Q: When Are Your Children Not Your Children?

A: When a passel of God-damned government bureaucrats decide that they have a greater vested interest in the welfare of your own children than you do.

It *appears* that the "neglect" of which government bureaucrats accuse these parents is the rational decision to forego the battery of so-called vaccinations that the "health professionals" -- remember them? the very people who lied to us in various ways, and are still lying to us to this day, about Covid-1984? -- insist infants be subjected to.

And so, since the *parents* of these children made the decision -- as is their right -- to remove their children from the potential clutches of the damned government bureaucrats, the bureaucrats are accusing the PARENTS OF KIDNAPPING THEIR OWN CHILDREN.

Massachusetts Couple Accused of Kidnapping Their Own Five Children from State Custody

The Absurdity of "Judicial Review"

The point, THE WHOLE POINT, of the US Constitution is to delineate the powers of the federal government and to limit its ability to interfere in our lives. But, of course, since governments are just men, and since all men are sinners, all governments seek continually to increase the monies they extract from their subjects and to increase their ability to interfere in the lives of their subjects. That is, all government is forever and always the enemy of the liberty of the people. Government is necessary, but it it nonetheless an evil; and that must never be forgotten.

This is why the very concept of "the federal courts interpret the Constitution" is absurd; doubly so: It's absurd because to "interpret" the Constitution JUST IS to change its meaning; and it's absurd because the courts are themselves agents of "the government."

The US Constitution is a compact, an agreement, between the States and The People; the US federal government is created by the Constitution and is the CREATURE of the States and of The People. Consider how absurd it would be if a number of persons agreed amongst themselves to create a corporation, and drew up its charter, its rules of operation ... and then the *agents* of that corporation asserted that *they* have the power to "interpret" that charter over and against the principals of the corporation.

This is the text of the linked item:

"The year was 1942, and an Ohio farmer named Roscoe Filburn was growing wheat on his own property and feeding it to his own animals. This wasn’t some big commercial operation—Roscoe was just trying to make a living, keep his farm running, and feed his livestock. But the federal government had other ideas.

See, back then, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 set quotas on how much wheat farmers could grow, all in the name of stabilizing prices during the Great Depression and World War II. Roscoe, though, grew more than his allotted amount—not to sell, mind you, but just for his own use.

The feds caught wind of this and fined him. Roscoe fought back, arguing that what he did on his own land, for his own consumption, wasn’t their business.

The case climbed all the way up to the Supreme Court: Wickard v. Filburn. In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled against him. They said that even though Roscoe’s wheat never left his farm, it still affected interstate commerce. How? Because by growing his own, he wasn’t buying wheat on the market, which impacted supply and demand nationwide.

It was a stretch, but the Court bought it, expanding the Commerce Clause to give the government power over pretty much anything that might touch the economy, even indirectly.

Roscoe paid the fine, and life went on, but that ruling stuck. It’s been a cornerstone for federal overreach ever since—everything from regulating backyard gardens to mandating health insurance.

So when you’re mad about the Supreme Court, just remember: they’ve been finding ways to justify big government for over 80 years. Roscoe’s wheat didn’t stand a chance, and neither do most of us when they set their minds to it."

https://gab.com/americaneducationfm/posts/114206273415144633

The Incoherence of Anti-anti-abortionism

I'm not "pro-life" -- that designation is the sort of "non-judgmental" pap cooked up on Madison Ave to appeal to a certain sort of woman -- I'm anti-murder, and thus I'm anti-abortion.

Earlier today, Jeremy at "The Quartering" uploaded a YouTube video in which he expresses his dismay, and even revulsion, about a recent trend on TikTok of "celebrating" the baby-murders one has commissioned.

Now, Jeremy's problem (as with Megyn Kelly) is wanting to have it both ways: wanting abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare" as the utterly immoral Clintons formulated it. But, this is incoherent, it is self-contradictory.

