This is what my 1937 Oldsmobile looked like just before I sold it.
Monday, May 30, 2005
My first Hot Rod
I was blown away, this afternoon. I was browsing in eBay looking at old cars and checking their prices. I looked at several Chevrolets from the '40's and '50's, then at some old Pontiacs. Finally, I checked Oldsmobiles, for old times' sake.
The first, and so far, only hotrod I've built was a 1937 Oldsmobile sedan. The car was stone stock, running and driveable when I bought it in San Diego in 1986. I drove it that way for a while, but eventually I realized that I needed to start my plan to rebuild the car with an updated drive train so that it could be driven daily.
With the help and experience of my old friend, Ken Gunzelman, I put a mid-1970's GM drive train on the car, then did a little work on the body.
It ran great! I drove it all around San Diego for a couple of years, and to Lake Havasu once. 'Twas a joy to drive.
When we moved from San Diego to Los Angeles, I sold it. I didn't want to, but money was a needed commodity at the time.
Well, back to eBay. There, in the Oldsmobile listings, was my car. Rebuilt to look somewhat different than when I had it, I wouldn't have recognized it, except for one thing: It still has the same license plate.
I'd never have done many of the things the current owner did to the car, but it still looks good....kinda.
Chokes me up a mite.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
I was blown away, this afternoon. I was browsing in eBay looking at old cars and checking their prices. I looked at several Chevrolets from the '40's and '50's, then at some old Pontiacs. Finally, I checked Oldsmobiles, for old times' sake.
The first, and so far, only hotrod I've built was a 1937 Oldsmobile sedan. The car was stone stock, running and driveable when I bought it in San Diego in 1986. I drove it that way for a while, but eventually I realized that I needed to start my plan to rebuild the car with an updated drive train so that it could be driven daily.
With the help and experience of my old friend, Ken Gunzelman, I put a mid-1970's GM drive train on the car, then did a little work on the body.
It ran great! I drove it all around San Diego for a couple of years, and to Lake Havasu once. 'Twas a joy to drive.
When we moved from San Diego to Los Angeles, I sold it. I didn't want to, but money was a needed commodity at the time.
Well, back to eBay. There, in the Oldsmobile listings, was my car. Rebuilt to look somewhat different than when I had it, I wouldn't have recognized it, except for one thing: It still has the same license plate.
I'd never have done many of the things the current owner did to the car, but it still looks good....kinda.
Chokes me up a mite.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Cuts like a......er......
British government-employed medical doctors, reacting to a report that crime is on the increase (in the wake of the confiscation of firearms in Great Britain), and that much of the crime involves the use of knives, including long, pointed kitchen knives, suggest that, according to restauranteurs, long, pointed knives aren't needed to prepare food. Thus, the doctors suggest doing away with them throughout Great Britain.
I have a modest proposal which should more than satisfy British government-employed doctors. This, of course, follows guidelines cobbled into place by the U.S. federal government's Home Security Administration to effect safety in airports and on airliners throughout the United States.
First, all food processors, restaurant chefs and their staffs, butchers and others whose employment requires the use of edged instruments have to be placed under the employ of the Crown. Next, all sharp, pointed and edged objects must be confiscated from throughout Great Britain and placed in the care of the Crown, or destroyed.
Food offered to the public for sale must be prepared in bite-sized bits, so that knives aren't needed in the home. The Queen's scribes shall develop cookbooks to teach the public how to cook wonderful stews and casseroles according to safer, injury-free cooking methods. No cutting, slicing, dicing or peeling need be done, except by qualified, trained technicians in the Queen's food industry.
This, in order to keep the Queen's subjects safe from an implement that had been plaguing Britain since the Dark Days of our Celtic, Roman and Germanic ancestors. Knives. We now have it within our means to put an end to this scourge once and for all.
We hereby announce a merger between the Wilkinson Steel Company and the Dunlop Rubber Company to produce semi-flexible table paddles for the home for use spreading marmalades, butter and other foods. These paddles will not be brittle or breakable, like plastics, nor dangerous, like knives.
The crown intends to eradicate violent injury and death by means of unnecessary and dangerous implements post haste, and if the elimination of both guns and knives will not do it, there is till one more step to be taken.
Unfortunately, David Carr of Samizdata has made it public, and now both British doctors and the Crown know what they must do: the next step is to do away with opposable thumbs.
They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!
Warm Regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
British government-employed medical doctors, reacting to a report that crime is on the increase (in the wake of the confiscation of firearms in Great Britain), and that much of the crime involves the use of knives, including long, pointed kitchen knives, suggest that, according to restauranteurs, long, pointed knives aren't needed to prepare food. Thus, the doctors suggest doing away with them throughout Great Britain.
I have a modest proposal which should more than satisfy British government-employed doctors. This, of course, follows guidelines cobbled into place by the U.S. federal government's Home Security Administration to effect safety in airports and on airliners throughout the United States.
First, all food processors, restaurant chefs and their staffs, butchers and others whose employment requires the use of edged instruments have to be placed under the employ of the Crown. Next, all sharp, pointed and edged objects must be confiscated from throughout Great Britain and placed in the care of the Crown, or destroyed.
Food offered to the public for sale must be prepared in bite-sized bits, so that knives aren't needed in the home. The Queen's scribes shall develop cookbooks to teach the public how to cook wonderful stews and casseroles according to safer, injury-free cooking methods. No cutting, slicing, dicing or peeling need be done, except by qualified, trained technicians in the Queen's food industry.
This, in order to keep the Queen's subjects safe from an implement that had been plaguing Britain since the Dark Days of our Celtic, Roman and Germanic ancestors. Knives. We now have it within our means to put an end to this scourge once and for all.
We hereby announce a merger between the Wilkinson Steel Company and the Dunlop Rubber Company to produce semi-flexible table paddles for the home for use spreading marmalades, butter and other foods. These paddles will not be brittle or breakable, like plastics, nor dangerous, like knives.
The crown intends to eradicate violent injury and death by means of unnecessary and dangerous implements post haste, and if the elimination of both guns and knives will not do it, there is till one more step to be taken.
Unfortunately, David Carr of Samizdata has made it public, and now both British doctors and the Crown know what they must do: the next step is to do away with opposable thumbs.
They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!
Warm Regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Friday, May 27, 2005
It's a gas, gas, gas!
We've been hearing/reading about how the price of gas is going down (though it's still high) for the past couple of weeks or so. Here in the Stalag, it was running in the neighborhood of $2.60 a gallon and has fallen to around $2.35 in recent days. Rejoice!
