Internet giveth, gummint seeks to take away

More Internetty Goodness from the great Iowahawk.

It's the middle of the day on a deserted Washington street. You're on your way to a reelection fund raising brunch. Suddenly a gang of crazed camera-wielding teabaggers jump out from the alley and lunge at you with their razor-sharp switchblade questions!

Would YOU know WHAT TO DO?

Oh, Internet, you treat me so nice.  Let's not ever fight.
 
Uhm, wait - WHAT?

The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative “kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a Homeland Security directive.

Honestly, I don't think that's Lieberman's intent; it's probably similar to the old "Emergency Broadcast System" where a central authority pops onto all TVs everywhere to tell you the Russkies have thrown the button down.  Or at least that's what he is thinking of.

And yet... it's a different world.  The Internet, as corporate as some corners have gotten, is still quite wide-open.  Anyone can grab a little free server space and hang up a cyber-shingle.  Getting even moderately known usually means ads or paying for bandwidth or fancy online publishing, but that comes later, and compared to something like running a radio/TV station or newspaper, it's shockingly cheap.  It's the most democratic medium in the world today, on a reach-per-dollar basis it gives incredible power to the common citizen.

Well, lately some elected sorts are quite down on the idea that common citizens have the Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and redress their governement for wrongs - as Etheridge has demonstrated.  How dare the little people exercise their rights!  How dare video footage of my bad behavior be made public!

And that's the worry here.  Even five years ago the only way for this to be widely-seen would be to submit the footage to the local network affiliate and hope it got picked up.  No more.  Now everyone on the street potentially has a flip-camera or a 5-megapixel cameraphone... I can take something the size of a pack of cards out of my pocket, capture the moment in full-HD and sound, and before the cops have even arrived, the clip is on a public forum where anyone can see it for themselves.  And those people increasingly have the affordable means to see that clip anywhere they are - not stuck in their house on a desk-based PC, but while out for coffee or waiting for a train or eating lunch.  And if they happen not to be online, that's ok, because some of them have set it up so their favorite websites buzz their phones when something new goes up.  They don't have to stumble across it, they get told.  They are their own big-paper editors, with the city desk buzzing in hot scoops they can run with.  Stop the presses! Life is a forties noir cliche.

All the faux grassroots activism the left was talking about when they were centrally-organizing busloads of protestors to hassle the President, get out the vote, agitate for something-or-other.... it was mostly a flop, wasn't it?  This is different, though.  This is a game-changer: not imposed from above or without, but true independent action rising from within, taking shape, and people are using it to rally themselves to the ideas they like, and to reject those they are ordered to believe by their self-appointed betters.

Lieberman may well not realize it, but others do.  They're desperate for a way to stuff the information toothpaste back into pre-approved tubes, rationed out at their pleasure.  They already regard tax-cutting protests, fiscal conservatives, pro-lifers, and small-government movements as more or a terrorist threat than actual blow-you-to-bits terrorists; they say so out loud. It's plain that all that "dissent is patriotic" and "question authority" stuff they love is a lie - they only like it when they're the questioning dissenters.  They have no real interest in advancing the debate, in freedom of speech (which is really freedom of thought), in the marketplace of ideas, or in a free people making their own choices.

They used the RICO statutes against pro-lifers, they use shakedown and blackmail techniques against private enterprise, they cry racism at every attempt to enforce the borders or control entitlement spending programs.  They assume the authority to intrude into ever-more-trivial aspects of our everyday lives.  If something like Lieberman's bill ever passes, they will use it on the rest of us.

Besser spaet dann nie

After seeing this clip, I was wondering if I had awoken in that alternate universe where Spock has a beard.

Or maybe that scene in The Man Who Would Be King where Sean Connery is believed to be the son of Alexander the Great until he is cut and bleeds. Perhaps this clip is Olbermann and Matthews way of saying, "Behold, a god who bleeds?".

Simple truths

Doc Zero is joining a little discussion about exactly how much time ought to be spent going over first principles when it comes to political discussions.

It's a good question because lately the debate has all been about the individual issues facing the country now: this or that bill or foriegn policy choice.  It's not unimportant, but I think that those debates are ultimately lost regardless of the outcome if we accept those as the thing to be discussing; it would mean that the assumptions leading up to those debates are already settled, and increasingly, settled against the liberty of the people.  Debating the size of some bailout assumes that the bailout is needed and valid; debating "health care reform" assumes that government has authority over health care in the first place.  We have to start earlier.