If an abortion is the murder of a helpless and innocent human being (and it is), then only a demon wants it to be "safe, legal"; and a moral person wants abortion to be not merely "rare" but illegal and prosecuted and punished, just as with any other method of murder.

But, if an abortion is of no more moral consequence than an appendectomy, then "safe, legal, and rare" is still incoherent and self-contradictory. Now, of a truth, all moral persons want appendectomies to be "safe, legal", but ""rare"!? No, a moral person wants appendectomies to be as numerous as they need to be.

I have had an inguinal hernia repaired, as had my father and also a great-nephew; I have had an appendectomy, as has one sister. The other sister has had her gall bladder removed, as had our mother.  Certainly, it would be odd and strange were any of us to be talking about these surgeries for no specific and relevant reason, much less to be boasting about them. But, would it really be "creepy"? Would these surgeries really be something to be ashamed of?  Of course not! They have no moral content of themselves. In contrast, and except for the super-rare case of "saving the life of the mother", abortion *is* immoral, utterly and always; for the *point* of all abortions except that super-rare case is to kill a baby.

The flood of lawlessness and degeneracy which is destroying America has many streams feeding it; two of the most important are: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Abortion Regime.  Either of those alone would have been enough to destroy the nation within just a generation or two -- and remember, both of those were set up within the lifetimes of millions of Americans now living. Do you *really* think that things can go on as they are for another 50 or 60 years?

It is not that "God is Gonna Get Us Because of Drag-Queen Story Hour", rather, Drag Queen Story Hour -- the deliberate grooming of children (*) into sexual perversion -- and much horror beside, IS the judgement of God upon this nation for its rejection of true morality and true law.

(*) You may have noticed that Drag Queen Story Hour is never held at Ye Olde Folkes Home.

The Quartering: "TikTok Abortion Vlogs Are Now A Popular Thing"

Matt Christiansen: "Whistleblower on Teen Gender Transitions, AZ Abortion Ban"

When is a Person Not a Person?

 ... when the Powers That Be do not wish that person to be treated in law as a person.

Quote from linked YT video: =="Abortion (like a Clinton witness' cause of death) is homicide. And *like* homicide, it's a matter for the States to prosecute (ahem, unlike the Clintons)."==

Indeed, abortion *is* homicide, and like other acts of homicide, it is for the States to prosecute.

Yet, there is the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which states that: =="No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."==

Now, imagine that some State were to enact a law to deny some class of persons "the equal protection of the laws". Say, for instance, that New York State, whether by explicit statute or by prosecutorial action in some instances and inaction in other instances, were to deny "straight white males" having "the equal protection of the laws": Say, if a "straight white male" were to kill a black person while in the act of protecting other persons in public from the violent threats of that black person, the killing were to be prosecuted as murder, yet at the same time, some "persons of color" who assisted that "straight white male" in subduing the now-deceased violent black person were not prosecuted at all.

How, one might ask, could such a thing happen, even hypothetically? Why, in practice, it does happen in the very same way that abortion -- murder of pre-born (and sometimes in Current Year post-birth) babies -- is winked at: by denying the personhood of the persons whom powerful political interests wish to exclude from "the equal protection of the laws."

=====
Isn't it odd that when the Democratic Party were explicitly (*) the party of slavery, even they didn't go so far as their intellectual descendants do with respect to the murder of babies? The Democrats of 1860 didn't deny that slaves were persons, they merely denied that slaves were citizens. -- even in the deepest of the Old South, killing a slave could get one prosecuted for murder.

(*) In Current Year, the Democrats are implicitly the party of slavery -- the Democrats *never* gave up on wanting to enslave some persons: all that changes is the who and the whom.

The Rageaholic: Arizona BOOFS Baby Murder - Razör Rants

=====

EDIT (2024/04/14): I much doubt that Tim Pool reads this dusty little blog. Nonetheless, he recently had a segment in which he brings up the conflict I pointed out above between the 14th Amendment and abortion.

