If You Don't Get Caught

"There is NO reason for a student to have a knife on campus"
said the head of campus security in response to my question about their policy on pocket knives.

Yes, I was in attendance at a parent orientation event for my son's college. "I beg to differ" was my reply. "Well, why do you think anyone should be able to carry a knife?" she asked as though I were the slow student in a class. In addition to what should have been obvious, that I am a responsible adult who hadn't attacked anyone with my knife at breakfast or even at dinner the previous evening simply because it was handy,( as is almost always the implication when discussing these types of policies) I said that I had been in the habit, when I was younger, of carrying a pocket knife everywhere I went and it had been extremely useful in a number of situations. That, in addition to the blade, my pocketknife had had a variety of screwdriver tips and other useful tools.

Her response was not to acknowledge that a pocketknife was actually a very useful tool, (since scissors are generally awkward to carry) but rather to tell the rest of the parents to send a set of screwdrivers with their child, almost jokingly forcing the assumption that only the other tools I had referenced on my pocketknife had been useful, rather than asserting that the blade itself was a useful tool.

Then she shook her head dolefully while loudly repeating "THERE IS NO REASON FOR A STUDENT TO HAVE A KNIFE ON CAMPUS" as though by saying it slowly, it would become a less ridiculous thing to say. The other parents looked at me in some revulsion, as though I had grown a second head, or maybe that's just my perception since I was so obviously being scolded by the wise head of campus security whose job it is to keep our precious children safe.(From pocketknife wielding maniacs such as myself no doubt.)

While I was being assured that the bread knives they could use for dining purposes were the only knives allowed on campus, (A pointless gesture since sharp edges are available almost anywhere if someone is so motivated.)my son was being assured by the older students who were administering his orientation that "pretty much anything is okay as long as you don't get caught."

My point here is not that the students are bad people, or that the policies are excessively nannyish(or at least not my whole point), but rather that when regulations get to a certain point of intrusiveness, people ignore them and do what they like. There is a balance that must be maintained between personal responsibility and safety. Just as the excessive protectiveness at this institution of higher learning(and nearly all others of which I am aware) has generated an attitude of "just be careful not to get caught while you are breaking the rules" in the students, so does it occur in the general population. The problem is that when a people are forced to abandon the study of and adherence to our laws because they have become overly intrusive or protective and multiplied beyond comprehension, then we are likely to gradually come to a point where we disregard all laws.

If we are not a nation of laws, then we cannot have the highest level of individual freedom that is possible in a stable society. We must either restrain the government from becoming so intrusive, through laws, regulations and ordinances, that common sense will no longer serve to keep an individual safe from the breaking of those laws or prepare for a society where the law is regarded as a tyrant from whom we must hide our activities if we wish to live a reasonably normal life.

Laws serve a purpose. What we need to decide in November, is whether the purpose of laws is to assure a stable society with the greatest amount of individual liberty possible in such a society or to subjugate the people to a tyrannical government that can enforce archaic or little known laws at any time to enforce their will on the people as a whole.

The IRS has become the master tool of behavioral modification for the nation already. Now they will be in charge of regulating our access to health care as well as our ability to keep our money and our property.

Vote on character, not party in November. It may be the last chance we have at freedom. If we are willing to claim it, it will only be the beginning of the struggle to restore our freedom.


" But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. " ~ Gal 3:23-24

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

Or Else What?

In last week's BlogTalkRadio show (Oh Ye Of Little Faith) I spoke about how voting for the lesser of two evils is voting for evil. That the idea that we must vote for a major party candidate is a lie and, until we stop believing that lie, we will continue to vote for evil.

Don't believe it? The TEA Parties, independents, republicans,and libertarians and etc. have all weighed in on how We the People are going to "Take America back!" Really? By doing what? All I hear is that democrats are going to lose their seats in November. So What?

Let's say the democrats do lose. To whom will they be losing? That's right - by and large to republicans who may or may not have decided to behave and vote according to the values they are commonly perceived as having. I say again-so what? What's the threat if republicans don't behave themselves and vote according to those values-as they didn't in the Bush administration?

