I mentioned before that I think there would be a few of the founders who would be appalled at how this nation has turned out if they saw it now. Then, I found this quote by Thomas Jefferson: I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of ’76. to acquire self government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it. if they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they would throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world. to yourself as the faithful advocate of union I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.–Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 22 April 1820
Let’s toss in that Roger Sherman said that there were four reasons to adopt a new constitution: defense against foreign powers, defense against domestic insurrections, treaties with foreign nations, and the regulation of foreign commerce.
Nothing like knowing you’re right and the US is run by idiots who need to redo their underlying law.
OK, a good guess would be London since it is the Capital of England. Toss in that most (quite a few) British people have lived there for a period of time.
Some people say it’s Philadelphia, but I have my doubts.
I would propose either Edinburgh or Glasgow, but somehow those don’t make the lists. Maybe it’s because the people proposing this have decided that the Scots don’t speak English. Although, one reason I propose this is that Glasgow had a population of around 12,000 at the start of the eighteenth century and it prospered from trade during that period. Glasgow’s population eventually surpasses that of Edinburgh by 1821. An example from Matthew P. Dziennik’s article Scotland and the American Revolution from the Journal of the American Revolution.
But Scotland was largely spared the levels of taxation seen in England and, as a result, benefited economically from the Union. Under the Navigation Acts, which so frustrated American traders, Scots were permitted to carry on trade with British colonies without paying the tariffs associated with foreign states. The biggest beneficiary was Glasgow, which overtook centers such as London and Liverpool to become Britain’s leading tobacco port by the 1770s. In fact, so important was tobacco to Glasgow that the city’s merchants successfully pressured the burgh corporation not to submit a loyal address to the king after the battles of Lexington and Concord. The fact that seventy-seven other Scottish public bodies did submit loyal addresses and that Glasgow was the lone dissenting voice, however, suggests just how popular British policies were in Scotland.
While I call myself British if I describe myself that way, I tend not to try to be too tied to one region over another. This is especially true since I have lived in a few different places. Toss in that the act of union went into effect in 1707. This was the legislation that united the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into a single political entity known as Great Britain. This union aimed to resolve ongoing conflicts and establish a unified Parliament while maintaining distinct legal systems for both nations.
So, if a colonial city can be in the running for this: why not a couple of Scottish ones? Especially since they are on the British Island.
OK, for some of us 1-800-GOT-JUNK is definitely not the way to go because it’s not junk when we’re clearing the house. I know this from having moved 4 time in the past few years.
On the other hand, one wants to downsize, but getting a lot of stuff to a charity, or having a curbside pickup isn’t an option. People would steal from the boxes I put out.
I have a fairly sizable library of books that I am going to have give up. Toss in that I have to downsize. And there are definitely treasures in all this. Stuff that could be sold on eBay, but I don’t have the time.
I would love to see a clean out service like 1-800-GOT-JUNK that would try to see this stuff REUSED, not contributed to the trash mountain. And an estate sale isn’t always a feasible choice due to time constraints.
So, I suggest setting up a clean out service with a conscience: you try to sell or give to charity what is truly unsalable. Charge a fee At this point I would pay US$500-1000 for a service like this.
I’m reposting this because everyone should read it.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting and having discussions with people who came to America from countries known for their adherence to totalitarianism: China, Russia, and former east European satellites of the Soviet Union. When we discussed how the state managed to control public opinion under totalitarianism, these people would usually produce a weary, knowledgeable, cynical smile and point out that propaganda in those countries was really done quite incompetently. If you really want to know propaganda, they said, you need to study American propaganda technique. According to them, it is, undeniably, the best in the world. “How can that be?” I asked, honestly puzzled. Propaganda in those countries was too obvious, they told me. As soon as you read the first sentence you knew it was a bunch of propaganda, so you didn’t even bother to read it. If you heard a speech, you knew in the first few words that it was propaganda, and you tuned it out. “But,” I then queried, “How do you know when it’s just propaganda?” The expatriates explained that bad propaganda uses obvious terminology that anyone can see through. Anyone hearing the phrase “capitalist running dogs”, knows he’s listening to incompetent propaganda and tunes it out. Lousy propaganda, these knowledgeable but jaded individuals would tell me, appeals to an abstract theory, to a rational thesis that can be disproved. Even though communists had total control of the press, the people just tuned it out (except for those who were the most mentally defective). Most people, they assured me, just went about their lives as best they could, paid lip service to the state, and just tried to keep out of the way of the secret police. But hardly anyone really believed the stuff. The result, after many decades of suffering, was the eventual collapse of the old order once The Great Leader expired, whether his name was Brezhnev, Mao, or Tito. American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they patiently explained, relies entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can object to. American propaganda had its birth, so far as I can tell, in the advertising industry. The pioneers of advertising—a truly loathsome bunch—learned early on that people would respond to purely emotional appeals. Abstract theory and logical argument do nothing to spur sales. However, appeals to sexiness, to pride of ownership, to fear of falling behind the neighbors are the stock in trade of advertising executives. A man walking down the street with beautiful women hanging on his arms is not a logical argument, but it sure sells after-shave. A woman in a business suit with a briefcase, strolling along with swaying hips, assuring us she can “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, but never let you forget you’re a man” really sells the perfume. Let’s take a moment and analyze the particular emotions that this execrable ad appealed to. If you guessed fear, you win the prize. Women often have a fear of inadequacy, particularly in this confused age when they are expected to raise brilliant kids, run a successful business, and be unfailingly sexy, all the time. That silly goal—foisted upon us by feminists and popular culture—is impossible to reach. But maybe there’s hope if you buy the right perfume! Arguments from intimidation and appeals to fear are powerful propaganda tools. American advertising and propaganda has been refined over the years into a malevolent science, based on the assumption that most people react, not to ideas, but to naked emotion. When I worked at an ad agency many years ago, I learned that the successful agencies know how to appeal to emotions: the stronger and baser, the better. The seven deadly sins, ad agency wags often say, are the key to selling products. Fear, envy, greed, hatred, and lust: these are the basic tools for good propaganda and effective advertising. By far, the most powerful motivating emotion—the top, most-sought-after copy writers will tell you, in an unguarded moment—is fear, followed closely by greed. Good propaganda appeals to neither logic nor morality. Morality and ethics are the death of sales. This is why communist propaganda actually hastened the collapse of communism: the creatures running the Commie Empire thought they should appeal to morality by calling for people to engage in sacrifice for the greater good. They gave endless, droning speeches about the inevitably of communist triumph, based on the Hegelian dialectic. Not only were they wrong: their approach to selling their (virtually unsellable) theory was not clever enough. American propagandists (we can be jingoistically proud to say) would have been able to maintain the absurd social experiment called communism a little longer. They would have scrapped all the theory and focused on appealing images. Though the Commies tried to do this through huge, flag-waving rallies, the disparity between their alleged ideals and the reality they created was just too great. One tyrant who did take American propaganda to heart was Adolph Hitler. Hitler learned to admire American propaganda through a young American expatriate who described to him, in glowing detail, how Americans