IF a pre-born human being is a person (and they are), THEN abortion is murder (and it is), AND thus the US Constitution *requires* the States to prosecute for murder: the abortionist, the abortionist's aides and office workers and financiers and any other persons connected to the abortion-mill, the woman who contracted the murder, and any persons who aided in the procuring of the murder.

BUT, IF a pre-born human being is NOT a person, THEN it is irrational and indeed unconstitutional to prosecute a person who murders a pregnant woman for *two* murders. In fact, IF a pre-born human being is NOT a person, THEN it is irrational and indeed unconstitutional to even prosecute a person who causes a pregnant woman to miscarriage.

TimcastIRL: SCOTUS Must Rule On 14th Amendment For Abortion, Otherwise CIVIL WAR

When is a Constitution "unconstitutional?"

The ongoing left-right political battle in the US is at root a battle between two conflicting and contradictory moral systems, as mediated by a battle between two conflicting and contradictory constitutions: the written US Constitution of 1787, on the one hand, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (*) and its penumbras and emanations, on the other hand.

When the Republicans enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they weren't content simply to overturn the Democrats' various "Jim Crow" violations of the Constitution, which unconstitutionally differentiated citizens by race before the bureaucrats of various of the States and which violated citizens' rights of association by compelling them to differentiate one another by race in private association. Oh, no! The Republicans were too clever by half, imagining that there were going to "pwn" the Democrats, and so they were played by the leftists: they drafted a law which violates citizens' rights of association by compelling them to differentiate one another by race in private association (but in the opposite direction to what the Democrats had been doing theretofore) and laid the groundwork for future legislative acts and court rulings which unconstitutionally differentiate citizens by race, and eventually by "identification", before the bureaucrats of the totalizing administrative state.

"Woke culture" is the natural and inevitable out-working of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent additions to it.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- much of which is actually unconstitutional -- is being used by the leftists as the means to destroy the legitimacy of our Constitution and thus to destroy our Republic.

For example -- In 2008, the citizens of California passed Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to overrule a state-court imposition of "gay marriage" on the citizens of that State. A federal court later ruled that this legally-enacted provision of California's Constitution was "unconstitutional".

One might ask, "On what grounds was this amendment to the California Constitution decreed to be unconstitutional?" Why, on the grounds of the judge's interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mind you, this was years before the US supreme court imposed "gay marriage" on the citizens of the entire nation, in contravention of the written US Constitution.

For example -- You may be aware of a Turkish-born rabid leftist by the name of Cenk Uygur, who claims (or claimed) to be running for the Democratic nomination to the US Presidency.

Now, Cenk Uygur is a naturalized US citizen; which is to say, the US Constitution expressly forbids him to occupy the office of the US Presidency. And what do you think is Mr Uygur's strategy to get around this encumbrance? Why, and of course, it is to try to get a federal judge to rule that the US Constitution itself is "unconstitutional" ... on the grounds that by the Civil Rights Act it is "unfair" for the US Constitution and US law to distinguish between a naturalized citizen and a natural born citizen, wedded to the false assertion that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution erases the distinctions between classes of citizenship.

(*) A deep dive examination of these conflicting constitutions will take us from the false constitution's rancid fruiting in Current Year's "Woke culture", to its flowering in Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society", to its growth in Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal", to its cultivation in Woodrow Wilson's and Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Movement, and will ultimately find the seed of the false constitution in Abraham Lincoln's violations of the written Constitution ... in the name of "preserving" that Constitution and the Union therewith established.

Auron MacIntyre: "Civil Rights Law Is a Problem"

Auron MacIntyre: "Why We're No Longer Governed by the Constitution"

Don Surber on Our Would-be Rulers

 "Keeping us confused"

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/keeping-us-confused

The supreme (*) Court and the US Constitution

(*) capitalizaton as per the US Constitution

Consider merely the Abstract of the below linked 2010 article from the Boston College Law Review ---

=="This Article challenges the prevailing doctrinal, political, and academic view that the Exceptions Clause—which provides that “the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make”—gives Congress a license to strip the Supreme [sic] Court of jurisdiction. ..."==

That is, what I have repeatedly said concerning what the US Constitution *actually* says about the true authority of the federal courts system is *already* "the prevailing doctrinal, political, and academic view [regarding] the Exceptions Clause"; to wit: "that the Exceptions Clause ... gives Congress a license to strip the Supreme [sic] Court of jurisdiction."

