to contradict the “myth”:
FactCheck appears not to have studied Obama’s words carefully. For example, one NRA claim is that Obama wants to “Ban the Manufacture, Sale and Possession of Handguns.” FactCheck accurately reports that Obama did endorse such a position in his 1996 Illinois State Senate race. (FactCheck also supplies the details of Obama’s 2008 claim that the questionnaire was filled out by an aide without Obama’s knowledge, even though Obama’s handwriting is on the cover of the questionnaire.) But FactCheck asserts that the NRA is lying because of Obama’s response to the same question in 2003: “While a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable, I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety.”
However, note that Obama DID try to support a handgun ban before the Supreme Court knocked those kinds of laws down. That shows his intentions. His 2003 statement suggests that he still supports “reasonable restrictions” on handguns, such as the Washington DC ban on guns. Gun owners can’t trust the “reasonable restrictions” suggested by a dude that had suggested their complete ban only 4 years before.
· 1994 to 2001 - Obama was on the board of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation. This foundation is the largest funding source for radical anti-gun groups in the country.
· 1996 - Obama supported a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.
· 1999 - Obama proposed a 500 percent increase in the excise taxes on firearms and ammunition. This tax would effectively punish gun owners for buying guns and ammunition.
· 2003 - Obama voted in support of legislation that would have banned privately owned hunting shotguns, target rifles and black powder rifles in Illinois.
· 2004 - Obama voted against legislation intended to protect homeowners from prosecution in cases where they used a firearm to halt a home invasion.
As was stated by Rights Pundits:
It’s hard to trust a man will uphold the Constitution {who} stated that the Constitution is fundamentally flawed.
In 2009, his AG and Sec. of State renewed their talks about reinstating the gun bans.
According to statistical reports, “assault weapons are used in about one-fifth of one percent (.20%) of all violent crimes and about one percent in gun crimes.” If this is true, then what is the logical explanation for all this talk of banning “assault weapons”? It surely cannot be to keep America safe from guns.
So, could it be intended to keep the tyrants safe from us?
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
This right, enshrined in the constitution to prevent the government from infringing upon it, had its clear intention to maintain an armed populace to be able to maintain a free state, both from outside interlopers, and from the natural process that all governments display toward tyrannical usurpation of rights and powers. In other words, the framers of the constitution did not write the second amendment to allow people to keep guns for hunting: they intended the people to be able to defend themselves from criminals, or their own government, when it has become despotic.
Modern liberals think it totally barbaric that average citizens keep and bear arms, and consider the second amendment an inconvenient anachronism that must be eliminated. Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court recently upheld the interpretation of the second amendment to mean that individual citizens shall be given the right to keep and bear arms, and not just “militias” (interpreted by some as National Guard and other state-run organizations).
But it is clear that liberals, also known as socialists, have every hope of finding a way of restricting citizens’ rights to their weapons, and President Obama is no exception. A liberal friend of mine naively stated that the guns are safe; the liberals cannot take them away. But this silly argument overlooks the historical fact that in the 1990’s, under the leadership of President Bill Clinton, the government did in fact place a temporary ban on what they called “assault weapons” (AW). They believed that this was a “reasonable” restriction, and that “reasonable” people would see that there was no real need for the people to keep and bear “assault weapons”. So if they did it before, why could they not do it again?
If there were NO comments by Obama administration leaders, then I’d agree that it’s just hype. But when the Attorney General E. Holder says he would like to reinstate the AW Ban, but make it permanent, and then Sec. of State Clinton blatantly distorts the statistics on weapons decommissioned in Mexico to make it sound like the weapons being used come from the USA, it sure sounds to me as if there is a clear intention of infringing on the rights of citizens to possess this class of weapons.
In order for this discussion to be more instructive, I’d like to clarify some terms.
“Assault Weapons”: Defined in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to include “certain semi-automatic so called "assault weapons" including military-style semiautomatic rifles, derived from assault rifles but with lesser capabilities. There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" prior to its enactment, but assault rifle is a technical term referring to rifles capable of semi-automatic and full-automatic fire…”
The first problem I have is with the term "military-style" weapons. Think about it: every rifle and pistol in use today had its origins in military designs. From the lever-action rifle, designed by Henry Firearms during the Civil war or the bolt-action hunting rifles that originated as infantry rifles and later became preferred as "sniper rifles", to revolvers and the semi-auto Colt 1911 .45 caliber pistols, from which the ubiquitous 9 mm semi autos evolved. The only difference between the lever-action or bolt-action rifles and the "assault rifles" is the self-loading nature of the newer designs, allowing more shots to be fired more quickly.
