“Mic-Check”: Verbal Terrorism and Pushback at UNM

Last Thursday evening when my class on Case Study ended, I stuffed my papers in my notebook and hurried across campus to hear Nonie Darwish speak. I expected a good, tightly focused talk by a woman who has experienced the oppression of Sharia Law firsthand. I did wondered briefly as I approached the Anthropology Building from the rear and cut through the side-hallway where the labs are, whether anyone would attempt to block me getting in, but the night was quiet as a brand new moon dropped in the west.

Nonie Darwish is the daughter of Egyptian General, born during the Revolution of 1952, and is now an American by virtue of her passionate love for liberty. She has spoken at many universities, as well as before the United States Congress, the European Union Parliament, and the British House of Lords.

She was brought to the University of New Mexico by two campus groups, the UNM Israel Alliance and the UNM Conservative Republicans, with funding from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and sponsorships from organizations affiliated with local synagogues and churches. Her talk was entitled Why the Arab Spring is Failing and How Israel is Involved.

I walked past a dessert table set up by the Israel Alliance, and took a bottle of water on the way in. I was just in time for the talk, so I did not linger. As I went by the table I noticed a young man standing holding a sign that read: “Stop Israel Apartheid.” I swept past him and sat down next to fellow members of Congregation Albert with whom I share almost no political views except support of Israel. We greeted one another with Shalom’s and Howdy Do’s and settled in as Nonie was introduced.

Nonie came on stage, a small, round woman dressed in slacks and a simple red top, full of energy and passion. From the moment she launched into it, her talk was not disappointing. Her thesis was that no Muslim country can expect anything from revolution other than more tyranny because of the structure of Sharia Law, which dictates all aspects of life for Muslims, including the structure and practices of the Islamic state. Throughout her talk, she reiterated that her hatred was not for Muslim people as individuals, but rather for the Sharia Law that keeps them enslaved to a brutal system, one that openly preaches violence against women and non-Muslims.

At the point where Nonie began speaking about the duties and responsibilities of a Muslim dictator under Sharia, there erupted from the back of the room a chant: “Mic Check!” a small group yelled, “Israel is an apartheid state!” I stood up to get a better idea of who was doing what, and I had a terrible sinking feeling that we, the people who had come to hear Nonie Darwish speak, would see her silenced. This initiation of force against those they wish to silence is a favorite tactic of the left. The call for “mic check!” became a favorite method of the Occupy Wall Street “movement”, who have such a sense of entitlement that they act on the belief that only they have freedom of speech because only they have something to say.

So as the disruptors continued their chant, I began chanting: “USA! USA!” I had learned this tactic to counter disruptions when I was trained to monitor Tea Party rallies. But New Mexicans are so generally laid back that we never had occasion to use our training at the Tea Parties. Other audience members had the same idea, and it seemed like many of us started chanting back at the same time, turning to face the disruptive element at the back of the room.

As we stood there chanting, I looked around for security or the UNM police, but neither were anywhere in evidence. (Apparently no one thought it was needed, because those with opposite views in the past had politely tolerated each other’s events). Instead several older men approached the disruptors in a businesslike fashion, and it looked like they were going to force them from the room. One man tried to grab the script from the hands of the leader, but failed. Another seemed to trip over feet or a chair and landed on some of the disruptors. I saw one female disruptor shout “No violence! No violence!”, as these men forced them whole lot of them out of the room. I remember thinking to myself: Sweetie, you asked for it when you used violence against Nonie’s freedom of speech and our right to hear the talk we came to hear.” She looked like one of the (un)Occupy Wall Street chics I had seen last fall, the one who thought it was not okay to occupy except when she was the one doing the occupying.

As soon as the little barbarians were out of the room, people settled down, and Nonie commented: You must feel sorry for them. They cannot stand to have their prejudices confounded by the truth. They hate anyone who disagrees with them, and call them vile names, but they call me the hate monger.” She then continued her speech.

There was one other disruption that came when the President of the Faculty Senate got up and first accused Nonie of hate speech, citing a You Tube video of her speech at a rally honoring an honor killing victim. As Nonie responded that the video had been edited, the dimwit professor went on to interrupt her, and then began to make a speech. The audience was once again on edge, and angry at this professor who had apparently forgotten that the floor was his only to ask a question. There was some booing, but he went on in his ignorant arrogance, until I called out: “What’s you question, sir?” Then another audience member took the microphone from him, and handed it to the next questioner in line.