That the article argues *against* this "prevailing doctrinal, political, and academic view [regarding] the Exceptions Clause" does not mean that the article's position is correct or incorrect -- but it does establish that what I have long said, based on nothing more than *reading* the US Constitution, is not just me saying it. What I have said is this: that *all* federal courts, including that of the superior court of the federal courts system, are creatures of the Congress; that except for specifically enumerated cases, the jurisdiction of the federal courts extends only so far as the Congress says it extends.

What you and I were taught in high school civics class about the Constitution establishing "three co-equal branches of government" is false. It is, in fact, a lie promulgated by the "progressives" and judicial supremacists (i.e. lawyers who bend The Law to serve the interests of lawyers).

https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol51/iss5/2/

Jury Duty in the Time of Covid-1984

I have jury duty for the next couple of weeks.  Yesterday, I had to go to the courthouse for jury selection -- and, of course, because all the bureaucrats are still playing the absurd Covid-1984 Game, we potential jurors were "asked" (*) to wear face-diapers and practice "social distancing", and their procedure for processing us  has been stood on its head to play the game of "social distancing".

So, as instructed, 40+ of us (plus at least 10 waiting to go before the other judge for "re-entry") were there in the hallway-as-lobby outside the two courtrooms at 9:00 AM.  You know, practicing "social distancing" ... by sitting and standing next to one another.

I brought a face-diaper, but I did't put it on ... and no one at all gave a damn for an hour, until the bailiff came out to register us.  That's right, we (the jurors, *and* the defendant and some of his relatives, and the "re-entry" people) practiced "social distancing" in that hallway for an hour or more, before anything public happened.

Eventually, a lady sitting across from me, there for moral support for the defendant, noticed the writing on the face-diaper I was holding, and asked what it said.  I told her, "These face-diapers are not helping, Karen" and everyone within earshot laughed.  So, I was cheered by that.  What I mean is, when I go to the grocery store, I see no faces, just face-diapers, and it's easy to begin to believe that the majority of people actually believe this cargo-cult bull-shit that that a piece of cloth hiding your face -- hiding your humanity -- can stop viruses.  Turns out, most people are just trying to avoid being harassed by the Karens.

Eventually, the bailiff came out to register us, and she was a Karen -- she even sported the "I want to speak to the manager" hair-do (**) popular with Karens.  Eventually, Karen said to me, "We need (***) you to wear your mask". So, I put the face-diaper on ... and *pointedly* did not cover my nose ... and that was OK ... because the point of face-diapers is not about anyone's health, but rather about the bureaucrats forcing us mere tax-cattle to understand that they rule us.

Eventually, Karen seated us in the courtroom, entering the room one at a time to assigned seats spread over the room.  You know, to maintain the "social distancing" delusion.  I think it was 11:00 when the judge finally entered, and spent the next hour telling us how important-to-justice our role is ... but mostly, listening to himself talk.  Judges *are* just lawyers, after all.  And lawyers don't really give a damn about *justice*.

So, naturally, with all that talking, the judge eventually needed to take a drink.  And so, of course -- because the demand that we hide our faces has nothing to do with anyone's health -- he removed his face-diaper several times and did drink.  Meanwhile, the (armed) sheriff's deputy, who was sitting directly across the room from me (I was one of the last potential jurors assigned a seat, and I was in the jury-box), sometimes had his nose out of his face-diaper, and sometimes removed it entirely to drink from his thermos-cup.  Surely, you have guessed by now that Karen also removed her face-diaper more than once to take a drink.

