Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

When I saw articles such as this my blood began to boil Biden on the Second Amendment: ‘No amendment is absolute’.  The level of constitutional ignorance demonstrated by Joe Biden when he made this statement is quite staggering.  The fact that he is currently inhabiting the Oval Office and intends to govern by executive order made this statement exceedingly dangerous.

No amendment, no amendment to the Constitution is absolute,” he said. “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theater — recall a freedom of speech. From the very beginning, you couldn’t own any weapon you wanted to own. From the very beginning that the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren’t allowed to have weapons.”

That statement is made up of several complete mistruths and a couple of half truths about the Second Amendment in particular and constitutional amendments in general.  A careful examination of the transcripts from the drafting of the Bill of  Rights in House of Representatives will prove just how wrong he is.. 

This  quote from June 8 of 1789 explains the general purpose of the Bill of Rights.  As you can see the Bill of Rights was specifically drafted to protect the most important rights of the people by denying the federal government the power and authority to regulate them in any way at all.  That prohibition on the federal government was in fact absolute.

But whatever may be the form which the several States have adopted in making declarations in favor of particular rights, the great object in view is to limit and qualify the powers of Government, by excepting out of the grant of power those cases in which the Government ought not to act, or to act only in a particular mode. 

This quote from the drafting of the Bill of Rights in the Congress of the United States which was begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1789 explains that several states demand that the Bill of Rights be added to the US Constitution to protect our most important rights by chaining the hands of the federal government

The conventions of a number of the states having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added; and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;–

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both houses concurring, that the following articles be proposed to the legislatures of the several states, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said legislatures, to be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, namely,–

Articles in Addition to, and Amendment of, the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the Fifth Article of the original Constitution.

This quote from the House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution August 17, 1789 by Elbridge Gerry informs us that the Second Amendment was added specifically so the people could deal with the federal government if it became abusive to the rights of the people of the United States.   A standing Army was believed by the drafters of the Constitution to be very much a threat to the liberty of the people.  Defense of the United States and the individual states was to be maintained by unorganized state militias made up of the people of the states. That can only be achieved if we the people have military weapons.  When the Bill of Rights was written and ratified all weapons held by the people were military weapons.

The House again resolved itself into a committee, Mr. Boudinot in the chair, on the proposed amendments to the constitution. The third clause of the fourth proposition in the report was taken into consideration, being as follows: “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.”

Mr. Gerry.–This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed. Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms.

What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now, it must be evident, that, under this provision, together with their other powers, Congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as to make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins. This was actually done by Great Britain at the commencement of the late revolution. They used every means in their power to prevent the establishment of an effective militia to the eastward.

It has been maintained by many revisionist historians, college professors, and liberal politicians that the militia mentioned in the Second Amendment was a formal military unit, the same as the modern National Guard.  George Mason put the kibosh to that mistruth during the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1787

I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.

Richard Henry Lee echoes this in Federal Farmer 18. The National Guard would be considered by Mr. Lee and the rest of the founding fathers to be a select militia rather than one made up of all of the people.

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. As a farther check, it may be proper to add, that the militia of any state shall not remain in the service of the union, beyond a given period, without the express consent of the state legislature,

The creation of the modern National Guard did not begin until the passing of the Militia Act of 1903.  At that time the National Gard was created as a select militia.  That is completely different from the unorganized militia that existed here well before the formal beginning of the United States.  The modern National Guard is the exact type of select militia that was warned against by Richard Henry Lee and the rest of the founding fathers.

No article or Amendment of the US Constitution prevents the states from regulating or interfering with our rights. Every state does however have a Bill of Rights to protect the rights of the people living in the state,  I believe every state’s Bill of Rights protects the right to bear arms.  Here are the two articles of the Massachusetts Constitution that protect the right to bear arms of the inhabitants of this state.

Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Article XVII.  The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

If no amendment to the Constitution is absolutely then the clause protecting us from double jeopardy can be taken away from us at the whim of the federal government along with trial by jury, and due process.  Slavery could be reinstated if the Thirteenth Amendment is not absolute.  That is extremely scary.

Twitter Imitates Yes Minister on Fraud.

Posted: April 15, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Yesterday I wrote about the new law in NH and quoted the governor’s office’s tweet on the subject:

But the real story was how Twitter treated this tweet from the governor’s office I screen captured it just in case:

No replies are automatically show and Twitter automatically is hiding the replies given.

So what kind of offensive replies are there. Do we haven nudity?, profanity? Racism?

Yup that’s it.

Twitter’s reluctance to allow replies to this and thus risk the spreading of this story bring to mind this exchange from the Yes Minister Christmas special when the Head of the foreign office who is looking to be Prime Minister is asked about financial issues that he’s been made aware of:

Duncan: Where did you get all this?

Minster James Hacker: I’m sorry Duncan but if you’re in the run for PM I’ll should feel obliged to share what I know with senior party members. You see if it should all come out in the open there would would have to be a full inquiry from inland revenue, the fraud squad. Of course none of this need matter if it’s all above board as you say it is. And I’m sure it is if you say so.

Duncan: [pauses looking worried]: There was nothing improper!

Minster James Hacker: Oh good so that means I can feel free to talk about it all, bring it all out in the open.