That's right, we vote the democrats in, in the next election. Beginning to see a problem here? If neither party represents our values as Americans any longer, then voting for the candidates of either party will not address our current challenges. In fact, voting for the candidates put forth by either party will very likely result in more of the same and worse.

Our republic rests on the exercise of self discipline and personal responsibility by the electorate. We need candidates who believe in us, as a people. Candidates who are willing to allow us to take risks and fail without regulating every last detail of our lives until we can no longer move or breathe for the regulations stifling us.

We need candidates who are willing to allow communities to take care of their own. Sure some folks will fall through the cracks. Does anyone think no one is falling through the huge cracks in government charity now? America is the most charitable and giving nation on the face of this Earth. I think we can be trusted to care for our own without government entitlements.

Pressing the easy button of party politics when you go into the voting booth or insisting on term limits(another form of that easy button) will not restore our republic. Not only do we need new people to run, we need the electorate to stop believing the lie that only a major party candidate can win, because by believing it, we give it power. The major parties spend a lot of money to be sure that we will believe it. They also spend a fair amount of time convincing us that one vote doesn't matter - no matter how much money they spend trying to convince us to cast that vote for their "team".

We have been granted the freedom to rule ourselves, but the responsibility that runs concurrently with that freedom is the responsibility to choose men and women of good character and sound judgement, who share our values to those posts of service. That requires making an effort beyond just accepting what the major parties and the mainstream media tell us.

It will be a shame to us, as a nation and as Christians, if we stand by and watch our nation go down the path to destruction because we believed a lie and kept voting for the lesser of two evils. Shame on us if we are unwilling to do the work to find out who is the best candidate, regardless of party. We can do better than that. We must. November is coming.

" For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. " ~Isaiah 9:16-17

What Separation of Church and State?

Congratulations my fellow citizens! We now know what faith Mr. Obama truly claims as his own. He is an American! What's that you say? America is a country not a faith?

Not according to the man sitting in the oval office who declared today that “Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth, it’s a matter of faith,”

To be fair, this was a speech he was giving about the illegal alien situation, which doesn't really make it much better, but gives you some context. However, if this president is really proposing the idea that citizenship is a matter of faith, then why have immigration laws at all?

Either way, had a conservative said something this out of whack, this out of touch and this nonsensical, the mainstream press would have been all over him or her. (Not to mention the ACLU. Where's the outrage over this psuedo establishment of a state religion? Where are the objections over their precious Jeffersonian out-of-context "separation of church and state"?)

Truth is objective, not subjective. Something either is true or it is not and no amount of idealistic bibble-babble can change the truth. Citizenship is, in fact, a matter of blood and birth. One may become a citizen of this nation by sacrificing one's citizenship in any other nation, but faith has nothing to do with citizenship. Except, perhaps, for citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.

"Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding."~ Prov 22:23

Where's the Anger?

Update: Federal Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans, today lifted Mr. Obama's drilling ban as well as issuing a separate order preventing the US from enforcing that ban. The ruling was as a result of a law suit filed by several offshore service and supply companies in Louisiana. BP was not a part of this suit. (H/T The Maritime Sentry)

I keep hearing about how Americans are angry at BP over this oil spill. I look around and the only folks I see being actively angry about it are the talking heads in the MSM and ones who get their news almost exclusively from those same talking heads.

I am not angry at BP. It was an accident. How should anyone be angry about an accident? I will admit to being a bit upset about the way Mr. Obama and his administration are bungling and hampering the clean up efforts. I am also flabbergasted at how anyone thinks it is legal or Constitutional for Mr. Obama to demand that BP not pay dividends to it's shareholders or to command them to put 20 billion dollars in an independently administered fund for reparations. Where exactly are Mr. Obama and his administration finding the authority to do these things?

The message here isn't that BP shouldn't make appropriate reparations, they should. But rather that those reparations should be in accordance with the law, not whatever Mr. Obama says. Last time I checked, the president doesn't make the law, they may only approve or veto laws proposed and approved by the Congress. Has that changed since Mr. Obama was elected? What am I missing here?

