A Word On Federalism, For Those Who’ve Forgotten It

Someone at Students For Liberty, a group which I am a big fan of, has taken a whack at the “states’ rights movement”, as he calls it. He rightly points out that Ron Paul is a huge believer in states’ rights, but wrongly believes that diminishes Paul as  a candidate and champion of liberty. This concept, my young friend, is called FEDERALISM. Our republic was founded on it, and, the excesses of the federal leviathan notwithstanding, it remains the bedrock of American governance. It’s the legal manifestation of the fact that the states CREATED the federal government, not the reverse, hence the name “United States of America”. Also note that the nation is often referred to, and has been since the earliest days of the republic as “these United States”. Plural. The idea is that the Founding Fathers understood that the states were and are very, very different from one another culturally, economically and politically, and brought about a weak, limited federal government to reflect that and limit its ability to arrogate power and authority to itself. This left the states to handle their own internal affairs, for the most part. The federal government really has a very limited purview, as one may note by reading our federal Constitution.

It’s also worth remembering that it is easier to petition your local or state government than it is the federal government. This has always been the case throughout human history; the bigger the government and/or political unit, the harder it is to influence, and the more power it aggregates as a by-product. It’s really easy to sit upon the libertarian ivory tower and say “…advocates of liberty should abandon the “states’ rights” movement—which is, at best, a potential cork in the hull of a sinking ship—and instead direct their efforts toward a long-term, lasting cultural and philosophical shift in favor of individualism and rights-respecting government.” Okay, but in a pragmatic sense, what sorts of governmental arrangements are most conducive to that? And perhaps more importantly, how do we relate the philosophy of liberty to the vast, vast majority of citizens who are unfamiliar with it, using institutions and ideas they ARE familiar with? I know! How about we have a conversation about bringing government as close to the people as we can… and that old saw “That government governs best which governs least?” Some old chap with a powdered wig said that… Jefferson, I believe, was his name. Smart guy.

In a practical sense, the closer a government is to its people, the easier it is to influence, cajole, petition, or threaten. I can pick up the phone or send an email and actually reach the Arlington County Board, or even my state Delegate or Senator personally. Ever tried that with your U.S. Representative, to say nothing of U.S. Senators, or the denizens of the numerous unconstitutional federal departments and agencies we’re buried under? Right, that’s what I thought. States are merely smaller political units, and the author is correct in saying that they have no intrinsic rights as such. However, one look at the Constitution will tell you that they possess quite some number of enumerated rights. If you’re going to try and stand for liberty and against the massive federal leviathan state which is the REAL enemy of every libertarian, paleoconservative, objectivist and every other flavor of liberty activist, the states are the proper vessels for your ambitions. Let’s just agree that we want the local government to do only what we CANNOT do for ourselves, the state to do only what the local governments cannot, and leave the federal government to deliver the mail, provide for the common defense, handle foreign policy, resolve disputes between states, and sit down and shut up otherwise.

RIP, Major Bob Marchanti

If you crawled out from under your rock for at least a few minutes this past week, you probably heard that Frothing Fundamentalist Fruitcakes™ of the Perpetually Outraged Muslim persuasion have been rioting in Afghanistan after the US disposed of some books…

Yes, they were books. They were Islamic holy books which were defaced by insurgent pig humpers – books they used to send messages to one another – but they were books nonetheless.

And because of this… incident… rotting, ignorant, murderous sacks of swine excrement killed two innocent men. US Soldiers who volunteered to leave their loved ones in America and help that pestilential pit of opium and disease out of the Stone Age.

One of those Soldiers was Major Bob Marchanti. We deployed to Kosovo with more than 1000 others in 2007 as part of KFOR-8. Bob and I didn’t “hang out.” We weren’t buddies. We had a professional relationship. I knew him. He was a good man, an excellent leader and an exemplary Soldier.

But the fact that we weren’t close doesn’t make the loss any less real or painful. We hurt for all the Soldiers and their families who are hurt or killed in Afghanistan. We shake our heads as huge, opulent funerals are staged for celebrity crackheads, and we remember those with whom we spent months and years – those who perished without fanfare or flowery words from celebrity commentators. There is no 24-hour news cycle detailing the deaths of our fellow service members.  Perhaps because there are so many of them, that society has become too accustomed to them… too complacent.  We mourn our fellow service members and we remember their dedication, their love for their country, their skills, their leadership and their guidance. We know who we are. We have served with them, lived in the same barracks and tents with them, and worked with them.

There’s nothing much left to say about the fetid, loathsome pieces of dirt who go on killing rampages such as this. Misha was eloquent as usual in his mock “apology” to Hamid Karzai, even as our own President issued apologies about the accidental burning of the Korans.