From that point on, there were no further disruptions, although many questioners disputed Nonie’s talk, and one called her a “bigot.”

Later I learned that the disruptive element came from a campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the (un)Occupy Albuquerque movement. (That familiar looking chic was exactly who I thought she was). Both groups have a very privileged view of rights, believing that they have them because they are right about everything, and nobody else has rights. Therefore, they believe that they have a right to occupy a lecture sponsored and paid for by someone else, and try to shut the speaker down. Of course, the Heckler’s Veto*, as it is popularly called is the initiation of force against the speaker and those who came to hear her. It is violation of the rights of everyone else in the room. As a UC Irvine law professor states:

“You have the right – if you disagree with me – to go outside and perform your protest. But you don’t get the right to come in when I’m talking and shout me down. Otherwise people can always silence a speaker by heckler’s veto, and Babel results.”

Babel did result, but only until the entitled barbarians were forced from the room. No one was hurt, and the men who removed them used only as much force as was necessary to remove them. That force was invited by the disruptive ones themselves, when they initiated force against the speaker the audience came to hear.

This incident leads me to believe that taxpayer money is being wasted at the University of New Mexico. Students there clearly have no idea what rights mean, and believe that they are entitled to shut down a speaker invited and paid for by a campus group because they happen to disagree with her. Others claimed that: “This is OUR university”, to which the audience rightly replied: “No. It is our university. Our tax money built it and funds it.” I would suggest to the dimwit professor who believes he has the right to turn a question into a speech that perhaps he ought to spend his time learning what his contractual responsibilities are, and what the definition of a public lecture is. The event was not a public forum. But even in a public forum, individuals must follow the rules of decorum, taking the floor only when it is yielded and for the purposes defined by the speaker or moderator.

I will be voting no on every bond issue or other allocation of money to UNM until the New Mexico Legislature gets control of the place, and requires all students and faculty to take courses and demonstrate competence in respect for rights, the understanding the difference between rights and privileges (hint: attending university at public expense is not a right, it is a privilege), and in the manners and mores required at public lectures, forums and other events.

I’d say that these kinds of events definitely turn the Town against the Gown. Taxpayers begin to understand why in days of old, the town used to lock the barbarians inside the gates of the University each night at sundown, letting them out on rare occasions and only when they minded their manners and respected their betters—the ones paying for it all.

Hmmm. Maybe we should build a wall around Redondo Drive. A cast-iron gate decorated with gargoyles would be fitting right in front of Sholes Hall.

But until then, I am glad that pushback has started against these barbarian tactics aimed at quashing speech that certain elitist academics have decided must not be heard. And in the process, they demonstrated quite well the truth that Nonie Darwish came to speak.

*This popular notion of the Heckler’s Veto is different than the legal definition, which is the unconstitutional silencing of speech by the government because of a threat of violence on the part of the speaker’s opposition.

____________

A video of Nonie Darwish’s entire speech at UNM may be found here.

You Tube Censors "We Con the World"

Perhaps You Tube employees agree with the following speech by Obama. According to our Messiah in Chief, information is a distraction. Especially when information tends to contradict what the BO wants you to believe is true.




After three million views, did they really think nobody downloaded the parody? You Tube claims that the original publishers asked for it to be pulled. But parodies are not considered violations. And does You Tube censor anti-Israel propaganda? No. That stays, but Latma's clever black humor must go.

Fortunately, after 3 million views there are plenty of people out there who have reposted "We Con the World" to their own You Tube Channels. So here it is, and I will edit it back into the original post:

Confirmation: Judaism in a Time of Trouble

Last night, in a Havdalah Service, 17 teens from our synagogue completed their formal religious school education by confirming their Jewish identities. The Havdalah service is an innovation from the Shabbat evening or Shabbat morning services where Confirmation is usually celebrated, and our kids decided to do it that way to provide a service that would be more uniquely focused on their reflections of what it means to be confirming their Jewishness.

The Havdalah itself is a beautiful service in which we recognize the separation between the holy and the ordinary; such separations are the identifying characteristic of Judaism, which in turn separates it from other religions that have other focuses. The very word havdalah means separation, and at the end of every Shabbat, we pause to both say good-bye to the sabbath and to hold onto some of its sweetness and peace as we enter into the productive week ahead.
Because of these meanings, the Havdalah is a good gate through which to come to the celebration and confirmation of Jewishness that marks the end of our children's religious school years.

