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TO WHOM DOES THE COUNTRY BELONG: THE PEOPLE OR THE GOVERNMENT?

PART ONE*

AN ESSAY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH AND ARMED SELF-DEFENSE IN A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC—A REPUBLIC PERCEIVED BY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND OTHERS AS OUT-OF-STEP WITH A WORLD MARCHING TOWARD GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL UNION AND WORLD POLITICAL TYRANNY; A WORLD INTENT ON BRINGING THE UNITED STATES INTO ITS FOLD; A WORLD THAT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, THROUGH BOTH ITS WORDS AND DEEDS HAS SHOWN A MARKED PROCLIVITY FOR; AND IN THOSE ACTIONS, HAS DEMONSTRATED ITS COMPLICITY IN WORKING WITH OUR NATION’S FOES TO MAKE IT SO.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” “But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” ~ two quotations from George Orwell’s Dystopian Novel, “1984”Does this Country, the United States, as a free Constitutional Republic, belong to the people?Trivially, one would answer, “yes, of course.” That’s what the Founders intended. There can be no doubt of that. And that’s what they sought to achieve in fashioning the Nation’s Constitution: their Blueprint for a free Constitutional Republic.But, once again—Does this Country, the United States, as a free Constitutional Republic, belong to the people? Two years under the thumb of the present Biden Administration; a seditious Press; a weak or compliant Congress; the weaponization of the Federal Bureaucracy against its own people; the flagrant miscarriage of justice, targeting innocent Americans in clear violation of their Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights; rampant and escalating violent crime; uninhibited attacks on our Nation’s history, heritage, culture, and ethos; desecration of our monuments, art, and emblems; denigration of our founding fathers; the subversion and perversion of our public education system; the deliberate sabotaging of our Nation’s economy and energy resources; the compromising of our electoral system—all this and more, and one must wonder.So, then, DOES this Country belong to the American people?An American, reflecting on the aforesaid recitation, is now unsure, and answers with an equivocal: “well, maybe; then again, maybe not.” After 245 years, has a fervent wish, hope, and prayer of the Founders degenerated into nostalgic sentiment, bespeaking a fleeting, and misty bygone reality, dead now and buried?Well, not as long as the Bill of Rights remains intact. It is still with us—barely! And, many there are, both here and abroad, that would wish it to be dead and buried, as well, along with the rest of the Constitution.“Not so fast,” say most Americans, but that, sadly, doesn’t include the officials of the present Biden Administration, along with many of those in Congress, who have a lot of control—too much control—over our life and well-being. And, it doesn’t help that the legacy Press is of one mind with the Biden Administration. And we must, unfortunately, add many more people in business, finance, and academia, to that list, who are in agreement.But even as many powerful, ruthless people would have liked long ago to dismantle the Constitution, and, to eradicate, especially, the Bill of Rights component of it, the Founders in their profound wisdom, made it a very difficult thing to do legally, and we can be thankful for that, even as those who hate the Country, would, understandably, take issue with the Founders for that very prescience.  And, although the present Administration has—with its control of the vast Administrative machinery of Government and with assistance from a mostly friendly or otherwise placid Congress, a seditious Press, and other inordinately powerful, ruthless actors, pulling the present Administration’s strings, behind the scenes—found it easy enough to subvert law and Constitution with relative ease, they have not found it so easy to ignore the dictates of the Bill of Rights, even as they have, as one must acknowledge, made considerable inroads in constraining much of it. Such is the power and arrogance wielded by the Destroyers of our Nation that had enabled them to do this and to get away with it.But, for all the damage the Biden Administration, Congress, the Press, and the private sector proxies of the Administration have done to this Country and to its people in just two years—and with two more years remaining to be reckoned with before the demented fool in Office walks out on his own two feet or is otherwise wheeled out—Americans may take some solace in the fact that a modicum of the Founder’s wish for us still remains and, hopefully, the Republic they created will outlast any and all attempts by the Biden Administration and others to harm it further or possibly destroy it.

THE NECESSITY OF OUR NATION’S NATURAL LAW RIGHTS TO FORESTALL, DERAIL, OR PREVENT TYRANNY

What is required to protect a free Republic and the sovereignty of the American people from the thrall of Tyranny of Government? It is the persistence of Americans’ natural law rights, and two in particular: free speech and an armed citizenry. These are necessary conditions to keep a free Constitutional Republic alive and to keep tyranny at bay.These two Rights subsume all the others and are inextricably tied to each other.Both are integral to the functioning of and preservation of the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic.

THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

The natural law right of free speech entails the right to dissent.This right is essential to the sanctity and inviolability of one’s Soul and it is one of two fundamental natural law rights necessary to keep the tyranny of Government in check.Through the exercise of it, a person expresses his individuality. But erase it, and a person becomes a Zombie, or, in archaic Judaic folklore, a “Golem.”A Zombie or Golem is a creature not of God but of man—a thing of mud and dirt, unfinished—with the makings of a man, and seeming to be a man in rough form, but lacking the Divine Spark, the animating breath of life and Being and Spirit, and Soul, bequeathed to man by the Divine Creator. The Divine Spark comes only from the Divine Creator alone—the source of free will, moral conscience, creative energy, drive, motivation, aesthetic sense, and self-awareness—thus, the idea of Man in the Image of God.A Zombie/Golem is not of God, and, therefore, but a forlorn creature, lacking will, conscience, motivating impulse, aesthetic sense, and self-awareness, NOT a man.That is what the Biden Administration would wish to make of all of us—a thing that doesn’t think, but only reacts to the gospel the Biden Administration preaches, as echoed by the Administration’s vast propaganda organs—a formless mob that does not engage in conscious thought and reflection, and that is incapable of engaging in creative thought or exchange, but simply does as it is told.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

The right to keep and bear arms entails the right to self-defense in the broadest sense.The natural law right to armed self-defense is essential to the maintenance of a person’s security and physical well-being, keeping predatory man, predatory animal, and predatory Government at bay.Through the exercise of the right to own and possess firearms, the citizen keeps his sovereignty and dominion over the Government in check, lest it degenerates into worst tyranny.

THE RIGHT TO DISSENT AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS ARE BOTH NECESSARY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF A FREE STATE

These two basic rights, Free Speech and the Bearing of Arms are essential fixtures of a free Constitutional Republic, inseparably linked, and fused as one.If Man has the right to dissent from the encroachment of tyranny but lacks access to firearms, he may have the will to resist but he lacks the means to do so.If Man has access to firearms but lacks independence of thought, Man’s mind is adrift. He lacks the will to preserve “the security of a free State.” And his weapons come to naught.Both are required.The government thus binds a free man to its dictates; suppresses man’s creative impulses and drives; insinuates itself into every aspect of man’s life. And in making man’s life miserable, the Government at once makes certain that man cannot fight back against that Government. Its actions become more incessant and more aggressive.Nothing remains private or sacred; nothing remains beyond Government’s all-seeing eye, and nothing remains beyond the power of Government to poison and destroy all good things—all to promote the “Good Society,” i.e., the well-ordered society, the well-behaved society, the conformist society.The government even deadens a person’s instinct for self-preservation: there is no “Self” left to preserve.A person thus comes to view himself as merely an insignificant, lifeless cog, in a lifeless, cold, remorseless machine.AQ has previously pointed out that the natural law right of speech, i.e., independence of thoughts, and the natural law right of self-defense, which logically entails armed self-defense, are inextricably linked. See our article, titled, “The Right To Dissent And The Right To Bear Arms Are A Bulwark Against Tyranny,” posted on this website, on November 21, 2022In pertinent part, we wrote,“. . . if one is prevented from exercising one’s freedom of speech—the freedom to dissent, the freedom to exercise independence of thought—one’s mind, spirit, and soul is damaged.And, if one is prevented from exercising his freedom to bear arms—one’s right of defense against a predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory government—then the safety and well-being of one’s physical Self are imperiled.The two most basic rights—the right of self-protection and independence of thought—go together. To lose the one is to lose the other.”Autonomy of Selfhood is impossible where the individual is helpless—physically, psychically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.But, many would resist and would have the means to do so, as long as one is armed. But our Country is not like those of the EU, or of the British Commonwealth. Our citizenry is armed.But suppose the Government allowed man a modicum of expression, freedom from relentless scrutiny in exchange for paying homage to it. And suppose the cost for that was the loss of his firearms—the thing that can bring down tyranny.Suppose Government could “tease” those who resist mass confiscation of their firearms into surrendering them if the Government promised to them from harassment and the ire of their fellow compliant, docile compatriots.If successful, Government’s tentacles would wrap around the last vestiges of freedom. Nothing would remain to stop the plunge of the Country into totalitarianism. Law, as such, would devolve into ad hoc pronouncements, and edicts of the Tyrant and his minions, that could change at the Tyrant’s whim, without prior notice. The Tyrant would constantly keep the populace confounded, off-balance, and in a state of abject fear, without the means and wherewithal to object. And those few that could still reason at all would rebel against Tyranny if they could, but they cannot because they lack the means, firearms, to do so.Man, lacking the means to ensure his freedom would become wholly dependent on the Government to satisfy his basic needs, his physical survival. His life would be reduced to mere subsistence. And, for those few who stood in the Tyrant’s grace, their life would be carefree, and pleasant enough, but would be purposeless, meaningless, and inane. Each day would be marked by pursuing one pleasure after another, living life in a slothful, languid manner. And, as ever required now and then, showering the Tyrant with flattery, and slavish devotion, for this modern-day courtier could never know when he might fall out of the Tyrant’s grace. One would have to look to the life of serfs and that of the nobility and royalty in the Middle Ages to find a useful comparison for what is in store for mankind in a neo-feudalistic world empire that is in the making.In the absence of the armed citizenry, the tyranny of Government is not only possible. It is inevitable!

THERE IS A REASON  THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, LIKE ITS PREDECESSOR, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, IS APOPLECTIC OVER GUNS AND THE NATION’S THE ARMED CITIZENRY, AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CONCERN FOR PUBLIC SAFETY.

Make no mistake: The government, THIS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, is coming after Americans’ weaponry, doing so, incrementally, in dribs and drabs. Any setback leads immediately to another effort. The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress won’t stop until they have de facto erased the right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment, and have confiscated millions of firearms from the civilian citizenry. The campaign of confiscation will continue, indefinitely under the dictatorship that this Country is moving toward by leaps and bounds.The Government usurpers are in deathly fear of the armed citizen. That explains their stubborn, all-consuming drive to erase the Second Amendment. But they cannot acknowledge this. They can never acknowledge this. They cannot so much as suggest this.To do so would be to admit their fear and weakness. And it would draw attention to their unlawful acts of usurpation of the citizenry’s sovereignty over them.It would cast light on their unlawful attempts to erase Americans’ natural law rights. The armed citizenry is the one remaining failsafe to keep tyranny from the final triumph over Nation, Constitution, and People.The usurpers of our sovereignty assiduously avoid acknowledging or even intimating their own dread of the armed citizenry. They do so by cleverly deflecting attention away from themselves, from their own fear, and directing public attention on those Americans who abhor firearms and who shun those who exercise their God-given right to keep and bear them.  Thus, the Government creates the myth that it is the armed American citizen who induces fear in all other Americans, and that public safety and order demands that Americans relinquish their firearms. It is all nonsense, of course. The criminal element and homicidal maniac will not be affected, nor deterred by this—not by any of it. Note that the Biden Administration and anti-Second Amendment groups’ efforts are always directed at creating laws targeting the average American citizen, with no mention of the criminal element and little to no mention of the mentally incompetent.This little fact should give discerning Americans pause, as it undercuts the Biden Administration’s contention that its arms control policies to end Gun Violence—their present go-to catchall phrase—are directed at promoting public safety and public order for the benefit of Americans. Given the lack of any coherent Government policy to tackle rampant violent crime, whether criminals use firearms or any other implement at their disposal, the inference that one must draw from this is that the Biden Administration, along with a captive, seditious Press, and Anti-Second Amendment groups, such as the Brady antigun group, and Everytown for Gun Safety, isn’t interested in dealing effectively with violent crime—and never was interested in that. The Administration’s interest and that of the Press and Anti-Second Amendment groups is and always was, on eliminating the armed citizenry. That explains why the focus of their efforts was and is directed almost entirely on going after gun manufacturers, and retail gun dealers, ammunition suppliers and manufacturers, and weaponry in the hands of the average citizen. The aim is to destroy the fact of and the very notion of an armed citizenry as the mainstay to protect the security of a free State. A Tyranny has no use for either a free State or a free people.Curbing instances of violent crime, especially in our Nation’s major urban areas, is rarely if ever mentioned. One only hears the expression Gun Violence or Assault weapon mentioned and those phrases are only mentioned in the context of the average, rational, responsible gun owner, not in the context of the psychopathic criminal element or the drug-addled raving lunatic that is, alone, responsible for violent crime. But, then, these criminal and lunatic elements are serving a purpose, if unconsciously. They are serving the Government by demoralizing and disorienting the public, and by destabilizing society. Defunding police departments, handcuffing their ability thereby hampering their ability to fight crime and to protect their respective communities; banning the popular semiautomatic weapon in common use, that is utilized for self-defense; restricting the public’s use of firearms through the enactment of a multitude of mind-numbing federal and State laws that negatively impact a person’s ability to defend him or herself in a life-threatening situation, criminalizing the right of the people to keep and bear arms—all for the purpose of providing for and promoting public safety—this is difficult to fathom. Claiming a desire to protect the public by leaving it defenseless beggars credulity. How does this work? It operates in this way——The Government, presenting itself as a Guardian of public safety and order pretends to protect the unarmed John Q. Public—not from the criminal element or the homicidal maniac—but from the armed John Q. Public citizen. This is the unstated but constant and consistent theme running throughout Biden’s attack on gun possession and ownership. There are too many guns, i.e., there are too many guns in the hands of too many average Americans.The Government and its propagandists do this by positing that the armed John Q. Public, is, a danger to the public by dint of his desire to exercise his natural law right of armed self-defense, and, so, the claim is that a person who wishes to exercise his God-given right of armed self-defense is, by definition, a violent aggressor and inherent danger to the public by virtue of his keeping and bearing arms; ergo, he is a transgressor of public order and harmony, and of societal norms; that he is unmutual” and must undergo social conditioning to correct his abnormal behavior and abnormal thought processes.But, what is really going on here is Government Tyranny imposing its will on those who will not accept the imposition of Tyranny upon the Country. But the Government is taking pains to hide that fact. So, by a feat of legerdemain, the Tyrannical Government doesn’t refer to itself as stepping on the head of the American citizen—who seeks only to be left alone and to exercise his God-given rights, free from coercion and harassment. Rather, the Government, THIS Federal Government, i.e., THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, points its finger at those individuals—who happen to be tens of millions of us— who rightfully refuse to conform their thoughts and behavior, their individuality, to unlawful Government edicts and dictates. The Biden Administration claims that it is these Americans who are stepping on “the rights” of their neighbors, namely those people who have abjectly surrendered their Soul, Spirit, and Selfhood to the Government.As this Federal Government, this Biden Administration dismantles our Free Constitutional Republic, some Americans accept this. Some even laud it. But many others realize the danger this Government poses to the well-being of the Republic and to the sanctity and inviolability of their individual Being. And they will have no part of it.The theme presented by the Government’s propagandists is——New Age Remodelers of America, “the Sensible Americans” vs. Old Age Preservers of the Republic, “the Irrational Americans.”Drilled down to its basics, what the perspicacious observer sees is the age-old battle now come back to haunt us, Americans:Tyranny versus Liberty.It is really that simple. And with each passing day, the dynamic playing out throughout the Land is ever clearer. Which shall it be? The “vote” is out on this.

THE GOAL OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS THE GOAL OF THE UN POLICY THINK TANKS, AND OF BOTH THE EU AND OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH NATIONS THAT ARE ALREADY HALFWAY THERE: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN NATION-STATEALL OF THEM, AND WHAT REMAINS OF EACH OF THEM ARE TO BE MERGED INTO A ONE-WORLD TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT. THAT IS THE AGENDA. THAT IS THE PLAN. THEY ARE ALL OPERATING OUT OF THE SAME PLAYBOOK, AND IT IS ALL TIED TO THE UN ARMS CONTROL PROTOCOL, TIED TO INTERNATIONAL IDEAS ABOUT GUN OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION.