A couple of things worth noting: Adjusted for inflation, gas still costs less than it did in the "gas shortage" days of the Carter Presidency--the mid-late 1970's. Even though Reagan brought Carter's inflation more-or-less under control, we still get around 3% or so annual decrease in the value of the dollar. Far less than Carter's and Nixon's inflation, but it still adds up over the years. The other thing? Every time the price of gas goes up, it reaches a new (short term) high. Every time it backs off, it doesn't decline quite as far as it had been. Unless there's a very unusual change in the supply/demand situation, we won't be seeing gas retailing at less than $2.00 ever again.
President Bush has made some noises like maybe we'll do some more domestic drilling in Alaska and other places, but it's just rhetoric. George Bush has been saying many things, but little gets done. I could dredge up and remind all of you of the fact that Republicans are craven cowards who are well-trained by their Masters (the Democrats) to hang their spines in a special spine-check room in the foyer of the Capitol Building. In fact, I think I will.
What everyone's forgetting, and what was talked about quite a bit back in the periodic gas spikes in the 1980's, is the gas tax. During the Reagan Presidency, when many of us were talking about doing away with the gas tax a a part of the rhetoric directed toward shrinking the size of government. In spite of mixed messages from Washington, some of us actually thought that might happen. Hah!
It was during this time that there was one of these gas price spikes. I think the price went all the way up to about $1.25! The working poor were lamenting how they'd ever be able to afford gas to get to work.
Meanwhile, the fedral gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon and the California state gas tax is about 37 cents a gallon. That's 55 cents a gallon folks.
Both libertarians and most conservatives began talking about reducing or eliminating the gas tax. It actually was talked about on the floor of the House and on the national news. Had Congress actually brought a bill to the floor, it might've been voted on. But, alas, the House was under the control of the Democrats, and they were all talking about increasing the gas tax to fund additional mass transit
Fast forward to 2005. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. Again, we've had a sudden increase in the price of gas.
Nobody's even mentioned the gas tax. Nobody!
They've killed Fredom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
We've been hearing/reading about how the price of gas is going down (though it's still high) for the past couple of weeks or so. Here in the Stalag, it was running in the neighborhood of $2.60 a gallon and has fallen to around $2.35 in recent days. Rejoice!
A couple of things worth noting: Adjusted for inflation, gas still costs less than it did in the "gas shortage" days of the Carter Presidency--the mid-late 1970's. Even though Reagan brought Carter's inflation more-or-less under control, we still get around 3% or so annual decrease in the value of the dollar. Far less than Carter's and Nixon's inflation, but it still adds up over the years. The other thing? Every time the price of gas goes up, it reaches a new (short term) high. Every time it backs off, it doesn't decline quite as far as it had been. Unless there's a very unusual change in the supply/demand situation, we won't be seeing gas retailing at less than $2.00 ever again.
President Bush has made some noises like maybe we'll do some more domestic drilling in Alaska and other places, but it's just rhetoric. George Bush has been saying many things, but little gets done. I could dredge up and remind all of you of the fact that Republicans are craven cowards who are well-trained by their Masters (the Democrats) to hang their spines in a special spine-check room in the foyer of the Capitol Building. In fact, I think I will.
What everyone's forgetting, and what was talked about quite a bit back in the periodic gas spikes in the 1980's, is the gas tax. During the Reagan Presidency, when many of us were talking about doing away with the gas tax a a part of the rhetoric directed toward shrinking the size of government. In spite of mixed messages from Washington, some of us actually thought that might happen. Hah!
It was during this time that there was one of these gas price spikes. I think the price went all the way up to about $1.25! The working poor were lamenting how they'd ever be able to afford gas to get to work.
Meanwhile, the fedral gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon and the California state gas tax is about 37 cents a gallon. That's 55 cents a gallon folks.
Both libertarians and most conservatives began talking about reducing or eliminating the gas tax. It actually was talked about on the floor of the House and on the national news. Had Congress actually brought a bill to the floor, it might've been voted on. But, alas, the House was under the control of the Democrats, and they were all talking about increasing the gas tax to fund additional mass transit
Fast forward to 2005. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. Again, we've had a sudden increase in the price of gas.
Nobody's even mentioned the gas tax. Nobody!
They've killed Fredom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Monday, May 23, 2005
Sunday, May 22, 2005
"Public" Schools and the Bill of Rights
A recent column from Chuck Muth refers to the fact that people in the middle- and upper-class 'burbs realize that the inner city kids aren't getting much in the way of a usable education, but their government schools are just fine, thank you very much. Hence the resistance to the idea of school choice in the comfy classes.
Complacency was the order of the day when they were in school, and as long as their kids can succeed in college and join the jacket-and-necktie set, well, they prefer no change even to change for the better. The wealthier of them (those who aren't working sixty or more hours a week to keep the Mercedes and the $700k+ home) will attend cocktail parties where they'll discuss what's to be done about those unfortunates in the city.
But, school choice? Never!
I'm a reluctant member of the middle class. No, I don't wear a necktie, but I could if I could figure out how to tie one. I flunked knots in Cub Scouts.
I went to a government school that was then and still is considered one of the best. When I was in attending, we were exposed to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and were given a teacher-biased view on what they meant. Years later, as I became interested, I studied the Revolutionary period and the history of the early years of the Republic. I've reread the documents more than once and have read the analyses of several individuals far more learned on the subject than I.
My high school teachers, my history, civics and American government class teachers didn't really get it either. When they spoke of the First, what was emphasized was that you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. The Second? You have the right to get a license and go hunting, in accordance with state and federal law. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Today, it's different. It may vary from state to state, but here in the Stalag, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are spoken of by teachers and government as a template for government to follow, as it's deemed convenient. They light-heartedly speak of the Constitution as a changing, flexible document, the original language of which is hardly suitable to our modern era.
The Bill of Rights, except for the First and probably the Fifth Amendments, are approached with a degree of chortling dirision to outright hostility.
Hence, we come to the post 9/11 era, in which virtually any atrocity by government is tolerated (if not joyfully accepted) if it promises security. Be clear: it doesn't have to achieve security, it only has to promise security.
Perhaps the young don't remember when you could hand the attendant your airline ticket, then walk across the tarmac to the steps, climb them and board the plane with nothing more than a smiling greeting from the stewardess (that's what we used to call flight attendants). You could have your Lone Ranger four-blade-with-a-bottle-opener jackknife in your pocket and no one thought twice about it, even if you used it, while sitting in your seat, (shudder) to trim the fuzzy ends off your shoe laces.
You could walk to the edge of town, carrying your .22 over your shoulder like a soldier, to the slough where you could kill a few tin cans (please don't shoot any birds, children!).
You could (in my state) buy a car at the age of twelve without your parents' knowledge and wrench on it until you were old enough to get a driving permit (fourteen at the time). Of course, Dad had to register and insure the car. If anyone says they saw me driving the car before I got my permit, it was actually a guy that looked a lot like me, in a car very similar to mine.
