It's this simple.

It’s 8:03 pm and 83 degrees outside on this beautiful summer evening. You’re just finishing supper, a simple meal of steak and a potato, cooked on the BBQ. The steak is perfect, medium rare, with pepper, salt, mustard, and cayenne, a recipe given to you by your best friend. You relax in the cool night breeze, reading about one of your favorite hobbies, while on the radio Lynyrd Skynyrd sings about everything that is right with the world. This is one those moments when God hands you an olive branch and shows you what life is all about.
This is freedom. This is America. This is why we fight to keep her sane.

Happy Independence Day!

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Read the rest:

http://www.constitution.org/usdeclar.txt

The Roots of Gun Control

Public debate over an issue is always good, but sometimes ignorance steers the conversation off course into the realm of the absurd. This is nowhere more evident than in current discussions about the necessity of gun control. This argument has descended to the idiotic level of whether or not a person has the right to self-defense. The answer to that question is a resounding yes, but the greater question of gun control has much more far-reaching historical and philosophic importance than the petty bickering of our feeble-minded politicians who pander desperately for our votes, and speaks directly to the relationship between the individual and the state. Gun control has never served its proponents who seek to create a risk-free utopian society, as evidenced by every nation that has ever attempted it, including Britain, Australia, and Brazil. To blunt all of life’s edges is simply impossible. People have been victimizing each other since Cain slew Abel, long before the first gun was invented. The true purpose of gun control is, and always has been, the control of a population by a tyrannical authority.

Gun control efforts have been made in America since colonial times, but the original stated intent was not some vague notion of crime control. Gun control was originally enacted against all members of the black races, by white landowners, in order to more easily subject them to servitude. In 1680, a law was passed with the title “for preventing Negroes Insurrections”. This law was an outright ban on the ownership by blacks of personal weapons, including guns, swords, clubs, staffs, etc. The elitist class of the south understood full well the truth of Aristotle’s words:

“Only an armed people can truly be free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved.”

In addition to being one of the first tools of black suppression and enslavement in America, gun control was also one of the last. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 to stop efforts by southern whites to deny constitutional rights, especially those of the 2nd Amendment, to former slaves and their descendants, efforts which had culminated in the terrible ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the now famous case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The events which necessitated the passage of the 14th Amendment stand as a testimony that no individual, or group of individuals, including the United States Supreme Court, can be trusted with the power to abridge the rights and liberties of a free, inherently equal, and law abiding people. Ultimate authority must always rest with the people in order that its governance never descends into tyranny.

Thankfully, the march of human history has witnessed a steady shrugging away of tyranny, whether inflicted by chiefs, priests, monarchs, or now our own elected officials who fall sway to the same lust for power as did all previous incarnations of authority. It is the constant burden of the citizen to hold its government in check, and when necessary, “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them”. Part of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that Americans will always have the tools necessary to prevent their government from becoming like the one their founders recently fought so hard to be free from. The Chinese government, for example, is well aware of this, and prohibits Chinese citizens from owning any firearms. As Chairman Mao wisely observed,
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party."

Can those of you who, like me, have never trusted Bush and his Homeland Security honestly tell me that we need never "keep and bear arms" to keep the government in check?

In the end, there is no gun control issue. A gun is simply a tool which can either be used positively or negatively. Examples of the former use include blacks who protected themselves from Klansmen, women who now protect themselves from rapists, and a people who would shrug off a tyrannical authority. Examples of the latter use may involve the commission of a crime. Any attempt to limit the tools of crime, however, will only result in the criminal taking up some other device, be it a knife, car, airliner, rock, piano wire, blackjack, illegally obtained gun, or the most common and versatile tool ever devised, the human hand. Ultimately, only our own submission to shackles can deprive us of our hands*, and only our own submission to tyranny can deprive us of our guns.

*Obviously I’m being metaphorical here. An accident involving a wood chipper could literally take our hands, but let’s not be puerile.

Rage Against The Demagogues: Take The Power Back!

Demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

Today we witness the rise to power people of common intelligence possessed of uncommon means. There is nothing noble, exceptional, singular, or benevolent in the persons we have elected to public office. Indeed, if any difference exists at all between the politician and the average citizen, it is the uncommon and all-consuming lust for power and self-gratification on the part of the former. Thus, the only protection the average citizen can rely upon is the limitation of the power and the containment of the influence of the politician to affect the lives of a free and inherently equal citizenship.

