Posted on 01/22/2013 9:44:25 AM PST by Kaslin
Leave it to Barack Obama to come into his inaugural weekend with a bang, and not just on guns. He’s made it clear that he intends more spending, more regulation, more radical appointees and less national defense in his second term.
Since he just fired a load of executive orders on gun control like shotgun pellets at a duck hunt, I think it’s time to ask a few questions about this part of his agenda. The first one’s for the president.
Why did you have children prominently displayed at your press conference? Were you implying that anyone who opposes your policies wants to see children shot? I think you were.
Second, did you really justify your assault on the Second Amendment partly by equating safe shopping with the “right of assembly?” Finally, in citing the “right to life,” did you see any irony in being the most pro-abortion president in history? You support even partial-birth abortion, and when you were a state senator, you killed legislation that would have required doctors to treat children who survive abortions.
Now here’s a more general question: What exactly are executive orders?
You won’t find them in the Constitution. They’re derived from Article II, which confers executive power on the president to “take care that all laws be faithfully executed.” Executive orders are work orders from the president to employees of federal agencies. They do not apply to state or local governments. They direct the implementation of statutes that Congress enacts and which are signed by the president into law. If they go beyond this, they are unconstitutional.
A look at some of the 23 gun control executive orders that Barack Obama issued on January 16 leaves one wondering whether the president, as Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry would say, is “a man who knows his limitations.” If a Republican president issued 23 executive orders on a single subject, the media would pronounce him “obsessed.”
One of the orders calls for “incentives for states to share information with the background check system.” Funny, Mr. Obama doesn’t seem to want to apply this principle to voter registration in order to curtail vote fraud.
Mr. Obama also wants “federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.” Since most criminal enforcement occurs at the local and state levels, this would seem to give the feds carte blanche to insert themselves into every crime scene that involves a recovered firearm. Maybe they already do that. I hope not.
Two more executive orders are for the feds to “provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers,” and to “develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.” Those poor local school officials, clergy and college deans must never have thought of re-tooling, say, fire drills, for other emergencies, even after Columbine, Virginia Tech, and now, Sandy Hook Elementary.
One of the scarier orders directs “the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.” It wasn’t long ago that Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security issued a report tagging pro-lifers, war veterans and opponents of illegal immigration as potential terrorists.
Then there’s the “doc snitch.” Federal officials are to clarify that the Obamacare law doesn’t prohibit doctors from asking about guns in patients’ homes. We have to wonder what the physicians are supposed to do with that information— it’s a short step to requiring them to ask.
We need to keep in mind that gun ownership is not merely a Second Amendment issue. “Guns are property,” says Constitutional attorney Leah Farish. “Infringement of Second Amendment rights should also be subjected to due process scrutiny under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. I do not think that executive orders amount to sufficient due process in this context.”
Attorney General Edwin Meese III said last week that impeachment could be a proper remedy if President Obama uses an executive order “to try to override the Second Amendment …. Now there are some things he can probably do in regard to the actions of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or some other governmental agency in its operations…,” Mr. Meese told Newsmax. “But to impose burdens or regulations that affect society generally, he would have to have Congressional authorization.”
That’s why Mr. Obama is urging Congress to enact a flurry of gun restrictions, from banning so-called “assault weapons,” prohibiting people from buying guns from private sellers without undergoing background checks, outlawing high-capacity magazine clips and a few other things that the anti-gun lobby wants.
All of this adds up to a mega-increase in federal law enforcement power and will require billions of dollars and thousands of new bureaucrats. Will it make us safer? Don’t bet on it.
The strategy is not that hard to discern: Shoot the Second Amendment to pieces with high-velocity magazines full of executive orders and questionable legislation. And while you’re at it, use some kids as political human shields in order to demonize your opponents.
I am not responsible for that bit of the most utterly stupid political event since the Republicans ran Wendell Willkie (who really was a registered Democrat).
When the party big dogs put in a guy who can't win, it's all their fault.
Why doesn’t Obomber just gut the bill of rights in its entirety?That way we can be really assured of being safe.
Better yet I’ll take that back because he would probably do it and get away with it knowing the republicans.
He got caught by the Carter kid saying he was trying to get the votes of the undecided 10% in the middle ~ the moderates.
What a complete idiot.
The Roman historians tell a story about the German hero Arminius, a.k.a. Hermann der Hrusker (the Cheruscan -- the Cherusci were a powerful German tribe in Bavaria 2000 years ago) -- and how he died.
The kings of the German tribes were like the minor khans of central Asia: neighborhood wise men whom people consulted for their knowledge and judgment, and in addition led the German tribes in war. But it was the custom among the Cherusci that kings, like khans, were not absolute rulers but rulers-by-influence, and they never commanded kinsmen but asked them if they would do a thing.