enjoyed the atmosphere at football games. This American expatriate, with the memorable name of Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstängl, told the Führer how Americans could be whipped up into a frenzy through blaring music, group cheers, and chants against the enemy. Hitler, genius of evil as he was, immediately saw the value in this form of propaganda and incorporated it into his own rise to power. Prior to Hitler, German political rhetoric was dry, intellectual, and uninspiring. Hitler learned the value of spectacle in whipping up the emotions; the famed Nuremberg rallies were really little more than glorified football halftime shows. Rejecting boring, intellectual rhetoric, Hitler learned to appeal to deeply emotional but meaningless phrases, like the appeal to “blood and soil.” The German people bought it wholesale. Hitler also called for blind loyalty to the “Fatherland,” which eerily echoes our own new cabinet level post of “Homeland” Security. If you study Nazi propaganda, you will be struck by how well it appeals to gut-level emotions and images—but not thought. You will see pictures of elderly German women hugging fresh-faced young babies, with captions about the bright future the Führer has brought to German. In fact, German propaganda borrowed the American technique of relying, not so much on words, but on images alone: pictures of handsome German soldiers, sturdy peasants in native costume, and the like. Take a look at any American car commercial featuring rugged farmers tossing bales of hay into the backs of their pickups, and you’ve seen the source from which the Nazis borrowed their propaganda techniques. The Germans have a well-deserved reputation for producing a lot of really smart people, but this did not prevent them from being completely vulnerable to American-style propaganda. Amazingly, a nation raised on the greatest classical music, the profoundest scientists, the greatest poets, actually fell for propaganda that led them into a hopeless, two-front war against most of the world. Being smart is, in itself, no defense against skilled American propaganda, unless you know and understand the techniques, so you can resist them. American politicians learned, early in the twentieth century, that using emotional sales techniques won elections. Furthermore, they learned that emotional appeals got them what they wanted as they advanced towards their long-term goal of becoming Masters of the Universe. From this, we get our modern lexicon of political speech, carefully crafted to appeal to powerful emotions, with either no appeal to reason, or (better yet) a vague appeal to something that sounds foggily reasonable, but is so obscure that no one will bother to dissect it. Franklin Roosevelt understood this, which is why he called for Social Security. Security is an emotional appeal: no one is against security, are they? Roosevelt backed up his campaign with a masterful appeal to emotions: images of happy, elderly grandparents smiling while hugging their grandchildren, with everything in the world going right because of Social Security. All kinds of government programs were sold on the basis of appealing images and phrases. Roosevelt even appealed to America’s traditional love of freedom, spinning that term by multiplying it into the new Four Freedoms, including Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. Well, what heartless human being could possibly be against that? The Four Freedoms were promoted with images of parents tucking their children cozily into bed, and a happy family gathered around a Thanksgiving dinner, obviously free from want. The campaign was also based on that most powerful of all selling emotions: fear. If you don’t support Social Security, the ads suggested, you will live your last years in utter destitution. Putzi Hanfstängl, viewing Roosevelt’s evil brilliance from Nazi Germany, was probably jealous. American advertising executives learned the value of presenting a single image or slogan, and repeating it over and over again until it became ingrained in the public’s consciousness. Thus we are all aware that Ivory Soap is so pure that it floats: a point that has been repeated for the better part of a century. I’m not sure why I should be impressed that a bar of soap floats, but on the other hand, it’s not intended that I think that far. Politicians now sell their programs the way the advertising creeps sell soap: they dream up a slogan and repeat it over and over again. Thus we get empty slogans like The New Frontier, The New World Order (that one was poorly chosen; it sounds too much like an actual idea), or Reinventing Government (an idea that everyone should favor, except that the idea behind it really means Keeping Government the Same, only no one is supposed to think that far). Empty grandeur sells political products. Both German and American politicians carried the use of banners to new heights. Flags are impressive emotional symbols, particularly when waved by thousands of enthusiastic people: it’s a rare individual who can resist the collective enthusiasm of thousands of his fellow human beings, cheering about their collective greatness. Putzi Hanfstängl understood this, advising Hitler to fill his public spectacles with