My Prayer for John Ashcroft

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 06 Mar 2004 13:00:00 GMT

From the dissident frogman (more there): [geekwitha.45] Disarm the citizenry! Vote for John Kerry

# Paul Vitello at Newsday - New round in gun issue - a clueless anti pushes a renewed and strengthened "assault weapons" ban. I sent the following: [kaba]

Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 19:40:34 -0500
To: letters@newsday.com
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Letter to the editor

Newsday printed on March 4 an essay by Paul Vitello bemoaning the coming sunset of the so-called "assault weapons" ban. These "assault weapons" are nothing more than auto-loading rifles that the victim disarmers back in 1984 thought were particularly ugly-looking. I call mine my "homeland defense rifle."

There were so many inaccuracies in Mr. Vitello's article that it's hard to know where to start. First off, the Bushmaster that John Allen Malvo used is in no way related to the AK-47. It was a semi-automatic, think crippled, version of the U.S. army's M-16, commonly referred to as an AR-15.

The AR-15's .223 Remington cartridge is considered, by those who actually know something about guns, to be a varmint cartridge. It is illegal to hunt deer with it in some states, because it isn't powerful enough to prevent a deer from running away before it dies. For hunting, those states require a more manly rifle, e.g. 30-30, .270, or .30-06. But a lowly .22 can kill a man, if you hit him in the head or the heart.

If you think about what Mr. Vitello is really saying, you'll conclude that he won't be happy until nobody but the police and the military are allowed to own any guns. Looked at another way, he'd prefer a woman be raped in the alley and strangled with her own pantyhose to allowing her to carry a gun with which she could defend herself.

# New York State Assembly - A03054, "An act to amend the vehicle and traffic law, in relation to mandating ignition interlock devices", stipulates that all vehicles sold in the state of New York require drivers to pass an electronic breathalyzer test in order to start their cars. Don't know how much chance it has of passing, but that it was introduced at all is sobering (pun intended). [villagechoice]

# William L. Anderson and Candice Jackson at LewRockwell.com - Ashcroft Gets His Pound of Flesh - on the conviction, in a federal kangaroo court, of Martha Stewart. [lew]

No doubt, at this very minute, the mainstream press is hanging onto every word of the "victorious" federal prosecutors who tried this case. Being that John Ashcroft at this moment is in intensive care in a hospital, we suppose he cannot stride up to a bank of microphones and crow to the press. However, his number two man, James Comey, the U.S. attorney who first gained the indictments against Stewart and her broker, no doubt right now is telling the awestruck press how " the system works."

Indeed, this system does work -- it works as well as anything Josef Stalin created in the 1930s with his infamous "Moscow Show Trials," in which guilt was assured, and the only question was the mode of execution. In retrospect, we realize now that the Stewart trial was indeed a show trial. Most likely, Stewart had convinced herself that she would be taking part in a real trial with real evidence and an impartial jury. Even her post-trial statement, "I believe in the fairness of the judicial system and remain confident that I will ultimately prevail," reflects the naïveté of someone who actually believes that federal courts are real courts.

# Charley Reese at LewRockwell.com - Rampant Dishonesty - on the incessent lies of the Brady Bunch. [lew]

Of course, the reason the gun-banners can't be honest is that if they looked at the subject honestly and objectively, they would have to conclude that the private ownership of firearms in America is a blessing. Cars and doctors kill a lot more people than firearms, but nobody wants to ban them.

# Harvey A. Silverglate and Carl Takei at The Boston Phoenix - Crossing the threshold - the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act is just a ruse to distract our attention from the much more dangerous structural changes being made by the Busheviks. Welcome to the USSA (United Soviet States of America). [lew]

Yet the hue and cry raised over the Patriot Act has distracted most of us from the Bush administration's far more dangerous assault on another class of liberties, which might be called "threshold rights." After all, the Patriot Act can be rolled back if the people decide that the government has overreached or the emergency has receded, and some provisions of the act have automatic expiration dates. But threshold rights -- fair elections, open and publicly accountable government, judicial review of executive action, the right of the accused to a public jury trial, separation of powers among the three branches of government, and the rights to free expression and free association -- are structural, and therefore changes to them are more enduring.

Threshold rights enable civil society to know what government is doing and to rein in abuses. Think of it this way: temporary restrictions on some forms of privacy enable the government to know what you are doing, which is troubling enough. Threshold rights enable you to know what the government is doing, and that's why they form the core of democratic society. The degree to which a society protects threshold rights speaks to whether it is free and open, and whether self-correction can occur without violence. If the press is free, the electorate has open elections, and the courts are performing their sworn duty, even a president who tries to assume the powers of an emperor can be dealt with.

Attacks on threshold rights supposedly justified by the "war on terrorism" are particularly menacing because this war has no foreseeable end, and the dangers are indisputably real. Nor will the war be contained geographically; as Ashcroft warned the House Judiciary Committee in June 2003, he now considers the streets of the nation to be "a war zone." On Ashcroft's domestic battlefield, threshold liberties are indeed under grave attack, and none with more alarming success, at least thus far, than the right to judicial oversight of the executive branch, specifically the writ of habeas corpus -- the oldest and most fundamental right of free citizens in the Anglo-American legal tradition.

THE WRIT OF habeas corpus (Latin for "you have the body") compels the executive branch to produce a prisoner and disclose the legal basis for his or her detention, so the court may decide whether that detention is constitutional. This procedure, which stems from the English Magna Carta of 1215, lies at the very heart of constitutional government, consisting of separated powers guided by the rule of law. Without habeas corpus, there is nothing to prevent the executive from locking a person up without charge or lawful justification, never to be heard from again. Known appropriately in English history as the "Great Writ," habeas corpus is the brilliant light that protects Americans from the gulag. In a world where many governments have the power "to lock them up and throw away the key," habeas requires the judiciary to keep a spare key. In fact, the check habeas provides on executive detention powers doesn't stop with the courts: the US Constitution grants power to suspend the writ only to Congress, and even then only in the event of "rebellion or invasion."

# I received the following in email from ConservativePetitions.com (not sure why I'm on their email list):

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 06:37:30 +0000
To: "" <bill@billstclair.com>
From: "ConservativePetitions.com" <cons_petitions@norm.nmailer.com>
Subject: Urgent Prayer Request for John Ashcroft!

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!
An urgent call has just been received from an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice asking us to spread the word that Attorney General Ashcroft is in desperate need of prayer. They are asking all of us to get the word out to our churches and membership immediately. AG Ashcroft is in critical condition due to something called Gall Stone Pancreatitis. It is an infection of the pancreas due to a gall stone. You cannot live without your pancreas but the infection is so bad now that they cannot operate. Please pray that the infection will end and that the doctors can take care of the problem or just pray for healing. Jim Combey has been sworn in as the acting Attorney General for now.

-Your friends at www.conservativepetitions.com and www.christianpetitions.com

I replied:

Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 07:01:10 -0500
To: editor@conservativepetitions.com
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Prayer for John Ashcroft

Dear Conservative Petitions editor,

Your recent alert asked us to pray for John Ashcroft. I will very happily do so. I pray for that tyrant to die a slow and very painful death. He has done more to destroy America in 3 short years than Clinton did in eight. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. one. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. two. The American Gestapo, er... Department of Homeland Security. The TSA. The end of habeus corpus. If he doesn't die in the hospital, he should be hanged for treason.

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair