Sarge

The “Free Press” ain’t

"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell." Justice Black NYT v. US 403 US 713

Nothing changes

After a week spent pretending to be as useful as I was when I was twenty-five, my sixty-year-old butt determined the fallacy of the thought and the reality of the fatigue. I spent a week playing laborer for a professional carpenter and his helper. Any thought I had of my continuing suitability for extensive manual labor was smashed along with one thumb, several scraped shins and a set of aching back muscles I’m sure were stretched beyond repair.

Obama’s defining moment

Our chief representative before the world has stuck his oversized hoof in his face again. This time he’s said outright that religious schools are divisive. His quote: “If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.”

Gang of eight

I chuckle every time I hear of a new “Gang of [enter #]” being formed in the Congress to study a course of action allowing them to look concerned and involved, when really, they need excuses to meet, greet and deny being obsolete as a governing body. The original political entity these droids name themselves after was the “Gang of four” of Communist Chinese infamy.

I beg your pardon

One of the questions I have concerns forgiveness. Forgiveness is the act of excusing a mistake or offense. Simple, don’t you think?

Kristallnacht

"There are citizens of the United States ... who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt ... to destroy our industries ... and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue.... We are without adequate federal laws.... I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.”

In response

A gentleman questioned me concerning my column: “They were warned” He wrote, and quoted me.

“I read your article today online at CFP (Canada Free Press) and you said: ‘If the government violates their trust while mining (and I do intensely fear that possibility) then we must get rid of those violating the Constitution. That means the people must speak loudly and in concert’. Well, how are the people going to know that the government is violating their trust without someone alerting them to the problem? If the population doesn't know about a problem, how are the people going to speak loudly and in concert against it? You can't have it both ways. Signed Tony”

Authorization vs. capability

Computers are as much a bane as a boon. Understanding that much of what we once defined as being purely mechanical has been supplanted by machinery best described as computerized mechanical entities. An entity is that which is perceived or known or inferred to have its distinct existence/purpose. Because today’s computers can take raw data, compile it, correlate, extrapolate it and then using a bizarre form of deductive “reasoning” specific to computers, intelligently decide based on the statistically evaluated odds of any particular activity - they can determine what your next move might be. All of the above (in a decidedly infantile manner only I can imagine) is the roadway to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Data Mining

I started this morning by listening to a man’s dissatisfaction with yesterday’s column titled: “They were warned”. The commentary was pseudonymously posted by somebody displaying the handle “Sick Of It”. He wrote: “Thanks Sarge..it's nice to know there are more pro-government fascists out there who have, as usual, failed to point out congressional authority to play cloak and dagger with our lives in the United States Constitution. If the American people finally get fed up, the men who implement these programs and support them will be executed for TREASON, not the whistleblowers. Now feel free to go back to your Nazi/Communist salute.”

Caught on the reef

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

They were warned

The NSA Scandal du jour has everybody wondering the same thing: how does this latest whistleblower differ from Private Bradley Manning the “Wikileaks” Army drone gave up American secrets out of a professed act of conscience?

Listing

To list describes the degree to which something heels or tilts to either left or right parallel to a specific delineation. The distribution of weight aboard causes it to heel to one side or the other. Kathleen Sebelius is an excellent example of how far a political hack can list or slide to the detrimental side of a leftist doctrine she’s a proponent of. She “lists” so far to the left she won’t intervene in the case of a child dying of Cystic Fibrosis unless placed under a court order to move the child to an “adult lung transplant” list. This would give juveniles under the age of 12 years old a fighting chance for partial lung transplants, thus saving their lives.

Distancing the Crown

What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?" Henry II, 1170 A.D. We live in such a rich age. The United States of America has existed in spite of its government for centuries now. Franklin defined the stage and all the plays to be conducted upon it when asked: “Well, Doctor, what have we got; a Republic or a Monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it” was his reply. Who knew keeping a republic responsive to the government of the people would be so difficult.

For the record

Attorney General Eric Holder is arguably one of the dumbest people on the planet. I say arguably because he’s in competition with Kathleen Sibelius, Janet Napolitano, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry and their feckless leader Beaurat Obama. There are others salted among the differing levels of this bureaucratic nightmare referred to as the Obama Administration. I felt it best to stick with the nuts, bolts and dolts at the highest levels of influence. They accept no responsibility for their acts or those of their subordinates.

In contest

The other day I wrote about Radical Islam in contrast to thoughts on Democracy. Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian, ethicist and commentator on politics at Union Theological Seminary and I quoted his statement thusly: “Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” I was castigated for the reference to Niebuhr. It read: “Wow, way to sully the reputation of Reinhold Niebuhr by associating him with anti-Muslim tripe.”

Islamic lying

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

We live in the greatest example of Democratic thought and practice to ever go awry. In reality, we’ve taken the quotes of great minds i.e. Socrates, Solon, Aristotle, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius. They’re examples of great philosophers in the ancient world. We learned from them appreciatively. They fertilized the thinking of such American greats as Franklin and Jefferson, James Madison, Justices John Jay and Joseph Story soon to be followed Justices Learned Hand and Oliver Wendell Holmes as well as a host of others. We’re acceptant of differing opinions and thoughts.

You CANNOT kill an idea!

You CANNOT kill an idea! And, Obama just can’t get it. He refuses to understand Al Qaeda isn’t dead. It isn’t even seriously wounded. Because he’s worked so hard to make America a third class member of a fourth class New World Order, he refuses to see Islamic Terrorism has morphed into a Guerrilla Warfare activity sponsored and fueled by Al Qaeda doctrine and ideology.

No checks produce power imbalances

Recent revelations showing the IRS targeted conservative groups applying for tax exemptions are "absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable." This was Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wollin’s statement on 5-22-2013. Wollin said Treasury officials purposefully kept themselves out of the daily affairs at the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).

"Treasury's longstanding practice - spanning Republican and Democratic administrations - is not to involve itself in the details of the IRS's administration and enforcement of the nation's tax law. It is critical that the nation's tax laws are administered and enforced in a way that neither involves political influence, nor the perception of political influence."

Time for a change of thinking

Moore, Oklahoma, is in the middle of Tornado Alley, a region noted for its annual production of strong thunderstorms and storms spawning tornadoes. As surely as annual blooms sprout like clockwork, storms erupt with immense fury. The storms shred lives and families to broken shards of what they once innocently were.

Tools

Dan Pfeifer believes the entire universe owes Ambassador Susan Rice an apology. Why; because she is, as he is, Obama’s tool and a humble Gunga Din to the administration? Pfeifer’s dumber than a set of white wingtips in a hog pen. This past Sunday he rode the same circuit Rice followed when she touted the administration lies the Benghazi attacks were predicated on a sloppily produced video featured on YouTube. The video made fun of Mohammed and Allah. Rice alleged it was so heinous an act it incited “spontaneous demonstrations” and an all-out slaughter of four Americans.