Each year, at the end of the school session, the plan was to take my paper route money and buy as many firecrackers, Roman candles, bottle rockets and spinners for the 4th of July. Of course, most of the firecrackers didn't make it to the holiday, but enough of them did.Point is, it was legal. We all did it.
I could continue this list, 'cause we've lost a lot of freedom, even in my lifetime.
But why do you imagine we've allowed those monsters in Washington, Sacramento and Albany to do this to us?
Government schools, as noted above, have been preparing us to unquestioningly accept government authority for generations. Parents have accepted the mistaken notion that the promise (but never the guarantee) of security has to be bought with a surrender of freedom.
What they haven't thought through is the nature of the kind of society they're handing off to their kids.
They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
A recent column from Chuck Muth refers to the fact that people in the middle- and upper-class 'burbs realize that the inner city kids aren't getting much in the way of a usable education, but their government schools are just fine, thank you very much. Hence the resistance to the idea of school choice in the comfy classes.
Complacency was the order of the day when they were in school, and as long as their kids can succeed in college and join the jacket-and-necktie set, well, they prefer no change even to change for the better. The wealthier of them (those who aren't working sixty or more hours a week to keep the Mercedes and the $700k+ home) will attend cocktail parties where they'll discuss what's to be done about those unfortunates in the city.
But, school choice? Never!
I'm a reluctant member of the middle class. No, I don't wear a necktie, but I could if I could figure out how to tie one. I flunked knots in Cub Scouts.
I went to a government school that was then and still is considered one of the best. When I was in attending, we were exposed to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and were given a teacher-biased view on what they meant. Years later, as I became interested, I studied the Revolutionary period and the history of the early years of the Republic. I've reread the documents more than once and have read the analyses of several individuals far more learned on the subject than I.
My high school teachers, my history, civics and American government class teachers didn't really get it either. When they spoke of the First, what was emphasized was that you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. The Second? You have the right to get a license and go hunting, in accordance with state and federal law. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Today, it's different. It may vary from state to state, but here in the Stalag, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are spoken of by teachers and government as a template for government to follow, as it's deemed convenient. They light-heartedly speak of the Constitution as a changing, flexible document, the original language of which is hardly suitable to our modern era.
The Bill of Rights, except for the First and probably the Fifth Amendments, are approached with a degree of chortling dirision to outright hostility.
Hence, we come to the post 9/11 era, in which virtually any atrocity by government is tolerated (if not joyfully accepted) if it promises security. Be clear: it doesn't have to achieve security, it only has to promise security.
Perhaps the young don't remember when you could hand the attendant your airline ticket, then walk across the tarmac to the steps, climb them and board the plane with nothing more than a smiling greeting from the stewardess (that's what we used to call flight attendants). You could have your Lone Ranger four-blade-with-a-bottle-opener jackknife in your pocket and no one thought twice about it, even if you used it, while sitting in your seat, (shudder) to trim the fuzzy ends off your shoe laces.
You could walk to the edge of town, carrying your .22 over your shoulder like a soldier, to the slough where you could kill a few tin cans (please don't shoot any birds, children!).
You could (in my state) buy a car at the age of twelve without your parents' knowledge and wrench on it until you were old enough to get a driving permit (fourteen at the time). Of course, Dad had to register and insure the car. If anyone says they saw me driving the car before I got my permit, it was actually a guy that looked a lot like me, in a car very similar to mine.
Each year, at the end of the school session, the plan was to take my paper route money and buy as many firecrackers, Roman candles, bottle rockets and spinners for the 4th of July. Of course, most of the firecrackers didn't make it to the holiday, but enough of them did.Point is, it was legal. We all did it.
I could continue this list, 'cause we've lost a lot of freedom, even in my lifetime.
But why do you imagine we've allowed those monsters in Washington, Sacramento and Albany to do this to us?
Government schools, as noted above, have been preparing us to unquestioningly accept government authority for generations. Parents have accepted the mistaken notion that the promise (but never the guarantee) of security has to be bought with a surrender of freedom.
What they haven't thought through is the nature of the kind of society they're handing off to their kids.
They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Science, et al
We didn't really have Playboy magazine in my town. There was one Novelty Store down by the railroad station that carried it, but if the clerk even saw one of my tender age moving toward that end of the magazine rack, it was "You 21? Lemme see your driver's license." For a long time, I didn't even know what I wasn't allowed to see.
Well, I might have been trying to sidle over to the adult rack from time to time, and I might've even succeeded a time or two, truth be told, but that wasn't why I hung out there. I couldn't afford to buy all the magazines I wanted, but if I bought one occasionally, he let me do some extended browsing.
There was Rod & Custom, Hot Rod, Car Craft and a few other custom car mags, most of which no longer exist. As a fledgeling car nut, these magazines were what life is for. I also looked over the SciFi pulps, as an avid Robert Heinlein reader.
Which finally leads me to the subject at hand. To see the products graphically that were described by the '50's SciFi writers in print, one read the science magazines.
Having read Heinlein's short story, "The Roads Must Roll," it was wonderful to see a fully illustrated Popular Science article on moving sidewalks. Those magazines employed some wonderful artists with terrific imaginations to come up with believable pictures of yet-to-be realized technolgy. Some time after I read his "Red Planet," one of these magazines had a fully illustrated article on what a base on Mars might look like.
One article from those years that really interested me followed a SciFi story I read in which included a verbal description of traffic problems in a city of the future in which people commuted in flying cars. Coincidentally, while this story was fresh in my mind, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Mechanics had articles on car-plane convertibles--that is, cars onto which flight surfaces could be attached for flying, or removed for driving on the streets. This was in the mid-fifties!
To be sure, these were primitive attempts whose practicality was highly suspect, and which never did make it into the market, but it was a start. I was stoked!
Now, the bad news. The feds had a Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). Stories came out on (black and white) TV news and in newspapers about how it'd be impossible to allow the public at large to fly. It'd be a daily massacre, as these flying cars came crashing down on homes and commercial buildings.
Thus endeth the whole idea of aerocommuting. It just hasn't come up again. We're too stupid.
Today's computer technology can be directed toward automated air traffic control in urban situations, and aeronautic technology could have developed aircars that could fly in corridors over the cities if those early inventors had been able to improve their aircars and refine them over a period of these past few decades, but a declaration by short-sighted bureaucrats squelched the industry before it was even born.
