Ashcroft pushes new gun policy: Attorney General reinterprets the Constitution

The “classic” view of the Second Amendment as an individual right was memorably provided by Mr. Justice Story (1842):

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline . . . There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights."

More recently, Mr. Justice Scalia wrote (in A Matter of Interpretation, 1997):

“...[W]e value the right to bear arms less than did the Founders (who thought the right to self-defense to be absolutely fundamental), and there will be few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard. But this just shows the Founders were right when they feared that some (in their view misguided) future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may...like elimination of the right to bear arms; but let us not pretend that these are not the reductions of rights.”

Parents needing "oversight" by a government agency. A concept beyond frightening. The status of a child's education has nothing to do with it.
Right you are. This is what's behind the PR push in AZ:
B-67. Home Schooling. "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. When home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state requirements. Home schooling should be limited to the children of the immediate family, with all expenses being borne by the parents/guardians. Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used.[italics mine] The Association also believes that home-schooled students should not participate in any extracurricular activities in the public schools."
See, it's all about power and control, and making sure the parents don't have any. As far as testing goes for public-schooled children, here's another "resolution" adopted by the NEA:
B-55. Standardized Testing of Students. "The Association opposes the use of standardized tests when:
1)Used as the criterion for the reduction or withholding of any educational funding
2)Results are used to compare students, teachers, programs, schools, communities, and states."
The NEA doesn't want to be held accountable, but thinks itself perfectly capable of setting the standards for home-schooling parents...

Bush Caves in to Hillary [Free Republic]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Bush Caves In to Hillary
John LeBoutillier
Wednesday June 13, 2001

HEADS UP: BOB GLASS (TYRANNY RESPONSE TEAM) "P.I."'s GUEST TONIGHT!! [Free Republic] HEADS UP: BOB GLASS (TYRANNY RESPONSE TEAM) "P.I."'s GUEST TONIGHT!!

Constitution/Conservatism Breaking News Announcement Keywords: TUNE IN TO "POLITICALLY INCORRECT" TONITE - GUEST: BOB GLASS OF TRT!!!
Source: ABC.com
Posted on 06/11/2001 16:37:43 PDT by Mercuria

Propaganda Survivor of The Day!


Denver Post letters to the editor

Misguided agenda

The Post article notes that the TRT group's protest tactics are a key reason for the ADL becoming interested in the group. I have been impressed with the ADL's diligence on issues relating to religious persecution. It may be that the ADL's investigation is a good cause. I am, however, convinced the examples of "questionable tactics" that the article gave are being handled differently by the local press than the same tactics would be if this were a left-wing group.

The example of members of the "Tyranny Response Team protesting at Boulder City Hall wearing black shirts with stars, similar to the kind Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany," and the drop in attendance at the Million Mom Marches across the United States due to other TRT counter-demonstrations are hardly new to the game of protest. In fact, if this were a leftist cause, one would be surprised if the protesting group's tactics were mentioned in the news piece at all.
I am not a member of the TRT or the NRA and I do not personally feel the need to arm myself with handguns or other weaponry. I am, however, a veteran and a patriot who is very tired of the news media's one-sided march against the right to own and bear arms. I see these subtle and judgmental articles as evidence that the news media has an agenda other than reporting "just the facts."

CRAIG WOLVERTON
Westminster

My A.M. Coffee Choker of the Day
(courtesy, of course, of the L.A.trine Slimes)

The Second Amendment and Gun Ownership [Letter to the Editor]

Niko and Theo are the two young boys who have been working to ban the sale of ammunition in Los Angeles. I've had the "pleasure" of countering them at the L.A. City Council. They make me craaaaaaaaaazy.

Letter number one was as bad. It's first line will suffice:

It is disturbing to see that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft gave incorrect advice to the NRA about the 2nd Amendment, saying it gives individuals the right to own guns.

These people are sick.

My letter:

The two letters published on May 30th re: "The 2nd Amendment and Gun Ownership" might have been more suitably prefaced with the title "Revisionism Run Amok".

TV soundbites and seventh grade textbooks are, fortunately, not the basis for Constitutional interpretation. Logic and intellect are.