In addition, I would like to know what those actions on the part of Mr. Obama and BP are saying to the business world in general. To me it appears that the message is, you are no longer working for yourselves, but rather for the government. Your profits are no longer your own, the government will tell you how that money is to be used.

"They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them? "~ Psalm 64:5

An Interesting Encounter

I had planned to post today on the BP oil spill. On my thought that the spill was an accident and that we have liability laws in place already to deal with those affected by the spill, so why is it necessary for BP to agree to put 20 billion dollars into an "independently" managed account for that purpose? Would 20 billion be more or less that BP's liability under current law? And why is this administration actively hampering local efforts to minimize the impact of the spill? But I had to go to the post office.

As I approached the post office, I saw several very large signs saying "Impeach Obama". Many of the signs had a large photo of Mr. Obama with a little Hitler type mustache. I thought, this looks interesting, but as the post office was almost closed, I went inside to buy my stamps first.

When I came back out, I approached the booth to ask about what they were doing. I discovered this was a booth staffed by followers of Mr. Lyndon LaRouche. Now, Mr. LaRouche has been running for president since nearly before I was of voting age. He has been derided by both liberals and conservatives of my acquaintance, and upon reading some of his literature, I can see why, he has some rather unique views. But that's not the point of this post either.

While I was speaking to the gentleman at the booth, an older woman (by which I mean a woman in her 50's or early 60's , I would guess) came up to the woman at the booth and tried to remove some of the materials from the booth, while declaring that the photo of Mr. Obama was wrong and should be taken down. The woman at the booth reacted strongly and soon they were yelling at each other. When the yelling turned to swearing, I told the man to whom I was speaking -"that's it, I'm done here." At which the two women ended their confrontation, both threatening to call the police on each other.

I did stick around a bit to talk to the woman. She said she had been nearly run down by someone in a car while manning the booth in a similar situation less than a week ago and someone else had attempted to tear down her signs earlier that day. She was very passionate about her opposition to what this president and administration are doing to this nation with regard to debt and a few other things, as am I.

I have always viewed swearing as indicative of a lack of self control. It occurred to me that this woman, having had her life threatened less than a week ago for doing this same thing was very brave to continue, but also that she was not in any condition to man such a booth. Instead of asking the objector exactly what it was to which the older woman objected, she escalated into a shouting match, accusing the older woman of being a Nazi. Was this because she has now associated all dissent with her own position as a threat, or because she has always associated all dissent as a threat? She owned to having been a hippie on the 60's.

Perhaps the older woman was simply objecting to the photo on the grounds that it was disrespectful to the office of the president. In that I would agree. I would have also agreed that the folks at the booth had the right to display it, but would have asked them politely to respect the office by removing it. Perhaps not, since at one point the woman manning the booth yelled:"Yeah, well I was out here trying to impeach George Bush every week for the last 8 years, where were you then?" but the point is we'll never know. She wasn't given the chance to calm down and state her objections in a civil manner.

Here is the point of this post. There are good reasons to oppose the current administration, from their profligate spending to their openly socialistic agenda. We don't have to be conservatives or liberals to oppose either of those things because they are detrimental to either side, but we cannot become so used to seeing opposition that we cannot find those points of common interest around which to rally.

We, as Americans are better than that. We must be. If we are to regain our freedoms, and restore our Constitution, self control is an absolute requirement of the folks doing the ground work. Stern resolve and self control can accomplish what the most impassioned rhetoric cannot. We must, as a nation, reject the greed of the entitlement mentality along with the security offered by the "nanny state" mentality. We must embrace the philosophy of personal responsibility and stand for the individual freedom promised by the republic founded these 200+ years ago with all it's attendant risks.

In the words of "America the Beautiful: "Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law."

"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."~ Psalm 15

TEA Partier attacked for protesting government spending

Who do you think is the most likely to be acting in good faith? The TEA partiers or those who oppose them?
I think that good manners are an indicator of character. (Not proof of good character, but an indicator) This sort of thing is yet one more clear indication of who is possessed of good character in this national debate. Another indicator, in my opinion, is who leaves the protest area clean.

" Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. "~ Matthew 7:15-17