Meanwhile, JFK's space program is stalled--I'll state that it's for two reasons: First, the federal government has spread itself into a host of areas for which there is no Constitutional mandate. Spreading itself too thin, they do nothing very well, not even those things that are within their Constitutional prerogatives. And second, space should've been handed over to the private sector immediately. By keeping NASA in charge, and simultaneously under the thumb of the military, the private sector was frozen out completely (except to manufacture components to the order of NASA and the Air Force). Private firms might not have acted as quickly, until they could see the possibility of profit, but once started, they'd act more quickly and cost-effectively than NASA by orders of magnitude.
I'm angry.
When I was twelve, I assumed that in my lifetime, I'd be flying to work daily and to the Grand Canyon for a vacation. I assumed that I'd have been to the moon a time or two and maybe even to Mars. I assumed that shaving would be a thing of the past and that clothing would be worn once and thrown away. I assumed that videophones would be the norm and that television would be truly three-dimensional. I could go on and on.
In the period between about 1880 and 1929, all manner of men and women were inventing things in their spare bedrooms and carriage houses. Inventions were hitting the market almost hourly. Some were wonderful, many were no good. The market made the decision--not the government.
We still have improving technology today, but it drags in many areas of endeavor. In others (electronics), improvements still come along at a pretty good pace. But relatively few individuals are coming up with new things in their garages any more. With the tax and regulation restrictions we have to suffer, it's a wonder anything gets done.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
We didn't really have Playboy magazine in my town. There was one Novelty Store down by the railroad station that carried it, but if the clerk even saw one of my tender age moving toward that end of the magazine rack, it was "You 21? Lemme see your driver's license." For a long time, I didn't even know what I wasn't allowed to see.
Well, I might have been trying to sidle over to the adult rack from time to time, and I might've even succeeded a time or two, truth be told, but that wasn't why I hung out there. I couldn't afford to buy all the magazines I wanted, but if I bought one occasionally, he let me do some extended browsing.
There was Rod & Custom, Hot Rod, Car Craft and a few other custom car mags, most of which no longer exist. As a fledgeling car nut, these magazines were what life is for. I also looked over the SciFi pulps, as an avid Robert Heinlein reader.
Which finally leads me to the subject at hand. To see the products graphically that were described by the '50's SciFi writers in print, one read the science magazines.
Having read Heinlein's short story, "The Roads Must Roll," it was wonderful to see a fully illustrated Popular Science article on moving sidewalks. Those magazines employed some wonderful artists with terrific imaginations to come up with believable pictures of yet-to-be realized technolgy. Some time after I read his "Red Planet," one of these magazines had a fully illustrated article on what a base on Mars might look like.
One article from those years that really interested me followed a SciFi story I read in which included a verbal description of traffic problems in a city of the future in which people commuted in flying cars. Coincidentally, while this story was fresh in my mind, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Mechanics had articles on car-plane convertibles--that is, cars onto which flight surfaces could be attached for flying, or removed for driving on the streets. This was in the mid-fifties!
To be sure, these were primitive attempts whose practicality was highly suspect, and which never did make it into the market, but it was a start. I was stoked!
Now, the bad news. The feds had a Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). Stories came out on (black and white) TV news and in newspapers about how it'd be impossible to allow the public at large to fly. It'd be a daily massacre, as these flying cars came crashing down on homes and commercial buildings.
Thus endeth the whole idea of aerocommuting. It just hasn't come up again. We're too stupid.
Today's computer technology can be directed toward automated air traffic control in urban situations, and aeronautic technology could have developed aircars that could fly in corridors over the cities if those early inventors had been able to improve their aircars and refine them over a period of these past few decades, but a declaration by short-sighted bureaucrats squelched the industry before it was even born.
Meanwhile, JFK's space program is stalled--I'll state that it's for two reasons: First, the federal government has spread itself into a host of areas for which there is no Constitutional mandate. Spreading itself too thin, they do nothing very well, not even those things that are within their Constitutional prerogatives. And second, space should've been handed over to the private sector immediately. By keeping NASA in charge, and simultaneously under the thumb of the military, the private sector was frozen out completely (except to manufacture components to the order of NASA and the Air Force). Private firms might not have acted as quickly, until they could see the possibility of profit, but once started, they'd act more quickly and cost-effectively than NASA by orders of magnitude.
I'm angry.
When I was twelve, I assumed that in my lifetime, I'd be flying to work daily and to the Grand Canyon for a vacation. I assumed that I'd have been to the moon a time or two and maybe even to Mars. I assumed that shaving would be a thing of the past and that clothing would be worn once and thrown away. I assumed that videophones would be the norm and that television would be truly three-dimensional. I could go on and on.
In the period between about 1880 and 1929, all manner of men and women were inventing things in their spare bedrooms and carriage houses. Inventions were hitting the market almost hourly. Some were wonderful, many were no good. The market made the decision--not the government.
We still have improving technology today, but it drags in many areas of endeavor. In others (electronics), improvements still come along at a pretty good pace. But relatively few individuals are coming up with new things in their garages any more. With the tax and regulation restrictions we have to suffer, it's a wonder anything gets done.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Moslems, Muslims, Mooslims*
I was thinking about writing a big rant about those idiots at Newsweek, having irresponsibly published the (presumably erroneous, but who knows?) story about the American interrogators having desecrated the koran, qoran, goran at the Gitmo concentration camp, but it led me to a more important angle.
If I said I'm not particularly religious, I'd be soft-peddling. I was brought up episcopalian which as George Carlin once said, is catholic lite. That said, I can't remember ever actually believing in the existence of any sort of god. Ok, maybe Thor. This to let you know that, though I probably retain a little residual christian psychology, I have no particular religious bias.
I dislike them all.
That said, my topic du jour has to do with the way a couple of the world's major religions deal with life in the modern world.
Five centuries or so in the past, christians killed each other in the most hideous ways imaginable, and on the least pretext--usually based on the victim's presumed pietal challenges. Priests oversaw mass-murder factories in the dungeons below their own cathedrals. The local monarch helped out by conducting mass public executions of any of those who survived the torture chambers (usually by confessing to a capital crime).
Well, in today's world, christianity has mellowed. The main battle these days is whether or not there can be a nativity scene in the public square, or the ten commandments in the courthouse, or a christmas play at a government school. People are rarely killed, except for the occasional gynecologist.
On the other hand, if even a rumor of an act of sacrilege reaches the ears of any islamic witch doctor, all (islamic version of) hell breaks loose. Gee bloody had! People die. If they can't find any infidels to kill, they'll kill each other. These people (seemingly) are psychotic. American muslims seem a mite closer to sanity, but those wack-jobs in the Middle East seem to enjoy strapping dynamite to their own kids and sending them off to crowded places.
Salman Rushdie, to this day, probably doesn't take many long walks alone at night.
In a sane world, these psychos would suicide bomb themselves into early extinction. Unfortunately, American and European leftists seem to idolize these (I'm not sure if I should call them) people.