Well, noon rolled around and the judge had finally heard his voice for a satisfactory amount of time, and was going to have the prosecution (there were three of them, but the second-in-rank did their part of these proceedings) begin their part of the 'voir dire' stage of the trial. However, she (the prosecutor) convinced him to call a lunch break.

Since I had walked to the courthouse, I wasn't about to go back outside.  So, other than a few minutes to go to the concessions room on the floor below, I sat in the hall/lobby -- face uncovered -- with several others, some also with human faces.  During this hour, I saw *many* employees of the "justice system" walking around without face-diapers: some were putting one on *as* they exited various offices, some (who looked to be mainly cops of various sorts) didn't appear to even have a face-diaper on their person.  I was sitting near the door to the family court lobby; on the door was one sign saying the only one person at a time could be in that lobby (never mind conditions just outside the door), and another sign saying that anyone who entered the room without a face-diaper faced a charge (i.e. an automatic *conviction*) of "contempt of court", with a $250 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Toward the end of the day, they send us out again while the prosecution and defense agreed upon which of us would be empaneled as the jury: again, I saw several "justice system" employees clearly violating the absurd face-diaper protocols and "rules" that they impose on us mere tax-payers.

EDIT: I had meant to mention that as the defence lawyer, a *very old man*, was speaking and asking various potential jurors questions, his face-diaper slipped from his mouth, and he, as a *sensible* old man, ignored that and continued to speak.  Eventually, Karen (who was seated behind him and to the side) noticed that the lawyer's face was uncovered, and so she came out on the floor and interuppted him to "remind" him to hide his face again.

(*) I *loathe* the use of "ask" to mean "demand"; but that is (of course) how they phrased it.

(**) One of the funny things about this 'do' is how silly it looks from the back, especially when it is done the way this woman's was: with the hair less than 6 inches long and relying on product to give it poof and body, but resulting in an amusing void at the crown of her head.  Do these women never *look* at their soul-sisters sporting that same look?

(***) And I really loathe the passive-aggressive "I need you to ..." construction.

And *why* would 'the Russians' protest?

Donald Sensing: Ukraine: Nazism equals Communism

Radio Free Europe reports what is basically a "Duh!" headline: "Ukraine's Constitutional Court Upholds Law Equating Communism To Nazism."

Ukraine's Constitutional Court has upheld a law that equates communism to Nazism and bans the dissemination of its symbols, a law that has prompted angry protests from Moscow.

In the July 16 ruling published on its website, the court said the "communist and Nazi regimes" used similar methods of "implementing repressive state policies."

"The communist regime, like the Nazi regime, inflicted irreparable damages to human rights because during its existence, it had total control over society and politically motivated persecutions and repressions, violated its international obligations, and its own constitutions and laws," it said.

The Russians have, of course, protested.

That Nazism and Communism were inherently contradictory is an invented, deliberate lie ...

And *why* would 'the Russians' protest?

Because the people who rule the Russian people are still leftists and statists ... and communists.

I finally "offended" the snowflake leftists on FaceBook

A FB friend linked to this article from not-so Great Britain: [Moslem] Parents suffocated girl, 17, with plastic bag for ‘wearing short-sleeved top’

I commented -- "Welll .... I'm kind of torn. On the one hand, Muzzies murder women for the most absurd/petty things. On the other hand, most Western women dress like tramps because they *are* tramps; and they are tramps because most Western men have been brow-beat into believing that they have no right to expect/demand that women in their lives not be tramps."

And that was just too much for the delicate sensibilities of some damned snowflake leftist.

I *told* you is was coming soon to a city near you

Jihad Watch: New York City: Muslim Community Patrol now patrolling Muslim neighborhoods which references this -- New York Post: New York Muslims have a new security patrol group

The Same Coin ... and Change!

Men insisting that they are women -- and using the power of the state to compel the rest of us to pretend as much -- is just the other side of the coin of feminism, which teaches women to insist that they are men -- and to use the power of the state to compel the rest of us to pretend as much.