not just a few, but countless thousands of swastika flags. The swastika, too, was a brilliant stroke of advertising and propaganda: it has become, in the public consciousness, the official emblem of Nazism, even though it had nothing to do with Germany. In fact, swastikas were used by ancient Hindus and American tribes, but I’m not aware of it being used by anyone in Germany prior to Hitler. Now observe how Americans in the current crisis have taken to displaying huge flags on their cars. Flags are not rational arguments; they are instruments for whipping up the Madness of Crowds. Observe how many Americans have, with a straight face, called for a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag desecration, oblivious to the obvious contradictions such an amendment would have with the rest of the Constitution. But again, if you learn nothing else about propaganda, learn that it must not appeal to rationality. Politicians don’t just use warm, fuzzy images to sell us on the road to tyranny. They also need emotional appeals to intimidate their enemies. Thus the small percentage of the population that really does use thought and reason more than emotion must be demonized. Roosevelt managed this with some masterful propaganda strokes. Those who opposed him were Isolationists, and Malefactors of Great Wealth! (The gut-level emotion appealed to here is envy.) Roosevelt thus showed himself to be an early master of what former California Governor Jerry Brown called “buzz words”; that is, words intended to silence counter-argument by appealing to unassailable emotional images. No one is for Isolation, and almost everyone reacts to an appeal to hate anyone who has a lot of money. The latter appeal, of course, had great power during the Great Depression, which Roosevelt managed to maintain for the entire length of his presidency, all the while blaming others for its evils. Was this guy an evil genius, or what? The propaganda cleverness used in successfully branding anti-war people as Isolationists is breathtaking. After all, a rational person (ah, keep in mind, that’s not a common individual) realizes that those who oppose war are the exact opposite of isolationists. The Old Right at the time called for peaceful, commercial relations with all nations, based on neutrality in foreign affairs. If anything, those who oppose war and meddling in other countries’ affairs are the opposite of Isolationists as they really stand for open, profitable relationships with other countries. The people who stand for such ideas do not “sell” them by means of strictly emotional appeals, so they tend to lose the propaganda wars. When Roosevelt succeeded in whipping the country up into a war-frenzy after steering us into the Pearl Harbor fiasco, the Old Right realized their opposition to the war was hopeless. The role of the government propaganda camps known as public schools cannot be discounted in all this. Schools are not so much centers of learning as they are behavior conditioning camps in which children are taught to be unquestioningly obedient to authority. Since reason and morality are the death of propaganda, schools busy themselves with systematically stunting students’ ability to reason and think in moral terms. Because the government owns the propaganda camps, it’s not surprising that the beneficiary of the propaganda is almost always the government. Americans accept obvious absurdities because they were drilled into their heads, year after year, in the government propaganda camps until they became true and unquestionable. Thus, everyone knows Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression, even though the worst depression years were precisely those in which he and his party controlled every branch of government. Everyone knows Lincoln was a great president because he saved “government by the people” and freed the slaves, even though he became a war tyrant and only freed the slaves when it was politically convenient to do so. Wilson, everyone knows, made the world “safe for democracy”, evidently by instituting a draft and getting America involved in a European war that was fought for reasons no one to this day can fathom. When minds are young and pliable—government experts understand this principle—you can fill them with nonsense that is practically impossible to root out. Laughable falsehoods in effect become true because everyone knows them to be true. Advertising executives learned, early on, that companies could not be too obvious in using their propaganda. If their agenda could be clearly seen, then it could also be rejected. The answer to this problem was the American propaganda technique of the “independent expert” and the “guy on the street.” One of these appeals to our timidity before authority, and the other to our smugness when dealing with someone at or below our perceived social level. Of course, these two techniques are really just two sides of the same coin. In product advertising, sports heroes and celebrities are used to sell corn flakes because no one would listen to the president of Kellogg telling us why corn flakes are so good. In selling detergent, plain-looking housewives are preferable to sexy models because they look just like us. In political propaganda, “experts” are often trotted out to tell us, in convoluted, circular reasoning, why minimum wage laws are really good for us, why a little bit of inflation is good, or why we just can’t rely on the free market for something so crucially important as education. Or, using the “guy on the street” approach, we are told to support idiotic wars because the common soldiers (“our boys”), cannot function unless they know we stand united behind them. If the rare sensible person tries to argue against war, he is accused of making things harder for “our boys.” This brings us to the latest iteration of masterful American Propaganda: the War on Terrorism. Any attempt to explain why the terrorists (crazed as they obviously were) felt motivated to attack the World Trade Center is looked on as “siding with the terrorists.” Indeed, Ashcroft and Bush have said, in so many words, that if you don’t support them in everything they do, you stand with the terrorists. Ashcroft and Bush have evidently studied their propaganda lessons from World War II, when Roosevelt silenced all opposition by accusing anyone who stood against him of undermining the war effort. Anyone who suggests we should not risk World War III by invading the Middle East is alternately accused of siding with the terrorists, of slandering the memory of those who died, or (of course) of not “standing by our boys” in times of great need. It’s easy to feel alienated in a nation of flag-wavers singing patriotic hymns. The fact that they are marching lockstep to a world in which the government will monitor their e-mail, snoop into their bank accounts, and eventually throw them in jail for voicing opposition doesn’t seem to bother them one bit. Now, most libertarians or otherwise thoughtful people will react with dismay when told that most of their fellow human beings react so unthinkingly to sock-you-in-the-gut emotional propaganda. Unfortunately, most people are not capable of really thinking things out. Most people really do buy perfume because of the emotional imagery. Most people really do believe the “independent expert”, whether in politics or buying a car. Most people want to go with the crowd, or follow the leader. To do otherwise requires independent thought and the willingness to be ostracized, which is an unbearable psychological burden for many. If you want to take heart, remember that the Vietnam War ended because a few people just continued to speak against it, despite the overwhelming government propaganda for it. The fact that a lot of the anti-war protesters were motivated by the wrong reasons (support of commies), doesn’t matter in light of the fact they were able to turn the tide. They were right, even if for the wrong reasons. If advocates of freedom continue to speak against the creeping tyranny that our masters justify on the phony grounds of the War on Terrorism, we might just be able to prevent the transition from Republic to Empire. The thing about propaganda is that, once it is exposed for what it is, no one listens anymore. People tune it out, just as the slaves in Russia and China learned to tune out their official propaganda. Paul Weber’s novel, Transfiguration, is available at http://www.xlibris.com/Transfiguration.html.
OK, I mentioned in my post John Steed’s Umbrella that it came from James Smith and Sons on New Oxford Street in London, which is near Shaftesbury Avenue and Tottenham Court Road. I also mentioned that the store front mentioned sword canes. Actually it’s “Dagger Canes” and “swordsticks”. This is visible on the right side of the store, next to the stop light.
The previous picture was an older one taken with an early digital camera. This picture is more recent and turned up when I was looking for another picture.
I feel really good about finding this picture, but I did crop it. It was in an early batch of digital pictures. I knew I had a few pictures of Pubs (and closed ones at that), but I didn’t think I had a digitial picture of the Australian. There are a few pictures of the exterior of the Ennismore Arms after it closed in this batch as well. From the Lost Pubs Project (https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/london/sw3_chelsea_australian.html):
The Australian was situated at 26 Milner Street. This pub closed in 2006 to be redeveloped for flats. It had a long cricketing tradition due to a long lost cricket pitch where Lennox Gardens is now situated, probably pre dating the pub.
There’s a picture of the Rolling Stones from the 1960s in front of this pub. Another pub to see members of that band (as well as other celebrities) was the King’s Head and Eight Bells. That’s also closed.
But it’s in the train station at Colwyn Bay. The day had started in Betwys-y-Coed where I had hoped to catch a train. The station attendant told me that trains didn’t run on Sundays because the Welsh “were very religious.” This was despite her working on Sunday.
I responded “what does that have to do with anything???”
Anyway, I hitched a ride up to Colwyn Bay with a nun!
So much for religion!
I did spend a fair amount of time waiting for the Train to London that day, which made the poster for British Rail’s Motorail service in the background seem very ironic. I caught the train going from Holyhead to London that evening.