The goal is this: immersion of all western nation-states, including, and especially, the  United States, into a neo-feudalistic world order. This is to replace all independent sovereign nation-states and, of salient importance, this requires the inclusion of the United States for the postulated tyrannical empire to be successful. The inclusion of the United States into a grand world Totalitarian scheme is required, not only because of its nuclear power capabilities but because of the Nation’s unique Bill of Rights, the only truly free Constitutional Republic in existence since the dawn of civilization. It won’t do for the United States to continue to exist as the one independent sovereign western nation-state holdout, with its free and sovereign citizenry in a world that is ruled by a small tyrannical cadre of royalty and nobility, oppressing humanity through a massive police, military, intelligence, surveillance presence. Waves of oppressed people would attempt to enter the United States, illegally, as they do now, but this would not be in accordance with the present UN agenda to destroy the integrity of a nation’s geographic borders, the unstated goal of which is to pave the way for a tyrannical neo-feudalistic empire, encompassing much of the world. No.This new wave of would-be transplants would try to circumvent the Globalist agenda of a one-world government, resulting in growing unrest among billions of people throughout the world. Such massive unrest would be exceedingly difficult to contain, absent a bloodbath such as the world has never before seen. But, the result of such a bloodbath would lead to further upheaval in the world empire. And that upheaval could not be contained. Fissures would open up throughout the empire, and the empire would collapse from the unsustainable weight of itself, no longer kept in reasonable check through its brutal class of military, para-military police, and intelligence overseers. Consider the problem that CCP China is having with its own disgruntled oppressed population. As large as China is both in landmass and in population, it is nothing on the order of a world empire. Can Xi Jinping’s Government contain the unrest? It would seem so. After all, the Chinese people do not have access to firearms. They cannot easily defy the tyranny they have lived under for so long, especially, in the years of the CCP Coronavirus pandemic, which they still live under. But, fractures are in this tightly controlled society. But, without firearms, a revolution cannot succeed. Thousands of people may be killed, and tens of thousands more could wind up in detention camps. Possession of firearms in CCP China is strictly controlled.“The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Control of Guns,” is lengthy and makes clear that obtaining Government approval to possess a gun legally for the average citizen is highly unlikely and would hardly be worth the effort, even if a person were able legally to obtain one. The Gun Law of CCP China provides in part,“Article 1 This Law is enacted for the purpose of tightening control over guns, preserving public security and order and ensuring public safety.Article 2 This Law applies to control of guns within the territory of the People’s Republic of China.“Article 3 The State establishes strict control over guns. All units and individuals are prohibited to possess, manufacture (alter and assemble included), trade in, transport, lease or loan guns in violation of the provisions of laws.The State shall severely punish any criminal act committed in violation of the control of guns. Every unit and individual has the obligation to inform against any violations against the control of guns. The State shall protect the informant and reward the persons who have rendered meritorious service by informing against criminal acts committed against the control of guns.Article 4 The public security department under the State Council shall be in charge of control of guns throughout the country. Public security organs of the people’s governments at or above the county level shall be in charge of the control of guns in their administrative regions respectively. The public security organs of the people’s governments at higher levels shall exercise supervision over the control of guns by the public security organs of the people’s governments at lower levels.”

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DOESN’T HAVE AN EASY JOB OF IT TRYING TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT GUN POSSESSION IS TO BE CONSIDERED ARCHAIC, OUT OF VOGUE, AND INCONSISTENT WITH MODERN-DAY INTERNATIONAL NORMS OF THOUGHT AND CONDUCTAS IF AMERICANS SHOULD GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE TYRANNY PREVALENT IN THE EU OR IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH NATIONS ANYWAY, OR THAT NATURAL LAW RIGHTS THAT ARE, OF THEIR NATURE, GOD-GIVEN, AND, SO, FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE, ILLIMITABLE, IMMUTABLE, UNMODIFIABLE, AND ETERNAL ARE THE SORTS OF THINGS THAT CAN EVER BE CONSIDERED OUT OF FASHION.

The Biden Administration, much of Congress, and many Americans, as well, are completely out of touch with the basic precepts, principles, and tenets of the U.S. Constitution, upon which our Nation, a free Republic was founded and upon which it is grounded. Attempting to discuss this matter at all with them is doomed to failure at the outset. There is no common ground upon which a dialog could commence. To try to do so would be like attempting to carry on a conversation with an alien species. There is nothing decipherable between us and them. Neither of us could begin to translate the other’s language. That explains why this Nation is at loggerheads. Biden’s remarks at his inauguration, if one can even accept the propriety of calling it an inauguration, where he talks about unifying the Nation, he was probably being insincere at best. But, even if Biden were, at the time at least, being honest, his attempt at bringing the Nation together was impossible at the get-go. Both he and his Administration operate on a set of postulates nakedly inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution. So, where could an American citizen who cherishes the Constitution, and who cherishes our history, heritage, culture, Judeo-Christian ethic, and Nation’s ethos, even begin a conversation, on any matter with him or with any of the people that serve in his Administration? Biden’s speech to the Nation, on September 1, 2022, was beyond the pale. To make sense of it at all, one must infer that he has declared war on half the Nation. There is nothing else to make of it. There’s not so much as a hint of rapprochement either in the content or tone of that speech, let alone a suggestion of national unity in it. In truth, the speech was nothing more than a harangue, and the backdrop only accentuated that fact. It is not surprising that Biden would be dead-set against Americans’ exercise of their right of armed self-defense. One does not proffer arms to a perceived enemy. One confiscates arms from that enemy. And, so Biden attacks the armed citizenry, incessantly, mercilessly.Aided by a seditious Press, the Biden Administration claims that  Americans who “flaunt” their exercise of the right to keep and bear arms jeopardize all Americans, even as it is really, and only, the Government itself that registers agitation, hatred and dreaded fear of the armed citizenry.In the Sunday, November 26, 2022, NY Times, the author of the piece, Mike, McIntire, exclaims,“Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s. . . .Armed Americans, often pushing a right-wing agenda, are increasingly using open-carry laws to intimidate opponents and shut down debate. . . . Today, in some parts of the country with permissive gun laws, it is not unusual to see people with handguns or military-style rifles at all types of protests.”Note the author’s recognition of the close nexus between the First Amendment, “Freedom of Speech,” and the Second Amendment, “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”Yet, in that entire Op-Ed essay, posing as a news account, there is not a word mentioned of actual violence occurring by these well-armed Americans protesting the Government; nor is there any mention of fear of violence felt by one American that another American happens to carry a firearm.Apparently, violence is taken as a given, i.e., as axiomatic, without the need for proof. Merely TO BE armed is enough to scare the Tyrant. As well the Tyrant should be frightened. As well all Tyrants should take note of the Tyranny they imposed on their people. And it is both the right and the duty of the American citizen, to point out to the Tyrant that it is the Tyrant’s behavior that promotes violence directed at the Tyrant. That violence does not emanate from the armed without good reason. The Federal Government has nothing to fear from the armed citizenry as long as it acts in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and serves the interests of the American people. THIS IS AS IT SHOULD BE! AND IT IS AS THE FRAMERS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION INTENDED! Sad it was that Americans once were compelled to take up arms against a Tyrant. And that Tyrant, George III, and the Rothschild Bankers resided across the sea. Worse it is when one’s own Government imposes tyranny on its own people.But invoking fear and anger in the masses is necessary to rationalize restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, for Tyranny cannot prevail in the midst of an omnipresent armed citizenry, and where one Branch of Government, the U.S. Supreme Court, stands guard over the Bill of Rights, as is presently the case. The author of the Times article, supra, was compelled to recognize the seminal Second Amendment Heller case, but since it doesn’t serve the Tyrant Government’s agenda, with whom the Times newspaper is in alliance, the author deliberately misrepresents the import of the case, distorting it to serve the Government Tyrant’s cause.Slithering around the import of Heller, McIntire says that Heller“. . . made clear that gun rights were not unlimited, and that its ruling did not invalidate laws prohibiting ‘the carrying of firearms in sensitive places.’ That caveat was reiterated in a concurring opinion in the New York case.”The news reporter latches onto the phrase “gun rights were not unlimited.” But that phrase is dicta. It isn’t the law. The phrase has nothing to do with the Heller holdings. So, why is it in Heller at all?Ever mindful of his words, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the majority opinion, would have preferred not to use it. He inserted the phrase into the opinion likely to appease both Chief Justice, John Roberts, and retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy to obtain their votes.The phrase was not meant to give carte blanche to States to run roughshod over the Right. But the phrase seems to suggest that the States can do just that, and many States have in fact done just that, which is why the Court was compelled to take up Bruen.What Justice Scalia meant by the phrase, “gun rights were not unlimited” is this, as set forth in the Majority Opinion:“The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”Scalia alluded to the Federal Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) that precludes certain categories of individuals from possessing firearms.In that paragraph, cited supra, Justice Scalia also refers to “sensitive places” but this is merely an observation. Scalia simply mentions the places where, historically, individuals were prohibited from carrying a firearm. But this doesn’t mean a State can designate “sensitive places” willy-nilly.The phrase, “sensitive places” wrongly inspires wrong-headed thinking about the application of the Right. The failure of many jurisdictions to heed the rulings of Heller explains why Bruen came along, thereafter.In striking down the “proper cause” requirement of New York, Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, clearly also warned the New York Government about the misuse of “sensitive place” restrictions. New York Governor Hochul ignored the warning.Hochul’s contemptuous attitude toward the High Court, illustrated in a plethora of amendments to the State’s Gun Law, has led to several legal challenges, pending in Federal District Courts of New York and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.It is in the nature of Government that it inevitably fosters ill-well in the polity it is supposed to serve. In the process, it gives itself expansive powers beyond what Statute and Constitution allow.And what is Government, anyway? It is a creation of man, not a creation of God. It is an artificial construct.Unlike the Divine Creator, perfect and eternal, Government is imperfect and impermanent; flawed and transitory, and dangerous to freedom and liberty.The poet and essayist, Henry David Thoreau, stated, and oft-recited to this day:“That Government is best which governs least.”Of all our Presidents, from the late 20th Century onward, Ronald Reagan, our 40th President, knew this best, and his Administration sought to place brakes on the Administrative State to prevent it from doing harm to the public. The website, reagan.com, sets forth,“Anyone curious about the views of Ronald Reagan on big government can consider what he thought were the nine most terrifying words in the English language: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ Reagan stated many times the danger of this seemingly mundane claim, and it came to define many aspects of his presidency, as well as his legacy.”The 45th President, Donald Trump, to his credit also knew of the danger of “Big Government,” and he emulated Reagan in recognizing this and doing his best to rein Government in. See the msnbc.com article, comparing Trump and Reagan.Americans who wish to preserve the Nation in pristine condition, consistent with the precepts of the Constitution as understood by the framers of it, and those who seek to dismantle the whole of it, both acknowledge and agree with the comparison, although the former laud the sentiment expressed, while the latter condemn it. See msnbc article: Now juxtapose Reagan’s greatest fear for the Country with this from Biden, as mentioned in a Forbes article:“In off-the-cuff remarks at a recent meeting of the Business Roundtable, President Biden said, ‘There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.’” The meaning of the remark made at the end of March 2022, when viewed from all that Biden’s Administration has wrought—from the time Biden set foot in the Oval Office, up to the present time—exemplifies Reagan’s worst fears of Government overreach and usurpation of the sovereignty of the American people over Government and the loss of a free Constitutional Republic.Reagan’s fear bespeaks the quandary that the framers felt in constructing a Government for the nascent Country. For, Government suppresses man’s freedom and liberty and oppresses his dignity. That’s the way things are.The seeds of tyranny exist in all governments despite their myriad forms. The culmination of Tyranny, writ large, is that of a world government, which all western nations are moving inexorably and, it appears, irrevocably toward.The citizenry must judge the extent and scope of tyranny and ascertain that point it would no longer abide by tyranny.The framers of this Nation’s Federal Government knew that Government inevitably, invariably turns toward tyranny if left to its own devices, and, so, to slow the inevitable slide toward tyranny, they imposed restraints on the powers the Government can lawfully wield. And they further demarcated Government’s limited powers among three coequal Branches.But the framers also knew that, even with the checks and balances in place, as set down in the Articles of the Constitution, this would not prevent the onset of tyranny.Thus, to check the inexorable and inevitable march of the Federal Government toward tyranny, they delineated and codified, in the Constitution, the Divine Rights of the people, against which Government cannot lawfully tread.Yet, tyranny in the Federal Government is now fully upon us. It cannot be reasonably denied. And it came about due to the inattentiveness of the electorate and to the secretive, ruthless enterprises of powerful and wealthy people, both inside the Federal Government and outside it. And, this tyranny of Government will only worsen, and with rapidity.These are a few of the major outward signs of Tyranny:

  • Consolidation of power;
  • The Weaponization of Government agencies, bureaus, and departments against the citizenry and against the 45th President;
  • Attempts to de facto merge the three Branches;
  • The abject failure of the Biden Administration to conform its policies to  Federal Statute and to the U.S. Constitution, and the failure of Congress to take action against Biden for the betrayal of his Oath of Office;
  • The lack of robust Congressional Debate;
  • Keeping the public in the dark about Government policies and initiatives;
  • Wasteful spending, and amassing exorbitant Government debt;
  • Government misuse and deliberate lack of use of our Nation’s energy resources, together with disastrous economic policies, driving our Nation and its people to penury;
  • Government appropriation of information resources for propagandizing to the public;
  • The deliberate dumbing down of our public education system.

There is one other major sign of Tyranny at home, and the gravest:

  • The erosion of Americans’ natural law rights.

The erosion of Americans’ God-given natural law rights is taking place contemporaneously with and, in inverse relationship to the explosive and unlawful expansiveness of Governmental power.Knowing what they are doing is wrong, and expecting pushback, the Government has sought to weaken Americans’ ability to constrain tyranny, by curbing the exercise of Americans’ fundamental rights.Speech is routinely censored and dissent quashed. And the right of the people to keep and bear arms suffers constant incursion by the Biden Administration that seeks to constrain and ultimately eliminate the exercise of it. Constant surveillance has withered the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment, and illegal confinement and cruel and unusual punishment of  Dissenters is in defiance of and violation of Rights secured in the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.In face of all of this, how can Americans prevent totalitarianism short of armed rebellion? Is armed rebellion to overturn tyranny even lawful? Does the Second Amendment allow for this? AQ has touched on this in previous articles and will look at this in-depth in future articles.But, apart from armed rebellion, what can one say about our electoral process? Perhaps it is sufficient for dealing effectively with the nascent tyranny of Government. But, how effective is the electoral process for dealing with full-blown tyranny?Must Americans rely on the electoral process alone to right the many Government wrongs? Perhaps, and most likely only where Americans have recognized incipient tyranny and can elect legislators and a U.S. President who have the moral bearing and the fortitude to do so. The 45th U.S. President had the qualities necessary to short-circuit the Nation’s slide toward tyranny. And the public, most of us, at any rate, had faith in the integrity of the electoral process. But the electoral process did not allow Donald Trump to serve a second term. And, why was that? The economy was booming. Trump kept us out of wars. He strengthened our Nation militarily and geopolitically. And he protected our geographical borders. And he turned around the slide of the Nation toward Global world government tyranny. In short, he made the Government work for the interests of the American people and in strict accordance with the U.S. Constitution. One would fully expect he would and should serve a second term. But he lost reelection in 2020? Or did he?If the Nation’s electoral system was fair and above board, then one must accept the results, even if the majority of voters were duped into electing Joe Biden as the 46th U.S. President. But were most of the electorate duped into voting for Joe Biden? Some were, no doubt. But, we think, most Americans were not duped and did not vote for Biden. And that makes Biden, The Great Pretender. And this also means the electoral system did not operate fairly and lawfully.For the electoral system to work, the public must have faith in it. But, for the public to have faith in the electoral system, it must be shown to operate fairly and above board. This is a bit of circular reasoning, we know. The problem is that the machinery of the electoral system as it presently operates is opaque. And that raises suspicion, and justifiably so.The Government and the legacy Press insist that the public must have faith in the electoral process. In fact, the Government and the Press are frantic that the public fervently believes our Nation’s electoral system is fair and above board. The Government, the Press, and the titans of social media brutally censor and ridicule those who say otherwise. But their hysteria over this matter doesn’t quell concern or debate; it only enhances the concern over the propriety and fairness of the electoral process and breeds more suspicion.  Should Americans justifiably place their faith in an electoral system beset with the number and kinds of problems existent with it, as witnessed by all of us who have used it and much of what we learn, with a little digging, about it? Should Americans place their faith in the integrity of an electoral process merely on the say-so of the Government and the Press? Of course not.AQ delves into this matter in the next article.____________________________________*Note to Reader: This updated essay contains additional content.____________________________________Copyright © 2022 Roger J. Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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THE RIGHT TO DISSENT AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS ARE A BULWARK AGAINST TYRANNY

Americans remain at the moment privileged to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Independence Day, Labor Day, and other Holidays. But, for how much longer.A year ago July, Independence day we wrote of the dire threats to our Nation, coming from within.“With Independence Day only days away, this Country can hardly be in a celebratory spirit, as the very words, ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ are treated like obscenities.We witness two-legged predators laying waste the Land, destroying property, intimidating innocent Americans, causing bedlam and mayhem. The police, under fire, are ordered to stand down. Government cowers. Law and Order breaks down everywhere. The seditious Press and Radical Left members of Congress, along with Radical Left State Governors and City Mayors give their blessing to the perpetrators of this violence.”  See also our sister article, posted a few days earlier. Has anything changed, almost seventeen months later? Yes, the threat to our Nation has only grown direr.The Trotting Horse of American Marxism and Neoliberal Globalism is now running at full gallop. It is charging directly toward a formidable defense to be sure—the Bill of Rights. But it is determined to break through, destroying the Constitution of the United States, annihilating a free Republic, subjugating a free and sovereign people.Evidence for this is everywhere, including, inter alia:

  • Government acquiescence to violent rioting, and looting in the Nation’s cities
  • A systematic plan to indoctrinate the Nation’s youth with “Critical Race Theory”
  • Constraints on the exercise of Free Speech/Intolerance toward Dissent
  • Violations of Due Process and Equal Protection Guarantees
  • Violations of the Right Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures
  • Unlawful Government orders and mandates, such as mandatory COVID Vaccinations
  • Failure of Government to Enforce the Nation’s Immigration Laws
  • Debilitation of the Military: Purging of the Ranks, Politicization of Upper Echelons, Creating Dissension, and Destroying morale
  • Consolidation of Governmental power in a single Branch
  • Expanding Federal Government power over the people and the States
  • Emasculation of State and Community Police Forces
  • Politicization and Corruption of Executive Branch Departments
  • Deliberate Destruction of the Nation’s Economy
  • Collusion between the Government and the Press to Distort News and to indoctrinate the public
  • The defacing, destroying, and removing of national monuments
  • Denigration of the American Flag and other national emblems
  • Belittlement of the notion of “Citizen of the United States”
  • Ennoblement of Marxist Lawbreakers and Illegal Aliens

And most ominously,

  • Concerted Attacks on Civilian Possession of firearms and of the inherent, natural Right of Armed Self-defense.