Confirmation as a life-cycle event was borrowed by the early German Reformers in the 19th Century from the Lutherans, and it fulfills a need that didn't exist in the traditional Jewish cultures of Europe before that. Bar Mitzvah, and in modern times Bat Mitzvah, is the traditional ceremony marking an individual's responsibility to the commandments. Confirmation in Christianity varies in its meaning, but in most cases serves as a coming of age lifecycle marker, as well as having the religious meaning of marking a mature statement of faith and conferring adult membership in the church. In Judaism, confirmation is not so much a statement of faith as it is a statement of identity. This is because no form of modern Rabbinic Judaism requires agreement with a specific creed or set of beliefs for membership; rather membership in the Jewish people comes by birth or by adoption as a child or adult into the People of Israel.

In Judaism, Confirmation marks the end of a period in the lives of a group of children; a period in which they studied and grew towards Jewish adulthood together, sharing in experiences that mark them as members of a distinct people, that mark them as Jews. But further, the experience of distinction, of belonging to a unique civilization within the larger culture, when it is shared in a small group of individuals brings them together in relationships that are nearly as close as siblings. And especially in places where there aren't many Jews, being brought up in two cultures and consciously choosing different moral perspectives and practices sets a child apart from the dominant culture shared by most of his schoolmates. As the Rasta-Jew put it in his Confirmation Reflection: "Sometimes I felt like I was the only Jew in the whole State of New Mexico. But when I came to Hebrew School every week, I knew I was not alone." His statement reflects the fact that being Jewish in the diaspora is an excercise in radical individuality; it requires a person to be very aware of why he does what he does. It is a kind of swimming against the stream that Christians in the West have not experienced until very recently, as anti-religious progressivism has begun to rise.

And in these times, when collectivism is once again on the rise, and when economic instability and fear for the future have led much of the world to embrace once again the modern antisemitism of Europe, watching one's child stand to confirm his Jewish identity evokes a certain solemn pride mixed with the joy of a son reaching toward manhood. This week especially, as we have watched the world condemn the State of Israel for having the temerity to defend the lives and property of her citizens, and as the collectivists of the world rush to delegitimize Israel not for her faults but for her virtues, this Confirmation ceremony served both as an oasis of peace and joy in the midst of trouble, and as a moment of realization that by bringing our son into the covenant we have placed him in danger. For as ever, when the state becomes god, the Jew becomes the first demonstration of what happens to those who will not bow down.

"The time is coming," said Dumbledore to Harry Potter, "When we all must choose between what is easy and what is right." Harry Potter, at much the same age as our children who stood to confirm their Jewish identity, grew to manhood in a time when evil was rising in his world. The time is coming for us now in America, when we must choose between the security of slavery to a universal collectivist state, and our Liberty as free men and women to forge our own individual lives. It is clear from the renewed demonization of Jews, that once again we stand as the canaries in the coal mine; the ones whose stubborn refusal to lose our distinctiveness, our right not to assimilate, will be attacked first. But what happens to us is what will happen to anyone who will not bow down.

Remember?
"First, they came for the Jews . . ."

Articles of Freedom: The New Website

The R3volution continues . . .

I am proud to annouce that the Articles of Freedom Website has now been launched and that I had a teeny, tiny part to play in the drama! One of the two webmasters launched it from my kitchen--and in our excitement and because we were distracted--I forgot to feed him!

A sorry come-down for the Mother of the R3volution NM.

The Articles of Freedom represent the work of the Continental Congress 2009, and several versions have been distributed on the web. Each of the 15 Articles present the facts about one Constitutional violation that our servant government has used to increase its power at our expense. The We the People Foundation, over years of activism, has established a record of formal Petitions for Redress of Grievances for each of these 15 violations, and our employees in all branches of government have refused to respond to any of them. Therefore three delegates from each of 48 states-- Americans from all walks of life--met together to created a record of these violations, and moving beyond a time of petition, have issued instructions for how to redress the violations to all branches of government, federal and state. In case those instructions are not followed, and in case our servant government mistakes our intention, we have also made recomendations to the People of the United States, in their several sovereign States, for peaceful civic action to hold government accountable to the Constitution.