As little as four or five years ago American leftists roundly opined that Israel could do virtually no worng. How times change.
I'm rambling a mite, but I find it apalling that European and American leftists can forgive any arab atrocity, yet if a few perverts embarass some arab prisoners, and it trumps Treblinka.
*Ken, your quarter is in the mail.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
I was thinking about writing a big rant about those idiots at Newsweek, having irresponsibly published the (presumably erroneous, but who knows?) story about the American interrogators having desecrated the koran, qoran, goran at the Gitmo concentration camp, but it led me to a more important angle.
If I said I'm not particularly religious, I'd be soft-peddling. I was brought up episcopalian which as George Carlin once said, is catholic lite. That said, I can't remember ever actually believing in the existence of any sort of god. Ok, maybe Thor. This to let you know that, though I probably retain a little residual christian psychology, I have no particular religious bias.
I dislike them all.
That said, my topic du jour has to do with the way a couple of the world's major religions deal with life in the modern world.
Five centuries or so in the past, christians killed each other in the most hideous ways imaginable, and on the least pretext--usually based on the victim's presumed pietal challenges. Priests oversaw mass-murder factories in the dungeons below their own cathedrals. The local monarch helped out by conducting mass public executions of any of those who survived the torture chambers (usually by confessing to a capital crime).
Well, in today's world, christianity has mellowed. The main battle these days is whether or not there can be a nativity scene in the public square, or the ten commandments in the courthouse, or a christmas play at a government school. People are rarely killed, except for the occasional gynecologist.
On the other hand, if even a rumor of an act of sacrilege reaches the ears of any islamic witch doctor, all (islamic version of) hell breaks loose. Gee bloody had! People die. If they can't find any infidels to kill, they'll kill each other. These people (seemingly) are psychotic. American muslims seem a mite closer to sanity, but those wack-jobs in the Middle East seem to enjoy strapping dynamite to their own kids and sending them off to crowded places.
Salman Rushdie, to this day, probably doesn't take many long walks alone at night.
In a sane world, these psychos would suicide bomb themselves into early extinction. Unfortunately, American and European leftists seem to idolize these (I'm not sure if I should call them) people.
As little as four or five years ago American leftists roundly opined that Israel could do virtually no worng. How times change.
I'm rambling a mite, but I find it apalling that European and American leftists can forgive any arab atrocity, yet if a few perverts embarass some arab prisoners, and it trumps Treblinka.
*Ken, your quarter is in the mail.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Friday, May 13, 2005
Riding Around in Cars
I always feel very sorry for young parents these days, strapping their little tykes into those ungainly contraptions they call "child safety seats." Every trip to the nearby market must begin with a two-minute strap-in session--if the youngster is in a cooperative mood--per child! Then, after you drive a quarter of a mile to the market, Mother must go through another two-minutes per child getting them out of the seats and out of the car.
I feel even more sorry for the poor little kids.
The "authorities" claim that the children will fare better in a collision in these seats. Undoubtedly, they will as long as the car doesn't either burn or become submerged. See, the "safety seats" can't be undone by the kids themselves. By law. Parents can't opt to eschew these seats because they're the law.
I've read the US Constitution, but I can't find where the feds are charged with making decisions on our safety or overruling those we make for ourselves.
Arrogance.
In many cases, and for many parents, these safety seats might make good sense--especially for babies and toddlers.
Now, if you're a nazi sympethizer, cover your eyes: I'm going to write something outrageous.
Let each parent make up his or her own mind. There. I said it, and I'm glad.
The problems with "child safety seats" make a long list, starting here:
They separate the kids from their parents, isolating the kids in the back seat.
They confine the kids to a small space, limiting their mobility.
As mentioned above, they render the kids helpless in the event of a fire or a submersion.
The difficulty of getting the kids out of the car and putting them back leads to temptation to just leave the kids in the car "for a couple of minutes," while car thieves can take the kids along with the car, or heat inside the car can kill. That stuff pops up in the news all the time.
Kids can conspire to murder their parents when they're older, for revenge because of endless hours of boredom in the back seat.
You wouldn't think this would be true, but I've observed many, many parents--both moms and dads, driving recklessly with kids in the back seat. Way more recklessly than I've ever dared to do with passengers in the car. Running red lights, really fast driving (80 mph, 90 mph and more). Unsafe, sudden lane changes. Talking on cell phones. Eating, drinking, reading maps!
Reeking confidence in their Navigators and Suburbans, with air bags in front and safety seats in back, these invincible beings snap their kids little heads back and forth in high-speed maneuvers, secure that nothing can go wrong.
Far better, each of us should drive carefully and safely--that is, keeping his full focus on the task at hand (driving), remembering that he has precious cargo and devoting 100% of his mind to his car, his surroundings and his car. He can think about his money troubles after the car is parked and the kids are safely in the house.
Whether a parent decides for or against "child safety seats" is up to each individual. Government should butt out--it's none of their business.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
I always feel very sorry for young parents these days, strapping their little tykes into those ungainly contraptions they call "child safety seats." Every trip to the nearby market must begin with a two-minute strap-in session--if the youngster is in a cooperative mood--per child! Then, after you drive a quarter of a mile to the market, Mother must go through another two-minutes per child getting them out of the seats and out of the car.
I feel even more sorry for the poor little kids.
The "authorities" claim that the children will fare better in a collision in these seats. Undoubtedly, they will as long as the car doesn't either burn or become submerged. See, the "safety seats" can't be undone by the kids themselves. By law. Parents can't opt to eschew these seats because they're the law.
I've read the US Constitution, but I can't find where the feds are charged with making decisions on our safety or overruling those we make for ourselves.
Arrogance.
In many cases, and for many parents, these safety seats might make good sense--especially for babies and toddlers.
Now, if you're a nazi sympethizer, cover your eyes: I'm going to write something outrageous.
Let each parent make up his or her own mind. There. I said it, and I'm glad.
The problems with "child safety seats" make a long list, starting here:
They separate the kids from their parents, isolating the kids in the back seat.
They confine the kids to a small space, limiting their mobility.
As mentioned above, they render the kids helpless in the event of a fire or a submersion.
The difficulty of getting the kids out of the car and putting them back leads to temptation to just leave the kids in the car "for a couple of minutes," while car thieves can take the kids along with the car, or heat inside the car can kill. That stuff pops up in the news all the time.
Kids can conspire to murder their parents when they're older, for revenge because of endless hours of boredom in the back seat.
You wouldn't think this would be true, but I've observed many, many parents--both moms and dads, driving recklessly with kids in the back seat. Way more recklessly than I've ever dared to do with passengers in the car. Running red lights, really fast driving (80 mph, 90 mph and more). Unsafe, sudden lane changes. Talking on cell phones. Eating, drinking, reading maps!
