Publisher’s Note: this is a rewrite and republication of the commentary “Federal government good at micromanagement but…” published on 17 May 2023. For some reason (please tell us), very few readers thought that commentary was worth their time (and for that we apologize). We wish to point out some important things to consider for lovers of liberty on these issues, so we are rewriting (and apologizing).
An MSN story appeared on 15 MAY 2023, explaining how Uncle Joe’s Regime is coming out in favor of religious freedom in public schools.
Now, we here at TPOL are as always highly critical of ANY presidential regime, as we see “massa” as being noting but a (supposedly) elected tyrant, and mostly a front-man for the powers-that-be.
So to us, this is just more confirmation of the same-old-same-old malarky.
As the document is described by the usual regime shill, it reminds us of the insanity called “Free-trade agreements” which take thousands of pages of detailed instructions that are supposedly necessary to have free trade between people and companies in various countries.
Are government agencies and politicians at least destroying private property rights in the States? Are the courts helping them to do this, or acting to prevent that destruction? Is there even a God-given right to private property? Is private property protected by the Constitution?
These and many other questions are being asked today, perhaps more than ever. But they have always been an important facet of human society and how far governments do and should go, vis-a-vis private citizens and their activities.
A recent Washington Examiner news story proclaims that the current SCOTUS is slapping down local governments that trample property rights.
In Nebraska in 2023, apparently, the punishment for murder and other crimes is 90 days in jail and 2 years probation. For which the judge has been condemned by woke regressives because the judge was too harsh.
As we understand the report originally in the Omaha World Herald, the teenager killed her unborn child by taking abortion pills obtained by the teen’s mother. At the time of the killing, the child was at 30 weeks gestation – just 9 weeks short of usual time of birth. After the dead child was expelled from her body, the two women then tried three times to dispose of the corpse. They did so ultimately by burning the tiny body and burying “the thing” (their words in text messaging) in a shallow hole in the backyard.
Recent Supreme Court decisions have raised both hopes and fears in
many factions of American society. It is clear that deciding vital but highly divisive matters is one
of many factors continuing to weaken American society and ramp up tensions and
anger in the Fifty States. Some of those include the very recent decisions on
ending affirmative action programs in educational institutions, and the freedom
of speech decision rejecting Colorado’s effort to mandate speech on a website
designer. While both of these decisions have energized the activists and
partisans on both sides of the issues, the Nine Nazgul have put themselves into
the middle of issues which are hotly contested and argued, even fought over.
This has been made worse by a growing willingness of media (of all types) and
all political points of view to just flat-out lie about the decisions, and use
those lies to speculate in ways that are often beyond belief.(We note that such a position seems to have been the intent of the
Founding Fathers in creating and implementing the Supreme Court in the first
place. Or so many argue.)As a result, as with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the demands
to “reform” SCOTUS have grown louder.Let us look at the Colorado decision. The Nazgul have upheld the
right of the web page designer to not be forced to produce web page designs which
support and promote causes and viewpoints which she believed wrong and immoral.
So, the State of Colorado was denied the power to force her to speak out, even
in commercial art and design and speech to advocate for – or even tolerate –
ideas which she believed was wrong. Specifically, because of her religion.The State of Colorado (and apparently Uncle Joe’s regime) argued
that she was denying fundamental human rights of the homosexual people who
wanted her to do this. That in essence, she was the one denying the would-be
customers’ human rights. Specifically, the right of free speech. Therefore, the
State government claimed that she was discriminating against the would-be
patrons. Denying them the right of free expression. Because they were
homosexual.To lovers of liberty, this seems an example of governments saying
that some people’s rights are more important than letting other people have
rights. To the “progressives” (regressives), this is the way that things have
been done and must continue to be done. Especially those who advocate for special
privileges for certain groups.This is, of course, anything but new. There is always some
conflict involved in exercising our rights. This is normally (past and present)
settled by determining if there is actual physical or economic harm to one or
another party of the conflict. This is in keeping with biblical and libertarian
ideas: do unto others as you would have them do unto you: do not act
aggressively against others. Common sense, but not to modern regressives.We have fought versions of this battle for more than a century in
this nation. And the baggage is still with us. (A topic for another time,
perhaps.)Is it not reasonable, even logical, to understand that the
broadly-recognized “right of association” means that the “right to refuse to
associate” is a necessary inference? Does it not make sense that the universal “right
of free speech” must include a “right to not say something” to be
effective? Despite the first piece of logic, the FedGov and States have long
denied people – especially businesspeople – the right to deny service to a
person based on certain physical (and even mental) characteristics and
practices. The claim has been that such refusal to provide service causes harm –
physical and economic – to the person denied service. (And increasingly, “emotional”
harm.) So association can be coerced in the interests of government (which
claims to run “society”),Are we at TPOL wrong to believe that this is seen as wrong by
libertarians? The opponents of the SCOTUS decision claim that the ruling allows businesses
(and others) to discriminate against people because of what the rejected people
are. They proclaim it is a step to returning the LQBTQ+ community to second or
third-class status. To allowing some people to again discriminate by refusing
any and all service to whomever they want to reject “for religious reasons.”This does not match what we understand of the Nazgul decision,
good or bad. It is not that the Supremes are “allowing” businesses to refuse to
do business with certain people based on race, sex, sexual orientation, etc. (“Discriminate.”)