These civic actions can be effective if a mass movement of between 2.5% and 5% of the population engages in them together, in order to hold the government accountable. This has been the case in every place and time where the People have held their governments accountable.

If you desire liberty for yourselves and your children; and if you have been concerned about the concentration of power into the hands of venal politicians, who "have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our peopel and eat out their substance" (Declaration of Independence), then go to the website on the widget at the top of this blog, read the Articles of Freedom and sign the pledge to take action together. And if you are a patriot--prove it by reading the Plan of Action for April 19th, 2010. And spread the word. Do your part to restore Liberty and Constitutional governance. Then you can look your children in the eye when they ask you what you did to protect their inheritance of Liberty.

Hannukah: Tyrants Disappearing

Hanukkah began last Friday night with the lighting of the first candle and the singing of Maoz Tzur--Rock of Ages. And busy though we were, trying to get out of the house for the Boychick's guitar class concert, we paused to remember Judah the Maccabee, who led Jewish guerilla warriors against the army of the the Tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes--who called himself god--and won. (The Maccabees called him Antiochus Epimanes--the fool, because only a fool would claim to be a god).

Tyranny is a system of government that not only wants to control your resources but also wants to assimilate you, to enslave not only your body, but your mind and soul as well. Thus Antiochus Epimanes wanted not only to steal the resources of the Jews, but he wanted to control their thoughts and beliefs; he wanted to control their every activity from what they said before they ate, what they ate, and how they bore and raised their children. Antiochus wanted not only to enslave a generation but to create generations that would think like slaves. Thus the Syrian-Greek Empire outlawed the study of Torah and the ritual of Brit Milah--the circumcision of Jewish sons. They forbade marriage, and defiled the mikdash katan--the little altar of the family table--by interfering in the education of the children and forcing Jews to sacrifice to pagan gods and to eat pork.
This was done in the name of perfect unity of the Seleucid Greek Empire.

Tyranny was not a new thing then, nor is it old and forgotten now.
All tyrants, ancient and modern, want the same thing: absolute power and control over the lives of the people. They want to create a matrix in which people will serve the interests of the empire without realizing the extent of their slavery. For this reason, tyrants across space and time have an interest in destroying the uniqueness of culture, the diversity of thought and belief, in order to impose one order upon their empires. Thus the attack on ritual and family and education. Thus the elevation of the state and its ritual over the hopes and dreams and desires of the individual. We see this in history with Antiochus, with Ceasar and the Roman emperors; we have seen it more recently with the fascist-collectivist states of Italy and Germany under Mussolini and Hitler, and with the socialist-collectivist states within the Soviet Union.

Historically, Jews, with our fierce requirement of identity and independence, have been enemies of them all, and the more recent of such states have known it and desired to destroy not only our culture and religion, but our very lives.

Currently, we see the same tyrannous desires arising in the name of world government by use of calls for perfect unity and comformity in order to save the planet from climate change, in order to impose equity and the redistribution of wealth. These are new excuses for the same envious quest for power and control of free minds. And despite protests to the contrary, the advocates of this new world order, are already moving to wipe out the diversity of identity and belief through control of ritual and the family and education. And they are moving to destroy the foundation of individual liberty upon which all independent thought and action rests. They are doing so , as they always have, by appealing to people to sacrifice their individual rights to the collective in the name of an undefined "greater good."

This call for world government is no secret conspiracy. It has been openly discussed for over 100 years, and most recently is being openly called for as part of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty. Ridiculing it as a "conspiracy theory" is designed to shut down opposition, but does nothing to change the reality that ever since Alexander the Great, there have been people who want to rule the world.

And speaking of Alexander the Great, the Seleucids were heirs to one of the three generals who inherited his empire. And each of the three set about setting up their own tyrannies in order to redistribute the wealth of the nations they conquered to themselves. They did it in the name of unity and glory and sacrifice. That works.

What the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epimanes did not count on was the fiercely independent spirit of Mattiyahu the Priest, of the small town of Modi'in, and his sons Eliezer, Shimon, Yochannan and Yonatan, and Judah Maccabee.

As was true of many such a person, Mattiyahu tried to go along to get along, subverting the Seleucid new world order quietly for as long as he could. But as happens with such men, there came the day of the last straw when Mattiyahu said the Hebrew eqivalent of: "No. Thus far and no further will I go." And he began the rebellion that became a war against an empire. And after three long years and the deaths of Mattiyahu and many of his sons, the war was won. A band of rag-tag but determined rebels against a mighty king and his empire.

That empire has gone the way of all empires now. As have many after it, from the glory and oppression of Rome to the "thousand-year Reich."

But the spiritual children of the Maccabees remain.

Children of the Maccabbees, whether free or fettered.
Wake the echoes of the song, where you may be scattered.
Yours the message cheering, that the time is nearing,
That will see all men free,
Tyrants disappearing.
That will see all men free,
Tyrants disappearing.
(From Maoz Tzur--Rock of Ages)

The Children of the Maccabees understand that there is point past which a tyrant cannot push a free individual. The Children of the Maccabbees know that, when push comes to shove, a free people will rise up and throw off the yoke of tyranny. And they know that in every generation, there are those who will rise against us to enslave us and that such people must be fought. Now we fight to subvert of their intent to enslave us with our own free action. Now we fight their propaganda through the written word. And we pray that these will be sufficient.

But we know as Mattiyahu did that the free individual can only take so much before she arises to throw off the yoke of the tyrant.
And we know, as Judah the Maccabee knew, that free people at some point decide to die on their feet rather than live on their knees.

We remember Judah Maccabee.

And like Judah, our R3volution comes from love, not fear.

Love of who we are and love of the freedom to be.

And we will never surrender our liberty.

We remember Judah Maccabee.

R3volution: Don't Mess with ABQ Patriots

Yesterday I posted an entry about the continuing bad reporting and derogatory names directed at the ABQ Tea Party. Thanks to my friend Corky, and another blogger named Joe, screen shots and pdf files of the original story at KRQE News went out to patriot groups all across the country. The original headline was subsequently changed.

This morning, an anonymous commentor reported that KRQE had removed all of the comments from the webpage that housed the story. When I went to that page to verify this information, I found that the entire story had been removed. This was KRQE's second mistake.

The arrogance of the media is without bounds. When confronted with their first mistake by numerous commentors, KRQE management should have publically apologized to the Albuquerque Tea Party, the Tea Party Express and to the citizens who attended the rally for calling them all a sexually charged derogatory name. But instead of doing so, and instread of firing or at least disciplining the reporter who thought that using that kind of language was cute, KRQE opted to try to pretend that such an insult never happened. That's like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. Oops!

Given this further arrogance, it is likely that the local patriots will continue to turn the dial away from channel 13 and inform the station's sponsors about why they are doing so. This is not some boycott engineered from some national organization. Local, hard-working individuals in what is derisively called "flyover country" by the national media are simply tired of having their intelligence and hard-work continually insulted. Personally, I see my boycott of KRQE as similar to my boycott of the Olympics last summer. I am not organizing a boycott. I am simply tired of being put down by arrogant reporters who have far less education and life experience than I. I refuse to support such businesses further.

KRQE ought to put these so-called reporters through a refresher course on the difference between reporting a story and editorializing. Further, some business education might benefit both the employees and adminstrators of the station. Normally, businesses do not go out their way to bite the hand that feeds them!
Twice.

Finally, KRQE's craven removal of the story has told us one thing. They know that we know what they are about.

It's a start.

KRQE: We are paying attention and we will act.

Don't mess with Albuquerque Patriots!

R3volution: We're Caring Americans, Thank You Very Much!

As I said yesterday, on Tuesday I was at the Albuquerque stop for the Tea Party Express.

The event was actually held at Rio Rancho's Haynes Park, just to the northwest of ABQ.

As has been their habit, both the Albuquerque Journal and KRQE News 13 got it wrong.

KRQE News 13 showed up at about 11 AM, two hours before the event, and reported that the Rio Rancho DPS stated that 300 people were there. The Journal must have got their news from the TV station. Such great reporting!

When the Tea Party Express Caravan arrived shortly after 1 PM, I estimated many more people than that. Using grid method of estimation common to field biologists (I am a trained field biologist), I estimated at least 900 people. Pretty good for a Tuesday, work-day afternoon.

But we do not have to rely on my crude count. Organizers of the Tea Party were placing sticky dots on people's shirts, so that they would have a pretty good estimate of the crowd.

They began this practice after the local media woefully underestimated the number that attended the Tax Day Tea Party on April 15, for which the Albuquerque Journal originally said there were a few hundred--such great precision, that!--at least a half-hour prior to the beginning of the event. Do I detect a pattern of misrepresentation here?

In any case, the Albuquerque Tea Party organizers, prepared for about 1200 people, had purchased 1350 sticky dots. They ran out of dots prior to the end of the event, and people continued to arrive. So total attendance was more 1350 people.

The misrepresentation of the numbers was unprofessional, but what KRQE News did on their blog was positively juvenile. Here is the original headline (which was changed today--though so far they have not changed the numbers) screen-captured by my friend and fellow NMPA member, who was also an organizer for this event:

Tea Bag Express rallies protestors

This headline gives implicit insult to the people who were there, using a now well-known sexual innuendo to describe what is actually called The Tea Party Express. After a great deal of protest in the comments to their blog, found here, during the first 24 hours, KRQE changed the headline. However, the link continues to bear the derogatory term seen above.

As commentor and Tea Party organizer Gayle Bacon wrote yesterday:

"Tea baggers is an obscene and derogatory expression used by a biased media with a liberal agenda. You may yank this, because you ARE biased, but I must try. Your reporter showed up very early, before the Tea Party Express even showed up! We put stickers on everyone and counted the stickers beforehand, so we know we had well over 1,000 because they ran out of the stickers! People also signed their names. Too bad KRQE is missing out. That's the way to lose viewers."

And Pat, who was in charge of estimating the numbers wrote this yesterday:

"KRQUE [sic] showed up at around 11:00 when the event was just being set up. So if as you say we had 200 people there at 11:00 by1:00 we had count of over 1350 . We had purchased 1350 stickers to help with our head count and all were passed out. That is how we can say we had over 1350 people. If your news crew had come to report the news they would have showed up around the time the event started instead of before the event started. I am glad you removed the derogatory term, but it should never have been used in the first place."

Others who were there wrote to express their disgust about the derogatory language and about their frustration with the so-called professional media. My friend, Corky wrote:

"Lovely, just lovely. I am truly impressed with your reporting. Who's your editor? Bozo the clown? I loved the earlier wisecrack about the editor making poot sounds with his hands. LOL! I was there. There were well more than 1000 and you can bank on it. Well behaved, caring Americans, not Tea Baggers, thank you very much. I have a screen shot of the original headline which I'm sending to many patriots across the country, along with the station's contact info. You'll be famous."

Hey, Corky, I am doing my part to pass this on! Another attendee has captured a PDF of the original story and has passed it on to Glenn Beck. I wrote the following comment:

KRQE: Ours is another household that will boycott both your television station and your sponsors. The original article has been saved as a screenshot and a pdf, and patriots like Corky and Joe have seen to it that patriots all over the United States will see it. The derogatory title was inexcusable and the juvenile reporting is unprofessional. This may have passed in Pleasantville, but it certainly will not in the age of the internet. If this article is an example of professional media, no wonder newspapers and TV stations are failing by the thousands. Patriots Unite! If our opponent is this stupid, we should win handily.

Of course, those who wish to destroy the Republic and replace it with some version of collectivist statism are not that stupid.

But the media is. They have to use a neologism, "misunderestimated" us.

This story will be told no matter how hard they try to insult it and suppress it.

Nevertheless, we must out the media bias and bad reporting wherever we see it.

And one final word to the media: Don't forget, we older folks are the ones that buy the things your advertisers are selling. And we're the generation from the draft-card burners of the 1960's.

Don't mess with the Gray Champions!

The Wrong Side of a Do-Gooding Law

It is interesting to see what strange bedfellows the current rush of the federal government toward fascism* is creating. Yes, fascism. I am tired of self-censoring, and I think it's about time to call a spade an F'ing shovel.

*Fascism is here defined as the control of capital and those who manage it by the government, through the use of central planning, although the actual companies remain nominally in private hands.

In the past few weeks, I have been thinking about how those of us who oppose any part of President Obama's* monster government have been cast. I have seen it in the comments to this blog. The progressive bloggers and the lefties have consistently labeled concerned citizens as partisan, and have cast all arguments into the major party straightjackets. Obama's minions are every bit as eager to use the "if you're not for us, you're against us" cannard as were G.W.'s hacks.

*Yes, I am aware that Obama "inherited" Mr. Bush's monster government and trashed economy, but Obama has set out to grow government even bigger much faster, and he is trashing the dollar at an even more alarming rate. This is now his government, and two branches are controlled by one party. They cannot excuse their behavior by blaming the previous administration forever. And for the record, I was just as opposed to Bush's big government as I am to Obama's mongo-sized one.

Consider this statement from comments to my blog, by way of example.
About the Tea Party:
"In this case, it was instigated and coordinated by right-wing lobbyists, the Republican Party and Fox News as well as the rest of the conservative media as a means of bashing Obama and rallying support to an otherwise floundering GOP."

If you disagree with any part of the Vision of the Annointed, not only are you "seen as being in error, but in sin" (as Sowell writes in The Vision of the Annointed, p. 3), and further, you are seen as being unable to think for yourself, and told that you are being manipulated; the Annointed worry about you, concerned that you might "get mixed up with these people." But actually, their whole purpose is to paint those who disagree as partisan and manipulated, so that discussion never rises to any meaningful level where opposing views are seen as equally sincere. As Sowell says about the level of argument:

"What is remarkable is how few arguments are really engaged in, and how many substitutes for arguments there are . . . Many of these so called "thinking people" (EHL: the Annointed) could be more accurately characterized as articulate people, as people whose verbal nimbleness can elude both evidence and logic." (p. 5-6).

So what happens as more and more people run afoul of the maze of contradictory regulations and limitations to our liberty imposed by the well-meaning Nanny State?

This month, I opened my copy of Reason Magazine to read about some at least slightly granola DIY'ers who have run afoul of the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the purported purpose of which is to protect our kids from lead-laced toys from China. Like many recent regulations however, the law actually has the result of destroying of American-based small toymaker's businesses because of the onerous and expensive testing requirements. (For much, much more about CPSIA link through here and here). Need I say that these American small businesses, run by crunchy capitalists, have never marketed products containing lead?

The DIY'ers, who believed that the harm the regulations would do to their businesses was an oversight by Congress, formed organizations, like the Handmade Toy Alliance (the second "here" in the paragraph above), to get the law amended. And they found out that the party they usually supported was not on their side. Consider the hipster mom and home-based businesswoman Cecilia Leibovitz:

"Before the legislation," says Leibovitz, “I’d never really gotten involved politically. I’ve just tried to work in my own life.” But a lot of what she thought she knew about the political process turned out to be wrong. She was discouraged to discover how little power citizens, and even individual lawmakers, have over legislation. Consumer safety groups, she says, ended up getting exactly what they wanted.
“I’ve been supportive of some of these groups,” she says. “I actually blogged about this safety issue in 2007, thinking we were just focusing on problem products. I didn’t realize how massive the law would be and how many products it would cover.” " (Reason Magazine, June 2009, p. 44)

And she discovered something else:

"“What it looks like is that our needs are largely being responded to by Republicans. Most of the people in the Homemade Toy Alliance are probably more aligned with the Democratic side. And people in the Homemade Toy Alliance kind of like the things that these consumer groups are touting, like safer products and natural things.” But now she finds herself in this “weird alliance.” " (ibid).

Leibovitz is still seeing this as a partisan issue, and it's hard for her not to, because Congress has very few members who are not allied with the major parties. But this is really an issue about the power of government, and like many of us before her, her awakening is beginning as she understands that the Congress is more concerned about the big lobby groups and multinational corporations that they represent, than they are about her freedom and prosperity.

To add insult to injury, as children's toys and clothes are being pulled from thrift-store shelves, and are even destroyed, and children's books are being targeted, the political activities of these small business owners is being cast into the standard partisan rhetoric by the progressive media. The very real concerns of opponents to this very bad piece of legislation have been labeled as "alarmist" and the people themselves have been called "conspiracy theorists" and "fear-mongers" by such progressive media as the New York Times.

As Jennifer Grinnell of LivingPlaything.com posted:

". . .The sad fact about larger public discussions in the US these days is how politicized almost every subject has become. In an ‘us’ and ‘them’ environment, we seem to have lost [sight] of the fact that perhaps we, the citizens who find fault with this law, actually have a legitimate point and are not trying to advance an ideology or nefarious political agenda.” (As quoted in Reason Magazine, June 2009, p. 47).

Their sense of betrayal towards their government, and their awakening understanding that their concerns are being cast as a "nefarious political agenda" is well understood by many of us who have trod the same road in years past, awakened by other issues. I was a more than slightly crunchy mom, and my awakening and return to my libertarian roots (second generation and proud of it!) was catalized by 9-11 and home education. As I began to realize that Annointed statists and do-gooders wanted to control what I teach my children, and how I raise them, I understood that all that stands between me and absolute tyranny is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And unless I am willing to trust my fellow citizens of all beliefs and walks of life to manage their own lives, I will not have the freedom to manage mine.

The rhetoric of the Obamaniacs is wearing thin. The tea parties, the 9-12 movement, and patriot groups springing up everywhere understand that this is not about partisan politics, and take no regard of what the vaunted Fourth Estate is saying to itself. (No wonder they aren't making any money). As the toymakers will find out, the Republican party is as morally bankrupt as are the Democrats. They are, with very few exceptions, self-aggrandizing statists whose whole agenda is power and privilege. And they have bought the "opinion makers" with the bread and circuses inside the beltway.

Out here in "flyover country", we don't want to be ruled by the Annointed. And we are tired of paying for their folly.

A Navy Jack for the EG

At the Albuquerque Tea Party, we saw many flags, including the Gadsen "Don't Tread on Me" Flag, which has a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field, and the First Navy Jack "Don't Tread on Me" Flag, which displays an uncoiled rattlesnake on Union--13 red and white stripes.


Being a Navy Veteran (USS Hepburn), the Engineering Geek wanted a Navy Jack. I looked on line and found many very inexpensive flags, but ended up ordering a quality flag from an American flag maker (made in the USA) through Amazon.

The EG would have objected to an American flag made in China.
I ordered the flag and a spin-free flag pole separately.



The flag arrived first, along with a decal of the same, and we hung it up on the wall in entryway.


The First Navy Jack is exactly that: first. It was first hung from the jackstands of the Continental Navy in 1775 by order of the first commander of the Navy, Commodore Esek Hopkins, as the fleet stood ready on the Delaware river.
NOTE: Please see the comments. There is evidently some controversy about this story concerning Esek Hopkins regarding what flag was the first Navy Jack. More information can be found here. I will leave the story above, but this history is hard to verify. The rest of the history interwoven below is not in doubt.

The rattlesnake was a popular symbol of colonial resistance to British tyranny before and during the Revolutionary War.
The rattlesnake, as an anonymous letter to the editor (now attributed to Benjamin Franklin) explained, is the perfect symbol for America. A rattlesnake does not strike without warning first, but when it strikes it is swift and deadly.


Last night, the EG picked up the flag pole at the Tijeras Post Office, and this morning he put it together in preparation for hanging the flag outside.

He said he'd like me to order another flag pole like this one, as it is of good construction and it is spin-free, so that the flag will not roll around the pole in the ever-present mountain winds. I am also to order another bracket, so that we can fly the Navy Jack and the Stars and Stripes on national holidays.






Another interesting piece of history about this flag is that the Navy ship which has been commissioned the longest and is still serving, flies a special Navy Jack from her jackstand; the flag is special because it is passed to the next ship when the oldest ship is decommissioned.

Here the EG puts the new First Navy Jack onto the jackstand of the USS Los Pecos. When he hangs the ship's bell and the boatswain's pipe from the USS Constitution in the front hall, we will have to have a showdown. Is he the captain and me, the Exec? Or vice versa?

When he puts a lectern on the driveway, and makes us face the flag as we enter--excuse me, cross the quarter deck-- while he stands watch, then I will know he has read How to Simulate Navy Life at Home. Oy.



Another point of information about this flag: since 2002, it flies on the jackstands of all United States Navy ships for the duration of the current hostilities. (I can't remember this weeks politically correct term for the WOT).

Seriously, though, we got this flag because I wanted a "Don't Tread on Me" flag, and the Engineering Geek wanted a Navy Jack.


As more and more taxpayers understand what has been done to our liberty in the last 100 years, we all feel a bit like rattling the rattle and hissing "Don't Tread on Me!"


Like Ben Franklin's rattlesnake, we won't strike without warning, but our patience is not infinite.