Duncan: Hold on! Financial matters can be misinterpreted people get hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Minster James Hacker: Naturally.

Duncan: Look Jim I’m not sure that I want number ten. The foreign office is a better job in many ways.

Yes Minister: Party Games 1984

The good folks at twitter, CNN, facebook et/all all insist that the last presidential election is completely above board and that anyone who suggests otherwise is some sort of conspiracy theorist. Yet when the governor of a state won by Democrats in 2016 and 2020 signs a law allowed a full audit of ballots in a single county that show irregularities and said governor’s office tweets it out, they do all they can to retard the ability of people to see replies to said tweet.

If things are all above board wouldn’t all these folks trying to stop or suppress various audits welcome them to demonstrate once and for all how honest the election actual was?

Or as I’ve put it many times before:

I’ll believe that all the talk about Election 2020 being stolen is just a conspiracy theory when the pols, companies and tech giants who keep insisting that any such suggestion is just a conspiracy theory stop acting like members of a conspiracy to keep evidence that the last election was stolen a secret

The more I see of what is happening to Democrat run cities in terms of crime the more I’m convinced that the left has been fighting a culture war against Black Americans…and won.


Of course there are some winners of color in the left culture war against black Americans, such as the Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a self proclaimed “Marxist” who now owns multiple million dollar properties under her corporations name far away from the people she supposedly is serving.

As always Marxist leaders end up in luxury while the people they are supposedly defending end up poor.


In fairness this activist is not alone, folks like Rebekah Jones have learned the ancient lesion that it’s a lot easier to convince people to give you money as pretending to leading a cause rather than actually doing or creating something. It’s all playacting & Illusion which likely explains why Hollywood where people play make believe for a living so loves such folk.

PT Barnum would be proud.


Of course some people are young and naïve enough to think that being an “activist” makes them smart enough to actually run a company that creates things, like David Hogg. He thought he could make pillows and discovered that activism does not translate well into real world practical knowledge about making things. Or to put it another way because Mike Lindell makes it look easy doesn’t mean it is.

I’ve found that to most people the easiest job in the world is one somebody else is doing.


Finally 33 years ago today my new wife and I were in Vancouver Washington (right next to Portland OR) for our honeymoon as Citi-travel messed up our London Trip and DaWife’s aunt who came to the wedding graciously offered the use of her guest house as her son was in Australia for several months along with the use of a car.

The two weeks we spent in the area were wonderful. Her father family were there and we traveled as far north as Victoria Canada, down the Oregon coast, west up the Columbia river and got lost in Seattle while driving.

We seriously considered moving there at the time. Recent events have shown that not doing so is likely remains the single best decision that we ever made as a couple.

The royal standard

Posted: April 13, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Americans are republicans, so it seems perhaps not entirely an American thing, to be pro-monarchy.  But there is something to be said for the British royals, at least as they used to pull it off. True, there is something inherently “unfair” about a system that elevates someone by virtue of the family to which they are born. But is there really so much difference, between a Prince Harry and a Prince Hunter? They both have opportunities presented to them due solely to their names, but at least Prince Harry hasn’t sold out to China.

It’s a natural human inclination to admire or hold up someone in a group as someone somehow superior in certain respects, at least, to others, someone to perhaps model ourselves after. Every high school in America crowns each autumn a Homecoming King and Queen. But homecoming royals notwithstanding, in high school and beyond, pop culture predominates, and tends to hold up celebrities and athletes as these models for ourselves. It’s not entirely clear this is an advancement over royalty.

The very word “royal” is synonymous with the highest possible standards. From getting the royal treatment to booking the royal suite, use the word “royal” as a descriptor and it’s referring to the grandest, the biggest, the highest, the best. There’s a reason the royal straight flush is the highest possible poker hand (unless you’re the type who plays with jokers).

Unfortunately, all too often, the British royals, the world’s most prominent, fail spectacularly to live up to even decent standards, let alone royal standards. From King Edward VIII to Prince Charles to Princess Margaret to Prince Andrew to Prince Harry, the Windsors have steeped themselves in a miasma of sex scandals, mostly. With evidence like Edward VIII’s abdication of the throne in favor of a tarty American divorcée and Prince Andrew’s apparent Jeffrey Epstein-fed taste for underage children, an argument that royals can set standards tends to end with the question, how low?

Which makes Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, stand even taller, even from six feet deep in his newly dug grave, as the great British royal, the one-time Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, has finally, at the age of 99, passed to the next world.

Adventurer, pilot, sailor and yachtsman, consort of the Queen, Prince Philip helped sink Italian cruisers and destroyers as a 19-year-old midshipman during World War II, in a battle in the Mediterranean Sea opposite the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Taenarum, and he was the first British royal to cross the Antarctic Circle, on an expedition aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1956-57.

He was also patron to some 800 organizations, helping to found the World Wildlife Fund, for which he served as UK president for over twenty years.

He carried himself with distinction and class and humor, and truly did set a royal standard. It’s a standard his grandson, Prince William would do well to imitate, if there’s to be any hope for the Windsors.

Otherwise, well, there must be other European royals capable of setting a royal standard. I mean, this is the land of fairy tale castles, right?

Is there a Hapsburg in the house?