Rather, the decision denies State governments any power to force businesses to
provide any service or product (goods) that they believe is wrong (immoral).
Provide to anyone! It is not the sex or other characteristic of the would-be
buyer that is at issue, but rather the goods or services that they want, that
is the deciding factor.
Yet that is not what media and advocates (seemingly on both
sides of this issue) are spouting. They are wrong and poisoning the discourse.
Consider this example. A vegan Quaker woodcarver refuses to make a
wooden stock for a woman for her .30-06 hunting rifle. Why? Because he is both
a pacifist and believes that eating meat (or animal products) is wrong. He is
willing to make her wooden carvings of animals, or wooden plates, or even doorbells.
But she wants a rifle stock. She files a civil rights complaint. So the State
of Mind takes him to court claiming that he is denying her his services because
she is a woman?
Maybe that is too complex a comparison, but it seems to us that
the SCOTUS decision is a proper one and will not lead to all the horrid things
we are reading.
What it might lead to is reduced power of government to coerce
us – to force us to do things that are against our beliefs. Now, wouldn’t that
be a shame?
Americans, like most folks, like nice things: houses with running water and flush toilets. And heat and air conditioning. And the freedom to travel by auto and plane – and even train and bus. We like meat and veggies and fruit year round. We like not having to raise our own chickens and veggies and such. And many of us are willing to work to earn moola to pay for these things.
But there are a lot of people who don’t like most of us to have nice things. Who either don’t think we should because we are not the elite like them. Or because they envy us. Both of these groups have political clout and use various ways to deny as many people as possible the nice things we once took for granted. Political power comes out against many things.
Particularly when it comes to what we need to have to build and use nice things. We call that infrastructure and the powers-that-be and the wanna-be types go after that viciously. Regarding that side of things, we read this. Front Page Magazine decries the environists who have created and support a racket involving environmental impact statements, environmental assessments, and millions of pages and billions of dollars of paperwork consuming years of effort in which nothing is built.
The more environists can prevent infrastructure from being built, the less ability we have to produce nice things. So we suffer for their religious beliefs.
(We call these people “environists” because these so-called “environmentalists” have replaced reason and rationality and mental exercise with lies, emotionalism, and screaming. (If not violence.) Their mental facilities may still be present somewhere in their head, but they are disused – possibly atrophied.)
As a result, FPM’s article explains, projects are never built all too often, despite billions of dollars spent on studies. There is always something that is “discovered” or “suspected” that environists and their instigating and money-grubbing, unscrupulous attorney and political friends can use to delay, deny, and in some cases actually destroy the project. Their tactics vary but are all too predictable: wildlife habitat, water quality and/or quantity, dust, smoke, noise, traffic, or a dozen other reasons.
This month marked 50 years of not having a military draft (conscription) in these united States. At age 18, our publisher was one of the last to receive a lottery number for potentially being drafted, though since he had already enlisted and was in the Corps of Cadets of Colorado School of Mines, he didn’t pay any attention and does not remember the number.
Ending the military draft after nearly 60 years was a bright spot in the history of American liberty. Conscription is an evil which by its very nature corrupts and perverts a nation or nations who claim to be free and value liberty. In the case of the American Union, it was even vastly more hypocritical and condemning: Congress and Lincoln establishing the draft in a war that was supposedly (as the song goes) being fought to set men free should cause our gorge to rise. (The Confederacy, we note, did the same thing – hypocritical as well as it expanded the boundaries of slavery to many more people.)
It is traditional in many States to have the laws passed by the last legislative session take effect on the 1st of July. This theoretically gives the bureaucrats and the cops time to adjust their procedures and gear up for enforcement, and the victims of those laws time to be informed, warned, and prepared. Ah, the joys of democracy and the process of law. Unlike the dread decrees (“executive orders”) which can be signed without any “democratic” process of law and take effect instantly. But people still grumble, don’t they?
A fellow lover of liberty recently wrote in response to an activist in Colorado, who said: “It’s the radical influence of wealth and power that stifles our democracy from enacting laws aligned with majority will.” He was complaining that some unWoke, politically-incorrect measure made it through Colorado’s General Assembly, despite overwhelming Democratic Party control and polls claiming majority support among the Colorado population.
The libertarian wrote: “This is the “No True Scotsman” version of democratic theory. Any democratic outcome that you like is a straightforward and proper implementation of “majority will,” whereas any democratic outcome that you don’t like is “not true democracy” because the process was somehow tainted, say by people paying lobbyists. This presumption allows some people at the same time to hold that majority will is inherently good but that specific majoritarian outcomes can be bad.