Reeking confidence in their Navigators and Suburbans, with air bags in front and safety seats in back, these invincible beings snap their kids little heads back and forth in high-speed maneuvers, secure that nothing can go wrong.
Far better, each of us should drive carefully and safely--that is, keeping his full focus on the task at hand (driving), remembering that he has precious cargo and devoting 100% of his mind to his car, his surroundings and his car. He can think about his money troubles after the car is parked and the kids are safely in the house.
Whether a parent decides for or against "child safety seats" is up to each individual. Government should butt out--it's none of their business.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Your Papers, Please! Addendum.....
Part of what the feds are saying to sell us this evil National ID (they call it "Real ID"--anything to avoid calling it a National ID), is that it'll be standardized nationally and that it can't be counterfeited. But, nobody's ever been able to make a document that can't be counterfieted. Probably never will.
It will be harder and more expensive, though. The bad news: they won't have to. All the desperado has to do is find a person whom he more-or-less resembles, kill that poor sap, steal his "Real ID," and step into the fellow's life--as much as is necessary to suit his evil purpose. After all, who's going to question a "Real ID?"
Scenarios might include: killing the family and living in their home for a little while, making a "big score" theft then disappearing; using the victim's credit cards, etc to fulfill some dastardly plan; and many other things you might or might not imagine.
Unintended consequences.
In a more rational world, ID wouldn't be necessary. We'd know who we deal with, or it's cash on the barrelhead. I don't need ID to know who my friends are. My friends don't ask me for ID.
That's the way it should be.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Part of what the feds are saying to sell us this evil National ID (they call it "Real ID"--anything to avoid calling it a National ID), is that it'll be standardized nationally and that it can't be counterfeited. But, nobody's ever been able to make a document that can't be counterfieted. Probably never will.
It will be harder and more expensive, though. The bad news: they won't have to. All the desperado has to do is find a person whom he more-or-less resembles, kill that poor sap, steal his "Real ID," and step into the fellow's life--as much as is necessary to suit his evil purpose. After all, who's going to question a "Real ID?"
Scenarios might include: killing the family and living in their home for a little while, making a "big score" theft then disappearing; using the victim's credit cards, etc to fulfill some dastardly plan; and many other things you might or might not imagine.
Unintended consequences.
In a more rational world, ID wouldn't be necessary. We'd know who we deal with, or it's cash on the barrelhead. I don't need ID to know who my friends are. My friends don't ask me for ID.
That's the way it should be.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Your Papers, Please?
Like the Third Reich before it, the current Reich in Washington DC is working feverishly, as fast as they think the semi-conscious citizenry will allow it, to create a new, high-tech uber state.
It started a long time ago, as any semi-serious reading of US History will show, but it really intensified with the "war on drugs," during the 1980's and '90's. The "war on drugs" was really a War on the Bill of Rights. A quick reading of the BOR will clearly bring out wholesale violations of the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. A second look shows violations of the First (no positive epictions of drug use in the media), the Second (denying the right to weapons use on the least pretext) Third (creation of ultra-militarized police sub-agencies) and Fifth (plea bargaining to encourage self-incrimination). Every blood-sucking parasite above GS10 in the Reich should be fired and thrown into a prison cell (after receiving the the full due process they've been ignoring for the past thirty-plus years) for draconian violation of their oaths of office, as well as the thousands of counts of legal violations they've perpetrated against the poor folks that have been unfortunate enough to have blundered into the legal system of a government gone totalitarian.
Victims of the "war on drugs" routinely have their property confiscated, often without ever being charged with a crime.
If all this isn't enough, the destruction of the World Trade towers has ushered in an intensification of the destruction of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Now, along with the "war on drugs, we're also fighting a "war on terror."
Problem is, most of the weapons of the "wot," --"homeland security," the "patriot act" and a dozen or more other assaults on American freedom, are all aimed at US!
We're after bin Laden and the evil al queda bunch, and I have nothing against that--if we pursue them with diligence and intelligence--but why further restrict the liberty of Americans? The answer has to be to further advance the agenda of creating the perfect police state. Given the evidence, what other conclusion can be reached?
The current atrocity is the Congressional effort to create a National ID Card. They had a fairly god National ID in the Social Security card. You can't do many things in a bank without giving them your SS number, for example. This is utterly unConstitutional. Note that until a certain fairly recent date, SS cards carried the admonition, "Not to Be Used for Purposes of Identification." And of diminishing effectiveness as well, given that SS cards are very easy to counterfeit.
The federal nazis are now about to require that the states federalize their Driver's Licenses. From what I read, this means a national standardization with your "permanent record" on the data strip on the back.
Any cop, banker, employer, doctor or librarian will be able to know everything about you--more than you want them to know. Then, we can just wait patiently until the identity thieves weasel their way into your life.
Then, even worse, we'll see a new crime: someone who wants illegal ID can just find someone similar-looking, kill him, and take his ID.
There are many ways this could go which haven't yet occurred to me. None of them are good, short of a full voter rejection of these usurptions. With nearly everyone philosophically asleep after their bout with the government schools, that's not likely to happen.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Like the Third Reich before it, the current Reich in Washington DC is working feverishly, as fast as they think the semi-conscious citizenry will allow it, to create a new, high-tech uber state.
It started a long time ago, as any semi-serious reading of US History will show, but it really intensified with the "war on drugs," during the 1980's and '90's. The "war on drugs" was really a War on the Bill of Rights. A quick reading of the BOR will clearly bring out wholesale violations of the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. A second look shows violations of the First (no positive epictions of drug use in the media), the Second (denying the right to weapons use on the least pretext) Third (creation of ultra-militarized police sub-agencies) and Fifth (plea bargaining to encourage self-incrimination). Every blood-sucking parasite above GS10 in the Reich should be fired and thrown into a prison cell (after receiving the the full due process they've been ignoring for the past thirty-plus years) for draconian violation of their oaths of office, as well as the thousands of counts of legal violations they've perpetrated against the poor folks that have been unfortunate enough to have blundered into the legal system of a government gone totalitarian.
Victims of the "war on drugs" routinely have their property confiscated, often without ever being charged with a crime.
If all this isn't enough, the destruction of the World Trade towers has ushered in an intensification of the destruction of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Now, along with the "war on drugs, we're also fighting a "war on terror."
Problem is, most of the weapons of the "wot," --"homeland security," the "patriot act" and a dozen or more other assaults on American freedom, are all aimed at US!
We're after bin Laden and the evil al queda bunch, and I have nothing against that--if we pursue them with diligence and intelligence--but why further restrict the liberty of Americans? The answer has to be to further advance the agenda of creating the perfect police state. Given the evidence, what other conclusion can be reached?