Anghofiwch yr Iddewon. Y rhai ohonom sydd â llinach Gymreig yw’r bobl ddewisedig go iawn! Rydym yn canu’n dda ac yn chwarae rygbi. Ac mae gennym ein gwlad ein hunain yn barod: hyd yn oed os yw’r Prydeinwyr yn ei rhannu gyda ni.
A’r cod hudolus Cymreig yw:
Ying tong ying tong Ying tong ying tong Ying tong iddle I po, Ying tong ying tong Ying tong ying tong Ying tong iddle I po Ying. Ying tongy tongy. Ying tong iddle I po. Ying tong iddle I po.
Ac oeddech chi’n gwybod y cod Cymraeg 36 eiliad sy’n cyflawni eich holl ddymuniadau? Neu fod J.R.R. Tolkien wedi modelu iaith y tylwyth teg o’r Gymraeg (a’r Wyddeleg oedd y model ar gyfer iaith y Corachod)?
Nawr dywedwch weddi wrth Harry Secombe neu bydd y Manic Street Preachers yn eich dal chi.
The Goons: from left to right, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, reenacting an earlier sketch with leeks, 1972. (Photo by Tony Evans/Timelapse Library Ltd./Getty Images)
Kurt Gödel was an Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and analytic philosopher. He was born in Austria and emmigrated to the United States
When Gödel was studying to take his American citizenship test in 1947, he came across what he called an “inner contradiction” in the U.S. Constitution. At the time, he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was good friends with Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern. Gödel told Morgenstern about the flaw in the constitution, which, he said, would allow the U.S. to legally become a fascist state. Morgenstern tried to convince Gödel that this was very unlikely, but Gödel remained very concerned about it. He was an Austrian by birth and, having lived through the 1933 coup d’état and escaped from Nazi Germany after the Anschluss, had reason to be concerned about living in a fascist dictatorship. Morgenstern had secret discussions with Gödel about his concerns and told Einstein about them.
Since the exact nature of Gödel’s Loophole has never been published, what it is, precisely, is not known. In his 2012 paper “Gödel’s Loophole” F. E. Guerra-Pujol speculates that the problem involves Article V, which describes the process by which the Constitution can be amended. The loophole is that Article V’s procedures can be applied to Article V itself. It can therefore be altered in a “downward” direction, making it easier to alter the article again in the future. So even if, as is now the case, amending the Constitution is difficult to bring about, once Article V is downwardly amended, the next attempt to do so will be easier, and the one after that easier still. Other writers have speculated that Gödel may have had other aspects of the Constitution in mind as well, including the abuse of gerrymandering, prorogation of Congress, the Electoral College, and the presidential pardon.
In any case, the Gödel story is at least plausible. He spent a great deal of time thinking about systems of rules (axiom systems in mathematics), and looking for their limits and what such systems can say about themselves.
It should come as no surprise that when encouraged to look at the US constitution (which is, after all, just a set of rules), Gödel was enthusiastic and his thoughts turned immediately to what the system said about itself – and its limitations. It should also come as no surprise then that when he looked, he found some.
So, maybe the loophole isn’t what is written in the US Constitution, but is something which has come about through tradition? Although, I have come to realise the US Constitution is basically poorly written bumpf. A piece of shit written by a committee. Which is why he couldn’t put his finger on one thing. Since as the speculation has pointed out, there are more than enough problems with it.
But Donald Trump pushed the envelope with his attack on birthright citizenship. Which is something I agree about and there is a simple solution which requires an amendment to the Constitution that at least one parent needs to have some legal connection to the United States (Ireland uses this). But instead of following tradition and protocol, Trump has chosen to use the nuclear option.
He’s challenging the Supreme Court and its power.
So much for checks and balances.
So, I am going to quote myself on the biggest problem, which is one which custom has allowed to stand.
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, was a U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution.