One night in 9 AD after his great victory over the Romans in the Teutoberger Wald, where Arminius's Germans destroyed three full Roman legions and their auxiliaries under Quinctilius Varus in a days-long running battle, Arminius decided that the time had come to assert kingly power over his fellow-tribesmen, and so he picked his moment and directed a command, in the imperative mood, to a cousin. The man froze, as did everyone else, as they realized what was happening, and then the insulted kinsman picked up a spear and drove it right through Arminius, killing him instantly where he sat. Then, untouched, he walked out of the assembly. Nobody laid a finger on him or recriminated, because every man-jack knew he had just defended his, and everyone's, rights and the people's dignity as citizens of the tribe, not subjects of Arminius.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Social
Religious
Fiscal
Political (I Think you mean Neocons)
Military
Economic
That's part of the list. Bit we also have:
Hereditary Republicans
Anti slavery Republicans
Traditionalists
and others.
The American Traditionalists are probably the largest group, and they're pretty stable. There's some give and take in the other groups as ethnic groups and geographic regions slide their coalition groups in and out of the major parties.
These elections are not about attracting Democrats to vote for our guys ~ they are primarily about getting Republicans and Conservatives to vote for a Republican, and to convince Democrats to stay home, or better, vote for our guy on specific issues.
Wholesale conversions don't take place in the campaigns ~ that happens long before!
The primaries should give us a pretty good idea of how motivated the regular party voters are to vote for any given candidate, or a category of candidate (e.g. a Conservative vs. a GOP-e type).
At no time in the early primaries did Romney demonstrate that the party's regular voters preferred a GOP-e candidate over a Conservative candidate ~ far from it in fact. He couldn't even win Republican voters to his banner.
Great post.
The RiNO's will never produce an "exciting" candidate. They are hidebound about weeding out anyone with a personality, anyone with spirit and drive, anyone with courage. The RiNO/GOP-e crowd always offers the public noncontroversial, bland, boring, go-along/get-along candidates who won't rock the boat.
McCain's miserable performance of 2008 was still over a million votes better than Romney's.
Romney couldn't catch Obama, even after Obama spotted him 7,000,000 votes. Obama was vulnerable, after everyone saw what a left-wing dweeb he was, and the GOP couldn't catch him even with those huge advantages.
That's just pathetic.
>>Why don’t you also blame the GOPe for running a centrist republican that couldn’t even win his home state?<<
b/c that is not the point of the discussion (A discussion we DAMN WELL better be having now for 2016!!!)
The point is once the candidate is chosen (no matter how bad), the perfect is the enemy of the good. We had Romney shoved down our throats.
In the end, it was WE that chose him. Machinations aside, only little children are influenced by ads and posters. The children won.
Once that bitter pill was created we HAD to swallow it. If we are all saying NEVER AGAIN SUCH A BITTER PILL, great: I am on board (you would think we would have learned from McCain).
But all of life is choosing the least of evils. Rarely do we get to choose from the best goods.
Time for us to grow up.
The Affordable Patient Care Act states they are not allowed to do anything with it. They are free to ask. We are free to lie or refuse to answer.
The language in the Obamacare law says that doctors and insurance companies cannot use said info to deny care or raise rates nor can they create any database populated by said info. Nothing more.
Romney simply wasn’t marketable ~ he knew it, his eldest son knew it, I knew it. The party didn’t need any more information than that.
Oh, and leaving this clown in office another four years isn't too high a stake?
If the GOP was too cowardly to question voter fraud, because of a perceived outcome, they all must go.
That’s a Civil War II scenario.
Gun Confiscation will just have anyone in a position of authority shot on sight. No small town mayor would be safe.
In my opinion, that’s what enough gun owners will just go out and do.
Exactly correct. I know that will be the instinct among the small-town folk where I grew up. Local lawyers and judges would be in danger too.
High profile folks would have to quickly and publicly announce which side they were on or flee to the nearest urban area.
Oh, and leaving this clown in office another four years isn’t too high a stake?
>>If the GOP was too cowardly to question voter fraud, because of a perceived outcome, they all must go.<<
I gave up on them when they controlled both sides and the presidency and showed who they really are. My personal belief is that both the US and all of western civilization are on a downward death spiral that will end only when we hit bottom.
And yes, I believe the results will be of biblical proportions.
My faith is not in a political party or the voters. It is in Christ Jesus and God’s word.
There might be other bulls eyes in other places as well
My point is that a candidate has to earn each and every vote.
Romney did not earn enough votes.
A candidate earns votes through his appeal - intangible, physical, words, and deeds.
Romney did not have what it took. We got Romney as a candidate *because* the GOPe thought “anyone but Obama” would be good enough. -AND-
It would be too risky to have a candidate that wasn’t GOPe (Palin). Why? Because the GOPe and the democrat party are the two wings of the political ruling class.
The political ruling class will not easily give up its grip on the halls of power in the USA.
We have a fight ahead of us...
Bttt.
It doesn’t matter what the communist dictator wants to do - he ain’t getting the peoples’ guns without a bloody fight. Lots and lots of people will die and you can take that to the bank.
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