The current atrocity is the Congressional effort to create a National ID Card. They had a fairly god National ID in the Social Security card. You can't do many things in a bank without giving them your SS number, for example. This is utterly unConstitutional. Note that until a certain fairly recent date, SS cards carried the admonition, "Not to Be Used for Purposes of Identification." And of diminishing effectiveness as well, given that SS cards are very easy to counterfeit.
The federal nazis are now about to require that the states federalize their Driver's Licenses. From what I read, this means a national standardization with your "permanent record" on the data strip on the back.
Any cop, banker, employer, doctor or librarian will be able to know everything about you--more than you want them to know. Then, we can just wait patiently until the identity thieves weasel their way into your life.
Then, even worse, we'll see a new crime: someone who wants illegal ID can just find someone similar-looking, kill him, and take his ID.
There are many ways this could go which haven't yet occurred to me. None of them are good, short of a full voter rejection of these usurptions. With nearly everyone philosophically asleep after their bout with the government schools, that's not likely to happen.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Friday, May 06, 2005
Independence Day
Well, maybe I'm a little less patriotic than I used to be--I still love the country and always will, but the country whose politics I love is gone. From historical readings, I'm guessing that the political United States I'd love is that which existed between about 1880 and 1910. That, my friends, was a FREE AMERICA. I'll probably write about it sometime. I liked growing up in the 1950's, in retrospect, but there's always the danger of selective memory. You remember the good stuff.
Not much of the liberty America's Founders set up for us is left, and more of it disappears with every election.
My enjoyment of Independence Day is an old habit I'm not sure I want to change. I enjoy the get-togethers with friends, the bbq's. I enjoy the Sousa marches and the fireworks.
I really used to like the fireworks--the skyrockets, the Roman candles and the firecrackers.
Used to?
Look, these sterile, polically correct, sit-on-your-ass-and-watch municipal light shows are about as far from the good ol' family 4th 0f July cul de sac celebration as a Yankees ballgame is from neighborhood softball at the park: The Yankees play a lot better baseball, but softball with friends is more fun.
They say it's because of fires. Throughout my first twenty years of life, I don't recall a serious fire caused by fireworks in my town. We could buy and use any fireworks until I was entering my teens, then some of the local money-sucking parasites decided that some firecrackers were too powerful for us poor dumb peons.
Yeah, I know there were a few kids who blew off a finger or two, but y'know, they have parents, and parents should teach 'em. Mine did. I even blew up my share of tin cans and ant hills.
It's a little different here in Southern California, with the dry brush in the hills. It means we have to be more careful how and where we light our fireworks off. It doesn't mean fireworks should be outlawed.
Property owners should pay attention. Brushy land and the houses and other buildings thereon should be insured against fire. Insurance companies should use tort law to exact reimbursement from careless fireworks users. That should force responsibility in fireworks use in the neighborhood and pretty much end the problem.
Empty-headed bureaucrats can't see that. Rather than think of a way in which Productive Americans can enjoy their holiday, they'd rather just stop the fun with the force of the police and establish fines, to help pay for their extravagant vacations.
They've killed freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Well, maybe I'm a little less patriotic than I used to be--I still love the country and always will, but the country whose politics I love is gone. From historical readings, I'm guessing that the political United States I'd love is that which existed between about 1880 and 1910. That, my friends, was a FREE AMERICA. I'll probably write about it sometime. I liked growing up in the 1950's, in retrospect, but there's always the danger of selective memory. You remember the good stuff.
Not much of the liberty America's Founders set up for us is left, and more of it disappears with every election.
My enjoyment of Independence Day is an old habit I'm not sure I want to change. I enjoy the get-togethers with friends, the bbq's. I enjoy the Sousa marches and the fireworks.
I really used to like the fireworks--the skyrockets, the Roman candles and the firecrackers.
Used to?
Look, these sterile, polically correct, sit-on-your-ass-and-watch municipal light shows are about as far from the good ol' family 4th 0f July cul de sac celebration as a Yankees ballgame is from neighborhood softball at the park: The Yankees play a lot better baseball, but softball with friends is more fun.
They say it's because of fires. Throughout my first twenty years of life, I don't recall a serious fire caused by fireworks in my town. We could buy and use any fireworks until I was entering my teens, then some of the local money-sucking parasites decided that some firecrackers were too powerful for us poor dumb peons.
Yeah, I know there were a few kids who blew off a finger or two, but y'know, they have parents, and parents should teach 'em. Mine did. I even blew up my share of tin cans and ant hills.
It's a little different here in Southern California, with the dry brush in the hills. It means we have to be more careful how and where we light our fireworks off. It doesn't mean fireworks should be outlawed.
Property owners should pay attention. Brushy land and the houses and other buildings thereon should be insured against fire. Insurance companies should use tort law to exact reimbursement from careless fireworks users. That should force responsibility in fireworks use in the neighborhood and pretty much end the problem.
Empty-headed bureaucrats can't see that. Rather than think of a way in which Productive Americans can enjoy their holiday, they'd rather just stop the fun with the force of the police and establish fines, to help pay for their extravagant vacations.
They've killed freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Driving as Privilege
Every time I hear some petty, money-sucking bureaucrat saying that driving is a privilege, not a right, my impulse is to find that parasitic pig crossing a street somewhere in front of me and to introduce him to the undercarriage of my two-and-one-half ton gas guzzler.
How dare they?
Our nation's first official document, The Declaration of Independence, asserts that we Americans possess "....certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness....." Now I ask you--be honest. In today's world, how can you pursue happiness without a car? Happiness moves a lot faster today than it used to.
From before the birth of the nation until well after the turn of the Twentieth Century, men and women drove carriages, wagons and rode horses without anyone questioning their right to do so. For years after the invention and first public use of the automobile, they were driven on and off public roads without anyone questioning their drivers' right to do so.
At some point during the early history of the automobile, one of these parasitic slimeballs saw yet another way to separate the Productive American from his dollars: he persuaded his fellow blood suckers that they could declare driving a privilege, revocable at government whim--then make Mr and Ms Productive American pay for the privilege.
Why weren't these thieving subhumans hanged from the bridges built by the aforementioned Productive Americans, and over which these Productive Americans drove their new-fangled horseless carriages?
We're living with the results today. Almost no one objects when these thugs reassert the lie that driving is a privilege, not a right.
Our responsibility in the event of a mishap can easily be guaranteed by our insurance company; state and (soon to be) federal government has no role here, other than adjudication of disputed claims.