Lest I be accused of being a Right-Winger, or, worse, a Conservative, let me quote Lawrence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor, and no hero to the adherents of either of those philosophies:

"Most advocates of gun control have argued that the 'right to bear arms' can reach no further than the Second Amendment's preamble, which calls a 'well-regulated Militia . . . necessary to the security of a free State.' They conclude that the amendment shields only state militias like today's National Guard from Federal authority. According to these people, the rights of individuals to self-defense or to private gun ownership are not constitutionally protected at all. But the Second Amendment reference to the people's 'right' to be armed cannot be trumped by the Amendment's preamble."

It's a question of focus, and educated parsing.

AnnaZ
L.A., CA

My battle of the day was here:

30 PROOFS & PREDICTIONS OF CREATIONISM/I.D. #1, #2, #3 [Free Republic]

Everything that I observe and experience reaffirms my belief in a Creator. Things like gardenias, hummingbirds, the smell of cut grass, the love that overwhelms me when I look at my family.

I could post a host of articles re: the age of stars, the (slowing) speed of light, etc., ad nauseum... None of that has anything to do with why I believe the way I do.

It is only the last few years that I've paid any heed to creationism or Biblical literacy. However, prior to that you never could have convinced me that I was an evolutionary by-product. And not for lack of trying, either. 17 years of secular schooling should have done the job.

Ultimately it comes down to the world that surrounds me and the response to that within me. I have a mind, and a soul, and a spirit. I do not need any book or well-thought out article to convince me of that. Those things provide the fodder for threads such as these, but my faith stands alone without them.

Peace.

One-Term George, Take Two! [Free Republic]

Enforce the Bill of Rights.

Wow, gosh, it sounds so... so simple!

But today, unfortunately, enforcing the Bill of Rights -- or the Constitution for that matter -- isn't "compassionate", it's wholly and horribly "partisan", it just doesn't fit under that big, big tent.

I will write a letter to W over the weekend, for whatever that is worth. I encourage Mr. Smith to handwrite the above missive to the President as well.

There is a fear that accompanies approaching the Leviathan that government has become, escaping the confines of the Keyboard Kingdom and acting on one's conscientious inner self. However I fear Civil War II more. I do.

75 Posted on 05/24/2001 21:33:34 PDT by AnnaZ

Today's Bonus: Mercuria Rants!

If we were serious about getting rid of these migrant workers, we'd be pushing to repeal the minimum wage. That would drive labor costs down to a point that would make the trip Norte less profitable. Thanks to the Liberals' minimum wage laws, however, we've made illegal immigration big business.

Ahhhh...THERE'S the rub, Redcloak!

A point of agreement between us on this issue!

Of course, don't say that to certain Republicans around here...we'll hear the continual whine about "how can we support ourselves on less than the minimum wage?"

(Good grief! Has the Party Of Conservatives ever sounded MORE like Kennedy and Boxer??)

My dissenter says: "Americans won't do the work."

I say: "Hiring illegal aliens has ENCOURAGED Americans to become lazy because WE have bought into the notion that manual labor is 'beneath us'. When did we become so snobbish and ashamed of work we do with our two hands? Should we adopt the LIBERAL attitude of saying that entry-level or manual labor jobs are to be sneered at?"

My dissenter: "I don't want my kids having to do that work."

Me: "I suppose you PREFER the idea of having a 'two-income' family because giving your kids everything they whine for is preferable to taking the time and energy of instilling a good work ethic in them? Do you enjoy turning your kids over to government authority and having them adopt a lazy attitude because YOU YOURSELF are too apathetic to make an issue of telling your government to keep their paws off your pocketbook...and because you personally have decided that the liberals were right in establishing a traditional household as 'unfulfilling' and 'slavery'?"

My dissenter: "You'd be the first one screaming if the price of lettuce went up. Illegal labor keeps the prices down."

Me: "No, it doesn't. Considering the amount of taxpayer-funded services going to illegal aliens, the 'unseen cost' is just as much as if we paid minimum wage to CITIZENS to work our fields. We are not currently in a booming job market. And people who own fields should never become so cheap and lazy that they are more willing to break the law than work their own fields or pay what is needed to have their fields LAWFULLY worked. And if the minimum wage is too high, start holding some FEET TO THE FIRE and tell your government to get rid of that mandatory minimum wage so we can hire CITIZENS to work our fields."

My dissenter: "Are you crazy? How can we in this day and age live without a minimum wage?"