These are precisely the types of weapons that an armed populace would need in order to defend itself from the heavily armed gangs, such as the drug trafficking organizations that have spread around the country, or to combat a despotic government intent on oppressing the citizenry. In other words: these are just the latest evolution in firearms that the Founding Fathers wanted to defend, in order to keep a free people free!
The recent Supreme Court decision makes it much more difficult to ban the weapons outright. But there are other ways of making it difficult or impossible for citizens to acquire these weapons. One sneaky way is to tax them so heavily that the average citizen cannot afford to possess or fire them.
Some liberals claim that it is a myth that Obama is trying to tax guns and ammo. A Washington Post article supports that idea, and tries to debunk the “myth”. But there are some interesting misstatements. Obama was accused by the NRA of voting
…"to ban virtually all deer-hunting ammunition" and supporting "a ban on shotguns and rifles most of us use for hunting." The deer-hunting claim is based on Obama's support for an unsuccessful Senate amendment by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would have expanded the definition of "armor-piercing" ammunition. The other claim refers to semiautomatic rifles and pistols covered by the assault weapons ban, which expired in March 2004.
Contrary to Rusch's claim, the Kennedy proposal of July 2005, SA 1615, was not aimed at "virtually all deer-hunting ammunition." Instead, it would have authorized the attorney general to define types of illegal ammunition capable of penetrating body armor commonly used by law enforcement officials. During the Senate debate, Kennedy said that his amendment would "not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles," a point contested by the NRA.
However, what’s wrong about this article is that any common “assault rifle” ammunition defeats the most common law enforcement body armor because it does NOT contain metal plates (see info on the North Hollywood shootout). The 7.62x39 (AK round), as well as the common US military round (.223) both defeat their armor. The police armor is only rated to stop handgun rounds, such as the 9mm, .32, .38, and I think the .40 Colt and .45 ACP. “Deer hunting” rounds start at .243, .270, and up to the .308 (which just also happens to be the NATO military round). My 1944 Mosin Nagant bolt action 7.62x54 (equivalent to .308 round) would easily defeat their armor, especially in full metal jacket (FMJ).
There are many semi-auto big-game and varmint hunting guns that are used in the legal and sporting taking of game, but which could be banned if they reinstate the previous “assault weapon” ban. AR-15s, SKS, and AK-47 are used nowadays to hunt varmints (such as coyotes) and deer in some states. They are not full-auto, just semi-auto. Ballistically, they are less powerful than other semi-auto rifles used regularly for hunting such as the Remington 760. Even the US M-1 Garand, which uses a 30-06 round and was the standard issue battle rifle of the military in WWII, would be legal and can be found for about $900. There are 9 mm carbines that would bypass the ban but would be just as deadly in a killing spree. So banning AKs and SKS or AR rifles makes NO sense!
Further study shows that FactCheck also tries to contradict the “myth”:
FactCheck appears not to have studied Obama’s words carefully. For example, one NRA claim is that Obama wants to “Ban the Manufacture, Sale and Possession of Handguns.” FactCheck accurately reports that Obama did endorse such a position in his 1996 Illinois State Senate race. (FactCheck also supplies the details of Obama’s 2008 claim that the questionnaire was filled out by an aide without Obama’s knowledge, even though Obama’s handwriting is on the cover of the questionnaire.) But FactCheck asserts that the NRA is lying because of Obama’s response to the same question in 2003: “While a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable, I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety.”
However, note that Obama DID try to support a handgun ban before the Supreme Court knocked those kinds of laws down. That shows his intentions. His 2003 statement suggests that he still supports “reasonable restrictions” on handguns, such as the Washington DC ban on guns. Gun owners can’t trust the “reasonable restrictions” suggested by a dude that had suggested their complete ban only 4 years before.
· 1994 to 2001 - Obama was on the board of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation. This foundation is the largest funding source for radical anti-gun groups in the country.
· 1996 - Obama supported a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.
· 1999 - Obama proposed a 500 percent increase in the excise taxes on firearms and ammunition. This tax would effectively punish gun owners for buying guns and ammunition.
· 2003 - Obama voted in support of legislation that would have banned privately owned hunting shotguns, target rifles and black powder rifles in Illinois.
· 2004 - Obama voted against legislation intended to protect homeowners from prosecution in cases where they used a firearm to halt a home invasion.
As was stated by Rights Pundits:
It’s hard to trust a man will uphold the Constitution {who} stated that the Constitution is fundamentally flawed.
In 2009, his AG and Sec. of State renewed their talks about reinstating the gun bans.
According to statistical reports, “assault weapons are used in about one-fifth of one percent (.20%) of all violent crimes and about one percent in gun crimes.” If this is true, then what is the logical explanation for all this talk of banning “assault weapons”? It surely cannot be to keep America safe from guns.
So, could it be intended to keep the tyrants safe from us?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