Case in point:
Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was shamed and put on the defensive, and rightfully so, amidst her venomous and single-minded pursuit of the creation of an “Independent Truth Commission”. This sham commission would prosecute members of the former presidential administration, as well as some current Republican members of congress, for supposed acts of torture utilized in CIA interrogations of terrorist leaders. These prosecutions, and the media diversion they would surely create, would likely secure an overwhelming Democrat majority in D.C., effectively bestowing upon Obama, Pelosi, and the other temporary tyrants of America, the power to rule by fiat, dispensing with even the illusion of bipartisanship. It came out, however, that back in 2002 good ol’ Nancy herself sat in on the very CIA briefings about, and gave her own tacit assent to, the very interrogation methods that drive her current insane quest for more power.
All pretense of ethical leadership was shed, when, amidst questions at a recent press council on this very subject, a stumbling and backpedalling Pelosi admitted her true motivations for her elected position:
” My job was to change the majority in Congress and to change -- to fight to have a new president, because what was happening was not consistent with our values, certainly not true, and -- and something that had to be changed.”
Excuse me, bitch?
Nancy’s job, for which she was well paid, was to represent California’s 8th district voters in the House, and to serve as House Minority Whip, as well as serve as the top ranking minority leader on the House Intelligence Committee, a position that made her as fully culpable in the doings of our CIA as any other elected representative. She was part of the decision making process. She has always been one of the deciders. And here’s the clincher: She fully admits that, instead of fulfilling her duties and responsibilities to American citizens, she was preoccupied solely with her quest for ever more power to rule over them.
I piss on Nancy Pelosi, and every other goldbricking piece of shit that abuses their ill-gotten position in what should be a hallowed institution, the U.S. Congress. Our elected government has become an out-of-control power hungry monster. It was disgusting under the Republicans, is now equally disgusting under the Democrats, and will continue to be disgusting until such time as American citizens are so pissed off that they finally take back this great and beautiful nation from the grasping clutches of the greedy demagogues that wish only to bilk us for all that we’re worth.

Brazilian Gun Control

It's high time we had a conversation about the farce of gun control, but since I'm feeling especially lazy today I'm just going to throw out a few random facts about Brazil, followed by a link to some other dude's amazing essay on the 2nd Amendment.
Officially, the number of gun related deaths each year in Brazil is anywhere from 25%-400% higher than in the U.S., depending on the source.
And now I'll pause, and let all the advocates of increased gun control work themselves into a hungry gun grabbing frenzy.
Are you finished, children? Okay, now I'll continue.
Unfortunately, for the advocates of gun control, their work in Brazil has already been done. In fact, compared with the U.S., Brazil represents a virtual gun-ban utopia. Brazilian gun purchases are so restricted that nearly all guns within Brazil are illegally smuggled across the border. Those able to purchase a gun within Brazil must be at least 25 years old and register all firearms with the government, and it is generally illegal to possess these guns outside of the house. Indeed, Brazilian gun control measures have been so effective that there are now estimated to be only 8.8 firearms for every 100 Brazilians, a far cry from the U.S.'s triumphant total of 90 per 100.
God bless America! We're number 1!
So there you have it. The farce of gun control as illuminated by Brazil. And don't even let me hear any of that socio-economic "Brazilian society is more prone to violence" mumbo jumbo. That shit's just fucking racist.
Finally, the real reason for this post, an amazing essay by Jeffrey R. Snyder, titled "A Nation of Cowards". You need to read this, to yourself, your friends, and your kids, and your kid's friends.

See you at the next Appleseed!

Fuck you, Janet, you stinky whore

(An open letter to Department of Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano)
Dear Stinky Whore,
I am not a rightwing extremist. I am not, have never been, and will never be, a terrorist.

I am:
- Pro gun and pro militia, under the protection of the 2nd amendment
- Anti tax
- Anti illegal immigration
- Anti welfare
- Anti free trade agreement
- Pro individual and national sovereignty
- Anti communist
- Anti world government

- Anti abortion
- Lastly, but certainly not leastly, I’m a fucking veteran

Janet Napolitano, I am a better American than you. I fucking love this country. You obviously have no idea what it means to be an American. You have abused your position and attacked America and the men and women who make it great. Fuck you, you big dicked baby killing shit eating stinky whore bastard bitch.

Be Careful What You Wish For

As you witness the mad rush to throw away individual liberty and bestow ever more power and money upon our elected officials, under the mistaken belief that these will finally be America’s Greatest Leaders, elected officials who will somehow fix all of our problems for us so that we don’t have to grow up and take responsibility for our own lives, ask yourself what you have done to bring America to this point of extreme metastatic governmental growth. Have you found yourself believing the words of a campaigning politician, biting and clawing its way to the top of the self-serving cesspool of our great nation’s sadly aristocratic capitol? Have you found yourself trusting a President when they promise “temporary” power-grabbing measures? Have you voted to give up even more of your hard-earned money so that these same politicians can use it further their own interests? Do you really believe the government knows what’s best for you? And my final question: Have you not noticed that power in Washington never stays put, always swinging from libertarian to socialist, and from socialist back to libertarian, decade after decade? With that little historical truth in mind, how much power, how much money, and how much trust to you want to place in a government which today may pleasure your personal political slant, but tomorrow will most certainly swing back around to the dreaded “other side”?