I always try to remind myself that the Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity and elegance. It was not a document written by intellectuals as an abstraction, just to prove a point or propose a theorem. The Founders wrote a library's worth of those sorts of documents - letters to and fro, arguing this or that point, and public essays, and outlines in their journals. Eventually they published the Federalist Papers and other documents to present those refined ideas to the general public. But when it came down to the actual construction of the government, they took all that theory and argument and burned it down to a plain and sparse document.

In some ways the Constitution is like the tip of an iceberg. The part above the water is the actual charter that governs our public affairs; the Federalist Papers and such are the part below that support it. It's good to know that part and it gives insight and understanding - but it is IN NO WAY REQUIRED to be a good citizen. The Constitution as written is enough. And here's the thing: it was always meant to be enough. These remarkable, towering giants who codified our freedoms did not write a Constitution as an exercise, or to prove their cleverness; they weren't writing for an audience of "scholars" and "Constitutional lawyers" and other experts. They wrote a plain document, meant to be easily understood, so that every citizen could know his rights and the limits of the authority the government could exercise over him. The simplest farmer or struggling merchant could know in five minutes what his government was and was not permitted to do, and where he stood in relation to it - and that standing was equal before the law with any other citizen, regardless of social standing, buying power, education, or rival creed.

Now, a certain amount of smaller laws naturally build upon this foundation.  Some of it is necessary; some of it is of debatable use.  But there are two things that are certain to be disastrous - first is to actually chop away at the foundation: to melt the iceberg bit by bit, right by right.  Second is to build so much upon it that it submerges entirely.  Either way, when it goes under all the construction goes with it, and we are all alike headed for the bottom.

That's why I don't trust "Constitutional scholars" when they tell me that the Congress has authority to do all sorts of enormous, intrusive (and costly) things based on the "commerce clause" or a "penumbra" or some case law precedent.  I rather trust what the document says, and it says very clearly that the Congress can do a certain number of limited things.  The writers didn't merely write a commerce clause, they spelled out the 18 specific things that Congress was permitted to do: Article I, Section 8. 

The first of these 18 things says, in part, "...to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..." and that would seem to cover a lot more than just the rigid list.  This seeming is really a mirage.  Our Congress is dazzled by the lights coming off the iceberg, but what they think they see is not there.

First, they often neglect the common Defence and they certainly neglect paying the Debts; why then should they be trusted by what they say is our "general Welfare"?

Second, the general welfare of the country as a whole is NOT necessarily the individual welfare of the many citizens who live there.  There are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, one President, and 9 Supreme Court Justices - 545 people.  Managing the affairs of the country as a whole - its foreign policy, its roads and mail and armed forces, its public debts, and its citizenship and immigration law - is enough of a job for them.  Managing the affairs of over 300 million individuals is preposterous.  There is no possible way it can be done, unless the numbers of such people are multiplied to an intolerable burden.

Third, the Constitution says that we the people establish it; it is not the government's statement to us of how they will operate, but ours to them.  It was not written just to promote the general Welfare, either:

establish Justice - equality of treatment and opportunity under the law
ensure domestic Tranquility - peace and safety on the streets; controlling crime and putting down mobs
provide for the common defence - treaties, alliances, fighting and discouraging enemies abroad
secure the Blessings of Liberty - the free exercise of the "inalienable rights" all citizens inherently posess

I've saved "general Welfare" until now because it is the point of dispute.  There are plenty of people who assume this means that the government is ultimately responsible for taking care of us in every respect, and that if when some are not as generally well-off as others, they have the right and obligation to correct it through force of law.  I think that's self-evidently false.  Any government that does that destroys the general Welfare, so it simply can't mean that.

Nor does the Constitution say that.  To quote the great saint Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, "It will mean what the words say."  And the Constitution spends a lot of time spelling out exactly which things Congress and the rest of the Government are permitted to do.  It's plain that those things are what is meant by promoting the general welfare of the United States.  That's why that list of 18 items in Article I, Section 8 STARTS with "general welfare."  It's not meant as a catch-all for "whatever Congress damn well pleases, and shut up, that's why."  It's an idea that is then defined throughout the rest of the document: to promote the general welfare, Congress is permitted to do these certain and specific things; the President is permitted to do these things; the Courts will do this and this but NOT those, etc. etc.

The last of the list of 18 items is to make any necessary laws for executing the powers of the government as granted by the Constitution.  The highlighted phrase, again, reinforces this basic notion of a government restrained by law, subject to limits that it cannot ignore or alter at whim.

Then come the Amendments, and they are the clincher, especially numbers nine and ten:

9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It's as clear as the words they wrote - the government's powers are strictly defined by the Constitution, but NOT the people's rights.  If it's not specified, then the government is not allowed to do it, and the people are - or the individual states they live in.

