The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
The John Locke Foundation has ranked Florida as the freest state in the Union.
It certainly explains my confusion when people from other states explain the hassles they have to go through during their daily lives.
Now if we can just get this open carry thing sorted out.
One of the “Outrages of the Day” that has been bombarding my various news feeds is a debate between CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and Judge Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court. More to the point, when the judge says that our rights come from God, Cuomo disagreed.
Transcript borrowed from Breitbart:
MOORE: I believe that’s a matter of law because our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God. It’s clearly stated –
CUOMO: Our laws do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man.
MOORE: Let me ask you one question. Let me ask you one question, Chris. Is the Declaration of Independence law?
CUOMO: You would call it organic law as a basis for future laws off of it?
MOORE: I would call it the organic law because the United States code calls it organic law. It is organic law because the law of this country calls it the organic law of the country means where our rights come from. And if they come from there, men can’t take it away.
CUOMO: Our rights do not come from God. That’s your faith. That’s my faith, but not our country. Our laws come from the collective agreement and compromise.
MOORE: It’s not a matter of faith, sir. It’s a matter of organic law, which states, ‘We hold these truths to be held equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ And the only role of government is stated in the next sentence is to secure those rights for us. The government starts taking those rights away from us, then it’s not securing and it is defiling the whole purpose of government.
In this instance, I’m going to say Cuomo is correct. Our rights come to us from being humans. From being a sentient species.
Most of the people believe that God created Man, and therefore human rights come from God. If that’s what gets you through the day, fine. When you then use that idea to decide who does and who doesn’t get rights based on your particular writings of God, we’re going to have a problem. Just as it’s wrong when other members of CNN have advocated the restriction of rights based on political ideology.
We have rights because we are a sentient species. That wouldn’t change if there is or is not a deity or deities responsible for our creation.
Interesting little video from Reason TV.
As time progresses, the horror fades. The promises seem brighter than the murders and tortures needed to maintain the regime.
With all the looming troubles in the Eurozone, how hard would it be to see the rebirth of the Communist bloc?
And it’s writing new rules to stop it from happening again!
To address concerns raised about Operation Choke Point, the FDIC will now require bank examiners to put in writing any recommendation or requirement for an account termination.
The examiner will also be required to indicate what law or regulation they believe the bank or the customer of the bank is violating.
Problem 1: Someone’s rung the bell. We are going to have to watch to ensure that subsequent administrations don’t pull the same trick.
Problem 2: Banks are, by and large, conservative organizations. Having been stung once for dealing with gun and gun-related industries, they may decide the risk is not worth the reward.
Make no mistake, this is a win for liberty and RKBA. The question is whether the damage can be repaired.
There’s a world of difference between “Never Again” and “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Kathy Jackson, firearms instructor and author
Think on that for a long moment and ask yourself which side of that quote you are on.
Legal Insurrection managed to get a hold of the arrest affidavit for David Gregory. Metro PD wanted him charged, but the DA declined.
David Gregory’s a prick, but he shouldn’t have been charged for the crime. It’s a bullshit law and he was doing no physical harm. (Arguing against our rights, but not threatening anyone with physical harm). The issue is that the same DA’s office that declined to prosecute Gregory has been notorious for its vigorous prosecution of people who aren’t on the televisions. (See link in the story)
What makes him so different than the others? What made his breaking the law different than the others?
I don’t want David Gregory in jail. (Okay, I would laugh my ass off if he was, but it would still be wrong.) What I want is for the DC DA’s office to treat everyone who is caught under the District’s onerous laws to be given the same deference as to their intentions and character before making them felons.
We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Would someone please remind the progressives of this?
“One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith,” Francis said on the flight from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Manila.
Emphasis mine.
My response to the Pope: Bullshit. Insults and comedy are part of the natural critique for any faith/belief system/philosophy. The marketplace of ideas is harmed without the full width and breadth of nonviolent critique.
I make fun of religions because I find them foolish. I make jokes of their inconsistencies. I fully expect others to make jokes about atheists.
Here’s where it comes to limits and limits. More to the point, moral limits and legal limits.
If the Pope is calling for moral limits on expression, then that’s fine. He’s the moral leader for millions of people and they expect him to tell them his interpretation of Big Sky Daddy’s will. Breaking the moral limit may get someone excluded from Thanksgiving dinner, but not get thrown in jail.
On the other hand, we’re going to have a problem if he’s calling for legal limits on expression, that becomes dangerous for a society. The problem is that what is offensive is highly subjective, and legally limiting speech becomes a tyranny of the most sensitive. Improvements in science and philosophy are lost because thinkers are not allowed pathways due to “offense”.
Limits and limits.
Over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve heard a lot of varying commenting. Many going off on Islam. I’m not going to repeat that most Muslims are peaceful. It really comes down to whether you are a civilized person or a barbarian. Currently, many – maybe most – of the barbarian cultures in the world today worship their magic sky-daddy as Allah.
Worse, the powers that be seem to have two responses to the barbarians: cower or emulate the barbarians.
Proving once again that we are on our own. The barbarians are inside the gates. Be prepared.
Stolen completely from Borepatch:
Goober on “Social Justice Warriors”:
“You take a guy that lived his entire life in the Amazonian jungle, fighting for every meal he’s ever eaten, making his own living/clothing/abode/etc at huge expense of labor, and living every day with the fear of that next cut becoming septic and killing him, or that next sniffle being the cold that brings him down, or the next monsoon not being monsooney enough and his family starving to death, and you give him a pair of Levi jeans, some tennis shoes, a first world education, and modern medicine, and HE WILL CUT YOUR FUCKING THROAT before he will let you stick him back in that jungle.
…
But SJWs want to keep him there, unmolested by western “cultural pollution” like modern medicine and central air conditioning, in order to “preserve his culture”, without giving him an educated say in the decision at all. More of that SJW superiority.
This idea of “allowing the brown people too stay in their place” smacks an awful, awful lot like “keeping the brown people in their place.”
Yup.
If anthropology has taught us anything, it’s that culture is not supposed to stay stagnant as a museum piece. It is expected to evolve as new technologies and conditions emerge. You don’t protect people by limiting their choices.