His Imperial Majesty is sorry too. He’s sorry that we wasted untold billions of taxpayer funds and, what’s infinitely worse, American lives trying to bring your fucking miserable hell hole of a backwards heap of barbarian shit into, at the very least, the 12th century. His Imperial Majesty is sorry because a few ICBMs would have achieved more than that at a fraction of the cost and we would never, EVER have had to waste a moment of time on the sensibilities of your newly created field of glowing glass. We’re sorry that you’re still sucking air, and we’re enormously sorry that we, somehow, gave you the impression that we give a flying fuck at a rolling donut whether you live or die.

You have already seen the potent “apology” of Kira Davis.

And many of you might want to check out the advice of Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere about what a REAL President would have written to Hamid Karzai.

I know you don’t really understand this, but trust us, it beats the hell out of being a splodeydope for 72 raisins. However, if you can’t get your rock-worshipping savages under control, the gloves WILL come off, because there is a new sheriff in town here, and we don’t really give two shits about “world opinion” until the world starts policing their own shit.

I will add my own words of love and adoration to Hamid Karzai.

Listen, you festering yambag. We know you’re a morally corrupt, ungrateful bag of rancid effluvia, who sleeps ass-deep in Iranian cash, and who condemns the West at every turn, even though without us you’d still be humping your goat for entertainment and drinking sheep piss to stay alive. We understand that you don’t give a flying rat’s fuck about the people of Afghanistan, their plight or the fact that we’re there to help and train them.

But enough is enough!

What do you suppose would happen if we began rioting and killing off your people every time you burned the American flag? What do you think would happen to you and your swine-fellating brethren if Americans went on murdering rampages every time we saw images such as this?

Or these?

Or this?

Or even this?

Because I guarantee you that we, Americans, feel just as strongly about our flag as you do about your book. I guarantee you we understand what it stands for, and we love it just as much as you love that holy text of yours. Even more so, because we understand the meaning of it. We understand what it symbolizes. We appreciate the freedoms for which it stands. Meanwhile, you and your cattle sodomizers can’t even READ that book, since the vast majority of you cockslurpers are illiterate, and the only thing you know about that book is what your pedophile imams tell you is in it!

So trust me when I tell you that if we ever started rioting and killing you bastards every time you burned an American flag, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of you left.

You killed a good man the other day. You left his family fatherless and husbandless, and you left his friends and fellow Soldiers wondering why, after the roads we built, the kids we befriended, the infrastructure we erected, the troops we trained and the rights-destroying Taliban we booted out, you would kill innocent men because someone burned a book that you cannot even read!

Rest in peace, Maj. Marchanti. They can’t harm you any longer.

My new future wife

It’s Friday, and I don’t feel like blogging much, but I feel I need to share this.

I have found my future wife. I’m totally in love with this chick. Her name is Kira Davis She is awesome in every way. So instead of blogging why I love her, I encourage you to listen to her.

Oh… and if she’s already spoken for, I nominate her for President. I don’t care which party.

Allowing idiots to be idiots

The Virginia General Assembly passed a bill that will allow private adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples based on moral and religious grounds.

Supporters of the “conscience clause” measure said it protects the religious rights of private agencies, many of them faith-based, that contract with the state to provide adoption and foster care services. The legislation is based on regulations adopted by the Virginia Board of Social Services in December. Converting those regulations into law would ensure that a future administration could not change them without legislative approval.

The legislature’s Democratic minority vehemently opposed the legislation, saying the intent is clearly to make it tougher for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Virginians to form families.

That is exactly what the bill is intended to do. There’s no denying that. It makes it legal for private agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples based on their religious and moral beliefs, and frankly as ridiculous as I find said beliefs vis-a-vis stable, loving, gay couples adopting children, I do agree that compelling these organizations to go against said beliefs by government force is wrong. If a private agency honestly believes that disqualifying a stable gay couple from placement through their agency, (especially since these couples are apparently more likely to take in an older disabled child, who is ostensibly more difficult to place) is morally correct, so be it. It’s private. As long as my tax dollars don’t go to support stupidity, private organizations can be as stupid as they want to be.

If said prejudice results in a child being placed in a substandard “straight” home over a more appropriate, more stable “same-sex” home, the government should stop dealing with said agency and shouldn’t allow the adoption until the best home can be found. Period. The welfare of the child should be first and foremost. But let ignorants be ignorant. Let them act based on their beliefs and prejudices.  Just don’t let them avoid the logical consequences should their actions prevent the best outcome for the child involved.

As far as I know, the legislation still prohibits government discrimination against gay couples, and any court, as a government agency, would be prohibited from preventing a gay couple from adopting a child based on this standard.

So let them act on their prejudices. It will be their loss in the long run.

Oh, how they change!

It amuses (and pisses me off at the same time) me to see how pathetic politicians change their essence for political expediency.

Rick the Frothy Mixture™ Santorum in 1990: I don’t want to return to Reagan-Bush.

Rick the Hypocritical Dildo™ Santorum in 2012 (trying to compare himself to Ronald Reagan):   Ronald Reagan told the truth. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He went out and called it the way it was. He went out and promoted the values of our country.