This

and this

is just the other side of this

==================
Edit 2018/12/30:
Rather than directly link to two recent videos of SJWs in action, I direct Gentle Reader to Shadow to Light: Social Justice Temper Tantrums

Society .... and Theocracy!

This post is commentary on this Twitter 'rant', the full text of which can be found here

"In other words, gender is a philosophical/religious concept like the idea of the soul and, perhaps more to the point, soul mates. Can you prove that people have a soul?"

Perhaps he misunderstands what 'to prove' means.

But, yes: depending on what we mean by the term 'soul', I can indeed prove that "people have a soul".

As for "soul mates" ... pffft: that idea is frass for shallow women (and womanly men).

"Not scientifically."

Ah, yes. He has no idea what 'to prove' means.

"If Twitter forces me to do the same, they are engaging in anti-religious bullying--harassing those who reject the new, hip orthodoxy. And if the state hops in, well, that's just flat out theocratic tyranny."

All societies, and all states, are theocracies. The question is not whether, but which --

The question is not "Shall we organize-and-dedicate our society around some religion, aimed (however imperfectly) at some god, and enforce that dedication at some degree or other?" Rather, the question is "Around *which* religion, aimed (however imperfectly) at *which* god, shall we organize-and-dedicate our society; and to what degree shall we enforce that dedication?"

"We normally recognize that organizing society around unprovable philosophical/religious concepts is a recipe for disaster"

All societies, and all states, are "organiz[ed ...] around [allegedly] unprovable philosophical/religious concepts". They are called "unprovable" because many influential people, and perhaps most people, don't want to know the truth about reality.

"But the Selma-envy-riddled youngsters want to play both sides in their civil rights movement LARPing. They want to be the heroes on the right side of history. And they also want to be the guys controlling the firehoses."

That's a good way of putting it.

"All of this is a gentle reminder that:

1. Leftists only value free speech as a tool, not as a concept. Once they've used the free speech tool to assume positions of power, they will burn it lest anyone else use it to take that position away from them."

Until people learn this to their bones, the leftists will always be able to hoodwink them -- with their own cooperation.

"2. When people imagine Christianity to be foolish and cruel, the religions they invent to replace it are a thousand times stupider and more oppressive."

That's because ALL societies, and ALL states are theocracies.

Christianity is a set of sects aimed (however imperfectly) at the One God, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Sovereign Judge of Mankind. Thus, there are limits to the injustices, and simple social mistakes, that a Christianized society or state can make.

Once a society or state has become Christianized, the organizing religious impulse of that society or state can be replaced only by an explicitly anti-Christian religion. And an anti-Christian religion has *no* limit to the injustice it will impose upon the human beings within its grasp.

Sovereignty ... or Not!

FrontPage Mag: THE MIGRANT CARAVAN INVASION

In typical leftist fashion, the leftists and Democrats (but I repeat myself) are using these people's *lives* as fodder for their political agendas of:
1) destroying the Trump Administration in the short-term; and,
2) destroying the USA in the longer-term. As they imagine it, they win no matter what happens.

There are really only two possible responses to this invasion, with three possible outcomes, the first two of which are "wins" for the leftists; the leftists and Democrats have convinced themselves that the third possible outcome cannot happen --

1) The Administration huffs and puffs, and the "migrants" call their bluff, and because it was nothing but huffing and puffing, the Administration does nothing to protect and enforce the sovereignty of the USA; the "migrants" continue their invasion.

The upshot of this is that *as a practical matter* the USA ceases to exist as a sovereign state -- a "win" for the leftists -- and, baring a successful War of Independence 2.0 by the American people themselves, we are swamped by further foreign invasion, until we no longer exist as a people.

2) The Administration is serious about protecting and enforcing the sovereignty of the USA, and so uses lethal force to stop this invasion -- killing as many of the invaders as necessary, irrespective of sex or age; the leftists and Democrats cry crocodile tears over the deaths of people they *intentionally* set up to be killed.

2a) If this is what happens, the Democrats believe that can parley those deaths into mass domestic outrage at the "crime" of killing "defenseless" invaders, and thus bring down the Trump Administration. If they are successful, this also spells the end of the USA, just slower that in scenario 1).

--- The (sub) scenario which the leftists and Democrats believe will not happen is this:

2b) The leftists and Democrats cry their crocodile tears over the deaths of people they *intentionally* set up to be killed ... and, rather than stirring outrage at our own government, the American People reply: "Go to Hell, Commies!" If this (sub) scenario plays out, America may yet survive.

The Senate ... and The Constitution!

O.M.G. ... the US Constitution *forbids* an Amendment to create "proportional representation" in the Senate.

One may recall that the one of the drums the leftists are pounding is about how "unfair" and "undemocratic" it is that North Dakota has equal weight in the Senate with California and New York; and that they seem to imagine that they can "fix" this "problem" by decree. To which many on the right have responded to the effect that, "No, you can't do it by decree ... but you're welcome to try to amend the Constitution to get the result you desire."

Well, it turns out that the US Constitution forbids such an amendment --

ARTICLE V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Again: "The Congress ... [may] propose Amendments to this Constitution, ... Provided ...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"

So, it wouldn't be enough that California and New York might agree to deprive North Dakota of its equal vote in the Senate; North Dakota would have to explicitly agree to deprive itself of this fundamental equality as a Sovereign State of the Union.

h/t Francis W. Porretto at Liberty's Torch

The presence of that clause in Article V, the Amendment Article, excludes the equal representation of the [S]tates in the Senate from the possibility of amendment. This is beyond dispute. The Senate, in other words, was created to guarantee that each [S]tate would have a voice in the Senate equal to any other [S]tate. The electoral system for choosing a president reinforces this oft-neglected aspect of the Constitution: it was intended to protect the small [S]tates from abuses perpetrated by the large ones.

The phrase “checks and balances” should come to mind at this point. My Gentle Readers have no doubt been muttering that phrase for some time already. Lesser intellects might consider suing their civics teachers.

The Framers knew full well what they were doing. The very last passage of the Constitution emphasizes the importance of the [S]tates as elements in the Constitutional design:

ARTICLE VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Constitution was conceived and ratified as a compact among the [S]tates. The [S]tates retained nearly complete internal sovereignty. Their equal representation in the Senate was intended, in part, to preserve that sovereignty, the exclusions in Article I, Section 10 being the sole exceptions. This aspect of the Constitution’s design is sometimes cited as an argument for a [S]tate’s power to nullify federal laws on the grounds of federal overreach.

The federal government has done many unConstitutional and extra-Constitutional things since the Wilson Administration. Some of them have been undeniable encroachments on [S]tate sovereignty. (Where, for example, is Congress given the power to legislate a federal penal code? But that’s a subject for another day.) This latest talk - of amending a part of the Constitution explicitly protected against amendment! - merely indicates how far Americans’ knowledge of the deliberately designed-in features of our Union has slipped.

ps: Repeal the 17th Amendment!

Just like the last 17 times

Sultan Knish: Government Shuts Down, Nation Descends into Riots, Looting and Cannibalism

What these "government shutdowns" that the Democrats periodically cause demonstrate is that the only *need* we Americans have for the federal government is that it do the things the Constitutions requires it to do and for which it was created in the first place. You, know, the very things that the Democrats sabotage at every opportunity.

What it's about

Americans of Southern extraction are the single-most patriotic group in America. This is true whether their ancestors were Confederates, or, like mine, Unionists.

The leftist push to obliterate the Confederate past -- the American past -- is not about "fighting" slavery or "racism" or any of the other things the leftists claim; it is about asserting the leftist conquest of America. It is about marking America as conquered territory. It is about forcing the American people to acknowledge that they are a conquered people.

So far, our leaders and the public faces of conservatism have been quite OK with this, which rather calls into question whether they are *our* leaders and just how "conservative" they really are.