THE ERA OF “HYBRID WARFARE”

The Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist forces that dare to crush both the institutions of our Nation and the spirit of our people, are engaging in a new, sophisticated multilayered stratagem. It has a name. It is called, “Hybrid Warfare.” This is an expression that entered the political and military lexicon in 2008.“In the twenty-first century, wars are not declared or waged conventionally; instead, conflicts are instigated by clandestine agents using military, non-military, media, cyber tools, information operations, NGOs, nonstate actors, intelligence agencies, economic tools, propaganda, ambiguity, terrorism, and insurgency or rebel movements. In hybrid warfare, the lines between peacetime and wartime and between combatants and civilians are blurred. Further, systemic aggression is imposed on the targeted state using gray zones, nonlinear warfare, unrestricted warfare, unconventional warfare, and color revolutions to avoid attribution and possible retribution against the aggressor.The threat posed by hybrid warfare is real. hybrid warfare employs a wide array of power tools, including: political, economic, military, asymmetric, civil. Additionally, it includes informational tools such as: diplomacy, terrorism, proxies, and economic attacks to persuade populations or to divide societies. hybrid warfare targets the vulnerabilities of a society and system while deliberately exploiting ambiguity to avoid detection. It is usually detected only when it is fully functional and capable of inflicting harm. Some researchers believe that lawfare (in which law is used as a tool of aggression) is also a branch of hybrid warfare. John J. McCuen, in his 2008 paper ‘Hybrid Wars,’ describes hybrid warfare as ‘spectrum wars with both physical and conceptual dimensions: the former, a struggle against an armed enemy and the latter, a wider struggle for control and support of the combat zone's indigenous population, the support of the home fronts of the intervening nations, and the support of the international community.’ McCuen sees hybrid warfare as using a variety of tools to persuade the domestic population of a targeted state.”  ~The Rise Of Hybrid Warfare, 10 Notre Dame J. Int'l & Comp. L. 173 (2020), by Waseem Ahmad Qureshi, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan.Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists, are using hybrid warfare against Americans. Be cognizant of it: what it is; how and where it is employed against our Nation and its people; and its impact on the Nation and on the people. Its effects are both subtle and lucid.The application of hybrid warfare is subtle where it attacks the mind, psyche, and spirit of the American people.It is lucid where it attacks the tangible infrastructure of our towns and cities along with the intangible fundamental institutions of the Country, the very fabric of our society. These fundamental institutions include education; health; law; business and finance; and family and religion.It is all under attack.But the most insidious attack against the American citizen is the subtle—the attack on the psyche of the American people.The Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists have attacked the very core of the American psyche in its attack on natural law rights:The most fundamental Natural Law Right—the Right of Self-defense— includes the Reciprocal Natural Law Responsibility of Self-defense.Armed Self-defense provides the best means available to protect one’s physical being and that of one’s family.The idea of “Self-defense,” generally, and “Armed Self-defense, especially, embody the concept of the sanctity and inviolability of Self.The Right of Free Speech also goes to the sanctity of one’s Selfhood. The Right of Dissent is intrinsic to Selfhood.The unalienable, immutable, illimitable right of the individual to be individual means Government cannot lawfully impinge upon or encroach on one’s Selfhood.The sanctity and inviolability of Self are at the core of what it means to be an American. The framework of our Constitution is grounded on that sacred, inviolate, Truth. It is the single source of our Nation’s power and success.The Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists know this to be so, and they are chiseling away at all of it. They intend to destroy the Soul of the American citizen. To effectuate this it is necessary to destroy the exercise of armed self-defense and exercise of free expression.If the Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists defeat the exercise of armed self-defense and the exercise of free expression, they have succeeded to defeat the two salient avenues of resistance to their iron will.For, if one is prevented from exercising one’s freedom of speech—the freedom to dissent, the freedom to exercise independence of thought—one’s mind, spirit, and soul is damaged.And, if one is prevented from exercising his freedom to bear arms—one’s right of defense against a predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory government—then the safety and well-being of one’s physical Self are imperiled.The two most basic rights—the right of self-protection and independence of thought—go together.To lose the one is to lose the other.Autonomy of Selfhood is impossible where the individual is helpless—physically, psychically, mentally, intellectually, spiritually.The Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists intend to cripple mind, spirit, and soul, and they are doing this through the propagation of disinformation, misinformation, and psychological conditioning.Control of government and the Press and social media provide them with powerful mechanisms to accomplish this.Americans must do what is necessary to see that these ruthless, jealous, rapacious forces do not succeed.______________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.     

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DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S ASSAULT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT AMOUNT TO TREASON?

MULTI-SERIES ON THE ISSUE OF POSSIBLE TREASON AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

PART ONE

THE MEANING OF 'TREASON'

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” ~Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator, in a speech he gave to the Roman Senate in 58 BC as ‘Recorded by Sallust’ in the fictional novel 'A Pillar of Iron,’ by Taylor Caldwell (1983), ch. 5. ~The quotation bears resemblance to Cicero's Second Oration in the Cataline war (circa 40 b.c.) Under Biden’s reign, Americans are slowly losing their fundamental rights and liberties. They have already lost any vestige of a fundamental right of privacy as protected under the Unreasonable Searches and Seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment. And the Right of free speech under the First Amendment is, as well, under tremendous assault today.And let us not forget the assault on the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment. For without the citizenry's exercise of the fundamental Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, the exercise of all other Rights is tenuous at best or becomes altogether illusory, leading inevitably, inexorably to subjugation.Americans already see that Biden, and his fellow Progressive and Neo-Marxist Democrats in Congress, and legions of unelected bureaucrats of the Administrative Deep State have made substantial inroads curtailing the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But the question is: Do these assaults on sacred Rights truly rise to the level of treason, well beyond the federal crimes of sedition, insurrection, and rebellion, awful as they are?How can the public know? And, if treason does exist, and if the polity shows Republicans in Congress that Biden and/or several of his senior advisors have committed treason, how can Americans persuade their Representatives in the House and their Senators in the U.S. Senate to hold those high-level elected officials and high level unelected military people accountable beyond merely requesting they simply and humbly resign, as some have averred.How can Americans make a cogent argument to legislators so that they will undertake or at least attempt to undertake impeachment of Biden and/or his senior advisors? And for senior officers in the military, how can the public urge that these military advisors be subject to a General Court Martial.The words, ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ are often cavalierly bandied about. The American public has heard it all before, many times, mostly directed to Donald Trump and, by association, directed to all Americans who voted for him or who supported and who continue to support his “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” agenda.Few people in American history, though, have been charged with “treason” against the United States; fewer still have ever been convicted of it. And no one has been executed for it.* That fact underscores the deadly seriousness of the import of the words despite the oft offhanded use of them, and says much of the true and dire purpose of and hidden motives of those forces that have used the word, ‘treason,’ incessantly against Trump. And many are those who leveled the charge of treason against the 45th President, Donald Trump. Upon taking the Oath of Office, well-placed operators in the Department of Justice and FBI and in the military and in the intelligence apparatuses of Government, and in Congress, in academia and in the media, and even some individuals closest to Trump in his own Administration went immediately to work to undermine and sabotage and destroy his Presidency from its very inception to the final days. See, e.g., New York Times article.  and an article in The Atlantic.Government, academia, the Press, social media, all operated, in concert—components of an extraordinarily elaborate, well-organized, well-executed series of false flag operations—all designed to bring about Trump’s downfall.And, considering the extent to which these operators plotted to bring about Trump’s downfall, one is led to conclude either that Trump did indeed pose the greatest internal threat ever to befall our Nation, or, like Horatius at the Bridge, protected our Nation, standing alone against the hordes both within the Government and outside it who themselves truly pose the greatest and gravest threat ever to befall our free Constitutional Republic.Calling a person a “traitor” serves as a handy propagandist tool and it is one that is employed for the emotional reaction it is expected to elicit in the American public for the purpose of creating animus toward a person, but often, as well, as a distraction to direct public attention to the innocent person and thereby draw attention away from the real “traitor.”“The crime of treason carries an emotional response unlike any other. Its severity is second to none because one who commits treason aims to support the enemies his government, betray his own nation, and wage war against his own people. Infamous traitors such as Benedict Arnold conjure a near-unanimous feeling of disdain and anger amongst Americans, while others like John Brown do not so easily create the same uniform negative perception. Such is the nature of treason: those convicted of betraying their nation receive the designation of ‘traitor,’ arguably the most severe, polarizing, and stigmatic title law can provide, which may partially explain why the last case of treason occurred in 1952.” ~ from the law review article, “Treason In The Age Of Terrorism: Do Americans Who Join Isis ‘Levy War’ Against The United States?” 9 Am. U. Nat'l Sec. L. Brief 155 (2019) by Stephen Jackson, J.D., Senior Policy Analyst with SAIC.But, when do the words ‘traitor’ and ‘treason’ merely function as expletives and when do they function as true descriptors, indicative of the worst sort of criminal behavior of an American?It is one thing for a person to employ the words ‘treason’ and ‘traitor’ merely as a pejorative. In that case, “You Traitor, You!” is akin to the words, “Damn You, Go to Hell!” or “You Bastard, You!” But it is another thing entirely when the phrase, “You Traitor, You!” is to mean that the targeted person IS TRULY A “TRAITOR,” i.e., a person who commits the crime of ‘TREASON.’ For ‘Treason’ IS a crime.TREASON IS THE MOST SERIOUS OF CRIMES, for Treason is nothing less than BETRAYAL of one’s Country and of one’s people. It is essentially the MURDER of one’s Country and of one’s Countrymen. Betrayal of one’s Nation and one’s Countrymen was considered one of the most heinous crimes going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Dante Alighieri, in his monumental epic, The Divine Comedy,” PLACED THOSE GUILTY OF TREACHERY TO NATION IN THE DEEPEST CIRCLE OF HELL.To apply the term, ‘traitor’ to anyone is no small matter and should not be a matter of casual conversation. It is defamatory if untrue.As applied especially to an elected official, no less a personage than the President of the United States, one should practice circumspection before employing it, in the absence of evidence to support the declaration of it. Unfortunately, we do not see this at all. And, it is all quite remarkable, as the denizens of “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS,”—today’s “THOUGHT POLICE”—so keen are they on remaking the English language so as not to offend, do not apply that prime directive across the board, utilizing the worst invective against anyone, everyone, who happens to hold to a different political and philosophical persuasion than that of the “WOKE” crowd to use of their own neologisms.To our Nation’s founders, treason is the most serious crime imaginable. It is not by accident that it is referenced in the U.S. Constitution.Treason is the only crime BOTH MENTIONED AND DEFINED in the U.S. Constitution. But, through overuse and deliberate misuse of the words, ‘treason’ and ‘traitor,’ by various members of Congress and by Government Officials and by the Press, Americans are unable to gain a clear view of and true perspective of actual instances of treason and of the those who commit it when evidence for it abounds.A person needs to cut through the chatter and chaff of those who cavalierly bandy the term about, misapplying it hither and yon to Donald Trump—and, now misapplying it to Trump’s supporters who number one-third to one-half of the population of the Country.The term, ‘treason’ is a legal term of art that has a clear meaning. One need only go to a readily available source, the U.S. Constitution, to determine its import and purport, and from the definition for it, look for instances of it. Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1, sets forth:“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”Further, ‘treason,’ as with ‘sedition,’ ‘insurrection,’ and ‘rebellion’, is a statutory offense, Congress reiterates the definition of ‘treason,’ of it. “18 U.S. Code § 2381 – Treason,” sets forth:“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”Given the seriousness of the crime, the framers of the Constitution severely limited its application to the commission of either one of two, and only two, kinds of acts. The U.S. Constitution leaves no room for constructive treason and Congress could not and has not undertaken to restrict or enlarge constitutional. The Constitutional, as well as Statutory definition for Treason, involves:

  • Levying war against the United States; OR
  • Giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort.

But what does “levying war against the United States” really mean, and what does the phrase “giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort” mean?In the next few Arbalest Quarrel articles we look closely at these phrases. For, once we have a clear operational definition of the phrases, we can ascertain if any one or more actions of Joe Biden and of his senior advisors amount to actionable treason.Few people to date have actually applied the appellation or descriptor of ‘treason’ to Biden and/or to his senior advisors although the abundance of misdeeds leads one to wonder whether one or more of those misdeeds rises to the level of treason. Before the Arbalest Quarrel makes its announcement, it is necessary to see if Biden and other senior advisors have plotted to destroy this Nation. As an aside, there is a question of whether Biden is making policy decisions at all. Given the man's obvious and increasingly severe mental infirmities, this strongly suggests that Biden is incapable of sound judgment and reasoning. If true, that means that  Biden's secret handlers are making policy decisions for him; policies affecting the Nation and the rest of the world. And that raises serious legal questions of its own. But as for ‘treason,’ one can, with a clear operational definition, determine if the elements of the crime apply to the conduct of Harris-Biden Administration senior officials who are the decision-makers. But, what can we say about treason at this point before delving into the details of it?In the broadest sense, “levying war against the United States” and “giving the Nation’s enemies aid or comfort” involves the BETRAYAL of one’s Country and one's Countrymen—TREACHERY so extreme that, if tried and convicted of it, must need send the party guilty of it to prison for a substantial period of time and, perhaps warrants a sentence of DEATH. But, whether a TRAITOR to the Country is actually indicted and tried as such, and convicted of TREASON, such an individual rests well beyond any hope of absolution, dispensation, or redemption—ever.Now, among those who hate Trump, anything the man has said or did, during his tenure in Office, amounts to “treason.” Yet, one would be hard-pressed to distill from any of Trump’s actions anything that amounts to betrayal of Nation and people. Nation’s people. To the contrary, on any reasonable analysis Trump was faithful to the Oath of Office he took on Friday, January 20, 2017.Article II, Section 1, Clause 8:“Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: –I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”In retrospect, Trump’s actions were always honorable. But, can the same be said of Biden and his top advisors and handlers?From what the public knows about, Trump, it is clear that he fulfilled or attempted to fulfill to his foreign and domestic policies and initiatives, consistent with the promises he made to the American public in his campaign. Trump forged a stronger Nation from the mess created by his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush.; strengthening the Nation in the broadest sense: economically, geopolitically, militarily, and societally. Disruption arose artificially, concocted by elements inside and outside the Country, intent upon undermining Trump’s achievements. Trump sought to protect the fundamental rights of the people—most importantly the sacred rights of free speech and freedom of religion; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; and, critically, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Yet, the legacy Press called him an Autocrat and Traitor; but to whom? Not to the U.S. Constitution, but to those who seek to dismantle the Constitution and to dismantle a free Republic. And they installed their puppets, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, corrupt and unscrupulous people to do just that.In eight months, the senile, weak-willed, and corrupt puppet, Joe Biden, likely dutifully obeying the dictates of his secret handlers, unwound all the positive work for the Country that Trump had achieved. And what do Americans now see? Much, and none of it good: Government policies that promote economic instability and societal unrest—all of it manufactured by an Administration intent on disrupting societal harmony and cohesion.And, because the Harris-Biden Administration refuses to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws, Americans see massive waves of destitute illegal aliens, breeching our Southern Border; with tens of thousands more flooding through the Southern Border each month, along with members of international drug cartels and other assorted dangerous riff-raff; and most of them are disbursing throughout the United States. More recently, the Administration has compounded its unlawful immigration actions, having airlifted thousands of unassimilable Afghans to the U.S., disbursing them throughout the Country, without properly vetting them—a lengthy process to screen out the Islamic terrorists among them.Americans see multiple instances of unlawful federal encroachment on the authority of State. The Administration has openly, unabashedly disobeyed rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court; and is exerting unlawful authority over the polity by mandating COVID vaccinations.Through wholesale adoption of the Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist program of “DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION” the Harris-Biden Administration is implementing policies designed to subvert and eradicate our Nation’s culture, history, heritage, and Christian ethos.Given the Administration’s contempt for the Bill of Rights, Americans are witnessing an assault on their basic freedoms, including, critically, the right of free speech and free exercise of religion; the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the Government; the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.In the matter of the “Capitol Breach” cases, of January 6, 2021, Americans have witnessed multiple instances of unlawful detention, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and violations Due Process, and Equal Protection.And the Harris-Biden Administration is quietly, assiduously drawing up Executive Actions and agency rules, to undermine the right of the people to keep and bear arms.And through the implementation of its bizarre and inept military and State Department Middle East Policies, the Harris-Biden Administration has overnight destabilized the Middle East, thereby endangering the security of the United States and the world. Are we looking at mere incompetence here or something ominous: a devious master plan to destabilize society, dismantle the Constitution, destroy a free Constitutional Republic, and reduce the American citizenry to a state of abject penury and misery. Do any of the aforementioned actions by Joe Biden and others arise to the level of actual, indictable treason? In the next few articles, the Arbalest Quarrel will be looking closely at the law of treason with the aim of determining whether any one or more actions of Biden, and of Biden's Cabinet Level Officials, and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and of Biden’s National Security Council committed actionable treason. ____________________________________________*One academic scholar, and apparently the only one, demurs, asserting that one man was in fact executed for committing treason against the United States. In his book, “On Treason, A Citizen's Guide to the Law” (published September 29, 2020), Carlton F.W. Larson, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of California, Davis, School of Law, avers that Hipolito Salazar, “is the only person ever executed by federal authorities for treason against the United States since the adoption of the Constitution for treason. . . . And the federal government later admitted it had made a terrible mistake—Salazar owed no allegiance to the United States and therefore was not subject to American treason law at all.” (pages 102-103). The execution took place on April 9, 1847, following jury trials “in what was called the ‘District Court of the Territory of New Mexico. ’ Five of the men had been convicted of murder. But, one, . . . Salazar, had been convicted of high treason for levying war against the United States.” (page 102). ____________________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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SIX MONTHS INTO THE HARRIS-BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND THE PROCESS OF DISMANTLING A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC IS WELL UNDERWAY