It's easy to see how that makes sense - a State is easier to change than a country.  If the people think that the government ought to step in to handle something, it's quicker to ask their home state to pass the law.  If it's a bad idea it's then easier to change the law back, and not be overridden by the interests of fifteen other states.  If it's a good idea then the other states are free to adopt it themselves.  And if all else fails, the people who don't like that law can move to another state.  In fact, people do it all the time.

Of course one could always leave America as a whole.  The lefties certainly threatened it enough over the past 25 years, depending on who was sitting in the Oval Office.  But nearly none of them did, and why should they?  They are citizens of a still-great nation.  It would be terrible to be forced from their own country.  It would be equally terrible if that country simply vanished out from underneath all of us.  That's unfortunately what threatens us now.  The government has long since stopped actually reading the Constitution and instead prefers to do whatever it pleases.  It so happens that a lot of it pleases a significant number of the people as well - but according to the Constitution, that doesn't matter.  Even a popular law can be unconstitutional and thus invalid.  Therein is a large part of our safety: it's easy to ride some popular opinion at the moment, but the law is a lasting thing and it can endure long after the people have wearied of its burden, because the few who profit from it defend it to the bitter end.

Thomas More:  He should go free, were he the devil himself, until he broke the law.
Roeper:  So you would give even the devil benefit of law?
More:  I would.
Roeper:  I would cut down every law in England to get the devil!
More:  Oh?  And when the devil turned round upon you, where would you hide once the law's gone flat?  I give the devil the benefit of law - for my own safety's sake.

Nobody thinks that things will suddenly turn upon them.  Cromwell didn't, and the very monster he loosed upon More came for him as well.  The Framers of the Constitution knew this.  These government intrustions will intrude upon everyone, including those so gladly endorsing them now.  That's why it's worth remembering the actual Constitution, and what it says, and sticking to it.

Takeover Takedown

As of last night, thirteen separate states are already suing the federal government regarding the Health Insurance takeover.

While reporting this last night, the local talking head said something that made me laugh aloud: he assured us that "experts" (whom he neither quoted nor identified, natch!) said it was Constitutional, because "federal law trumps state law." (He may as well have added "So there!")

Now, he's right that the Constitution is binding on the several states, but that still leaves open the question of whether THIS is Constitutionally permissible.  So here I am with my pocket copy of the Constitution... Look, it's the Tenth Amendment! "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
 
For the sake of this post, we have to set aside the vast numbers of times the Congress has already ignored the Constitution and pretend that this time, they do care what it says and will abide by it.  You may pull something making this stretch, so take your time.

Good?  Good.

Right at the outset this Amendment is bad news for would-be totalitarians and Big Brotherists: it states openly and plainly that the powers of the United States Government are delegated to it by the people via the Constitution.  They are not inherent to it like the rights of the people are to them.  They are borrowed, and therefore can be taken back when used unwisely or recklessly.  In brief, We the People are the adults of this relationship; the Congress, the President, and the Courts are the balky children, and their powers over us are an allowance we grant exclusively at our sufferance.  We can ground them if they misbehave.  And this is the consistent language of the rest of the Constitution: in the Preamble, it is We the People who ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States, not the other way around.  Article I starts thus: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States..." etc.  And that confirms what was written in the Declaration of Independence, that Governments are established only to protect the inherent rights of the people, "deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."

I highlighted those two words "herein granted" because they further illustrate what the Tenth Amendment was designed to emphasize - the Constitution is meant as an upper limit, not a minimum requirement.  If said powers are not "herein" the Constitution, they are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the People."  And even in the faintest penumbra and emanations of the Constitution, there is nowhere the right to have one's health costs insured by the Federal Treasury.  There's no right to have them insured at all by anybody.

So... going all the way back to our talking head, I would say that a federal law has to be Constitutional in order to be valid and binding on the states.  This thing ain't.

Am I confident about this?  Absolutely.  Will it matter to our rapacious government?  I'm not holding my breath, let's just say that.  If governments stuck to what they were told we may all still be British subjects; no revolution would have been necessary.  By their nature governments prey on their own people.  They don't shrink unless someone shrinks them. and then only with great truculence.  And We are not the same People as the revolutionaries and Founding Fathers.  They helped carve the colonies out of the wilderness, fought to keep them safe, and did so with no promise that their far-distant King and Parliament could swoop in at a moment's notice with millions in federal aid if some flood or fire obliterated their town.  Even the most urbane and loyalist of them had to be a lot more self-reliant than we are.