Worse, the federal government is, as we lounge in front of our HDTVs , in the process of converting our driver's licenses into national ID cards.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Every time I hear some petty, money-sucking bureaucrat saying that driving is a privilege, not a right, my impulse is to find that parasitic pig crossing a street somewhere in front of me and to introduce him to the undercarriage of my two-and-one-half ton gas guzzler.
How dare they?
Our nation's first official document, The Declaration of Independence, asserts that we Americans possess "....certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness....." Now I ask you--be honest. In today's world, how can you pursue happiness without a car? Happiness moves a lot faster today than it used to.
From before the birth of the nation until well after the turn of the Twentieth Century, men and women drove carriages, wagons and rode horses without anyone questioning their right to do so. For years after the invention and first public use of the automobile, they were driven on and off public roads without anyone questioning their drivers' right to do so.
At some point during the early history of the automobile, one of these parasitic slimeballs saw yet another way to separate the Productive American from his dollars: he persuaded his fellow blood suckers that they could declare driving a privilege, revocable at government whim--then make Mr and Ms Productive American pay for the privilege.
Why weren't these thieving subhumans hanged from the bridges built by the aforementioned Productive Americans, and over which these Productive Americans drove their new-fangled horseless carriages?
We're living with the results today. Almost no one objects when these thugs reassert the lie that driving is a privilege, not a right.
Our responsibility in the event of a mishap can easily be guaranteed by our insurance company; state and (soon to be) federal government has no role here, other than adjudication of disputed claims.
Worse, the federal government is, as we lounge in front of our HDTVs , in the process of converting our driver's licenses into national ID cards.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The Constitution and the Law
If the lawmakers would follow the US Constitution, I'd have little to complain about. Not that I wouldn't complain anyway....... While I'm continually amazed at the vision and foresight of the Founders, there were a few errors made.
The Founders even made a provision for just such an eventuality: the means to amend the document. Not impossible, but not too easy.
Which is one of the reasons why I'm so uneasy about the future of the Republic.
When Congress decided to make alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the nation (an incredibly stupid idea, to be sure), they went about it in the proper way. Recognizing that any law against production and consumption of alcohol would be unConstitutional, they proceeded through the rigors of amending the Constitution with the Eighteenth Amendment. A few years later, of course, they did it all again to repeal the Eighteenth with the Twenty-First. I'll drink to that!
Today, we're still involved in what has inaccurately been dubbed "The War on Drugs." Making the use and sale of drugs illegal is every bit as unConstitutional and Alcohol Prohibition would've been, but few in government are willing to admit this. No Constitutional Amendment has been proposed. Government simply enforces this collection of unConstitutional laws with the force of arms, using local police agencies as well as the FBI and several newly and unConstitutionally-created federal police agencies. In less than thirty years' time, the drug war has become so complicated and all-encompassing in law enforcement that government is rendered unable to enforce laws that are properly within its Constitutional role. As in the case of alcohol prohibition, violent criminals run virtually unchecked in society.
More recently, since the destruction of New York's World Trade Center, defense against any future attacks of that sort has caused the Federal government to redouble its creation of unConstitutional laws.
Our new "war," the War on Terror," has caused the creation of even more unConstitutional federal police agencies. Not surprisingly, there is almost no concern for Constitutional Rule of Law. The Federal government issues edicts and orders as if there were no Constitution at all. It seems, in order to fight against islamic dictatorship, we have to become a christian dictatorship.
Government officials and news people, in order to justify these outrages, cite precedent after precedent. Unfortunatly for those who recall and desire a more libertarian life, this seems to satisfy everyone. Government continues along its path to a police state.
What I'd like to propose is that lawmakers no longer be allowed to consider precedent law cases that may or may not be in accordance with the Constitution. I propose that every new bill under consideration be tested against the Constitution itself.
Shall Congress pass an act that creates a federal department of education? Where, in the Constitution, does one find authorization fort the federal government to be involved in the education of American people? I don't find any such authorization. The federal department of education should be abolished.
I'm watching the news right now. They're talking about making drivers' licenses harder to get by requiring four forms of ID. Now, I'm not sure I even have four forms if ID, unless you count my..........driver's license.
Do I think it'll happen? Not anytime soon. There is, so far, no will to repair the broken government. it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
If the lawmakers would follow the US Constitution, I'd have little to complain about. Not that I wouldn't complain anyway....... While I'm continually amazed at the vision and foresight of the Founders, there were a few errors made.
The Founders even made a provision for just such an eventuality: the means to amend the document. Not impossible, but not too easy.
Which is one of the reasons why I'm so uneasy about the future of the Republic.
When Congress decided to make alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the nation (an incredibly stupid idea, to be sure), they went about it in the proper way. Recognizing that any law against production and consumption of alcohol would be unConstitutional, they proceeded through the rigors of amending the Constitution with the Eighteenth Amendment. A few years later, of course, they did it all again to repeal the Eighteenth with the Twenty-First. I'll drink to that!
Today, we're still involved in what has inaccurately been dubbed "The War on Drugs." Making the use and sale of drugs illegal is every bit as unConstitutional and Alcohol Prohibition would've been, but few in government are willing to admit this. No Constitutional Amendment has been proposed. Government simply enforces this collection of unConstitutional laws with the force of arms, using local police agencies as well as the FBI and several newly and unConstitutionally-created federal police agencies. In less than thirty years' time, the drug war has become so complicated and all-encompassing in law enforcement that government is rendered unable to enforce laws that are properly within its Constitutional role. As in the case of alcohol prohibition, violent criminals run virtually unchecked in society.
More recently, since the destruction of New York's World Trade Center, defense against any future attacks of that sort has caused the Federal government to redouble its creation of unConstitutional laws.
Our new "war," the War on Terror," has caused the creation of even more unConstitutional federal police agencies. Not surprisingly, there is almost no concern for Constitutional Rule of Law. The Federal government issues edicts and orders as if there were no Constitution at all. It seems, in order to fight against islamic dictatorship, we have to become a christian dictatorship.
Government officials and news people, in order to justify these outrages, cite precedent after precedent. Unfortunatly for those who recall and desire a more libertarian life, this seems to satisfy everyone. Government continues along its path to a police state.
What I'd like to propose is that lawmakers no longer be allowed to consider precedent law cases that may or may not be in accordance with the Constitution. I propose that every new bill under consideration be tested against the Constitution itself.
Shall Congress pass an act that creates a federal department of education? Where, in the Constitution, does one find authorization fort the federal government to be involved in the education of American people? I don't find any such authorization. The federal department of education should be abolished.
I'm watching the news right now. They're talking about making drivers' licenses harder to get by requiring four forms of ID. Now, I'm not sure I even have four forms if ID, unless you count my..........driver's license.
Do I think it'll happen? Not anytime soon. There is, so far, no will to repair the broken government. it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
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