Ultimately, it will come down to this question: Do the American People agree that we are a conquered people?

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The target of these leftists is not the Confederacy, it is the USA.

Rights or Commodities?

Steven Crowder: On Rights vs Commodities (from the 17:36 mark) -- This is a good demonstration and explanation of how leftists intentionally hijack and make meaningless the term 'rights' ... and seek thereby to secure your willful cooperation in the theft and destruction of your own rights.

Posterity!

The breathtakingly intellectually dishonest 'Vox Day' -- who, by his own (ahem) reasoning, is not actually an American; and who thus, again by his own (ahem) reasoning, has no right to express any opinions about what American is or is not; ... and who, moreover, has abandoned America many years ago -- has recently been on a kick trying to assert that the "Posterity" to whom the Preamble (*) of the US Constitution refers can *only* be persons who are the direct, genetic, biological descendants of those persons who were US citizens at the time of adoption of the Constitution. (See here for a recent example.)

Oddly enough, that very document -- which, seemingly, no one ever reads -- makes explicit provision for foreigners to be incorporated into the body of "We the People of the United States". Apparently, the Framers of the Constitution, and the citizens who ratified it, were too ignorant, or too stupid, to understand that "our Posterity" cannot ever include anyone who is not a direct, genetic, biological descendant of themselves.


Being myself a direct, genetic, biological descendant of persons who were US citizens in 1787, and moreover whose white ancestors have been on this continent almost from the beginning of English settlement, I would like to propose that 'Vox Day' dry up and blow away.

(*) "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Coming Soon to a Street Near You

Jihad Watch: German court: Sharia police may patrol streets

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Edit 2017/07/22:

The following links are listed in chronological order --

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis: Muslim cop who shot woman in cold blood had three complaints against him --

We don’t have any indication at this point of why Mohamed Noor killed Justine Damond. There is no evidence now that he is a jihadi or that this was a jihad attack. But with three complaints against him in two years, he seems at very least to be dangerously reckless and/or incompetent. His presence on the force appears to be a manifestation of the general anxiety to avoid charges of “Islamophobia”: Minneapolis officials were so anxious to have a Somali Muslim police officer that they put Mohamed Noor on the force and kept him there when his obvious shortcomings would have had a non-Muslim officer fired or not hired in the first place.

Remember the fact of those three complaints in two years in light of a claim advanced below by the Chief-of-Police of Minneapolis (while also keeping in mind that bogus complaints against police officers are very common).

Also, think about this --

The police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Australian woman in mysterious circumstances after she called 911 to report a disturbance behind her upscale Minneapolis home has been identified.

Mohamed Noor, who joined the department in March 2015, reached over and shot Justine Damond, 40, multiple times from the passenger seat of his squad car while she spoke to his colleague on the drivers side in a back alley.

Both officer’s bodycams were off and the squad car camera not recording when Damond – who was in her pyjamas – was killed ...

Jihad Watch: Washington Post: After Muslim cop shoots unarmed woman, Muslims “brace for backlash”

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis: Muslim cop who shot unarmed woman refuses to be interviewed by investigators

Jihad Watch: Muslim cop tells friends, not investigators, he was “startled” by unarmed woman he killed

Jihad Watch: Neighbor of Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman says killer is “nervous…jumpy…has little respect for women”

Jihad Watch: After Muslim cop kills unarmed woman, Minneapolis mayor reassures Muslims, warns against “Islamophobia”

Jihad Watch: Muslim cop who shot unarmed woman says he was “startled” by loud noise, but no nearby residents heard it

I dare say he *was* "startled" by a loud noise ... his gun ... which, apparently, he already had drawn and pointed.

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis police chief: Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman “very suited to be on the street”

Jihad Watch: Lawyers for Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman call for autopsy to see if victim was on Ambien -- "Like so many Muslims before him, it looks as if Mohamed Noor has opted to defend himself by blaming the victim."