RedStateEclectic

The Friendly Skies

A republican congressman gets felt up like an ordinary person:

“As he was moving up my leg, he moved his hand aggressively up to my crotch and he hurt me,” Canseco said.  “The natural reaction is when someone goes for your crotch and it hurts, you’re going to pull back — and my right arm came down and moved away his hand briskly.”

That’s when the agent stopped the whole process, Canseco said.

“As I moved his hand away, he claims, ‘I’ve been assaulted, I’ve been assaulted,’” he said.

The agent then called the police over and asked them to arrest the lawmaker.

“I told him, ‘Hey, I’m the guy who was assaulted,’” Canseco said.

as·sault [uh-sawlt] noun

1. a sudden, violent attack; onslaught: an assault on tradition.

2. Law . an unlawful physical attack upon another; an attempt or offer to do violence to another, with or without battery, as by holding a stone or club in a threatening manner.

When an officer of the law cries assault, you’re in trouble physically and legally... unless you’re a high level bureaucrat. The actions leading up to such a claim suggest the slippery slope that is the legal definition of ‘assault’. Because of the ambiguity of the word ‘threatening’ an assault is now considered on a preemptive basis like many of our more recent government policies.

Since it was the republicans who gave us the TSA, it's kind of poetic that this should happen; not that I condone the TSA’s actions. Some may argue that travel is a privilege. It isn't. Travel is required to trade (and is a trade in and of itself) and trade is required to live. And life is, arguably, still a right in this country.

Rand Paul Describing His TSA Experience

Just in Time for Xmas - The Loss of Your 5th Amendment Rights!

Woman Accused of Freedom Groping TSA Agent

A woman in Colorado is accused of doing the very same thing the TSA agent is subjecting her to, that is, groping.

The lesson: governments may commit crimes against its citizens, but punishes those citizens who attempt to reciprocate.

TSA Does Not Protect You—Guest Post

By Doug Newman

In a little less than a week, I will be flying on an airplane for the first time this year. When I get to the airport, I will be faced with three abhorrent choices:

1. Have myself photographed in my birthday suit by one of those very possibly cancer-causing nudie-nukers.
2. Have my crotch groped by some tax-mainlining pervert in an act that anywhere else would constitute sexual assault. This is also full of health risks.
3. Not flying.

And if you are going to say, “Then just don’t fly”, then you just don’t get it.

As Vin Suprynowicz put it last Sunday, “It’s all a vicious game of ‘let’s pretend.’”

TSA does not keep you safe. It never has. It never will.

I have said before – Suprynowicz says something similar – that if a terrorist really wanted to kill a lot of people and disrupt aviation, he would not go to all the trouble of smuggling a bomb through security in order to blow up a plane. Rather, he would set off a bomb in a terminal.

Terrorists could even orchestrate a coordinated attack at multiple locations. Imagine bombs going off at eight on a Monday morning at, say, ATL, ORD and DFW. Imagine thousands dead and America’s three main aviation hubs crippled indefinitely.

TSA waits until well after you enter a terminal before commencing with gate rape. Not only have they never caught a terrorist in almost a decade, but they leave most parts of airports … ahem … “unprotected.”

(Just before I put this to bed, a congressthing announced that there had been 25,000 breaches of TSA since its inception in 2001.)

Besides, who says a terrorist attack has to involve planes and airports?

I mean, like, terrorists could attack train stations, bus stations, schools, shopping malls, stadiums and grocery stores. Are you willing to be sexually assaulted every time you enter such venues? Are you willing to have career perverts grope and ogle your six-year-old kids as they walk into school? How far down this road are you willing to go?

Elsewhere, looking at a nude photograph of a minor would be considered child pornography and would land you in the cooler. Not so with TSA.

And if TSA is oh so necessary to keep us “secure” from terrorists at airports, why don’t they also station their blueshirts at train stations and bus stations? Why don’t they interrupt traffic on highways? I mean, like, you never know when or where a terrorist could hypothetically, theoretically strike next. You can’t be too careful.

