When words fail us....

More later.

With a tip of the hat to Erika and others who stand up to abusive authority.

Overblown--How We Inflate the Terrorism Threat, and Why We Believe Them

Driving to Santa Fe this morning, I found myself listening to a BBC broadcast on terrorism. Luck me, since they were interviewing Woody Hayes Political Science Professor John Mueller from Ohio State.

I took two Poli Sci courses (National Security Policy and a history of modern conflict in the 20th Century) from John Mueller back when he was teaching at the Univ of Rochester which luckily, coincided with my undergraduate tenure there.

Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: Free Press, 2006. Information about the book

Video below from The Daily Show.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Gun Show at Pueblo Complex: Irrelevant Battle of Style Rather than Substance

Nancy Schick's editorial in Sunday's Los Alamos Daily Post boils down to one issue. She does not like guns, sees them only in the context of school shootings, and does not want the school district to be in any way associated with guns or a gun show. She is certainly entitled to her opinion, but her opinion should not be the basis of Schools policy.

First of all, I take issue with the tone of her essay. The Los Alamos Sportsman's Club (of which I am a member, but speaking for myself here) bears little resemblance to "...a white-supremacist hate group or to the Socialists Workers’ Party...".  Why this comparison or its slippery slope inference is made other than to enflame emotions is beyond me, but it distracts from the point and is beneath the dignity of the civil discourse I am used to in this community, which has, so far, allowed for reasonable discussion between people of widely different political persuasions without too many resorts to low blows. The last thing Los Alamos needs is an emotionally driven fight between citizens with the schools caught in the crossfire. Furthermore, the letter closes with argumentum ad misericordiam rather than with anything resembling a sound basis for public policy.

As far as the Schools renting surplus space to LASC, as others have reminded us, the Pueblo Complex is not a school. Robert Pirsig's Church of Reason essay in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind, reminding us that the brick and mortar appearance of a building does not always tell us what is going on inside. The Schools rent surplus space out to help maintain their bottom line. The Schools' rental to a credit union, a truck rental agency, LANL, and others does not constitute an endorsement of any of these activities (including, I presume, an endorsement of the continued maintenance and safeguarding of the nation's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, which, after all, pays for the Schools) but plain old good business sense. Likewise, rental of Middle School space to craft fairs is a business decision, although I doubt any would object to a crafts fair.

Indeed, schools across the country rent to religious organizations to help maintain the bottom line. These are carefully crafted agreements that do not constitute an endorsement of a particular faith or even an endorsement of religion. That is especially good in my opinion, since some religions take issue with the very science taught in our schools.

Finally, back to the gun show. Los Alamos is an incredibly safe community. The fact that this is a safe community does not provide any data suggesting that firearms ownership or a gun show that has been going on for some 17 years is in any way antithetical  to safety.  While Ms.Schick makes clear her distaste for guns, nowhere does she put forth an  argument demonstrating that the gun show endangers students, puts the Schools at risk, or leads to crime. Indeed, by supporting the JNROTC marksmanship program, the LASC has supported the teaching of safe gun handling and helped the team reach national stature. Furthermore, the men and women I encountered at the show  are a broad cross section of the community. The Schools should no more discriminate against our holding a gun show when renting out space than it would discriminate against any other respectable Los Alamos community group. Even Socialists ;-)

Big Brother is Watching, Listening, and Generally Making a Nuisance of Himself: Welcome to the National Security Surveillance State

Now

Then

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.- O'Brien speaking to Winston Smith in 1984

Add to that "the object of surveillance is surveillance". As a Democrat who twice contributed funds to Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, I'm more than a little miffed that the candidate who campaigned on openness has become a President with a cavalier attitude towards the NSA's domestic surveillance program. The 4th Amendment is pretty clear on stuff like needing warrants for searches, and  prohibiting unreasonable searches or seizures. Yet, under cover of official secrecy, the FISA court has reinvented itself and has made classified interpretations of public law, thus allowing the NSA and Executive Branch to decide in secret when it needs a warrant and what is reasonable, in other words, it can wipe its collective ass with the U.S. Constitution.

