Google's MLK Doodle Debacle

Google's doodle on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech seems evocative of someone and something other than the memory of Dr. King's eloquent cry for freedom -

Google may claim the motto "Don't Be Evil" for its business, but they're obviously shameless when it comes to other things. It is this writer's opinion that President Obama has demonstrated over and over again by his actions and his words that he is the most politically and racially polarizing figure in America today. He's a mere politician, an opportunist, not worthy to stand on those steps in the shadow of heroes like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Google's doodle is promoting President Obama's speech on the anniversary of  Dr. King's address, instead of celebrating the anniversary of Dr. King's address. Google is conflating Dr. King's legacy with the one they're trying to help build for the president.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, especially when people can't seem to tell the difference between a hero and an opportunist.

If You Can Keep It

Benjamin Franklin, has gotten a lot play in media and social media in the past several days. His quote on liberty and security is ubiquitous now due to revelations of active spy programs, some for domestic surveillance, run by the by the federal government's National Security Agency, among others. Seems to me that if you really stop and think about what he said, we've taken it out of context. In my view Franklin was talking about acquiescence, where, given the choice, some people would CHOOSE to be less free in order to be more secure.

There is another Franklin quote, which I believe to be a more apt representation of the state of the nation, if for no other reason than to contrast how we find ourselves today with how it all began. When asked what kind of government they had created for the United States, Ben Franklin replied,

"A republic, madam, if you can keep it".

The government we have now is not a cause of the problems we see, but a symptom of the fact that we couldn't keep it. Some may view it as a case of the chicken or the egg, but in my view, we lost the culture first, the government merely followed.

Government, after a half-century of unconstrained growth, no longer operates within its constitutional boundaries, and is now, both guarantor and arbiter of national, economic, financial, and social security. Government is no longer responding to these needs, but defining them for every area of our lives. What started out as an historically unique experiment with a republican form of limited government, has morphed into an authoritarian nanny security state of unlimited reach. How unlimited was finally made clear by the recent leaks of information on the domestic phone metadata captures, and Prism, where the top nine internet service providers colluded with the federal government to spy on offshore internet users.

Also abundantly clear now is that there is a cadre of statist enablers of this expansion, even among erstwhile conservative political and media figures. These are the people who have worked hard to assure us, for example that this domestic phone metadata capture is "lawful" and "legal", dismissing our concerns as unfounded and attributing our concerns to mental defect or unhealthy fascination with with tanks and helicopters. They hope we'll soon get tired and go back to carping at the IRS so they can have a peaceful adult discussion about this spy and get something done whatever that means.

Hopefully they won't get their wish.

Eternal vigilance is price of liberty, with apologies to Mr. Franklin and our posterity for having squandered our inheritance.

Mukasey vs The People of The United States

Readers of today's Wall Street Journal were treated to an opinion piece authored by apparent statist, former federal judge and US Attorney General Michael Mukasey. I haven't seen a hit piece like that on conservatives and libertarians in the Journal since the '08 presidential campaign. It was such a tantrum, I thought he might have been channeling Saul Alinsky.

What follows is my response to his op-ed screed.

Where to begin? I neither hear nor see tanks nor black helicopters. Mr. Mukasey follows his scurrilous assertion that all opposed must be conspiracy nuts, with the despot's favored cudgel - that we're all afflicted with a psychiatric malady, namely "delusions of reference".

So we're crazy for being concerned about all these mere perceived violations of propriety, but before and after the diagnosis General Mukasey went on in detail about the ways the government, including and especially this current administration has mishandled confidential information and intelligence assets. At the same time he tried to make the case that it was, and still is all quite lawful (which doesn't make it RIGHT) but we're crazy for being concerned... because the surveillance isn't political. But, everything - EVERYTHING - this administration does is political...

Judge Mukasey ridiculed us for drawing parallels between Orwell's "1984" and Metadatapalooza 2013, but never really denied it. And then there's this. Mr. Mukasey wrote, "Foreign governments spy on us and our citizens. We spy on them and theirs. Welcome to the world."

I fully expect foreign governments to spy on us.
I fully expect this government to do everything in its power to prevent it.
I will not, however, accept that the United States government has any justification to spy on me.