Oh, wait. They already have. They were even supposed to show up at a high school prom in Santa Fe recently.

One of the grievances spelled out in the Declaration of Independence – and the basis for the Third Amendment – was “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.” I am sure that King George III never dreamed of authorizing the redcoats to grope the crotches of the colonists, much less justified such institutionalized depravity in the name of a higher good. (And if he had, the “shot heard round the world” would have been fired much sooner than April 19, 1775.)

Allan Macurdy is perhaps the most amazing person I have ever known. Diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy at age 7, he let nothing stand in his way. In spite of absolutely daunting physical challenges, he would become a professor of law at Boston University.

My friend, classmate and hero, Allan Macurdy. 1960-2008

I don’t know about Allan’s politics, nor will I ever care. However, I want to steal a phrase from him: “higher parade of horribles.” He used this phrase when discussing how much physical adversity a person would accept before they simply lost the will to live.

Likewise, there is a “higher parade of horribles” that applies to the whole TSA controversy. As horrible as terrorism is, there would be something immeasurably more horrible: life under a totalitarian government.

And this is exactly what millions of Americans seem willing to accept in the name of “security”. How else would you describe a government that will presume its citizens guilty and molest and assault them as a condition of movement?

And if you will quietly accept TSA’s ritual sexual – and scatalogical – humiliation, what will you not accept? Where will you draw the line?

I would rather live in a free society with the very remote chance of being a victim of terrorism than in a place such as Cuba or North Korea, with a ubiquitous “national security” apparatus and no liberty whatsoever.

And if this higher horrible of a truly totalitarian state ever does come to pass on these shores, it will not be the fault of Dubya or Obomber or Al-Qaeda or Al-whatever. It will be because of millions of Americans allowed their government to do absolutely anything to keep them “secure.”

Oh how I wish I had said this first: Our liberty was not stolen from us. It died from lack of exercise.
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If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks!

The Declaration of Dependence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people should be made equal, that they are endowed by their government with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are jobs, healthcare and housing.–That to secure these rights, Governments must rule over the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the elite, –That whenever the people becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Elite to alter or to abolish it, and to institute more Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect the power and control of the elite. …We, therefore, the Representatives of the political elite, in faculty lounges, Assembled, appealing to the United Nations for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of government, solemnly publish and declare, That the American people ought to be governed by the United Nations; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Constitution, and that all political connection between them and the Founding Fathers, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as highly-taxed and dependent States, they have full Power to levy taxes, disrupt Peace, contract new departments and agencies, regulate Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which the political elite may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the establishment media, we mutually demand your Lives, your Fortunes and your sacred Honor.

Via Dan Mitchells.

The Government Would Lie to Us? No. Way.

Exposed documents reveal Napolitano, TSA lied about safety of cancer-causing naked body scanners

Here’s some of the best, but click above for the whole article:

Amid the string of emails discussing the matter, an undisclosed sender explains that NIST was "a little concerned" over Napolitano's public reassurances that TSA's naked body scanners are safe. After all, NIST does not test products, and it never tested the naked body scanners in the first place. Napolitano apparently took the individual machine dose measurements that NIST had gathered and twisted them to say what she wanted them to say, which was that the machines are safe.
You can view a partially-censored copy of that email exchange here:
http://epic.org/privacy/backscatter...

Worse, NIST had actually warned DHS and TSA that the machines were not necessarily safe, and that airport screening agents should avoid standing next to them because of the harmful radiation they emit. It is unclear whether or not this warning was ever taken seriously by TSA officials.

Napolitano also falsely claimed that research conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirms the safety of naked body scanners, even though the research actually suggests the opposite. Dr. Michael Love from the school publicly stated that the machines are going to give people skin cancer, and the specific findings of the report indicate that "radiation zones" around the machines emit enough radiation to exceed the "General Public Dose Limit."

Rand Paul Confronts TSA: "You're Clueless!"

And with a constitutional law cite for the win, too.

Go Rand go!

 

 

 

Guest Post—“Had I Been President on 9/11”

Doug Newman submitted another guest post worthy of consideration, over the weekend.  Just now getting to it.