NEO-MARXIST INTERNATIONALISTS AND NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIST ELITES TAKE A JACKHAMMER TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION*

PART FOUR

The last thing the Neo-Marxist Controlled Congress and Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist handlers of the dimwitted Biden and Harris want to contend with is an armed citizenry. For an armed citizenry is wholly incompatible with the Marxist-globalist agenda and with the construction of a uniform, unified autocratic world government they yearn to create from the hollowed-out shells of old Western Nation States. The U.S. Constitution must go, and a free Republic and sovereign People must go with it, into the dustbin of a forgotten history, making way for and replaced by a “Brave New World,” a technological New World Order, where billions of people, the Hoi Polloi of the Earth, now reduced to mindless, senseless, subservient automatons, no more than—and in a real sense—much less than the AI high-functioning robotic objects operating in this new world, co-existing all around them. Do you think this can't happen? The Deca and Centi-Billionaire Globalists are building these Cities of Tomorrow, right now and then plan to herd the public into them—tens of thousands of people will undoubtedly go willingly, at first, at least, buying into the soft-sell of how wonderful it is is to“live” in a “Smart-City” of the Future—and, eventually, all others will be compelled to do so, corraled against their will into a seemingly placid, tranquil, serene secure landscape. It is unlikely that Bill Gates and other mega-billionaires are buying up huge tracts of land simply to sate their penchant for farming, if that is truly the case, even if the public is told this. Can Gates truly be interested in farming? Is this for the purpose simply to grow food? Really? Huge agricultural combines such as Monsanto and huge food distributor companies like Conagra, already exist. Has Gates, probably at the behest of the Bilderberg Group et.al., of which he is a part, in fact must be a part, given his fabulous wealth, provided him and other Billionaires with their marching orders. The goal in the near term, after developing these so-called Smart Cities, is then selling the idea to the Hoi Polloi as a wonderful place for the Hoi Polloi to inhabit.  See, e.g., globest.com, pymnts.com, techrepublic.com, and iberdrola.com, smartcitiesdive.com, and the ruthless and thoroughly deceitful international management consulting firm, McKinsey, is getting into the act. In fact, a tremendous ad campaign is underway to sell this idea to investment groups, and, ultimately, to the public. See, e.g., SmartCitiesworld.com and Springer Open, and blog.bismart.com. Is this effort grounded on truly creating a better world for billions of common people? Does it even really have to do with making money? When a person has accumulated tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars, does a craving for billions more exist? Is that the motivation of these people? Is the motivation to benefit mankind? Or, rather, is the motivation all-too-human: to ensure a better, safer, more secure world for the multi-billionaire ruling elites, that can only be obtained by herding the billions of common people into vast enclosures, through which these masses can be best surveilled and controlled, effectively imprisoned. This is to be sold to the Hoi Polloi as better living through technology, of course. But, when the truth about the impetus for creating these so-called smart cities slowly dawns on some people at least, it will be much too late to resist. And, what then? Eventually, masses of people will be connected to vast neural networks, kept in check within ever smaller and smaller enclosures, perhaps one-room affairs, or large wards containing beds, of a sort, to which people will live their lives virtually, essentially asleep, needing very little nutrient and water, essentially existing as vegetables. And, what is the third step in this evolving strategy of control? Perhaps these billions of people will be dispensed with altogether. Since there is no need for them, even to perform limited custodial services as the simplest of robotic apparatuses could perform those functions and many such mechanical servants already do perform those services and quite well.But, the goal of shepherding billions of people into enclosures, a process to be replicated throughout the world, cannot be smoothly engineered through the present conceptual idea of a nation-state. This social construct must also be dispensed with as an inefficient use of and in fact waste of monies and resources and an ineffective societal device for controlling large populations of common folk. Obviously, the notion of the dignity of the individual and the idea of the sanctity of the human soul not only lose significance in this technologically balanced, unified, uniform, and well-ordered, and well-engineered, smooth-running, exceptionally streamlined society but are devoid of meaning. The next step in this development of a perfectly stable, well-ordered technologically streamlined world would involve the elimination of most of humanity, as superfluous, a drain on scarce resources. The slow dismantling of and hollowing out of the very concept of the nation-state has been gathering steam for some time.This process has been underway in EU for decades. The European Union operates as the initial experiment in the demise of nation-states. The process was sold on several nations of Europe as not involving the ceding of political and legal control over to a central government operating in Brussels, but, ceding a nation's economic control over to a transnational governing body, benefitting all the member nations. That was how the architects of the EU originally sold the idea of a European Union to the original member nations of Europe. But that was merely a ploy and pretext, and one that soured as Countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal eventually discovered that, when it came to economic fortunes in the EU, there were winners and losers no less so than there were before the artifice of a supra-transnational European Union of nation-states began implementation. But the true raison d’être behind the creation of the EU went far beyond the notion of an economic union of member nation-states that was sold, deceitfully, to these member states. The goal of the grand architects of the EU involved nothing less than the eventual dissolution of the idea of sovereign, independent nation-states. The grand design of the EU involves the reconfiguring of the member nation-states of the EU into a single monolithic transnational unified, uniform construct, with a super-government reigning body ensconced in Brussels, Belgium. See the official European Union website page, delineating the major organs of Government. And this transformative process has been gaining steam, especially in the 21st Century, as Brussels has run roughshod over the member nations and their populations. And with ultimate political, social, cultural, and juridical control over the governments of these nations, as well as financial and economic control over the governments of these nations, it became easier to begin the process of erasing the national identity of these individual nation-states. This involves a two-step process. The first step involves destabilizing the societal and cultural structure of the member nations. This is accomplished through insinuating into the member nations of Europe, uneducated, poverty-stricken individuals from alien cultures, namely from the middle-east and from northern Africa. The denizens of those regions of Africa and the middle-east naturally resist the process of assimilation, as the cultures of the nations of Europe are at once incomprehensible to them, and incompatible with their own cultural and religious milieu. The governments of the member nation-states of the EU are denied the ability to effectively control the breakdown of the societal order. Any attempt to do so is met with resistance from the Neoliberal Globalist elites and from the International Neo-Marxists, both of whom share the same goal: the annihilation of all nation-states, and the application of the Neo-Marxist dogma serves that common goal. Neo-Marxists argue that such efforts to control denizens from North Africa and the middle-east that are running amok in the various member nations of the EU are to be perceived as immoral, and contrary to the dictates of the nonsense dogma thrust on the EU member states and in the U.S., as well: i.e., the dogma of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, terminology as meaningless to those elements from the middle east and North Africa, insinuating themselves into Europe, as that terminology is the citizens of the EU's member nation-states who wish only to hold onto their culture and national identity and culture and are prohibited from doing so by the ruling elites' overseers in Brussels and their toadies in some of the member states that weaseled their way into power: for example, Emmanuel Macron of France, and Angela Merkel of Germany, and Mario Draghi of Italy, to name a few.Yet, even as most of the populations of the member states are not  exactly ecstatic over the idea of ceding national political, social, cultural, and legal power over to a central transnational governing body in Brussels, whatever the ostensible benefits of an economic union might present—which is, at best, debatable—some have successfully resisted this unlawfully usurpation of political authority. Looking clearly and honestly at the structure of the EU governing organs, it is now clear to most populations of the member states that that the architects of the EU had engaged its member states with a Devil’s bargain as the these independent, sovereign nation-states would be required to cede all governing powers over to Brussels, not merely some governing power—i.e., economic power. Indeed, to cede economic power is, for all intents and purposes, to cede all other power—political, social, judicial.Countries like Hungary and Poland, though, have had enough of the EU and the unlawful encroachment of Brussels over their national sovereignty. Afraid of a general backlash, the Neoliberal Globalist architects of the EU treat those Nations as pariahs. The Neo-Marxist intelligentsia conjured up a specific derogatory expression to describe these malcontents, calling them seats of illiberal Constitutionalism.”Legions of media puppets of the EU’s rulers attacked these Nations. The AP, for one, audaciously proclaimed: “Democratic standards in the European Union are eroding in several member countries, particularly in Hungary and Poland where judicial independence is under threat, the EU’s executive commission said Tuesday in its annual report on adherence to the rule of law.”This bit of propaganda, not surprisingly, emanates out of Brussels, the seat of the Globalist ruler “elite.” It is the very assertion of independence that Brussels abhors—a right that, curiously enough, is a right of every sovereign nation. Brussels, through the AP, is declaring that the member nations are not to be construed as truly sovereign countries—at least not anymore—and, in so saying, admits that the creation of the EU is predicated on the gravest of lies—telling each member State that it shall retain its inherent structure, as an independent sovereign nation, which means retaining all political and judicial power, when in fact, the EU governance requires the ceding of all of it, and slowly through the years and decades since the inception of the EU, has been drawing from their member nation-states powers that belong solely to those States. As the populations of all the member States are well aware of the Government in Brussels' unlawful usurpation of powers and authority, some of those member States have drawn a line in the sand, and said this cannot continue. The sovereign Nation-States of Hungary and Poland are two such that have basically told Brussels' tyrants to go to Hell. Unsurprisingly, the tyrants in Brussels haven't taken kindly to the reassertion of power and authority by Hungary and Poland. And the Globalists and Neo-Marxists here in the U.S. are chiming in to support EU's tyrants. Tucker Carlson makes the point in Budapest that it is time that Americans wake up to the fact that they are in danger of losing their Constitutional Republic if they don't reassert their sovereign authority over Government. In fact, our Constitution makes clear that true power and authority rests in the American people, not in Government. Limited and demarcated powers and authority made patently clear in the U.S. Constitution point to the fact that the Federal Government is the servant of the people, not the other way around. But, the Neoliberal Globalists and Internationalist Neo-Marxists don't give a damn whatever the Constitution has to say about the matter in whom sole, ultimate, and supreme authority resides. And the Bill of Rights, apart from the Articles, emphasizes in whom ultimate power and authority reside. The pack of lies coming from the Press that Donald Trump was an Autocrat is belied by the cavalier manner in which these Globalists in the U.S. Government, through their puppet, the senile Joe Biden, has systematically amassed powers in defiance of and in contradistinction to the clear meaning of the plain language of the Articles, and blatantly defies Congressional Statute, of which the Biden's open borders policy is a clear example of, or simply ignores Constitution and Congressional Statute, and operates as if the U.S. Constitution doesn't even exist. Tucker Carlson's visit to Budapest drives home the point that too many Americans have allowed themselves to be blindsided by the antics of tyrants here at home, in Congress and in the Executive Branch, who claim they aren't tyrants even as they go about terrorizing a goodly section of the populace that refuses to submit to their tyranny. Now the Press is going after Hungary and Tucker Carlson for fear that the American public will take notice of the loss of their Country and their liberty to Autocrats and demand an accounting of the actions of these Neo-Marxist Autocrat members of Congress and of the actions of the Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist-run Executive Branch of Government.As an example of the Internationalist Neo-Marxist attack against Countries that dare to reassert their National sovereignty and National Identity, the Neo-Marxist Wilson Center think tank attacks the concept of ‘nationalism’ openly and arrogantly, stating, “Hungarian nationalism, indeed all the Central and East European nationalisms, are driven by martyrologies of defeat.” In the article, the Wilson Center makes use of the obligatory Neo-Marxist verbiage, ‘inclusion,’ drawing a contrast with and denigrating the concept of  ‘assimilation,’ as too confining and outmoded, reminiscent of nation-states. No surprise there. The Wilson Center goes on to say: “The word ‘inclusion’ rather than “‘assimilation’ is used in order to shift the focus onto the nation and the process of accepting minorities into a community, rather than on the actions of the minorities who are making the adaptation. Assimilation implies a solution, a kind of permanency, whereas inclusion suggests a process with ruptures and redefinitions. Policies of inclusion can be severed or reinstated more easily than assimilation.” See also the article in the Atlantic Council; the Council contemptuously refers to Hungary and Poland as “as a hotbed of nationalism and authoritarianism, a leading edge of bad trends in Europe generally.”Not to be outdone, the Neoliberal Globalist Jeff Bezos publication, The Washington Post, gets into the act, too, scorning Tucker Carlson for his visit to Budapest and for his meeting with Hungary’s Prime Minister, Vicktor Orbán. Of note, the Washington Post defends Brussel’s criticism of Orban, asserting:“. . . the reason that E.U. leaders have criticized Orban as authoritarian is that he has embarked on an unabashed and explicit effort to shift Hungary away from the traditions of liberal democracy, in which power is assigned through free and fair elections. Orban is criticized as authoritarian because he has embraced autocracy.”Tucker Carlson conducted an interview of Hungary's Prime Minister a few days ago. See Fox News Article, titled, Hungary's Viktor Orban tells Tucker Carlson: ‘Western liberals can't accept’ right-wing dissent.” During the interview, the Prime Minister said in pertinent part:“‘The Western liberals cannot accept that inside the Western civilization, there is a conservative national alternative which is more successful at everyday life, at the level of them—the liberal ones,’ he said. ‘That's the reason why they criticize us. They are fighting for themselves, not against us. But we are an example that a country which is based on traditional values, on national identity, on the tradition of Christianity can be successful—sometimes more successful than a leftist-liberal government. . . . But you can’t say, okay, it’s a nice country. I would like to come and live here because it’s a nicer life, it is not a human right to come here. No way. It’s our land. It’s a nation, a community, family, history, tradition, language.’”These remarks drove the Marxists in the Press apoplectic with rage. They couldn't let this pass. How dare an American news host take control of the Marxist/Globalist narrative, and attack their unholy Radical Left Gospel of  “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion!And they let loose their venom on both Orban and Carlson, and, by extension, on American conservatives, as well—those Americans who have the audacity to cherish their history, heritage, culture, and Judeo-Christian ethical foundation and a free Constitutional Republic that the founders of the Nation bequeathed to America's descendants. The New York Times' posted two Op-Ed pieces on the matter, both of which were published in the newspaper on August 6, and 7 2021, respectively. One article deserves especial attention, for its discussion of an essay by George Orwell, ‘Notes On Nationalism,’ That article by New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Jamelle Bouie, sports the sarcastic title, “Tucker Carlson Has a New Hero,”a title that manages to convey in six words, the author's contempt for both Fox News Host, Carlson, and Hungary's Prime Minister, Orban. Jamelle's Bouie's article is, though, not to be remarked upon for the unrestrained disdain in which he holds Carlson and Orban, of which the Op-Ed elicits much, but rather, for its attack on the notion of  ‘nationalism,’ which Bouie, perceives as contrary to the spirit of intellectualism and therefore, contrary to rational thought. And he sees the expression of nationalist fervor as a thing as relevant in today's world as corsets and buggy whips and as worthy of emulation as the Dictators of history that Bouie ties to the term. To support his attack on ‘nationalism,’ as something to be despised, he cites George Orwell—but not Orwell's famed novel, ‘1984,’ much-cited today by Progressives, Marxists, Anarchists, and the like, on the Leftside of the political spectrum, and by those on the Right of the political spectrum. Bouie cites, instead, a lesser-known work, a short essay, titled, ‘Notes On Nationalism,’ for the proposition that Orwell considered ‘nationalism’ as anathema to rational thought. But, he made a point of asserting ‘nationalism’ to be a fault as much among the intelligentsia as among the common man.For Orwell, ‘nationalism’ is tied to a narrowness of thought and perception which therefore admits a multitude of sins. But for all that, the term is vague in meaning as is the term ‘patriotism’ which, for Orwell, is a thing to be lauded, not despised, although, here, in the United States at this particular time, the Neo-Marxists do not draw a distinction between the two, unlike Orwell, as the emulation of both is despised by the Neo-Marxists. Orwell writes,“Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.It is not hard to see that, in our own Country, the Neo-Marxists at once will dismiss their insatiable desire, even lust, for the acquiring of absolute power for themselves, and are therefore nationalists, in a true Orwellian sense, and eschew any notion they are patriots, as that notion is tied inextricably to the American Revolution of 1776, which they revolt against, as they definitely have no devotion to the United States as a free Constitutional Republic, and they definitely do not believe the American way of life to be the best in the world given their desire to dismantle every vestige of the past and to rewrite history in accordance with their mythology. And, since they do indeed have wish to force Marxist Collectivism in this Country and world-wide, they can neither considered to be ‘patriots’ in the Orwellian sense, which happens to be consistent with the sense of the word that America's Conservatives ascribe to.In that Essay, ‘Notes On Nationalism,’ George Orwell further explicates the meaning of ‘nationalism’.  He says, “A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist – that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating – but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the up-grade and some hated rival is on the down-grade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right.”But, is this exposition on the meaning of  ‘nationalism’ not an apt description for the political failings of the Neo-Marxist? And, as for the idea of flagrant dishonesty and self-deception that marks the Marxists' inner thoughts and outer actions, we can add that the Neo-Marxists are unabashed, sanctimonious hypocrites whose tenets and precepts aren't even internally consistent and coherent.The New York Times Op-Ed writer, Jamelle Bouie, chides Tucker Carlson for admiring Hungary, and says that this is form of nationalism referred to as transferred nationalism, a term that Orwell coins. But is that so wrong? In fact Tucker Carlson only points to Hungary as an exemplary model because it alludes to a United States that existed for well over 200 years, a United States existing as a free Constitutional Republic, a Republic grounded in liberty, where is not a mere word, but reigns supreme, a Republic where the American people themselves, and only they, are the sole sovereign ruler,  power, and authority in the Nation, over the Federal Government and those who serve in it, at the pleasure of the American people, as the servants of the people, not their overseers. It is this Country, grounded in the tenets of Individualism that the Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist abhors and seeks to change both here and abroad; indeed, seeks to transform the entire structure of Western Civilization, grounded on the concept of the nation-state. The Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist elite seek to evoke a horrific inter-nationalism or trans-nationalism to replace each independent, sovereign nation-state, and to inflict their radical makeover of Western political, social, economic, and juridical structures to reflect their warped philosophy; and they intend for that philosophy to embrace and shape the entire world, or at least that substantial portion of it included in the domain of Western Civilization. The world they envision is one in which one's every thought and conduct is conditioned and controlled; a world of incessant surveillance, in every sphere of influence, public and private, within the home and outside it; a world that tortures and subjugates body and spirit and that destroys mind and reason and will.The Neo-Marxist is a textbook case example of George Orwell's nationalist—an internationalist mindset that seeks to remake the entire world in accord with its tenets and precepts, and that will suffer no contrary viewpoint; will tolerate no dissenting voice; will abide no demonstration of uniqueness, of individuality; that will brook no interference, no opposition. The Neo-Marxist is one so enamored with him or herself—so certain of the truth of his or her beliefs, and so convinced of the perfection of the morality that undergirds those beliefs, that debate, any debate, is deemed to be unnecessary and superfluous, or worse, to admit of blasphemy or heresy, and must not be entertained, lest the purity of Marxism be contaminated and one's mind be confounded by impure thoughts. One must submit to the orthodoxy or be crushed into submission. This is nationalism as internationalism, transnationalism—the embrace of nationalism as universalism to overtake, overshadow, overpower every other system of belief, on any conceivable topic—Marxism, this new Neo-Marxism, not Classic Marxism, will shape any topic; have something to say about any subject, however prosaic or abstruse; and those entrusted to define and interpret this new Marxism are the lofty Priests of the new Marxism, those who inhabit the highest Caste, and woe be to that person who dares to disagree or, worse, to interfere with the musings of these High-Lord Muck-a-Mucks.Orwell writes,“As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organization, fills him with uneasiness which he can only relieve by making some sharp retort. Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should – in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 – and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied.”All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. . . . Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. [Think of last Summer's riots in Marxist-led Cities and States].“Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should – in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 – and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied. . . .  [P]ropaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past. “Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. . . . One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. . . . The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. All nationalist controversy is at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory. Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connexion with the physical world.”Jamelle Bouie should be careful of whom he cites for support when he demeans and debases a reputable news host and the Prime Minister of a Nation.Bouie defers to the Neoliberal Globalist propagandist messaging that Orbán's Hungary is corrupt, repressive and authoritarian, a place where democracy is little more than window dressing and the state exists to plunder the public on behalf of a tiny ruling elite.” But consider what Hungary when through in the mid-Twentieth Century, as reported in History.com:“A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.The problems in Hungary began in October 1956, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. In response, Communist Party officials appointed Imre Nagy, a former premier who had been dismissed from the party for his criticisms of Stalinist policies, as the new premier. Nagy tried to restore peace and asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops. The Soviets did so, but Nagy then tried to push the Hungarian revolt forward by abolishing one-party rule. He also announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet bloc’s equivalent of NATO).On November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush, once and for all, the national uprising. Vicious street fighting broke out, but the Soviets’ great power ensured victory. At 5:20 a.m., Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced the invasion to the nation in a grim, 35-second broadcast, declaring: “Our troops are fighting. The Government is in place.” Within hours, though, Nagy sought asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest. He was captured shortly thereafter and executed two years later. Nagy’s former colleague and imminent replacement, János Kádár, who had been flown secretly from Moscow to the city of Szolnok, 60 miles southeast of the capital, prepared to take power with Moscow’s backing.The Soviet action stunned many people in the West. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had pledged a retreat from the Stalinist policies and repression of the past, but the violent actions in Budapest suggested otherwise. An estimated 2,500 Hungarians died and 200,000 more fled as refugees. Sporadic armed resistance, strikes and mass arrests continued for months thereafter, causing substantial economic disruption. Inaction on the part of the United States angered and frustrated many Hungarians. Voice of America radio broadcasts and speeches by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had recently suggested that the United States supported the “liberation” of “captive peoples” in communist nations. Yet, as Soviet tanks bore down on the protesters, the United States did nothing beyond issuing public statements of sympathy for their plight.” The people of Hungary know their history, and their parents and grandparents knew tyranny firsthand and the history of brutal Soviet oppression and subjugation won't be forgotten. It was no less the oppression of an independent sovereign Nation that is once again under attack, but not from Orbán. Rather this oppression is coming from the EU. It may not be through military force that the EU's Globalists Transnational Government, dictating policy from Brussels, has sought to oppress Hungary and the other nations of the EU that have opposed the usurpation of foreign authority on national sovereignty, but these overseers in Brussels have no less sought unlawfully to impose their iron rule upon Hungary, and the people of Hungary rejected that. Is it so wrong to admire one Nation's resolve against tyranny? But, Leftist writers like Jamelle Bouie are obviously oblivious to what it is in a Country that truly constitutes a trend, a direction toward tyranny. Bouie says,