“The” alternate view, my view, is that democratic outcomes are neither inherently good nor bad. Rather, they are good or bad depending on whether they conform to underlying moral truths.”
While I do respect and appreciate the writer who upholds liberty, I do not fully agree with him.
I know it has been nearly a week, but Connor shared this with us, and we here at TPOL figure it deserves a small, quick, special commentary.
There is a lot about this posting that turns the stomach of everyone here at TPOL.
First, there are the smiling faces of the two jackbooted XX-chromosome-bearing thugs (we assume that they are not even more perverted and are not pretend XX-types).
Then there are the 3,465 “likes” which amounts to 2-3% of the population of Sewer Falls (about 130,000). Seriously?
Then there is the snide comment (by the SFPD). “It’s not worth the $107.50 citation.” Just what is “not worth” it? The liberty, the independence that these States once gained from tyranny – and have now mostly given up? Creepy and overbearing, at best.
But the real point is that “law and order” and the jackboots have repressed and outlawed the independence, the liberty, that cost a whole lot more than a hundred and seven (and a half) devalued FRNs (Federal Reserve Notes). Costs like our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, anyone? Or at least the men and women of the original Thirteen States.
Third, there is the name of the event: “4th of July” on the ticket. The Sewer Falls police do not seem to like such things as independence, liberty, freedom, or personal responsibility. Heaven forbid daring to celebrate on your own without having “professional” and government-approved “experts” setting off the fireworks. (I assume, perhaps wrongly, that these two thugs are capable of actually spelling “Independence Day” and they hunt and peck on their cop-car computer.)
About the same time these cop-ettes were busting some poor guy or gal (or even a kid) for “illegal fireworks” our family was in Rapid Valley, also in South Dakota and on the edge of the Black Hills. In the middle of what sounded (and to some degree looked like) a 360-degree war zone from the massive amount of munitions which at least every third house in multiple subdivisions with several thousand houses was busy firing off.
Yeah, there were cops in Rapid Valley, too: Sheriff’s Deputies (Rapid Valley is unincorporated in Pennington County). And firefighters, from the Rapid Valley Fire Protection District. Not writing up tickets but waving to folks and complimenting them on their fireworks, and thanking them for having water readily available and cleaning up the streets, and letting the traffic go through.
And I’ve seen and heard nothing about any houses – or even trash cans – catching fire. Or any significant injuries. Just a lot of pyromaniacs and other folks (with a strong military percentage: Air Force, National Guard, Reserve, and Retired) celebrating the memory, if nothing else, of Independence!
Why? Because they are free people,. and the cops and firefighters work for them: their bosses (the Sheriff and the Fire Board) are elected by the people and recognize that their power is limited to what people will accept, not some elected dictators in a commission or council or legislature. And because most of the people of Rapid Valley (and those of us who were guests) are responsible people who know how to use their freedoms responsibly.
One final comment from us here at TPOL. These two thug-ettes say that it is exhausting to “be the bad guys.” Good. At least they admit they are “bad guys” – though we here at TPOL are a bit harsher: thugs and scum of the worst sort. But they need to remember, along with the rest of their black-tunicked comrades, that Independence Day celebrates the 8-year effort to kick another set of jackbooted thugs across the ocean.
Isn’t it time we do the same to these? No matter how sweet they look?
Afterword: This was longer than originally intended. Sorry.
But we should add that Sewer Falls is the nickname many of us Libertarians and West River denizens have given to the autocratic government and submissive occupants of Sioux Falls, SD. It is on the opposite end of the State from the Black Hills, and we just wish it were further! More than once, we have circulated mostly facetiously, petitions to get the State to expel them (or outright sell them) to Minnesota or Iowa, where their regressive, populist, Tranzi ways would fit better, and keep them from trying to force the entire Sunshine State into slavery. Sewer Falls is a cesspool, and it is well recognized as such, even by many GOP types and “conservatives.”
Mama Liberty constantly preached the need to be careful to be as aware of the situation in which we find ourselves. Whether armed or not, situational awareness is essential to survival in any unsafe condition. It is first critical to avoid any unsafe act, but you cannot do that if you are not aware of your surroundings and of the potential for things (usually bad things) to happen.
This is particularly true when the unsafe condition is due to a human being intent on doing harm to others. Not just with a firearm, of course: knives, vehicles, clubs and many more tools – including muscles and fists and boots – present a threat.
Even the most peaceful situation can suddenly become unsafe due to human error and especially evil intent. This is clearly one major reason to be armed, both at home and in public.
The Price of Liberty 
Private property rights?
Are government agencies and politicians at least destroying private property rights in the States? Are the courts helping them to do this, or acting to prevent that destruction? Is there even a God-given right to private property? Is private property protected by the Constitution?
These and many other questions are being asked today, perhaps more than ever. But they have always been an important facet of human society and how far governments do and should go, vis-a-vis private citizens and their activities.
A recent Washington Examiner news story proclaims that the current SCOTUS is slapping down local governments that trample property rights.
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