Last Sunday evening, after The Big News, someone wrote the following in their Facebook status.

“WAS IT WORTH IT? Assuming the government’s report is indeed true and OBL is dead, were the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, not to mention the worldwide animosity created against us worth it to capture one individual that could’ve been caught with Letters of Marque and Reprisal?”

I cut and pasted the above as my status, which led to a spirited albeit civil conversation thread. An old and good friend wrote the following:

“What evidence is there that a Letter of Marque and Reprisal would have led to Bin Laden’s capture or death any sooner than yesterday or even at all? Yesterday only showed this way worked, not that it was the best way. You might as well ask if the Civil War was worth it.”

I started to reply on Facebook, but thought I would drone on at some length about these questions. Herewith:

The proper question about how the FEDGOV should respond, if at all, to a given situation is the constitutional one. Our Constitution gives us a tool to deal with things like piracy and terrorism: a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Such letters, issued by Congress, are a type of warrant.

The 9/11 attacks, while horrific crimes, were not acts of war. There was no invading army, no naval armada or submarine force, no aerial bombing raids by a terrorist Luftwaffe and no jihad jarheads riding their LCACs ashore in Battery Park. The 19 hijackers are dead, and hence not capable of taking us over, making us all speak Arabic and pray to Mecca five times a day, forcing Sports Illustrated to do a burqa issue, yadda, yadda, yadda.

(As Fred Reed has pointed out numerous times, it has been several centuries since a Muslim country conquered a non-Muslim country.)

Had 19 American scumsuckeroos gone overseas and committed some horrific suicide attack, would that justify a war on America? If the answer is no, why do so many Americans support all these wars in response to 9/11?

Or would you rather that any Americans who could be proven to have had a hand in planning and financing the attacks be tried and punished accordingly, and that us innocents be left alone?

With this in mind, had I been president on 9/11, I would have asked Congress to issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. I would have demanded that those who could be proven to have been accomplices to the attacks be apprehended, tried according to the Due Process protections spelled out in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and punished accordingly. (1)The Bill of Rights applies to terror suspects, too. And if it doesn’t apply to terror suspects, it doesn’t apply to you either.

A Letter of Marque and Reprisal would not even necessarily involve the use of the military. Moreover, it would focus our entire energy on apprehending the specific perpetrators of the crimes, and would thus very probably finish the task in much less than a decade. It would not authorize the spilling of innocent blood. It would not authorize ruinously expensive – in both blood and treasure – wars. And it would not set a precedent for further breaches of the Constitution by future presidents.

This course of action would have been worth it.

When Benjamin Franklin was exiting the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a women is said to have asked him just what had the convention had wrought. Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

In 1866, in the case of Ex Parte Milligan, supreme Court Justice David Davis wrote some of the greatest words ever to emanate from the federal bench: “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.”

The strict limits our Constitution sets on the federal government – both domestically and abroad – become even more important during times of crisis. It is during these times that governments are most likely to take away liberties. Moreover, it is during these times that people are willing to relinquish liberty for a false sense of security.

In response to 9/11, GWB launched two wars without formal declarations from Congress. These wars resulted in the deaths of over 5000 American sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines as well as countless thousands of innocents abroad. 9/11 has been used as an excuse to spy on the American people without warrants, torture people, and declare people guilty without trial. This was most definitely not worth it.

When you allow a president whom you like to overstep constitutional limits on his power for reasons that you approve of, just know that there are other people with other agendas who want presidents that they like to overstep these limits. (Please read my article on how the Right literally begged for Obamacare.)

“But this was Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind.” I don’t give a flying rip who he was! When the POTUS can arbitrarily and unilaterally proclaim Bin Laden guilty, he can also declare you guilty. (2) When the POTUS can order the killing of Bin Laden without due process, he can also order you to be killed without due process. It doesn’t matter how severe the accusation or how overwhelming the weight of public opinion against the accused. Either the Bill of Rights applies equally to everybody or it doesn’t apply at all to anybody.

(The Constitution only grants the POTUS one direct power over an individual: the power to pardon.)

Bin Laden was never formally charged in connection with 9/11. The FBI wanted him in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and “other terrorist attacks.” However, no specific mention was ever made on his “Most Wanted” poster of 9/11. And calling 9/11 “(an)other terrorist attack” is like calling the Grand Canyon another hole in the ground.

See anything here about 9/11? Hmm. Me neither.

Osama bin Laden was most probably quite a horrible person. Nevertheless, he was a person, however hard that statement might be to stomach. And as this war was never properly declared by Congress, he is entitled to the same protections as thee or me.

(And if they really wanted Bin Laden, why did they never trace any of those recordings they claimed he made back to their origin and just nab him?)

But the feds would ne-e-e-e-e-ever kill innocent civilians. Oh yes they would. What happened at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and at Waco in 1993? I have heard the Waco massacre described as a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. The Powers That Be wanted to see just how much the American people would let them get away with. As it turns out, this is a whole lot.

Spreading lurid accusations about people and then killing them without due process is something that the feddle gummint would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do to American citizens.

Eighteen years and a few weeks later, the majority of Americans are all good with having themselves photographed naked and sexually assaulted as a condition of travel in the name of “national security.” If they are so devoid of self-respect that they will tolerate this, what will they NOT tolerate?

Blood? Money? Liberty? No, it was not worth the price at all.

Now let’s rewind things 140 years to the Civil War. (I will not drone on at nearly as much length about this.)

First, the war was not about slavery, but about the disproportionate burden that tariffs placed on the economy of the South.

Second, slavery was well on its way to extinction and would have ended without a war. (No other country “needed a war” to end slavery.) It was dying because of technological advances as well as the growing conviction in the hearts and minds of Americans that it was just plain wrong. There were, however, powerful lobbies in both the North and South in favor of preserving slavery. Lincoln’s prime objective was to save the Union, regardless of whether or not he ended slavery.

Third, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in certain states and, in the case of Louisiana, parts of those states. It did not apply in several states where slavery still existed.

Fourth, Lincoln was a tyrant who arrested dissenting legislators and newspaper editors, censored the mails, suspended habeas corpus, and imposed the first income tax and military draft.

Fifth, secession was never forbidden by the Constitution. The Civil War put an end to the  “free and independent states” envisioned by Jefferson became mere administrative subdivisions of the federal leviathan.

620,000 people, whose only offense – not crime, offense – was to exercise the same rights that the colonists exercised so bravely in 1776, died as a result.

The War of Northern Aggression – or for Southern Independence – was not only not necessary to free the slaves, but it also constituted a great leap forward, if you will, in the direction of an omnipotent central government.

When I look at all the spirited resistance to federal authority I see today over Obombercare, gun rights and medical hippy lettuce I can only think how badly we have all been lied to. A war that was supposedly about freedom actually set the table for an all-powerful federal government that today is hellbent on making us all slaves again.

Good ends do not justify bad means. What goes around comes around. We reap what we sow. And before we chop down those hedges of protection enshrined in our Bill of Rights for whatever reason – even an apparently very good reason – we have to ask one question: when those hedges are down, and the hurricane-force winds of tyranny blow, will you – yes, you – be able to stand upright?

I leave you with this.

 

And, more eloquently, with this.

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(1) Also, had I been POTUS on 9/11, I would have pursued a policy 0f – in Jefferson’s words – “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all and entangling alliances with none.” This would include Israel. When you throw your weight around militarily to the extent that America does, you will inevitably have a lot of people hating on you. Also, I would have stopped this idiocy of disarming air travelers.

(2) As Dubya said of Bin Laden: “We know he’s guilty. Turn him over. There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt.”
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And Yet Another TSA Tale

Here's something from a Time Magazine blogger's opt-out tale:

The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes and was a completely professional experience.

Or it was, until a male TSA agent walked behind us and hollered: "Hey, I thought she was mine! I was gonna do her!"

But I'm sure they're much more professional when they're viewing nekkid pictures of us, right?