But at this moment in American life, it’s conservatives who have set their sights abroad. Parts of the movement have even adopted a kind of anti-Americanism, a contempt for the United States as it exists. These conservatives still call themselves “patriots” — and disdain their opponents as “traitors” — but theirs is an abstract loyalty to an idealized country. “When they contemplate the actual United States,” Beauchamp wrote in Vox, “they are filled with scorn.”

It makes sense that as this tendency develops, so too does the yearning for a country that can be hailed as a model and a lodestar — the soaring and gilded counterpoint to our fallen and decadent society.” 

But that too is projection. And sooner or later, the conservatives who hail Hungary under Orban as an attractive alternative to the United States will see that their vision of that country is as false as their image of this one is.”

“Projection”? Really? That notion is absurd. What it is that draws Americans' attention to Hungary, and why many Americans admire Hungary, is not due to the psychological device of “projection” that the Times' writer Jamelle Bouie recites in his Op-Ed, but to the fact that this small Nation has taken a stand against unlawful usurpation of power by the EU, as political power belongs solely to Hungary, and rightfully so since Hungary is an independent sovereign Nation. It IS Hungary's will to resist unlawful encroachment of power that Americans find a thing to emulate. As Hungary has gained its independence from the Neoliberal Globalist forces in Brussels that dare to crush Hungary's independence, the United States has begun a process of decline in all aspects, politically, socially, economically, militarily, geopolitically, juridically, as those same Neoliberal Globalist forces, together with the Neo-Marxist rabble, seeks to unwind all sovereign, independent Western nation-states and to subsume them in a new transnational world order. The Neoliberal Globalist (these so-called) ‘elites and Internationalist Neo-Marxists have taken their cue from the EU, which is what they emulate and seek to replicate in the U.S.: A transnationalist governmental scheme, embracing all the major Western nation-states. In this scheme, there exist no national borders and no defined national identity. These powerful forces that crush seek no less than the annihilation of a powerful, independent sovereign Nation-State, one framed as a free Constitutional Republic in which the citizenry are sole sovereign, and whose power and authority as sole sovereign over Nation and Government derive from and are grounded in a carefully considered, extraordinary Constitution, establishing a Government with clearly defined and demarcated powers, all the rest of which, including Natural Rights existing intrinsically in Man, several of which are codified in the Nation's Bill of Rights, are reserved alone to the several States and to the People. This, the Leftists' Internationalist Marxist intellectual elite and the Neoliberal Globalist elites intend to obliterate. They see this as a good thing and with Donald Trump who sought to preserve the Nation in the form the founders created, callously swept aside through a rigged election, the forces that crush have wasted no time dismantling the U.S. Constitution, erasing all vestige of the Nation's past, destroying the Nation's culture along with the Nation's Judeo-Christian ethic, insinuating itself into every political, quasi-political, and semi-political structure, and institution of State, Federal, and local Government, compelling all private organizations and businesses to prostrate themselves to the new world order to be, deliberately destabilizing society, confounding the public, and denying to the common man the unfettered exercise of his or her natural Rights. This, they see as ‘Liberal Democracy’, something to be applauded.But, the trend toward ‘Liberal Democracy’ is nothing more than a seeming innocuous code for the annihilation of the Nation-State, and the creation of a new political, social, economic, and cultural structure to embrace the entirety of western civilization. The depth and breadth of this audacious effort to reconfigure the entirety of Western Civilization is not confined to Europe or to the U.S. or to the Commonwealth Nations. It embraces the entirety of Western Civilization—it amounts to the most audacious reconfiguration of Western Civilization yet conceived, resulting not in freeing the populations of the West, but, perversely, subjugating those populations, reducing them to abject poverty and to the strictest of control. And to this day, it is remarkable the ease to which the Press and social media redefine concepts or create new concepts out of whole cloth and refer to freedom fighters, such as Orban of Hungary, and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, and, yes, Donald Trump, too, as autocrats and despots and authoritarians.It is easy for the seditious Press to point to specific leaders who seek to save their Nations from the insidious encroachment of international Marxism and Neoliberal Globalism, for the public never sees the faces of the true rulers. They guard their secrecy jealously. The public only sees the faces of their current crop of puppets—whom their propaganda organs extol as righteous beacons of “liberal democracy: people like Angela Merkel of Germany, Emmanuel Macron of France, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen; and other western puppet leaders of the secretive ruling “elite” Rothschild clan, et.al., including marionettes such as Justin Trudeau of Canada, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand; and, in our own Country, don’t you know—the decrepit, cardboard cutout mannequins of the secretive “elites,” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.The U.S. is being similarly attacked by the toady media outlets of the Neoliberal Globalists' hidden leaders, and the U.S. is headed for the same usurpation of Nation-State independence as the nations of the EU, despite the apparent pushback in some countries. This unlawful usurpation of power is happening simultaneously throughout the globe.The eventual shakeout, if it comes to pass, will see the political, social, economic, cultural, and juridical structures of government much different than in the past few centuries. The “nation-state” construct will be dissolved. Through the embrace of and charade of economic Neoliberal globalism and Neo-Marxism, the world will be carved up between two ascendant unstoppable totalitarian regimes: on the one hand, a vast Communist Chinese empire and, and, on the other, a reconstituted, completely transformed West, brought under a single, uniform, unified, monolithic supra-national totalitarian governing structure. An uneasy truce will exist between the two, with fractures occurring from time to time, as inevitable flareups and squabbles between the two salient empires occur in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.For, a reconstituted, completely transformed West, brought under a single, uniform, unified, monolithic supra-national totalitarian governing structure to be able to successfully, withstand, if at all, the military, economic, and geopolitical might of Communist China, the West's Neoliberal Globalist elites understand that the linchpin for creating a formidable transnational totalitarian Western empire or bloc rests with bringing the EU into the fold of the U.S. and likely that would require Russia as well. China will continue its attempts to neutralize the military and economic power of the U.S. The unleashing of the Communist Chinese Coronavirus plague bioweapon on the world—predominately targeting the U.S., an act of war if there ever was one—has devastated the economy of the U.S. and has provided the impetus for exerting Neo-Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist control over the thought and action of the citizenry. The Neoliberal Globalist “elites” were likely in on this which might explain the odd reticence in engaging in a serious investigation of China’s conduct from the inception: involving gain of function research, of which Dr. Anthony Fauci was clearly aware of, and has much to explain to the American people. See, e.g., Fox News story on this, and Wall Street Journal report. This would suggest that the Neoliberal Globalist elites, along with the Neo-Marxists in Congress knowingly, willingly compromised the security of the Nation to amass personal wealth. In other words, the Globalists in the U.S. allowed China to treat their Companies, along with the U.S. Government as a commodity to be traded like any other commodity on the open market. China preyed upon this weakness in America's business and Government leaders; an insatiable lust to amass personal wealth even at the expense of the well-being of the Nation. The well-being of the American public and compliance with our Nation's laws and Constitution apparently doesn't factor into the equation. They have sold out the Nation. Communist China is the Nation's enemy, not merely an economic, military, and geopolitical competitor. Article 3, Sections 3 and 4 of the U.S. Constitution sets forth that:“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.”What might be done were Congress itself and the Executive Branch of Government complicit in committing treason? Who is it that might give testimony under oath against a member of Congress or of others in High Office? The Constitution doesn't seem to provide for this eventuality, given the sheer scope and audaciousness of the offense. In fact, it is only through the effects of and tremendous scale of the harm done that any American should see the harm that has been done to the Nation, the U.S. Constitution, and to the American people. But, perhaps it is precisely because of the massive scale of the harm that many Americans fail to take appreciable notice of the extent of it or, one might say that these events are less to be construed as incalculably horrific human misery compounded one tragedy + one tragedy + one tragedy, and so on, each to be pondered, but merely to be seen as a matter of banal Government statistics. In an article published on the website reason on January 7, 2009,  the writer, Ronald Bailey, writes:“ ‘The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.’That's what Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin allegedly once said to U.S. ambassador Averill Harriman. And Stalin was an expert on the topic since his regime killed as many 43 million people. It turns out that the mustachioed murderer may have been expressing an acute insight into human psychology. Earlier this week, the Washington Post's always interesting Department of Human Behavior columnist Shankar Vedantam reported on the research of University of Oregon professor Paul Slovic who looked at how people respond to humanitarian tragedies. As Vedantam explains:In a rational world, we should care twice as much about a tragedy affecting 100 people as about one affecting 50. We ought to care 80,000 times as much when a tragedy involves 4 million lives rather than 50. But Slovic has proved in experiments that this is not how the mind works.When a tragedy claims many lives, we often care less than if a tragedy claims only a few lives. When there are many victims, we find it easier to look the other way.Virtually by definition, the central feature of humanitarian disasters and genocide is that there are a large number of victims’‘The first life lost is very precious, but we don't react very much to the difference between 88 deaths and 87 deaths," Slovic said in an interview. ‘You don't feel worse about 88 than you do about 87.’”The inexorable weakening of the U.S. economy, the death of hundreds of thousands in this Country due to the unleashing of the Chinese Communist Coronavirus in the U.S., whether through reckless or depraved indifference or through cold, calculated deliberation, and as its after-effects are still much with us, and with the rapid unraveling of the social order through the machinations of a well-coordinated and well-funded Neo-Marxist reeducation campaign affecting every institution of our Nation, even our military, and through this Harris-Biden Administration's deliberate, calculated unleashing of millions of destitute illegal aliens into and throughout our Country, many of them diseasedall this human misery and all this major calamity confronting the Country in a Post-Trump Nation bespeaks treachery to Country, to Constitution, and to the citizenry by myriads of humanoid creatures in High Government Office, in the Press, in social media, in our Nation's institution of public education, in high finance, and in academia, that is of another order of magnitude.A backlash, which the Neoliberal Globalists and Neo-Marxist Internationalists must surely have seen coming, is unlikely to forestall the inexorable dissolution of a free Constitutional Republic, unless Republican legislators—and not the Cheney/Romney/Kinzinger et.al. sort—regain control of Congress in 2022, and the Constitution remains intact. Otherwise, this Nation will continue down the road to dissolution—its skeletal remains to be consolidated with and absorbed into the skeletal remains of the other major Western Nation States. But in the Nation’s death throes a bloodbath is likely to ensue. Americans will not readily surrender their firearms. It is because the U.S. has a well-drafted Constitution—and the longest surviving Constitution of the modern Nation-State and one grounded on the tenets of Individualism—that the adherents of Collectivism, i.e., the Neo-Marxists and Neoliberal Globalist elites find frustratingly and confoundingly difficult to contend with, despite the powers they wield in America and those they continue to gather up.Enough Americans, tens of millions of Americans—fortunate to have been spared academic indoctrination—resist attempts to dismantle a Free Constitutional Republic—all this in spite of the ever-increasing usurpation of power of the federal Government; the disintegration of a truly independent Press; the entrenchment of Neo-Marxist dogma in society; and the rabid attempt to federalize Constitutional structures historically belonging to and reserved to the several States, under the Tenth Amendment: control of public education; protecting the public health’s and providing for the public’s safety; conducting elections free from federal government interference; making marriage laws; punishing criminals; establishing local governments; and providing police and fire protection.Some powers, and the most important of late, relate to the controlling of borders. The Federal Government has the duty to protect the Nation’s borders from invasion. To the contrary, the Harris-Biden is openly inviting tidal waves of illegal aliens into our Country many of whom bear infectious diseases and deadly exotic pathogens; most of whom are destitute; all of whom are freeloaders; and too many of whom are murderous, psychopathic drug and sex traffickers or otherwise, incorrigible common criminals, including rapists, muggers, arsonists, child molesters, and other assorted lunatics.The present open border policy is not only inconsistent with federal statute it is a violation of the President’s oath of Office under Article 1, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, and it is a violation of duties of both the President and Congress under Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S.  Constitution.Yet the present inhabitants of the Executive Branch of Government pretend the Constitution is infinitely malleable and can mean whatever they wish it to mean, or they simply dismiss the Constitution out-of-hand. That raises the question: who is the Chief Executive of the Nation? Article 2 of the Constitution makes clear that there is, at any one time, one and only one Chief Executive. And the Chief Executive IS the ultimate decider of policy of the Executive Branch. That person is expected to give Orders, not take them.The present occupier of the seat of U.S. President, Joe Biden, is merely the titular Head of State whether in fact he was legitimately elected U.S. President. And there is considerable reasonable doubt as to that. But one thing about Biden, there can be no reasonable doubt and that has to do with whom it is who is making the decisions.No one honestly believes this sorry excuse for the Head of the Greatest Nation on Earth is making any decision for himself apart from deciding the flavor of ice cream he has a hankering for on any given day. For serious doubt exists whether the man is capable of rational thought any longer when it comes to serious matters of State, or whether Biden truly cares about, or even has the capacity to care about, heavy matters of State.And Congress is no better. All too many members of Congress treat the blueprint of the Nation as an ossified relic that ought to be and at some point in time must be formally discarded, and in the interim these Marxists interpret the Constitution Congress in any fanciful way they wish, or otherwise ignore the Constitution’s strictures outright, especially those strictures involving that aspect of the Constitution referred to as the Bill of Rights.We know the Neo-Marxist Congress and the true policymakers in the Executive Branch wish to scrap the Bill of Rights. They do not conceive of the Rights as codifications of natural law anyway. They do not accept the Bill of Rights as a set of fundamental, primordial rights existent in man before the creation of the Republic.Americans are witnessing the rapid decline and ultimate cessation of sacred Rights hitherto exercised. They are witnessing the de facto repeal of basic liberties that cannot lawfully be repealed or denied but are being de facto repealed or otherwise denied. And that portends the inevitable demise of the Republic; for once the Bill of Rights goes the Nation goes out with it. And there is evidence galore for this. We have already seen the Fourth Amendment's dictate against unreasonable searches and seizures essentially eradicated due to Congressional lack of oversight of both Government and of the Internet media monopolies and other technology companies that has resulted in the vacuuming up of every iota of electronic communication, and the attacks against the First Amendment's Right of Free Speech is well underway through censorship of books and curtailing of information on the world web that doesn't comport with the Neo-Marxist dogma and the fluid notions of liberal democracy that the Neoliberal Globalist elites wish to convey to the public. And the public is just beginning to obtain a glimpse of a concerted plan to curtail civilian citizen ownership of firearms, contrary to the dictates of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Implementation of this plan will probably begin in earnest in the coming months by Congressional Marxists, and the Harris-Biden Administration.Even during the first few days of the Harris-Biden Administration, Americans have seen the issuance of dozens of executive orders and other executive actions that the storefront mannequin Biden signed off one after the other. Congress, too, simply, is indifferent to or is defiant of the very laws it has enacted and is contemptuous of the dictates of the U.S. Constitution.The Marxist-controlled Democrat Party Congress is on board with or is one with the Harris-Biden Administration on its single-minded goal to dismantle the Republic. And most of the Republicans have themselves acquiesced or capitulated to or are in league with the Neo-Marxist game plan, if surreptitiously.As events unfold, it won’t be long before the U.S. becomes a hollowed-out shell of a Nation-State itself, not unlike most of those nations of the EU—ripe for a merger with the EU or whatever the EU eventually morphs into. And the remains of the major commonwealth Nations— Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada will follow suit.Six months into the Harris-Biden Administration and we the Anti-American Neo-Marxist Counterrevolution in full swing. The Nation is rapidly transitioning from a healthy, independent sovereign Nation-State and free Constitutional Republic borne of the American Revolution of 1776 into a political, economic, social, and moral decrepitude. Tens of millions of Americans know this to be true.But, having unceremoniously ushered Donald Trump from High Office through the application of massive, unprecedented, and outrageous electoral chicanery, the Neo-Marxists and immensely powerful, well-organized, and incredibly wealthy Neoliberal Globalists are moving apace to destabilize society through a policy of open borders, control of the Federal Government, the Press, social media, the banks, the business sector, many State Governments, Marxist organizations such as the ACLU, and so on and so forth.At some point, Americans will have to take a stand to halt the plunder of their Nation and of their sacred Constitution, and of their sacred, inviolate Rights. Either they take a stand, or they shall lose everything and for all time: Country, Constitution, Liberty, their very Soul. And of that, there can be no reasonable doubt.___________________________________*Article substantially expanded, August 8, 2021___________________________________Copyright © 2021 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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SEDITIOUS U.S. PRESS APPEASES CHINA BUT ATTACKS TRUMP