Judicial review for constitutionality is not a power granted by the US Constitution: it comes from this case. More importantly it centred around a clause in the US Constitution (hint, hint, for those shit for brains who want to call themselves “Constitutional Scholars”).
My question when Heller came down was how does the system handle an out of control Judiciary? The obvious answer is that it defers to tradition. On the other hand, Trump is pointing out that the emperor is naked. Does the Supreme Court, or the Judiciary, have any real power to enforce its decisions?
So, maybe the reason Gödel didn’t tell anyone what this loophole happened to be was because it is that the entire constitution is a house of cards. Gödel could see this since English wasn’t his first language and he was a logician. The loophole isn’t something which is written into the constitution, it is something which was attributed to the constitution.
And as I have pointed out, proper legal method requires that something needs to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution for it to be constitutional. Gödel’s loophole is the deference given to concepts which are not explicitly written into the Constitution. Assumptions made by the founders which can be exploited by those with malicious intent. And the fact that language changes meaning.
The Second Amendment was the perfect example of this.
So, two people whose mother tongue is not English can agree on this. It’s not what is written, it is what ISN’T written. Or is subject to misinterpretation.
Scalia was very wrong when he said: “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”
That is precisely what he needed to do before he set in motion the destruction of the United States.
And the “scholars”, politicians, and lawyers who allowed this should resign their positions for someone who is competent.
Republican as in not a fan of monarchy. Although, I would definitely lean toward constitutional monarchies as they have in the rest of Europe, but I think there are only about 9 of them. The British Monarchy has a lot of wealth behind it. Toss in a long history. Belgium’s is only around 200 years old.
And France hasn’t been one since the Third Republic (1870-1940). And my European leanings are more toward the Republics of France and Italy these days. And Ireland is also a republic: unless you are in the six counties.
Anyway, something happened today that amplified my ignorance of the British monarchy. After all, I did ignore that the national anthem is now back to “God Save the King”. And it might be that in an abbreviated form minus these bit deemed to jingoistic:
O Lord our God arise, Scatter our enemies, And make them fall! Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all!
From every latent foe, From the assasins blow, God save the King! O’er his thine arm extend, For Britain’s sake defend, Our Father, prince, and friend, God save the King!
And the verse about Wade as well. Rarely is it performed with all its verses.
Alas, I do have ties to Britain, but not that strong these days. So, despite my posts about the Loyalists and the War for Independence, it’s not as much about Britain. It’s far more about what if the French has won since I was born in the former New France. Not sure how much affinity I have for that since it is about as French as the US, or Canada, is British. But I do have to wonder how things would be different had the French prevailed during the summer of 1759 beating the British on the Plains of Abraham. Toss in the possible destruction of a significant amount of the British Navy.
The event which caused this post was insignificant enough that it was a mere blip in the newsfeed, but it was royal enough that it should have seen some coverage.
I don’t know if there were any Loyalists in my mother’s family tree, but my maternal grandfather’s family had been in North America well before the War of Independence. I can guess some existed.
I was a bit surprised to find out that it was not a Swaine Adeney Brigg, but one from James Smith and Sons. it’s their Shatesbury Slim. I will get into James Smith & Sons after why I thought it was from Swaine.
Swaine is the umbrella of choice for the guards crowd. Toss in that it was on Piccadilly during the 60s. But Steed was RAF. And Macnee served in the Royal Navy during the war in real life.
On the other hand, James Smith and Sons is pretty famous as well, but it’s east of Charing Cross Road/Tottenham Court Road. It’s sort of in the theatre district and was a block from my office.
You may see that sword canes are listed on their storefront in the picture. You will definitely see it in person. It’s a relic from an earlier time. They will tell you that sword canes are now illegal if you ask, but it can’t be removed since the store front is historically protected.
They are one of the few places that still did umbrella repairs. Swaine only does it for the ones they sell.
OK, show me where the concept of “self-defence” is explicitly mentioned in the US constitution.