Since Mr. Mukasey mentioned "1984", I wonder what he'd make of this, sent to me by a friend yesterday, from "Nineteen Eighty-four" Part 2, Ch 9, by George Orwell, published June 8, 1949:

"... in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end...." emphasis mine

Replace television with the internet and wireless communications....

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty because it's NOT just Mukasey versus the people of the United States.

George Orwell's 1984?

It was odd.

I woke up thinking about "1984".

I've not read the book in over 20 years, so it at least seemed an odd direction to go on a Sunday morning....

Most of what passes for government in America today is corrupt, from the corridors of power in Washington, to the state house in Nashville, to the local level here where I live. Nevertheless, like a lot of Americans I have been surprised, and quite offended by the most recent revelations of treachery perpetrated by the federal government, the revelation of the scope of the metadata being swept up by the FBI and NSA under the auspices of their Verizon telephone warrants.

On the heels of that comes the latest revelations of another surveillance program called Prism and the subsequent release today of a video of the alleged leaker, Edward Snowden. It was jarring to watch as he discussed in measured tones the nature of that program, and his reasons for outing it. Needless to say there are already people lauding his courage and others calling for his head. Irrespective of his stated motivation, I found his point about turn-key tyranny a more than a little chilling. I am gravely concerned over the "1984" authoritarian overtones pervading the federal government. I wonder if O'Brien wouldn't feel right at home?

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty because, apparently, Big Brother is watching you.

Pitting Guns Against Privacy and Property Rights - The New Tennessee Waltz

Joe Citizen watches the news. He hears about acts of violence all over the country and decides it's time to take responsibility for his personal security. Joe wants to start carrying a handgun for security and self-defense. Joe is told that his state has several conditions which must be met before he is allowed to actually carry his weapon. Being a law-abiding citizen, Joe complies with those requirements by applying for a  concealed carry permit to legally carry his handgun.

Joe spends a few hundred dollars on classes and a handgun, and his application for a concealed carry permit. Joe meets all the requirements and qualifications for concealed carry and his state issues the permit. Joe then purchases a handgun, which he carries in a manner that complies with the terms of his permit.

A few weeks after Joe begins carrying, he gets a call from a friend who has seen Joe's name and address in the local newspaper. A reporter for the newspaper petitioned the state government for the names and addresses of concealed carry permit holders in the area, and published the information in an article and included a handy map showing the location of all the handgun owners in Joe's area.

Preposterous, you say? Never going to happen? Well, try again, because in December of last year it happened in New York State. Click here to read about a New York newspaper's abuse of the First Amendment to attack the Second Amendment rights of New York gun owners, then click here to read about the possibility of something similar happening in my home state of Tennessee.

Up to now, it has been standard practice at Eternal Vigilance to not offer commentary on state and local politics. I have sought to  always believed that raising awareness of serious issues of great importance to our nation was the best use of these resources. However, conservative Tennesseans are currently confronted by a purportedly conservative Republican, but increasingly activist (big government), majorities in both houses of Tennessee's legislature.

That activism is most clearly on display with their approach to "protecting" the Second Amendment rights of Tennessee gun owners. Rather than offer a full-throated endorsement the United States' Constitution and the right to keep and bear arms, they have, in fits of legislative whimsy, cherry-picked places where they think guns should be allowed - city parks, state parks, bars, car trunks in parking lots of  campuses, schools, and businesses, and then created new laws accordingly. I find this approach to be very limiting to Second Amendment rights, especially since Tennessee's lieutenant governor and reputed gun rights advocate, Ron Ramsey, is said to favor the abrogation of the private property rights of owners who choose, for a host of reasons, to restrict firearm possession in their place of business.

Unfortunately, that big-government power trip against private property rights is not the only issue of concern related to gun rights in Tennessee. As mentioned in another article linked above, Ramsey has come out in favor of  public media access to concealed carry permits in Tennessee. This is a wildly impractical and flawed idea, as the legislature would not only violate the privacy of, and potentially endanger Tennessee gun owners, but prompt a number of constitutional challenges by media outlets who fear their First Amendment rights might be infringed by the restrictions being discussed with the legislation.

The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says, clearly and simply, "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Where, in those 27 simple words, does the Tennessee legislature find the authority to waltz over the privacy and private property rights of its citizens?

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty - especially when a Republican legislature can't be trusted to do the right thing....