PART FIVE

A PLAGUE IN OUR MIDST

There is a viral plague in our midst. It is a thing both tenacious and relentless; implacable and ruthless; furtive and evasive; grievously painful and deadly. It is a scourge, spreading rapidly across our Nation, suffocating the very life out of Americans, and crippling our Nation. What is this debilitating virus?No, we are not talking about the Chinese Coronavirus.Sure, Premier Xi Jinping’s Coronavirus is horrific. And, it has become a useful, effective bioweapon of war for Xi, whether the unleashing of the viral plague on the U.S. and the world was the Regime’s intention or not.Consider: As of April 20, 2020, the CDC  reports the Chinese Coronavirus has killed almost 80,000 Americans and has sickened almost three-quarters of a million more. And,  epidemiologists suspect hundreds of thousands more Americans have contracted the disease—asymptomatic carriers of the disease, capable, unintentionally, of passing the disease on to others.There is much speculation about the movement of the Chinese Coronavirus plague in our Nation and much disagreement as to the best ways to deal with it and to protect our people and also to get our economy up and running. But one thing is clear and indisputable: The Chinese Coronavirus has ravaged our land and our people. And it is devastating our economy. It is everything loathsome, vile, disgusting, and deadly. Because of this "Gift" from China, our lives are changing, perhaps forever.But as dreadful as the Chinese virus is, there is another virus in our midst that is more horrific; more rapacious and voracious; more ferocious and tenacious; and more noxious, and it has been with us much longer than the Coronavirus. It is a parasitic virus, a silent plague; carefully cultivated and nourished, right here at home. It doesn’t attack and destroy the body. It latches onto and destroys the mind; the spirit; the soul. Many Americans have a natural immunity to it. Most, unfortunately, do not. It is endemic to our Nation but rarely mentioned. There is no known cure for those who contract the disease. And, for those who succumb to it, the virus turns a person into a numb, unthinking automaton, an obedient drone.And this parasitic virus has a vile, odious feature the China Coronavirus doesn’t have. It is seductive.This parasitic virus in our midst is the mainstream Press. It is a plague upon us; one that has been with us for decades.Where did this plague come from? Disturbingly, it arose from and took root in the U.S. Constitution itself through a corruption of the First Amendment. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The freedom of speech is, of course, a fundamental, unalienable, immutable right: a right that exists intrinsically in man, bestowed by a loving Creator in man. Is freedom of the Press distinct from the freedom of speech? Legal thinkers in the past didn’t think so. In fact——“Through most of our history the distinction has not seemed important because the terms freedom of speech and freedom of press have been used more or less interchangeably. In the last decade, however, the press has begun to assert rights arising specifically from the press clause—the right to maintain the confidentiality of sources, the right of access to prisons and courtrooms, the right to keep police from searching newsrooms,  and the right to prevent libel plaintiffs from inquiring into journalists’ thought processes. Thus far the Supreme Court has declined to give independent significance to the phrase ‘freedom of the press.’ It has refused to give the press any more protection than an individual enjoys under the speech clause.” The Origins Of The Press Clause., 30 UCLA L. Rev. 455, February 1983, by  David A. Anderson, Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin.If the freedom of the Press exists implicitly in the freedom of speech, why did the founders reference it in the Constitution? We guess they did so to emphasize the import of “free Press Speech,” apart from general public “free Speech,” evidently assuming that the energies of a free Press would be directed to safeguarding the Nation. Many of the founders therefore trusted in an unencumbered, unrestrained, unconstrained free Press. Many did; but not all.But, the founders did, as one, foresee the innate tendency of the federal Government to accumulate power unto itself. And that concern informed the founders’ blueprint for the Nation. They concluded an unshackled free Press, in tandem with the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, were two effective guardians against a tyrannical Government. But did the founders misapprehend the Press? Did they fail to see that an unrestrained Press, far from safeguarding a free Constitutional Republic, would endanger it?The founders correctly deduced the tendency of the federal Government to unlawfully amass power, even as the Constitution's first three Articles, carefully delineated the powers and authority that each Branch may lawfully wield. The founders also correctly deduced that an armed citizenry would effectively counter encroaching tyranny. But the founders evidently did not believe a Press, far from serving as a mechanism to ward off tyranny, might one day become the agent of it, even as some, notably Thomas Jefferson, harbored serious misgivings about Press Freedom as reflected in his writings. In those writings Jefferson expressed uncertainty, even equivocation, despite the fact that many commentators, today, deny this, arguing Jefferson unequivocally supported Press Freedom. He did not.John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan, January 26, 1837 – March 4, 1841, wrote to Jefferson, explaining how he would one day wish to enter the field of newspaper publishing:“It would be a great favor, too, to have your opinion of the manner in which a newspaper, to be most extensively beneficial, should be conducted, as I expect to become the publisher of one for a few years.Accept venerable patriot, my warmest wishes for your happiness.” Jefferson composed a stern letter to Norvell, warning him of the dangers of the Press.“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected . . . but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”—Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807And, 200 years after composing his cautionary letter to John Norvell, the fear that Jefferson expressed has come to pass as many academicians hold to the theory that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press are two conceptually distinct freedoms; one accorded to the body politic generally, and the other accorded to mainstream “professional journalists.”The schism has resulted in the false idea that Press Free Speech is of a higher order of Right than the general Free Speech Right accorded the ordinary masses'; that "professional journalists" should be designated a privileged group; that Press freedom should be accorded more deference than speech freedom. This is a dangerous idea, not only detrimental to First Amendment Free Speech but to the very sanctity of a free Constitutional Republic. And the danger isn’t theoretical; it is actual.We see the danger of an unshackled Press manifested today in two ways: one, in an unconscionable attempt to silence the masses from exercising their personal right of free speech because that tends to dilute the voice of the Press; and two, outright sedition. The mainstream Press is actively working with ruthless forces at home and abroad who desire to destroy our free Constitutional Republic; to institute tyranny; to exert control over the American people. There is proof aplenty for this inference. The Press is not content simply to report the news and to critique the Government. No! The Press has itself become an instrument of repression as it strives to constrain our fundamental rights and liberties, to overthrow a duly elected President, and to undermine a free Constitutional Republic.The Press has engaged in a continuous brash, malicious, conscious assault on the Trump Presidency with the unapologetic aim of sabotaging if not destroying Trump. This has been the modus operandi of the Press since the inception of the Trump Presidency.Matea Gold, the investigations reporter for the Washington Post, made this point clear on January 17, 2016, in her call to action article. Matea's remarks are all the more alarming because they saw expression in a “news” piece, not an Op-Ed. She writes:“The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway.At the moment the new commander in chief was sworn in, a campaign to build public support for his impeachment went live at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org, spearheaded by two liberal advocacy groups aiming to lay the groundwork for his eventual ejection from the White House.”The reader should take note that this Washington Post reporter doesn’t mention a basis for calling for the extraordinary process of impeachment of the U.S. President. Evidently, Matea Gold didn’t consider a legal reason to be necessary. One would arise, she may have thought, or one would be manufactured.The Collectivists, like this Washington Post reporter, simply want Trump “gone” and, she wants those Americans who support a free Constitutional Republic and unfettered exercise of fundamental rights to be gagged; denied expressing their views. If the Collectivists do succeed in getting Biden, or some other Clown, into Office, the Radical Left Democrats and the seditious Press will see their wish fulfilled. They will be well on their way to gutting the U.S. Our Country will devolve into something less than a sovereign independent Nation-State._____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

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UNITED STATES SAFE ACT IN THE MAKING: PENNED AND PENCILED BY ANDREW CUOMO

GUN RIGHTS STAY CENTER STAGE

With the midterm Congressional and Gubernatorial elections just around the corner, those Americans who support a strong Second Amendment must not sit idle, but must vote for Congressional candidates and State Governors who will not only support the right of the people to keep and bear arms but who will actively defend that right against those who dare to destroy it. The gun rights issue is of paramount importance and will take center stage if Cuomo Democrats win control of the House and Senate and if they take control of the States.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT REMAINS AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR CUOMO DEMOCRATS.

The Arbalest Quarrel has pointed out in our article, posted on August 1, 2018, that, although the immigration issue has been hyped by the mainstream media and by leftist politicians, in recent weeks and months, it is the Second Amendment that remains first and foremost, firmly in the crosshairs of those who seek to undermine our sacred Bill of Rights. And, sure enough, the exercise of gun rights is once again in the antigun zealots’ crosshairs.In recent days, as the Governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, gears up for a third term bid, he has taken direct aim at the oldest Civil Rights Organization in the Country, the NRA. NRA exists to defend the single, most important right of the American people, the right of the people to keep and bear armsa right critical to the safeguarding of a free Republic, and critical to guaranteeing the autonomy and sanctity of the individual citizen, as the true sovereign authority in and of the United States.The New York Times has taken the lead in shepherding New York residents to elect Cuomo to a third term in Office, making the point of telling the public, in an August 5, 2018 article, titled, A New Brawl With the N.R.A.? Cuomo Seizes an Opportunity as a Primary Looms”— that “Mr. Cuomo has had a longstanding ideological commitment to gun control. . . [and that] in 2013, Mr. Cuomo successfully fought for passage of the Safe Act, making New York the first state to enact more stringent gun regulations after the Sandy Hook massacre. He has proudly touted his ‘F’ rating from the N.R.A.” Lest there be any doubt where Cuomo’s ultimate ambition lies, the New York Times adds, in that same article, that “he [Cuomo] has also made no secret of his belief that his actions on gun control have made his state a model for the nation—a handy argument for a politician who has garnered some mention as a possible 2020 candidate. ‘Use New York as a test case,’ Mr. Cuomo said in an interview of his gun control measures, including the Safe Act. ‘The state is a laboratory of democracy where I can say: We passed the law five years ago. Come look at our state.’”Come look at New York, indeed! Imagine, if you will, a Nation, where the model for gun control, the New York Safe Act, becomes federal law—thrust on every State in the Union.De Facto, if not outright de jure, repeal of the Second Amendment has been the goal of the Democratic Party for decades. And, Andrew Cuomo will lead the charge on eviscerating the Second Amendment. Long before Democrats changed their position on illegal immigration—calling at an earlier time for curbs on such immigration, but now extolling an open borders policy that would essentially open the floodgates, letting flow, like an angry river into this Country, tens, perhaps even hundreds, of millions of low-skilled migrants, along with a large contingent of criminal gangs and refugees from failed states of the Middle East—Democrats have never wavered but have consistently attacked the sacred, natural right codified in the Second Amendment. They have done so incessantly, unceasingly, vehemently. That single issue is what defines them. That single issue is what motivates them, like no other. For, they know that: once the right of the people to keep and bear arms is destroyed, they--these Cuomo Democrats and other leftists--will do away with other fundamental rights and liberties. In so doing, they contrive and machinate to contort our Nation into a thing unrecognizable, an entity completely alien to the aims and desires of the founders of a Free Republic. These Cuomo Democrats seek to create a quagmire, a geographical "Place," no longer an Independent, Sovereign Nation--but merely a place--overrun by unassimilable alien people. These Cuomo Democrats and other leftists who seek to destroy our Nation--a Nation founded on natural rights and liberties--intend to destroy the very fabric of our Nation: its memory; its history, its values, its culture, its ethos. They intend to wipe the slate clean. And, to assist them in their detestable endeavor, they conspire to bring into our Country, such denizens of other Countries who have no understanding of, no appreciation for and, in fact, no concept, of a Nation that exists under and by the will of the people alone--a Nation whose people are endowed by their Creator with fundamental, natural rights and liberties--rights and liberties intrinsic to their very being: incorruptible, immutable, beyond the power of Government to deny, to ignore, to erase.

CUOMO DEMOCRATS DO NOT PERCEIVE THE BILL OF RIGHTS AS CODIFYING NATURAL RIGHTS BUT AS A CREATION OF MAN THAT CAN, THEREFORE, BE AMENDED OR DELETED AT WILL.

Not surprisingly, Cuomo Democrats and other leftists' disdain for the Second Amendment is reflected in their rebuke of the very notion that the Bill of Rights embodies and codifies a set of basic, natural rights endowed to man by the Creator, intrinsic to man's very being. As Cuomo Democrats and other leftists savagely, mindlessly, mercilessly attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms of the Second Amendment, they have also attacked the right of free speech, codified in the First Amendment, and they have attacked the very notion of private property rights codified in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They consider these rights trivial, anachronistic to, and an anathema to the "new" Socialist Order they wish to create. In their scheme, these Cuomo Democrats, and these other leftists residing in our Nation, consider the Nation's sacred rights to be merely man-made conventions, capable of excision or rescission, at the stroke of the pen.Thus, these Cuomo Democrats and these other leftists belittle the Nation's Bill of Rights, and belittle, too, and especially, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. At every turn these Cuomo Democrats and these other leftists contrive to undermine the sanctity of our sacred rights. In their insidious design first to trivialize the Nation's fundamental rights--natural rights, codified in the Nation's Bill of Rights by the framers of our Constitution--they seek, second, eventually, to strike these fundamental, natural rights from the Constitution, substituting for them, such man-made rights, they happen to construct for the moment; rights that happen, for the moment, to comprise their wish list, consistent with and commensurate with their plans for a new Socialist Order they intend to impose on Americans.And what are some of these new rights? Investor Business Daily wrote, presciently, in 2016, that: “They [Democrats] talk about the ‘right to affordable health care,’ the ‘right to a college education,’ the ‘right to a livable wage.’ But at the same time, many of these same Democrats have been agitating to restrict or outright repeal existing rights enshrined in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.” 

CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS MUST SPEAK OUT!

Conservative commentators must speak out against the perils of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party, and they must do so continuously. They must emphasize the threat that Cuomo Democrats and other leftists pose to the continued sanctity of and continuity of the Bill of Rights and, especially, the threat they pose to the Second Amendment.Yet, conservative commentators remain, for the most part, reticent. Oddly, even the conservative commentator Sean Hannity fails to mention that Cuomo Democrats would strive to weaken the Second Amendment if they gained control of the House and the Senate. On his nightly Fox news broadcasts, Hannity rightly warns the American public about specific dangers posed by a Democratic Party takeover of Congress, including Democrats’ intention to impeach President Trump and their commitment to an open borders immigration policy, but he says nothing about Cuomo led Democrats’ devious, scurrilous plans to enact restrictive firearms measures, on the National stage, in the event they take over the House, and, possibly, the Senate as well.

IS THE WRITING ON THE WALL?

