Sheboygan County DA interview highlights

Let me explain this to him. The 2nd amendment is not about fun or hunting or even personal protection. The 2nd amendment is to dissuade the state from becoming tyrannical.
""As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." (Tench Coxe in ‘Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym ‘A Pennsylvanian' in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1) ""The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." (Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.)"
The Constitution does not grant rights. It recognizes them. It restrains the legislature from restricting our God given, self evident, unalienable rights. It is also about the duty of the people to maintain the republic. Law enforcement is not supposed to be better armed than the citizenry. They are a part of the community. They are to work in partnership with the community. They should be able to call upon the citizens of the community for assistance should THEY need it It is to the benefit of all to train all citizens in the handling of firearms and in their duties as citizens. (Yes, BLM, I'm talking to you. You complain that the people in your communities are treated like thugs. Are YOU, as individuals, acting like thugs and criminals? When your neighbor commits a crime, do you report them? Do you stand as a witness? Do you do those things that are necessary to let your neighbors know that you are a law abiding citizen and you expect the same courtesy from them? Or do you just shake your heads and ignore it until the crime is against you or yours and then wonder why no one else will help you and why the police don't do "something" to make your neighborhood better? ) What scares me is that this man thinks the legislature may remove or restrict - beyond their natural limitations - any God given, self evident, unalienable right. And he is the DA. Now that's scary. It is scary because it indicates that he (along with most of those currently in government) wish to think of citizens as the children of the government, to be protected from the realities of life. When the reality of the American form of government is that We The People are to be self reliant, personally responsible adults who are also to be in charge of the government. That we are to limit the government to the absolute minimum of control over our lives that is compatible with a stable society and which provides for the greatest amount of personal liberty within that stable society boundary. And, truthfully, we have done a poor job in that regard. Today's citizenry turns to government to solve their problems with distressing ease. And that is how governments become tyrannical. It is one thing to request enforcement of the law by the government - that is one of the responsibilities of government after all. It is quite another to expect the government to see to your daily needs, to provide you with housing or food or education. (Although, I do approve of government provided education so long as the curricula and all other aspects of it are controlled on the local level. Parents, community and employers are the best judges of what a child needs to learn.) As Christ said : "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all".When done in the correct spirit, this is a good thing. When done as a way to steal power and expertise and volition from those who are served, it is evil. And that is what government does when it limits our liberty (liberty- not license) while purporting to keep us safe. It makes of us children who cannot be trusted with responsibility for their own provision or defense. And by allowing it, we cede our liberty and lose our safety.

The world is not a safe place. We have enemies at the borders and in the halls of government. Now is not the time for the citizenry to remain complacent in the notion that the government will "take care of us". In point of fact it has NEVER been the job of government to take care of us. It is, was and always has been the job of the individual to take care of themselves and whomever they should claim as their own. It is time now to grow up, re-learn the skills of self sufficiency and .like adults, take measures to protect our own. And it is time for government to remember that they are an unruly child and not the parent.




"33 And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?

34 But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.

35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all." Mark 9:33-35

73,000 Blogs Gone

Andrea Shea King posted about the seizure of an internet server on her blog earlier this week.
It seemed that the free hosting site Blogtery has had their server seized by the authorities. There is a link at their site to a thread discussing, among other things, whether or not the authorities are acting within the law. The consensus on the thread seems to be that they are.

The e-mailed responses to queries of Blogtery's owner, which he/she has posted on the thread are as follows:

"Due to the history of abuse and on going abuse on this 'bn.***********' server.We have opted to terminate this server, effective immediately. This termination applies to: bn.affiliateplex.comAbuse DepartmentBurstNET Technologies, Inc "

"Hello, again.Thank you for providing your pin. It has been verified.Bn.xx*********** was terminated by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server.We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.The following section of our Service Agreement Contract (https://www.burst.net/policy/contract.pdf) addresses this type of issue:.......... "

"I'm sorry for the delay. I have been awaiting a response regarding this issue from one of my colleagues.Please note that this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.The pre-payment for invoice #1289289 (bn.xxxxx***********. (07/11/2010 - 08/10/2010)) has been credited back to your account."
Further Burstnet appears to have commented on the thread saying this:
"We notified him when we terminated it, and we refunded him his money to his account, becasue he has other servers with us. If he wants the refund to his card, we can easily do that. However, it should be the least of his concern.Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.As far as his request to speak with the law enforcement officials, he sent it last night at 7PM, after Customer service was closed. We are looking into his request with the necessary persons.This is the last post we will make on this subject."

On the surface, this seems pretty cut and dried, the site was warned and had their service terminated according to the TOS and at the request of law enforcement. So, what's the problem?

The problem is that Blogtery provided free hosting to some 73,000 blogs. Now, I know law enforcement is tough and criminals are sneaky, but is it really necessary to shut down 73,000 blogs to curtail the criminal activities of ...how many? Surely not all 73,000 bloggers were violating the TOS or piracy laws or whatever else would have caused the authorities to take such an extreme action. Yet, neither they, nor the owner of Blogtery have been able to get their data back. I hope they had backups.

The owner of Blogtery.com professes to be ignorant of any wrongdoing and says that whenever they have received notice of violations, the violators have been removed within 24 hours. Most of the other posters seem to have assumed that the owner of Blogtery has not been cooperative with the owners of Burstnet or the authorities in policing the server.

Maybe that's true. Still, I found myself with more questions than answers.
Upon looking for more information, I found a report here on the matter which was referenced on the Dept. of Homeland Security's "Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report for 21 July 2010"'

According to the report, " “It was revealed that a link to terrorist material, including bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda ‘hit list', " were contained in the offending blog.

Furthermore, it appears, from the report, that it was Burstnet's decision to take down the entire site rather than just the offending blog.
"Upon review, BurstNET determined that the posted material, in addition to potentially inciting dangerous activities, specifically violated the BurstNET acceptable use policy. "This policy strictly prohibits the posting of ‘terrorist propaganda, racist material, or bomb/weapon instructions.’ Due to this violation and the fact that the site had a history of previous abuse, BurstNET elected to immediately disable the system."

I'm still wondering, why take down the entire site? It seems counterproductive to good business to make 72,999 customers upset for the actions of one. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

"Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven." ~Psalm 85:11