It’s not. And proper statutory interpretation says that when a law explicitly includes certain elements (e.g., common defence, army, navy, militia,etc.), it is inferred that the omission of other elements (e.g., private ownership of arms) is deliberate and intentional. This principle has been employed to ensure that the interpretation of laws remains consistent with their textual formulation.
I would point out that the miltia is mentioned in the US Constitution and that the power of congress over it granted under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 was one of the concerns high on the minds during the drafting of the Consrtitution. The other one being that the Feds had an Army. In the words of Elbridge Gerry:
What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now, it must be evident, that, under this provision, together with their other powers, Congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as to make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
A far better way of framing the discussion of what the Second Amendment is about and how it was understood by the founders is more along the lines of this early version of the right:
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776 §13 which was written by Thomas Jefferson
This version is more than backed up by the primary sources that are taken out of context, or just misquoted, by the gun crowd. Or as Patrick Henry scholar, Henry Mayer, said:
This is not, I repeat NOT, part of Patrick Henry’s legacy. Clearly speaking of the problem of militia organization, what he actually said is, “The great object is that every man [of the militia] be armed.–But can the people to afford to pay for double sets of arms &c.? Every one who is able may have a gun. But have we not learned by experience, that necessary as it is to have arms, and though our assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case. When this power is given up to Congress without limitation or bounds, how will your militia be armed? You trust to chance….”
And Henry made it clear that he was addressing Article I, Section 8, Clause 16.
Justice William O. Douglas addressed Miller and glossed it in his dissent in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S 143, 150 -51 (1972) , which somehow is omitted in lists of SCOTUS cases mentioning the Second Amendment. Which is too bad since Justice Douglas was a member of the Supreme Court when Miller was decided, which makes him a very good source for how that case should be read.
Justice Douglas pointed out that in Second Amendment jurisprudence:
The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, “must be interpreted and applied” with the view of maintaining a “militia.” “The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia – civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” Id., at 178-179.
I should remind people that Justice Douglas was on the Court when Miller was decided, in addition to being one of the longest sitting justices. So, I would put his interpretation of Miller as being more autoritativre than Scalia’s. But Scalia was correct in that Miller was not helpful to his reinterpretation of the constitution.
Which gets to my question: is the party going to end soon? Are people going to see the real history of the Second Amendment and constitution? Even more importantly, are they going to see that the Supreme Court has been acting outside its powers. After all, Judicial review is not in the US Consrtitution, but comes from the case of Marbury v Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).
A case that states “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect.”
Better yet, from the neglected case of Presser v Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580, 29 L.Ed. 615 (1886), which says:
Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.
The problem with the Heller-McDonald rewrites and the offspring thereof is that there was a Second Amendment jurisprudence, which said it applied solely to the Militia and the Federal Government’s power over that body.
They say that these two rifles are very similar, with the Sig being the less expensive of the two. But fewer militaries and agencies use the Sig, whereas the H&K is used by a few of the European Armies (notably France and Norway, besides the obvious ones). Lots more toys to go with the H&K if you have the money (I guess I’m going to have to pass on the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Magnum). For example:
Here’s the French Army promo vid.
Améliorez votre français!
Definite plusses over the FAMAS/Clarion since that required special ammunition. It would literally chew up normal brass.
The bayonet, SG 2000 WC-F, is made by Eickhorn. They’re the folks who made (make) the German paratrooper gravity knives. The bayonet is basically the same one as the G36. And like pretty much everything else H&K make is pretty pricey. I hate to say how much the slings cost (made by Kastinger)!
Kastinger is based in Chamonix, France. I wish I had known that, but I doubt I could have gotten a great deal.
Be real! First off, there’s a chance I DON’T have a microsoft account.
Secondly, Microsoft accounts offer one time passwords and two factor identification. SO, on the off chance you did have “access” to it, you would also need access to those DEVICES!
Thirdly, Pegasus is only sold to governments. But is is made in Israel, so there could indeed be some slimey stuff.
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