If Democrats do in fact take over Congress, after the November 2018 midterm elections, and if Andrew Cuomo is elected to a third term as Governor of New York, Cuomo will be taking his plans for a National New York Safe Act to a receptive Congress, where he will lead the pack to destroy the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Of that, there can be no doubt._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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THE ISSUE OF CURBING VIOLENCE IN OUR SCHOOLS DOES NOT DEVOLVE TO SIMPLY BANNING GUNS. IT IS MORE COMPLEX, ELUSIVE, NUANCED.

PART FIVE

STUDENTS MUST BECOME CRITICAL THINKERS, NOT “PARROTS” OF THOSE WHO HARBOR ULTERIOR MOTIVES.

Peaceful protest isn’t a bad thing. The youth of our Nation, as citizens of the United States, have a Constitutional right to do so as the right of the people to peaceably assemble is a fundamental right, specifically codified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, along with freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the right to the free exercise of religion. These rights are broad in scope and critical to the maintenance of a free Republic. The danger of protest rests when there exists a hidden agenda behind the protest, unbeknownst to those that take to protest.On March 24, 2018, hundreds of thousands of young people, including adults, turned out to protest violence in our Nation’s schools. The horror that took place in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School served as the impetus for the protest. Last February 2018, a deranged young man, Nikolas Cruz, whom School Officials had expelled for multiple serious disciplinary violations, walked unimpeded into the School, and proceeded to murder 17 students, including teachers, using a semiautomatic long gun, modeled on the “AR-15” platform.Organizers of the March 24 protest on our Nation’s Capital on Saturday, March 24, 2018 called it, “March for Our Lives.” The New York Times banner headline on Sunday, March 25, 2018, says something different however: "With Passion and Fury, Students March on Guns."Students across the Country are furious—and rightfully so—at the failure of Government, to protect them, as students are vulnerable to violence when in school. How it is that a seriously disturbed individual, Nikolas Cruz, who was on the radar of both the FBI and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and who, on several occasions, had openly expressed a desire to kill, could gain access to a firearm and ammunition, and who then could act on that desire, speaks of gross incompetence and glaring ineptitude, on multiple Governmental levels? Then there is the failure of an armed Broward County Deputy Sheriff—a Resource Officer, assigned to the School, and of other Broward County Deputy Sheriffs, who shortly arrived on the scene—whose actions or, rather, inactions, must be   singled out. Broward County Deputy Sheriff, Scott Peterson, and other Broward County Deputy County Sheriffs failed to confront and stop Nikolas Cruz. They all consciously, intentionally, refrained from entering the School building to confront Nikolas Cruz, even though they heard gunshots in the School, and knew or had every reason to conclude that, every time they heard a gunshot, an innocent person had died. Bald-faced cowardice, cannot be ruled out.Students have a right to ask of Government, that is charged to protect them, why Government failed them. This failure must be addressed and then redressed. Action must be taken to protect our schools with appropriate security. Competent, armed individuals, both physically capable of action and psychologically predisposed to act in a life-threatening situation, must be a component of an effective school security program.

FIREARMS, OF THEMSELVES, DO NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE BECAUSE THEY ARE OBJECTS, NOT AGENTS.

As for the root cause(s) why more violence occurs in our schools, this is a complex issue, with no simple answer or remedy. Unfortunately, in the face of overwhelming horror and tragedy, there is a normal tendency to look for a “quick fix,” and there are those who jump at the chance to funnel through the mainstream media, to the public, a  simple answer—more stringent gun laws, commencing with an outright ban on civilian ownership and possession of all semiautomatic long guns, defined as ‘assault weapons,’ including a ban on large capacity ammunition magazines.Antigun advocacy groups have argued, for decades, for further restrictions on civilian access to semiautomatic firearms, defined as ‘assault weapons.’ Of course, the definition of ‘assault weapon,’ is amorphous, as the phrase is a political invention, not an industry or military term of art. Those jurisdictions that generally ban possession of “assault weapons” in the hands of the American civilian citizenry, have defined the expression, ‘assault weapon,’ in different ways. In fact, under New York law at least one category of weapon, the revolving cylinder shotgun, is defined in law, an ‘assault weapon,’ even though, given the revolving cylinder shotgun’s method of operation, as the name makes plain, the revolving cylinder shotgun isn’t a semiautomatic weapon at all.Antigun advocacy groups have an agenda and that agenda does not necessarily equate with ensuring a safe school environment. In pursuit of that agenda, these groups have successfully harnessed the anger, hurt, frustration, and legitimate concern of students. The “March for Our Lives” didn’t just happen. It happened for a reason: Antigun advocacy groups and other liberal advocacy groups quietly, behind the scenes, harnessed student anger and redirected it. They redirected student anger, hurt, and frustration away from an attack on the failure of some State and local governmental authorities to provide students with a safe and secure environment, where student anger, frustration and hurt should have been focused, or should rightfully have remained, to an attack on "the gun" qua "assault weapon." Thus, instead of encouraging young people to take part in an open, frank, and intelligent discussion on the root causes of violence in our society and how it is and why it is some people erupt into an orgy of horrific violence and how State and local governments, in the interim, may implement reasonable security measures in schools, to protect students, we see antigun advocacy groups, and other advocacy groups in agreement with them, ratcheting up student anger to the point where that anger explodes into a paroxysm of rage launched specifically and solely against an inanimate object.An undertaking of this magnitude requires, money, organization, and coordination well beyond the capacity of young people to engineer. The billionaire Michael Bloomberg, through his antigun advocacy group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” organized, funded, and coordinated the rally. This isn’t supposition, it is fact, as reported by CNN, and as Bloomberg’s group itself readily admits.

WOULD A WHOLESALE BAN ON SEMIAUTOMATIC LONG GUNS, MODELED ON THE ORIGINAL AR-15 ARMALITE SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE, PREVENT A RECURRENCE OF GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS?

An outright ban on an entire category of weapons in common use would not prevent further gun violence. A federal ban on so-called ‘assault weapons,’ implemented in 1994, was tried. That ban failed to prevent many mass shootings. The ban expired in 2004 through a sunset provision, and Congress did not reauthorize it. We have seen, since, violent acts committed, not only with so-called “assault weapons,” but with other objects, including, knives, bombs, and even trucks.“Everytown for Gun Safety,” and like-minded antigun advocacy groups argue that violence in our schools, and in public spaces generally, can be prevented or significantly reduced if Government, local, State, and Federal, would simply prohibit civilian access to firearms. Whether these antigun activist groups truly believe that, is unlikely. Their goal, if achieved, would not eliminate or even reduce violence in schools or in the greater society. They must know this. Their goal, if achieved, would have the negative effect of leaving the civilian population of this Country essentially defenseless. The tacit but obvious impetus of these antigun advocacy groups is to effectuate Government control over the citizenry. The goal of these groups is not to promote public safety, express claims to the contrary, notwithstanding.The fact of the matter is that, even if antigun advocates were successful in removing every firearm presently in the possession of honest, law-abiding, average, rational American citizens who desire to exercise their fundamental, inalienable, natural right to keep and bear arms who comprise the vast civilian citizenry of firearms’ owners in this County, that would do nothing to curb violent acts. A simplistic fix that happens, not unsurprisingly, to cohere with the personal agenda of antigun advocacy groups—destruction of the Second Amendment—isn’t the panacea for effectively dealing with a culture of violence endemic in our Nation, contrary to the supposition of antigun activists and contrary to their rhetoric. It is a recipe for disaster. First, the antigun activists’ simplistic fix leaves the American citizenry defenseless. Second, the abridgement of the American citizenry’s fundamental rights and liberties—reflected, first and foremost in an armed citizenry—is inconsistent with the continued conservation and preservation of a free Republic, rooted in our Nation’s history. Third, such abridgement of our fundamental rights and liberties is inconsistent with the basic principle upon which those sacred rights and liberties rests: the sanctity, autonomy, and inviolability of the American citizen.Until Americans, including the youth of our Nation, are willing to look deeply and seriously at the true root causes of violence that infects and infests our Country, rather than excoriating guns as the salient cause of violence and mischief in our Nation in accordance with the dictate of antigun advocacy groups, violence will not appreciably be forestalled or constrained; for violence, ultimately, exists in the heart of individuals, not in such inanimate objects they happen to wield. Any object—a gun, a knife, a vehicle, a chainsaw, or any other tool—can be used by a sentient being for good or ill.Young people, especially, must learn to think through an issue calmly, not rashly. Unfortunately, those individuals and groups that have a personal agenda to serve, have irresponsibly coopted the rightful anger and hurt of young people to assist them in pursuit of a singular goal: divesting the civilian population of this Country of their firearms. The young people must resist the urge to serve antigun groups as their servants or proxies. Antigun groups are very good at coaxing young people to join them in service to a personal agenda: gun control, culminating in gun confiscation. Instead, the young people of our Nation might more effectively use intellectual rigor to explore the root causes of violence in our society. In the interim Government at the federal, State, and local levels, can and must design and implement plans to secure our schools from threats of harm. Violence is, unfortunately, persistent in our Nation. But, violence is endemic in many other Western nations, too, even as those other Western nations have rigidly suppressed individual ownership and possession of firearms.A viable security plan to protect students from harm never existed in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. But other Schools across the Nation that have implemented effective security, have been free from deadly threats to students and to teachers. That means all schools must embrace a proactive, not reactive, stance to threats of violence of any kind. A sound plan to protect students is doable and helpful. Going after guns is not._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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WESTCHESTER COUNTY EXECUTIVE GEORGE LATIMER’S ORDER, BANNING PUBLIC GUN SHOWS, LIKELY VIOLATES FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS.

CAN A STATE OR ANY JURISDICTION WITHIN A STATE BAN PUBLIC GUN SHOWS OUTRIGHT, WITHOUT ILLEGALY TRAMPLING THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS?

“And, now, come to this spot Where the spotlight is hot And you’ll see in the spotlight A Juggling Jott Who can juggle some stuff You might think he could not. . . Such as twenty-two question marks, Which is a lot. Also forty-four commas And, also, one dot! That’s the kind of Circus McGurkus I’ve got!” ~ From the Children’s Book, “If I Ran the Circus," by Dr. Seuss (published by Random House 1956) 

We see with disturbing regularity, Governments, be they the federal Government, a State Government, or Government of a County, township, or municipality, blindly, indiscriminately, with stunning alacrity, and feverish abandon, enacting laws, codes, regulations, ordinances, or, as in the case, recently, in the County of Westchester, in the State of New York, an Executive Order that negatively impacts substantive, fundamental Constitutional Rights. Those in power, like the Westchester County Executive, George Latimer, seek, in the fiefdom, they "rule," a fanciful, but nightmarish world, a personal circus, that mirrors a conception of reality acceptable to them--a conception of reality consistent with their personal philosophy and ethical system but one at once inconsistent with the blueprint for a free Republic that the founders of our Nation designed and established for the American people, and one inconsistent with the rights and liberties that the framers of our Bill of Rights insisted on as a critical component of the Nation's Constitution, as a safeguard against the very actions that people such as George Latimer take. People, like the present Westchester County Executive, filled with their own smug certainty of what is right and proper, would dare to force the ordinary citizens, who reside in their domain of power, to live in the "circus" they create, compelled to obey and abide by the law they lay down, irrespective of natural law, codified as sacred rights and liberties comprising our Bill of Rights--rights existent intrinsically in each American citizen, as placed in each American soul, by the hand of the Divine Creator, that no man, acting as a demigod, may rationally and lawfully counteract or nullify.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY EXECUTIVE GEORGE LATIMER OVERTURNS THE ORDER OF HIS PREDECESSOR, ROB ASTORINO.

On January 2, 2018, George Latimer, a Democrat, took the oath of Office in his White Plains, New York Office, as the new County Executive of Westchester County, and wasted no time to attack the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “On his second day as Westchester County Executive, George Latimer delivered on a promise from in [sic] his campaign, and signed an Executive Order prohibiting the sale of guns on Westchester County property.” What precipitated this Executive Order? Apparently, George Latimer sought to reimpose on the American public that resides in Westchester County an earlier ban on public gun shows ordered by a prior Westchester County Executive, Andrew J. Spano, that had been lifted by George Latimer's immediate predecessor, Rob Astorino. As explained, further, on the Westchester Government website,In 1999, gun shows were banned at the Westchester County Center by former County Executive Andrew J. Spano [a Democrat] in the wake of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. That prohibition was later revoked by Latimer’s immediate predecessor [Rob Astorino, a Republican].‘Westchester County government should not be in the business of advancing the sale of weapons and other items often sold at gun shows – plain and simple,’ said Latimer. ‘This is not a restriction on gun shows in the entire county, but rather just on public land.’Text from the Executive Order states that 'WHEREAS, recreational County facilities always serve our residents best when used for sporting events, concerts, trade shows, and educational opportunities for our youth. Gun shows are not what taxpayer financed property should be used for.'"Several websites dryly report this event; several with approval, some not.The seesawing of actions, up and down, back and forth—where one Westchester County Executive bans public guns shows, another County Executive lifts the ban, and a third County Executive reimposes the public gun show ban—reflects a clash of philosophies pertaining to import and purport of the Second Amendment, and to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well, played out on a small scale. How this clash of philosophies ultimately pans out, when fought out on the broad national scale, in Congress and in the U.S. Supreme Court, though, will have, for the American citizenry, vast implications and ramifications, for good or ill, for generations of Americans to come.

THE INDEFATIGABLE OBSTINANCE OF THOSE FORCES THAT DENIGRATE AND REFUSE TO TOLERATE THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS KNOWS NO BOUNDS.

George Latimer's Executive Order, banning public gun shows in Westchester County, represents the latest effort of antigun forces to place obstacles in the path of those American citizens who, as Latimer and his fellow travelers see it, have the audacity to exercise the natural and fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms that the framers codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The framers, for their part, with clarity of foresight, provided to them with guidance from Divine Providence, saw abundant need for this sacred right to be codified in the Bill of Rights. The framers of the Bill of Rights, the founders of our free Republic, knew full well that nothing but force of arms serves to check tyranny and nothing but force of arms best protects the life, well-being, and sanctity of the individual. Thus, as Latimer and his cohorts in the antigun conspiracy take exception with those American citizens who wish merely to exercise, unimpeded, the right to own and possess firearms for their protection and to safeguard the continued existence of a free Republic, George Latimer and his antigun cohorts must also take exception with the framers of the Bill of Rights, for it is they, who made clear enough, beyond the power of anyone to ignore, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms does exist, that the right is sacred and indelible, and that this right, more than any other, defines our Nation and defines what it means to be an American citizen.

GEORGE LATIMER LAYS OUT FOR THE MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA PRESS THE PREDICATE BASIS FOR HIS EXECUTIVE ORDER BANNING PUBLIC GUN SHOWS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY, SIGNALING HIS VEHEMENT DISAPPROVAL OF FIREARMS AND HIS STRONG DISAPPROVAL OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

Where George Latimer’s sympathies lie on matters pertaining to the right of the people to keep and bear arms, one can readily ascertain. Talking to the Press, Latimer resorts to use of simplistic, superficial, banal political oratory, eschewing erudite, logical discourse—treating the public with condescension and contempt, as politicians customarily and most sadly do—punctuating his well-rehearsed talking points with the confident self-assurance and moral certitude of a televangelist delivering a weekly sermon to his TV audience. “Latimer said Tuesday that gun shows do not represent the family values reflected in the other events held at the county facilities. The ban is not a restriction on gun shows in the entire county, but just on public land, he said. ‘The County Center hosts basketball, Westchester Knicks play there in the developmental league, we have had the Harlem Globetrotters come in for performances, we have a bridal show coming up, we have a model train show that normally comes into the arena, we have job fairs and high school graduations and concerts, all very friendly family fare,’ he said.”The County Executive, George Latimer, also proclaims: “I believe the majority of the Board of Legislators, and myself as executive, believe very strongly that this is the wrong venue for a gun show. . . .” Well, who would dare oppose George Latimer; for, after all, as stated in County Code: “The County Executive shall be the chief executive and administrative officer of the county and the official head of the county government.” Westchester County Code of Ordinances, Part I, Charter, Article 110, County Executive.

COUNTY EXECUTIVE GEORGE LATIMER’S BAN ON PUBLIC GUN SHOWS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY SIGNALS HIS SUPPORT OF GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO’S ANTAGONISTIC ATTITUDE TOWARD GUNS AND THE GOVERNOR'S ANTAGONISTIC ATTITUDE TOWARD THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

As George Latimer, County Executive, sets his imprimatur on the County level, one would do well to recall Governor Andrew Cuomo’s own actions, negatively infringing the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, on the State level. After all, it was Governor Cuomo who signed into law, on January 15, 2013, and who exclaims with visible pride, enactment of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act of 2013 (NY Safe Act), one of the most restrictive and draconian set of firearms laws ever to be enacted in the United States—and a direct and clear repudiation of and affront to the fundamental right, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Other anti-Second Amendment Governors have used the NY Safe Act as a model for enactment of their own restrictive firearms laws. And, on the national stage, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein had envisioned and had hopes of engineering similar NY Safe Act legislation for the entire Nation—a direct and cold and calculated and audacious challenge to any American citizen who might wish to exercise his or her fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Fortunately, she did not succeed in that endeavor. But, like a true fanatic, she employs indefatigable resolve, constantly introducing anti-Second Amendment bills in the U.S. Senate, and forever scheming behind closed doors.Antigun Politicians like Governor Andrew Cuomo and Westchester County Executive, George Latimer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein know they can always rely on the mainstream news media to trumpet, with great fanfare, their antigun message.