Efforts to make the public "more comfortable" with the government's "classified law" and its lying about its snooping make a silk purse of legal sow's ears. There is, to be sure, scant comfort that we wouldn't even be having the conversation had not Edward Snowden spilled the beans on the activity. Its never a good thing when a junior operative (or anyone, including Daniel Ellsberg) makes far reaching decisions on the boundaries between Constitutional law vs. releasing classified information, which is why we should not be repeatedly playing fast and loose with the Constitution, public trust, and thus willfully creating more Daniel Ellsbergs as honest civil servants become compelled to blow the whistle. U.S. Senators knew of this problem, complained repeatedly to the United States Attorney General (in 2011 and 2012), and nothing was done. Perhaps Senators Wyden and Udall should have spilled the beans. They certainly have more standing. But all remained secret, hence the Snowden fiasco. As I have said in the comments section of the NY Times, if Mr. Snowden deserves his day in court, then Mr. Obama deserves his day defending himself in front of the U.S. Senate.

...Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
-Bruce Cockburn, from The Trouble With Normal

As a nation, we've allowed ourselves to be far too complacent in the face of a rising Big Brother ever since the 9-11 attacks or perhaps even long before that seminal event. Unless we change our complacency to government overreach, we will eventually find that what we once considered unthinkable becomes the new normal. Much of this unconstitutional conduct goes on in secret and some of it benefits powerful private corporate entities that profit from our complacency. Hence secret overreach has powerful clients and the folks who do this work have powerful friends in Congress to rationalize and support their efforts.

So what really bugs me is not the surveillance, but that the public was lied to and had secret policy made behind our backs. Indeed, we may be willing to consent to many of the NSA's activities as reasonable in an unreasonable world. Just ask us. In an ideal world, I think PATRIOT should be repealed and replaced by a law with more stringent safeguards.  The public should give (or deny) through our vote, consent to what we consider a reasonable level of government surveillance over our private lives, given the world we now live in. The Supreme Court should reign in FISA's breadth and confine it to narrow questions of operation rather than letting FISA secretly re-write the U.S. Constitution's protections--this is the most egregious offense, in my opinion, to a democratic government subject to rule by the law of the land made in our names. Of course, its the Chief Justice who appoints FISA judges, much of Congress has drunk the Kool-Aid, and the President seems to have bought into the Nixon Doctrine: "If the President does it, that means its not illegal". This is not an ideal world.

Long Live B-B, eh? 

Students for an Orwellian Society

Original Intent

Sanity must prevail, but the 2nd Amendment has a history that the left doesn't want to acknowledge.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

New Mexico Gun law and State Constitutional provisions can be found here. (BTW, I don't know anything about the Southern New Mexico Militia, so don't take this as a blessing of the site owners).

No right is absolute, and although the Founders, as recorded in such places as the Federalist Papers, argued that "a well regulated militia" was inexorably tied into the people's individual right to bear arms, that doesn't mean they thought every farmer should have a twelve pounder double-shotted with grape and canister aimed at the front porch. Neither does it mean we should all be carrying around enough firepower to fight a land war in Afghanistan. One has to balance individual rights with the public safety. Yes, finding that balance is a real chore and requires trust, individual responsibility, and logic. The more freedom one has, the more responsibilities one shoulders for the public good.

Some useful quotes from the old white farts that go to Heller vs DC.

"If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an
army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the
liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little,
if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who
stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their
fellow-citizens." - Alexander Hamilton

"Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are
in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot
enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people
are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops
that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States." - Noah Webster

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who
approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but
downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably
ruined." - Patrick Henry

"Be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of
the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the
United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..." - Samuel Adams

"And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not
warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson

Speaking of sanity, or the lack thereof. Perhaps the problem is not so much the availability of guns, but the unavailability of prudence, common sense, and self-restraint. For example: