I Confess

Much to the total lack of surprise for the various bosses I've had in my life, I don't like being forced to do things - especially things that seem to be simply mindless incantations that show -what? Loyalty? Patriotism? Group Spirit?

Perhaps I should explain a little. I confess that I have never liked saying the Pledge of Allegiance (only officially adopted in 1942, by the way).

You want to ask me if I will support and defend the Constitution? Sure, and I have so sworn on several occasions - each fraught with much more meaning than a mindless rote recital in the morning at school. The history of the Pledge is interesting, by the way.

I think West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which did away with a mandatory requirement that students recite the Pledge is absolutely correct. Freedom means freedom to act and think for yourself, not "freedom to conform." As Justice Jackson wrote in that case:

The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. But the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. The State asserts power to condition access to public education on making a prescribed sign and profession and at the same time to coerce attendance by punishing both parent and child. The latter stand on a right of self-determination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal attitude.
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The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

I confess, to my way of thinking,  that if you want to teach children (or adults for that matter) about the beauty of our Constitution you explain to them that they have the right to not to submit to authority in cases where their rights do not infringe on the rights of others. That our republic is founded on those individual rights that cannot be stripped from us.

Which bring me to another thing I must confess to - I believe the National Anthem should not be played before sporting events. A history of how it came to be played can be found here.

Now, I love the National Anthem, but I just happen to believe that it ought to be played on special occasions like the Fourth of July say or Constitution Day . . . I guess that's why I find the "stand or kneel" thing before a game of some sort controversy so silly. Just quit playing the anthem (any anthem) and play ball when ready. After that, any political grandstanding is just that.

What? - you don't hold a Constitution Day parade? or family ceremony with the reading of the Constitution and Amendments and an oath taking to protect and defend it from all enemies, both foreign and domestic? You could even use this one from the U.S. House of Representatives:

“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

What office do you hold? The true "highest office in the land" - that of "United States citizen. "

It's for you all the federal and state employees and officials (including those appointed or elected) work. When elected officials put on airs, they forget to whom they are obligated for their temporary position.

You need to do your job, too, by discharging your duties to vote and to take action when your employees fail to do theirs.

By the way, Constitution Day is September 17, if you were wondering.

Perhaps by now you might getting the idea. If you try to force me to do something I don't want to do anyway - you won't get far.

See F=IW

Ring Out a Warning

A few of us who spent much of our lives working to ". . . defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . ." either on a full time or part-time basis have undertaken blogs and other activities to share our concerns over the dangers facing the country to which that Constitution belongs.

You will find some of the few of these "milbloggers" and fellow travelers over there on the right side of this blog. Some great milbloggers have moved on, others have taken up the torch.

Some of these concerns we discuss are over the actions, both potential or actual, of foreign nations. North Korea, Iran, China, and a couple of others come to mind.

Some anxiety arose with the increase in trans-national groups who have declared "war" on the United States and its form of government. Or, perhaps, on the "life style" of its people. Some more came with the increase in sea piracy off failed states - a threat that should have pointed out the vulnerable nature of sea-going global commerce and the need for strong naval forces to keep the sea lanes open and free. People simply don't know or forget how much commerce flows by sea.

Other concerns crop up because of what former and current military and civilian planners see as disconnects between the tools provided to war fighters (weapons systems - ships, airplanes and ground-pounder stuff) and the needs of the end users and the cost to the country. E.g. Is the F-35 worth the cost? Is the LCS worth anything as a warship? Three Zumwalt-class "destroyers" the size of a WWII battleship? Really? What about the A-10? Can bombing bring something like ISIS to its knees?

Questions are raised about the priorities of the Defense Department. CDR Salamander has a regular Thursday feature Diversity Thursday in which he documents the problems arising from a "diversity industry" which has levered its way into the DoD and made appearance seemingly more important than performance. Want a discussion about the failure of naval leadership and lack of trust in that leadership? See what the Skipper wrote.

Given this, it is with a great deal of interest that I read Sarah Hoyt's Ring The Bell about another question of priorities of the media and the powers that be. In her world, "ringing the bell" was to, in the words of the old "progressive" (read "coomunist") song, If I Had a Hammer:

... ring out danger,
... ring out a warning . . .

Which song,according to the link at Wikipedia, was

The song was first performed publicly by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays on June 3, 1949, at St. Nicholas Arena in New York at a testimonial dinner for the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, who were then on trial in federal court, charged with violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The irony, as you will see, is that Ms. Hoyt nails the media:

Our media by and large learned Marxism in their “best colleges” and therefore are blind to the dangers of totalitarian regimes of the left. And therefore haven’t been very good at sounding the alarm, even when the world-divorced philosophies of the left destroyed our society. They would have delivered us hand-tied to the Soviet Union if only the Soviet Union had been coherent enough to win.

Balked of their victory, they’d happily deliver us to ISIS even though, REALISTICALLY, they should oppose everything ISIS stands for, including oppression of gays and women.

BUT our elites REALLY don’t like us. They’re not going to ring the bell.

Sort of like listening to "For What It's Worth" in light of today's PC world:


Only it's step out of line and get an IRS audit. Or a bunch of protesters demanding your firing and proposing "re-education" for those who disagree with them and their world view.

Which gets me back to the defense of the Constitution including its amendments.

We need to stand up against those who would attempt to transform things like freedom of speech and independence of thought into something that the "government" has graciously bestowed on us and which can be taken away if our thoughts and speech displease some crowd. Freedom of religion - not granted by the government - but protected from the government (and the mob) by the First Amendment. Gun ownership? Not granted by the government, but protected from the government by the Second Amendment. Freedom of speech? Not granted to us by the government, but protected from the intrusion of government.

In sum, we need to continue to fight back against those who would "happily deliver us to ISIS." One of the best weapons is mockery of their self-righteousness, their priggery and their exceptionally shallow understanding of either freedom or the threats to it.

So, if the right to bear arms is important to you, engage in your First Amendment right to associate with others to reject efforts to restrict that right. Join the NRA. Write letters to your elected representatives. Call lying politicians liars.
Oh, and more of this:


Don't let up. Never surrender a point.

The bell is ringing.

First Amendment Threats: George Will on the Challenges to Free Speech

Well, here's what the sensitive snowflakes of "trigger warnings" are bringing us:

“Today’s attack is different. It is an attack on the theory of free speech. It is an attack on the desirability of free speech . . . What we have today is an attack on the very possibility of free speech. The belief is that the First Amendment is a mistake.”

Regarding Ms. Clinton's challenge to free speech, it's couched in terms of getting "anonymous" money out of politics, as set out here:

The one comment that arguably raised the most eyebrows was Clinton’s reference to political reforms: “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment.”
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Clinton didn’t delve into too many details – not surprising given that this was only her second full day as a candidate – but as the campaign unfolds, Andrew Prokop sketched out what a possible constitutional amendment might look like.

The problem, as campaign finance reformers see it, is that for decades the Supreme Court has defined speech too broadly and corruption too narrowly. It has ruled that laws capping how much an individual or group can donate to a particular candidate are acceptable, because they help prevent corruption. However, overall caps on the amount any candidate or corporation spends on elections are unconstitutional, because they muzzle speech without specifically preventing corruption. (The court’s narrow definition of “corruption” has consistently been disputed by some justices in the minority.)

So the Democrats’ proposed constitutional amendment specifically says that both Congress and state governments can limit the “raising and spending of money” meant “to influence elections.” It lists several rationales for doing so – advancing “democratic self-government” and “political equality,” and protecting the “integrity” of the political process. However, it only says that “reasonable limits” are acceptable – so if the amendment is ever enacted, there would undoubtedly be court battles over which restrictions are reasonable or unreasonable.

What Happens When the Bill of Rights Gets Trampled

A stunning article from David French at National Review, "Wisconsin’s Shame: I Thought It Was a Home Invasion":

Yet no one in this family was a “perp.” Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen — who is still too intimidated to speak on the record — kept thinking, “Is this America?”

An extremely partisan prosecutor, a remarkably compliant judge and out the window go the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment.

Further, as noted in the article, the "chilling effect" on others by the acts described reach far beyond those actually assaulted by law enforcement agencies.

What that old Buffalo Springfield song (written about a different set of circumstances, but still valid):

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
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t's s time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

Why isn't this song being sung on college campuses today? Go back to that first verse.

Those first ten amendments to our Constitution are important.

James Madison

UPDATE: Another good read Myron Magnet's piece in City Journal Free Speech in Peril:

. . .  I think Madison right to say that the proper response is not criminalization but argumentation. In a remarkable foreshadowing of John Stuart Mill’s 1859 classic, On Liberty, Madison wrote in 1800 that it is to free speech and a free press, despite all their abuses, that “the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity, over error and oppression.” Only out of freewheeling discussion, the unbridled clash of opinion and assertion—including false, disagreeable, and unpopular opinions, Madison believed no less than Mill—can truth ultimately emerge. So it is troubling to see that the camel of repression has gotten his nose under the Constitutional tent by a law allowing the prosecution of bosses for tolerating speech by some employees that allegedly creates a “hostile environment” for others. The Court ought to squelch such an affront to the First Amendment. And it is equally troubling that state and federal laws have created such a thing as a “hate crime.” All that should matter to the law is whether the perpetrator of a crime acted with criminal intent, not whether that intent rested on an outlandish opinion.
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Equally wrong are campaign-finance laws, which, happily, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has begun to undo. In the American political system, based on man’s natural right to life, liberty, and property, money should talk. The core of Madison’s worry about the “tyranny of the majority” in Federalist 10 was that the unpropertied many might vote themselves the property of the rich few—whether by disproportionate taxation, abolition of debts, inflation to erode savings and investments, “an equal division of property, or . . . any other improper or wicked project”—which the Founders believed would be no less a tyranny than an absolute monarch’s expropriation of property. Madison argued in Federalist 10 that the clash of many competing interests in such a big republic as America would prevent such democratic tyranny from occurring; but he proved wrong. . .