Not for a moment am I ungrateful to live today, with modern medicine, roads, cheap goods, the Internet, and a thousand other conveniences.  Still I have to say, they're not the reason for living, and they never were.  None of them would mean much if we were reduced to subservience.  Chains of gold and velvet still bind.  These particular chains are in fact so lavish that their forging will beggar every mother's son of us, and we will be a nation of pauper slaves instead of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

AND an update from Noel at Cold Fury: such a major and transformative act has been bipartisan, up until now.  Hell, even Prohibition was a two-thirds majority idea.  As that was eventually repealed, so let this be.

Well, we've got this much going for us, anyway

AKA another good reason to bitterly cling to that grog:

Two major studies confirm the current medical consensus that moderate drinking appears to be good for the heart but heavy drinking is bad for health in general.
...
The new study, using data from nine National Health Interview Surveys done between 1987 and 2000, is more thorough than previous reports and provides "some of the strongest evidence to date" of a link between moderate drinking and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease...

So, when this new health plan drives us to drink, we're all right as long as we moderate - and with what it will cost, we won't have the money to overindulge.

Hey, maybe the government will actually give a tax credit to anyone who opens a still?

We know what you are...

...and now we know the price.

U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced three airports in northern Michigan have received grants totaling $726,409 for airport maintenance and improvements. The funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration.

Gee whiz, Bart! You ARE a cheap date.

PS - update from the 'fly, for some linky love: Slublog strikes again.

I don't know about me...

... but you civilians are screwed.

I am a political prop. You know how politicians get all worked up over problems at the VA hospitals? I can see my congresscritter Kathy Castor in front of the Tampa VA hospital right now, whining, "Tech Sergeant Barking Spider bravely drank beer on three continents defending his country, how can we turn our back on him now?"

Now mind you, with Obama's picture hanging in the lobby of said VA hospital I may not be used as a prop much until the next GOP administration.

So I may be screwed as well. But you civilians - definitely screwed.

I'm loving it

Rubio has double digits over Good-Time Charlie.

According to a new Rasmussen telephone poll among likely Florida GOP primary voters, former state Speaker Marco Rubio now has a double-digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race to be the Republican nominee for the open Florida Senate seat. Rubio now leads 49% to Crist's 37%, with 11 % undecided. Both have a double-digit lead over likely general election opponent, Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek.

It's not Crist's moderation that honks people off, it's the fact that he has no core principles at all. He is all things to all people so that he might get votes. Name the issue and Charlie has two, maybe three recorded positions on it.

It was his devotion to the polls that started his downfall. Rubio is having a "moneybomb" internet fundraising drive on Feb 10, the anniversary of Charlie and Barack's manhug last year in Ft. Myers.

On Thursday Crist met Obama at MacDill and then disappeared. If the president's approval rating was still 80% Charlie would have been on the stage in Tampa next to him licking Obama's ear.

I am registered independent in Florida. I may register as a Republican just to vote for Rubio.

Now this is progress...

...at least he's bowing to an American.

The fortunate lady is Pam Iorio, the mayor of Tampa and the scene is MacDill AFB on Thursday.

Am I over the top with these comments? I may be watching too many clips from the racebaiters at MSNBC, but if there is another pic of the president bowing to a Caucasian I haven't seen it.

(nf - you are perhaps a touch intemperate.  Don't let them drag you down to their level, my friend.)

Because it worked SO well last time...

Obama is doubling down on his sterling coattail record...

Creigh Deeds and Jon Corzine are frantically speed-dialing Martha Coakley's HQ right now.  Unfortunately, the phone lines are a little tied up with questions about her record as the Massachusetts district attorney, or with angry Red Sox fans, to say nothing of the mysterious voices from inside the walls crying geeeetttttt ouuttttttt!

(One of those items may be slightly embellished.)

If it works the way his November push did, you know what you'll hear next, right?

Sir Obama ran away
He bravely ran away, away!
When voters reared their ugly heads
He bravely said "I won!" and fled
Brave, brave, brave Sir Obama!

Whose Idea Was This?

Was Joan Baez booked?

There's no reason to apologize for supporting U.S. war efforts, American country singer Toby Keith said Friday, just hours before performing at the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert.

Keith, whose 2002 saber-rattling hit "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" was inspired by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he stands by President Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Keith's appearance at the downtown Oslo Spektrum arena, scheduled for 1900 GMT (2 p.m. EST), has been questioned by Norwegians dismayed that a performer known for a fervent pro-war anthem is playing at a show focused on peace.

Toby Keith is one of the most politically incorrect country singers around. He would be the last guy I would expect to be invited to play at the Nobel Peace Prize concert.

I guess Europeans like country music because, Toby played there last year as well.

Tiger Woods, Job Creator

Full disclosure: the guy posting this flunked out of the Accounting Department at Rutgers.