Me: "Are you lazy? Start holding some FEET TO THE FIRE and tell your government to get their paws off your pocketbook - and out of minimum wage setting - so we don't encourage lawbreakers to employ other lawbreakers. Have it so moms can stay at home with kids, get the government OUT of our personal home lives entirely, and stop promoting the epidemic of 'latchkey kids'."

My dissenter: "But the Mexicans are only coming here for a better life."

Me: "It is not our business to provide a 'better life' - money to send back to the home country and taxpayer-funded services - for people who come here with no intention of becoming citizens. A 'better life' for me - an AMERICAN CITIZEN - would be a government that enforces those laws to keep our borders secure, and that does not encourage lawbreakers from any other nation. It is up to the Mexican people, if they have no intention of being citizens here, to work for a less corrupt government in their OWN country than to try and sponge off of ours."

My dissenter: "You're so uncompassionate!"

Me: "How 'compassionate' are YOU being stating that your chief desire for lawbreakers to be in this nation is because they wash your car and clean your house so cheaply? Don't you think it MORE compassionate to encourage people to be strong enough to make their home countries more tolerable rather than inviting them over to break the law because we are becoming penny-pinching users?"

My dissenter: "President Fox is really working hard to make things better in Mexico. He and Bush have been talking about it. They've been for 70 years with the same corrupt party ruling them. It's going to take time."

Me: "Did you know that La Raza works in concert with people like Villaraigosa to promote their concept of Reconquista...and that President Fox's demands for open borders, migrant worker freedom (i.e., illegal immigrants permitted work here), and illegal alien students at our state universities as 'home state' students with 'home tuition' rates (putting them in a more FAVORED category than out-of-state CITIZENS of the U.S.) falls directly in line with La Raza and its Reconquista ideals of developing Aztlan, an anti-Christian socialistic pagan paradise?"

My dissenter: "YOU BIGOT!"

Me: "Run out of arguments, I see."

(This is an example, pretty much, of how EVERY argument I have re: illegal immigration runs. Eventually, for no real discernible reason, my rejection of the notion of radical "reconquest", my discouragement of lawbreaking, my repudiation of the idea that everything must be bilingual to accommodate immigrants rather than the necessity of their learning English, and my calling on American citizens to "get with it" by holding their government's feet to the fire makes me a "bigot". How boring. How...socialistic.)


25 Posted on 05/22/2001 00:56:31 PDT by Mercuria

Student removed from class in handcuffs because of drawings Guns! outrageous. Nazi-esque. [Free Republic]

Read the above and then compare to:

Girl Allegedly Raped Inside Bronx School

Source: NY1 tv
Published: 4/30/01

Police say a 14-year-old girl was raped in her intermediate school in the Bronx Monday afternoon. According to the Board of Education, the incident happened just before noon Monday, between classes in a stairwell inside I.S. 158 in Morrisania. Officials say the girl told authorities she was raped by two boys while a third stood by. However, police have charged three boys with rape in connection with the attack. The boys are 14 and 15 years old, and they have been suspended from school for up to 30 days.

18 Posted on 05/19/2001 11:28:38 PDT by AnnaZ

The Feminist Path to Hell: "Rewriting 'The Rules'...for Lesbians" [Free Republic]

My heart breaks for those young girls indoctrinated in the "who needs a man?" philosophy, who are now women answering, "Me!"

My heart breaks for legs spread countless times, habit formed, second dates less and less frequent, not realizing that they've made them unnecessary.

And fine lines set in, and the career is less satisfying, the womb scraped out once or twice now screaming "robbery!"

My generation has been snookered. The upcoming one may be worse.

84 Posted on 05/19/2001 13:30:16 PDT by AnnaZ

Boneheaded Liberal Quote of The Day!!! [Free Republic]

From the article:

Uprising Has Been a Call to Arms for Nervous Israelis

By SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, Times Staff Writer




"People feel less safe. It's like wartime,"
said Yael Dayan,

a liberal member of parliament
who spearheaded stricter gun ownership laws in the 1990s

but also owns a .22-caliber Beretta.

"It doesn't mean that it's useful to have a gun.
It's just a question of feeling safer."

Read between the lines, with AnnaZ

Sometimes the "Million" (sic) Moms need help with press releases. And, being a kind person, I thought I'd lend them a hand.

;^)

#27

Posted on 05/02/2001 13:33:37 PDT by AnnaZ

Hi.