Tiger Woods is a job creator. Would Nike even have a golf division if Tiger didn't exist? Nike pays him millions because he moves product. People need to be hired to make and sell the product Tiger moves. Tiger, therefore creates jobs. Sadly, Tiger's current issues prevented him from going to the White House for the jobs photo op and tell this to a president who appears to be ignorant of these things.

Tiger Woods makes money for the other golfers he beats. There are many people (I am one of them) who only watch golf to see Tiger. Tiger sells more tickets and gets more eyeballs watching commercials. Tournaments get more revenue from sponsors and ticket sales. Organizers can raise the prize money. You may have finished fourth, but you made more money than if you finished third in a Tigerless world.

Two things I think of when I hear chuckleheads saying higher taxes for those making $250K per year or greater won't affect them. First I wonder which commandment talks about coveting what is not yours. Then I think, "You chuckleheads! Obama's taking money from the customers of your employer!" A central air system installed right starts at $5K. Fewer people are going to be able to pony of that kind of dough if they have to hand more over to the US Treasury. What does a tax increase on the rich mean to guys like me? Bye-bye overtime, and maybe 40hrs per week as well. And chucklehead wonders why he got laid off.

You guys who know more about this stuff are welcome to correct any faulty thinking I may have. Remember, I flunked out of Accounting at RU.

Relics of the Church

The Obama Bible cover may be no longer for sale, but this should be a suitable substitute.

Be sure to scroll down and read the reviews.

What good is being the smartest president ever...

...when you don't have die Kugeln to make a decision?

At a White House war council meeting Wednesday, Obama rejected the four Afghan war options put before him and asked for revisions that combine the best elements of the proposals, Gates said. The changes could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and their time in the war zone.

Obama is not expected to decide the Afghan matter until after he returns from Asia late next week.

"combine the best elements of the proposals?" Is he trying to vote "present" again?

GWB may have been dumber than a box of hammers (he wasn't), but at least he could make a decision.

What I'm about to write is going to make me look like a serious Keeper Of Odd Knowledge (KOOK), but I think the holdup on Afghanistan is health care legislation. He can't make a decision that will upset the lefties in his party until that gets passed.

I'll put on the tin-foil hat now.

V=O

I can't believe what I saw on ABC Tuesday night.

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?

The simpering anchorman is given an exclusive live interview with the leader of the Visitors. Minutes before the interview the leader tells him not to ask any questions that would put the Visitors in a negative light. Right then he had to decide whether he was a journalist or a whore. And he went the way that many of his ilk have done when faced with His Obamaness.

The Visitors even have their own version of community organizing, called the "Ambassador Plan".

Another quirk: One of the heroes is a Catholic priest. When was the last time a priest was seen on TV as a normal guy, much less a hero?

I'll watch next week, but I don't know how long this will last before someone at ABC gets a phone call.

Insert you own joke here.

Because there is some stuff that is beyond parody.

Do the Right Thing in NJ Today.

I just want to ask you guys not to vote for Obama as your next governor. He will wreck your state so badly that all of you will move to Florida. After I got here these folks became a little worried about a major influx of Jerseyans.

BTW, who is that guy behind Obama?

The Barack Obama Bible Cover (Update)

An update to this.

The link to the Obama Bible nows says that the product is no longer available. I have no idea why.

Charlie Crist...

...is running ads on conservative talk radio complaining about Obama's spending. What is it, 10 months before the primary? Of course, his play date with the One down in Fort Myers in February is a problem.

Charlie's RINO supporters are worried. He's losing county straw polls; the national GOP wants him, but Florida Republicans don't.

Charlie may have a Plan B:

Still, one top Crist supporter even speculated that Crist might consider withdrawing from the race and run for re-election. That probably won’t happen. But while the idea of Crist switching races is unlikely and probably absurd, the entertainment of such an absurdity by the Crist-can’t-lose crowd is noteworthy. They’re nervous. So is Crist, who’s unexpectedly dropping in at Republican committee meetings, where straw poll after straw by rank-and-file Republican base voters show the base favors Rubio.

Crist switching races probably won't happen, but oh the entertainment value.

Here is why non-Floridians should worry about this. The national GOP is shoving Crist down the throats of Florida Republicans. If this guy makes it into the Senate he will be the model for the ideal GOP presidential candidate. Haven't we been there and done that?

I am considering holding my nose and changing my voter registration back to GOP so I can vote for Rubio in the primary.

Beyond Parody

This is not a gag. You can get one for $24 plus shipping here.

Normally, the "my" in this verse is understood to be the Lord Almighty, but in this context it is made to appear as a quote from the One.

H/t to CMR.