THE MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA “PRESS” SERVES IS OWN ENDS, AND THOSE OF ITS BENEFACTORS—THE WEALTHY, POWERFUL, RUTHLESS INTERNATIONALIST, TRANS-NATIONALIST GLOBAL “ELITE” THAT IT OBSEQUIOUSLY SERVES—TO DENIGRATE, INCESSANTLY, UNCEASINGLY, THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, CODIFIED IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

Arguably, one of the most unforgiveable actions of the ‘mainstream news media’—where the expression, ‘mainstream news media,’ is generally equated with the term, 'Press,' as the word, ‘Press,’ appears prominently in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution —is that the Press, id est, “this mainstream news media Press, fails to defend the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment. That is bad enough. Worse, the mainstream news media Press caustically, audaciously, and emphatically attacks those who defend the right codified in the Second Amendment. This mainstream news media Press, scurrilously abets the actions of those governmental leaders, who, with the power they wield through the Legislative Office they hold, do their utmost to undermine, rather than defend the right.Mainstream news media organization newspaper publishers like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, The Guardian, and USA Today, and mainstream news media broadcast outlets like ABC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, and BBC all provide a quick and ready and willing forum for those Congressional and State legislators and for those antigun proponents and antigun provocateurs and for those obstreperous left-wing agitators that allows them to malign those American citizens who hold to traditional American values and who seek to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms. With customary malicious and malevolent bravado, and self-assured smugness, these mainstream news media newspapers and other mainstream media news organizations and their affiliates denigrate the Second Amendment and denigrate those who support it and denigrate those who support the framers' conception of the other Nine Amendments as well. Through their commentary and  Op-Eds, and through their news reporting, too--where mainstream media news coverage is seen less as hard, so-called "straight" news and more as editorial slants posing as news stories--these mainstream media news organizations deliberately and disingenuously concoct a central theme, a story-line, a story narrative, that, day-by-day, builds upon the story of the day before, not unlike what one sees when reading a work of fiction,that, chapter by chapter, builds sequentially on what came before, to a pre-ordained conclusion that the author mandates in the template for the work of fiction that the author creates.This same mainstream news media Press malevolently assails, with sanctimonious conviction and obvious glee, anyone who might dare challenge its pronouncements; for, the Press quickly reminds the American public that freedom of the Press is, after all, a fundamental right, even as that same Press insists that the right of the people to keep and bear arms isn’t. The irony in the claim—selectively and vehemently defending one fundamental right while viciously attacking another—is, apparently, lost on those who work for the mainstream news media Press, even if that irony isn’t lost on any other American.So, it should not be surprising that some Governmental leaders operate with characteristic aplomb and abandon to enact laws and take actions that undercut the right of the people to keep and bear arms as they have a powerful ally in the mainstream news media Press on their side. George Latimer evidently knows he has the backing of this mainstream news media Press, and with this Press on his side, he acts with impunity. Together, with a compliant County Government he leads, he obviously feels confident that his bold, legally dubious Executive Order, banning public gun shows, will go essentially unchallenged. For, who would dare confront him?Well, the Arbalest Quarrel does challenge Westchester County Executive George Latimer’s Order, banning public gun shows in Westchester County. And, we do proclaim loudly, assertively and confidently: Meaningful, compelling, deserving and discerning bases exist, in law, to challenge County Executive George Latimer’s Executive Order, on that portion of the Executive Order we have seen, as posted on the County Government website.Why do we say this? We have the weight of legal authority on our side.

COUNTY EXECUTIVE GEORGE LATIMER’S ACTION, BANNING PUBLIC SHOWS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY IS LIKELY UNLAWFUL, AND A COGENT LEGAL BASIS EXISTS FOR CHALLENGING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER IN COURT.

Granted, the Arbalest Quarrel hasn’t had an opportunity to review the full text of George Latimer’s Executive Order. The reason is that the full text of the Executive Order has not been published on the Westchester County website. In time, perhaps, the full text of the Executive Order will be posted on the County Government website. There is, apparently, more to it.But, what we do see, from that portion of the Executive Order that has been published, namely that “recreational County facilities always serve our residents best when used for sporting events, concerts, trade shows, and educational opportunities for our youth [because] Gun shows are not what taxpayer financed property should be used for,” says enough for purpose of challenging the lawfulness of the Order. For, consistent with and supportive of George Latimer’s sentiments about firearms and about gun shows, as expressed to the mainstream news media Press, along with the language of the Executive Order itself, we conclude the language of the Order, as buttressed by the Westchester County Executive’s statements to the mainstream news media Press, demonstrate not only the County Executive’s open and visceral abhorrence of firearms, and not only his distaste for the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and not only his contempt for American citizens who wish to exercise that right, but constitute, too, unconscionable violations of the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution.That portion of the Westchester County Executive Order we have read, be it coupled with the Westchester County Executive’s statements to mainstream media newspapers and broadcast outlets, or not, amounts to an open admission of violation of the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment.The Arbalest Quarrel will provide an in-depth analysis in a future article. Suffice it to say, here, that George Latimer’s Executive Order, through its very language, contravenes United States Supreme Court law.In critical part, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, in the 1994 case, Turner Broadcasting System vs. FCC, 512 U.S. 622; 114 S. Ct. 2445; 129 L. Ed. 2d 497; 1994 U.S. LEXIS 4831; 62 U.S.L.W. 4647: “At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence. Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal. See Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. at 449 (citing Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24, 29 L. Ed. 2d 284, 91 S. Ct. 1780 (1971));West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638, 640-642, 87 L. Ed. 1628, 63 S. Ct. 1178 (1943). Government action that stifles speech on account of its message, or that requires the utterance of a particular message favored by the Government, contravenes this essential right. Laws of this sort pose the inherent risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information or manipulate the public debate through coercion rather than persuasion. These restrictions ‘raise the specter that the Government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace.’ Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 116, 116 L. Ed. 2d 476, 112 S. Ct. 501 (1991). For these reasons, the First Amendment, subject only to narrow and well-understood exceptions, does not countenance governmental control over the content of messages expressed by private individuals. R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 393, 120 L. Ed. 2d 305, 112 S. Ct. 2538 (1992); Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397,  414, 105 L. Ed. 2d 342, 109 S. Ct. 2533 (1989). Our precedents thus apply the most exacting scrutiny to regulations that suppress, disadvantage, or impose differential burdens upon speech because of its content. See Simon & Schuster, 502 U.S. at; id., at (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment); Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45, 74 L. Ed. 2d 794, 103 S. Ct. 948 (1983). Laws that compel speakers to utter or distribute speech bearing a particular message are subject to the same rigorous scrutiny. See Riley v. National Federation for Blind of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. at 798; West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, supra. In contrast, regulations that are unrelated to the content of speech are subject to an intermediate level of scrutiny, see Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293, 82 L. Ed. 2d 221, 104 S. Ct. 3065 (1984), because in most cases they pose a less substantial risk of excising certain ideas or viewpoints from the public dialogue.” Let’s deconstruct a portion of this high Court opinion: “At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence. Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal.” There is a marked tension between the words of the U.S. Supreme Court and the words expressed in Westchester County Executive’s Order; for the language of the Executive Order stands in clear, categorical defiance to the well-reasoned opinion of the high Court in Turner. Again, the specific language of the Westchester County Executive Order of George Latimer reads: “WHEREAS, recreational County facilities always serve our residents best when used for sporting events, concerts, trade shows, and educational opportunities for our youth [because] Gun shows are not what taxpayer financed property should be used for [emphasis our own].” This is a presumptuous, arrogant assertion. Latimer predicates this Executive Order on, and attempts to support an unlawful and despicable Governmental act on, false moral piety. It is a ruse; no less so, if George Latimer truly believes that his Executive Order is justified because, in his mind, he has generated it from a sense of superior moral conviction, and sees it as an act of beneficence toward the residents of Westchester rather than, for what it really is, an act of defiance toward the supreme authority, establishing, in no uncertain words, the fundamental rights and liberties etched in stone in the Bill of Rights. Yet, Latimer's Executive Order, banning public gun shows in Westchester County, is nothing less than illegal gag order on free expression, posing as a righteous moral edict. For George Latimer is doing no less than thrusting his personal beliefs into the public sphere concerning what he sees, or what he would like to see, as the appropriate use of public County land and what he perceives as not constituting appropriate use of public land. Latimer obviously detests  guns, and he obviously abhors a citizen's exercise of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. By banning public gun shows, George Latimer uses his Office to make manifest in law, to actualize in Westchester County, his personal opinions and pompous high-minded moral judgments of what he deems to constitute appropriate behavior and what he signals as inappropriate behavior, informing residents of Westchester County, in no uncertain terms, as to what constitutes appropriate behavior in the County and what does not. Obviously, for George Latimer, those who wish to promote and hold public gun shows and those who wish to attend public gun shows are both engaging in inappropriate, immoral or amoral behavior, and he has signaled his clear disapproval of that behavior through the Executive Order he has issued on the matter. Undoubtedly, we will see more such Executive Orders emanating from his Office in White Plains, New York.George Latimer takes upon himself the role of guardian of public morality, and he has, through issuance of his Executive Order, given himself, albeit tacitly, the title of High Priest of Moral Order and Rectitude. It is George Latimer who determines what behavior is worthy of free speech protection under the First Amendment and what speech is not worthy of such protection, in Westchester County. Through his actions George Latimer demonstrates the height of arrogance and presumption. He uses a heavy hand to constrain the right of free speech that Westchester County residents might, one would think, reasonably expect is theirs to enjoy, as such right is codified in the First Amendment; and he uses a heavy hand to constrain, as well, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment--another fundamental right that Westchester County  residents might, one would think, also reasonably expect is theirs to enjoy. Not so, according to George Latimer. But, the Courts may think differently. Latimer's Executive Order is not likely to stand up to rigorous legal scrutiny. For, contrary to George Latimer’s assertions as manifested in his actions, the Bill of Rights doesn’t stop at the border of Westchester County. Moreover, that the County Executive would deign, at least for a time, to allow gun shows to proceed unimpeded on “private” land within the County, for those Westchester residents who would wish to attend them, the fact that private gun shows may be permitted in Westchester County, when public gun shows cannot, under Latimer's Executive Order, does not suffice to circumvent a charge of Constitutional violations impacting public gun shows, whether private gun shows are a feasible, practical alternative or not.Under our system of laws, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, George Latimer, in his official capacity as the Westchester County Executive, but also as an American citizen, thrusts a personal view toward firearms on others which sees expression as a ban on public gun shows. But, it is one thing for an American citizen to dislike guns, to dislike gun shows, and to dislike the Second Amendment and to hold personal views on what should, in that person's mind constitute limits on free expression under the First Amendment, and, thereupon, to express views consistent with those preferences. That is permitted. That itself reflects a sacred right that an American citizen shall, as he or she wishes, exercise, freely, without constraint. That entails, as well, the sanctity and inviolability of each individual American citizen to be individual--a basic precept that underlies the entirety of the Nation's Bill of Rights. But where, as here, an American citizen—who wields power as a Government official—would dare impose, indeed, inflict, his belief systems on others, by erecting barriers to another American citizen’s fundamental and substantive Constitutional rights, that cannot and must not be borne. Governmental officers are, after all, in this Nation, under our Constitution and under our system of laws, public servants. Their duty is to serve the people, not to command subservience of the people, to bend the will of the American citizenry to that official's will. The Bill of Rights operates as an absolute constraint on the authority of any Governmental official, whether serving at the Federal, State, County, or local level. The Bill of Rights cannot lawfully be overridden, either by Statute or by Executive fiat. The Bill of Rights sets the parameters beyond which no Governmental official is permitted lawfully to enter.The U.S. Supreme Court further stated, in Turner,“As a general rule, laws that by their terms distinguish favored speech from disfavored speech on the basis of the ideas or views expressed are content-based. See, e.g., Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 197, 119 L. Ed. 2d 5, 112 S. Ct. 1846 (1992) (‘Whether individuals may exercise their free-speech rights near polling places  depends entirely on whether their speech is related to a political campaign’); Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 318-319, 99 L. Ed. 2d 333, 108 S. Ct. 1157 (1988) (plurality opinion) (whether municipal ordinance permits individuals to ‘picket in front of a foreign embassy depends entirely upon whether their picket signs are critical of the foreign government or not’). By contrast, laws that confer benefits or impose burdens on speech without reference to the ideas or views expressed are in most instances content-neutral. See, e.g.  City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 804, 80 L. Ed. 2d 772, 104 S. Ct. 2118 (1984) (ordinance prohibiting the posting of signs on public property ‘is neutral—indeed it is silent—concerning any speaker's point of view’); Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 649, 69 L. Ed. 2d 298, 101 S. Ct. 2559 (1981) (State Fair regulation requiring that sales and solicitations take place at designated locations ‘applies evenhandedly to all who wish to distribute and sell written materials or to solicit funds’).”The language of Latimer’s Executive Order is, on its face, content-based, not merely neutral-based. The Executive Order, banning public gun shows in Westchester County, would, therefore, in our estimate, not withstand legal scrutiny if challenged.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES DO NOT EXIST IN AN ACADEMIC VACUUM. THEY AFFECT THE LIVES OF ALL AMERICANS IN A TANGIBLE WAY; AND TWO OR MORE RIGHTS, SUCH AS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS OF THE SECOND, OFTEN COHERE. THEY OFTEN, AS HERE, IN THE CASE OF AN EXECUTIVE ORDER BANNING PUBLIC GUN SHOWS, GO HAND-IN-HAND.

Much of restrictive gun law legislation, apart from expressly conflicting with the Second Amendment, casts a bright light on the views of those who support such draconian legislation. It is demonstrative evidence for inferring that the proponents of such legislation seek not only to curb exercise of the fundamental, substantive right codified in the Second Amendment, but to curb the American citizen's First Amendment expression of that Second Amendment right. These two Rights go hand-in-hand. When antigun proponents talk disparagingly of a so-called "gun culture" or "culture of guns," that they seek to curb, they really mean to contravene, to place unconstitutional constraints on the free speech clause of the First Amendment too. George Latimer’s Executive Order, unlike many restrictive gun measures, overtly—not merely impliedly—infringes the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, afforded all American citizens and would, if challenged, likely be struck down as an unlawful overt and absolute attempt to control content of speech, well beyond the regulation of time, place, and manner of speech. George Latimer seeks to control expression of what to some constitutes an unpopular view as much as he seeks to contain gun shows in Westchester County. He sees public gun shows as unwanted displays of "gun culture" and of the "culture of guns" that he, along with other like-minded antigun proponents and antigun provocateurs denigrate, They thereupon attempt to contain, constrain and constrict and, eventually, to eradicate gun ownership and gun possession in this Nation, in the tangible, physical sense, But, they go beyond that. They seek much, much more. They seek no less than to eradicate, to excise from the memory of man, from the mind of the American citizenry, the very desire for, the very wish to exercise the right of the people to keep and bear arms--to erase, then, from the mind of each American citizen that anything sacred exists in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They seek for a day to arrive when people here perceive the Second Amendment as not merely archaic, anachronistic, and obsolete, but incongruent, bizarre, meaningless. To that end the mainstream news media Press and our Nation's Educational system is hard at work--hard at work to disrupt and destroy the Second Amendment and hard at work to destroy the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment and hard at work to change the American public's perceptions toward and to severely constrain the notion of freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment

GEORGE LATIMER'S EXECUTIVE ORDER BANNING PUBLIC GUN SHOWS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY RAISES OTHER LEGAL, AS WELL AS PERTINENT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL QUESTIONS, APART FROM THE EXECUTIVE ORDER'S NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENTS TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

George Latimer's Westchester ban on public gun shows in Westchester County--a ban that does not simply regulate time, place and manner of public gun shows but amounts to a total prohibition on gun shows--must be seen for what it really is: pernicious, discriminatory State regulation, operating to deny to a substantial class of American citizens use of a public forum for a legitimate Constitutional purpose. The question posed for review is this: Does not George Latimer's Executive order operate overtly, and unconscionably, and contemptuously to unconstitutionally discriminate against an entire class of citizenry, namely those American citizens who desire to own and possess firearms, by denying to these American citizens a vehicle, in the form of a public forum, through which an American citizen, not under disability, may seek to view and purchase firearms and such other items, such as memorabilia, that an American citizen has the right to own and possess? If an American citizen seeks merely and only to exercise a fundamental, substantive Constitutional right and if a public accommodation allows that citizen to exercise a fundamental Constitutional right, on what basis can a Governmental agent--in this particular case, the County Executive, George Latimer--lawfully deny, in totality, to an American citizen, the use of a public accommodation in which that substantive, Constitutional right may be exercised? If a legal basis does not exist for a total ban on gun shows, then George Latimer's unilateral action constitutes no less than an overt, unconstitutional discrimination against gun owners who desire to own and possess firearms. If true, then, does not George Latimer's Executive order impinge on and infringe the due process and equal protection clauses of both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as operating as an infringement of the free speech clause of the First Amendment and as an infringement of the Second?That George Latimer deigns to allow private gun shows to continue to be held in Westchester County, apart from public gun shows--at least for the time being--does permissible use of private accommodations for gun shows obviate Constitutional issues associated with a total ban on public gun shows in Westchester County? Then, too, does not George Latimer's ban on public gun shows operate as a shifty and deceitful attempt to slide around what antigun proponents and antigun provocateurs and antigun conspirators see as the public gun show "loophole" to the instant criminal background check system under federal law? For, if public gun shows do not exist, then, the perceived "loophole" issue disappears into mist. But, is not the "loophole" issue and is not the very expression 'gun show loophole' itself a myth perpetrated by and perpetuated by antigun proponents, antigun provocateurs and antigun conspirators to strain and constrain exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms?We will continue with our analysis of the Westchester County Executive George Latimer’s Executive Order in a forthcoming article.

A CLOSING NOTE: WHAT WE ARE SEEING; WHAT IS AT STAKE.

We see, of late, and with more insistent and incessant fury, a bold attack on the very cultural traditions and core values and belief systems of this Country underway. Do American citizens not see that, despite the electoral triumph of Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency, there is a conscious, sinister, insidious, diabolical effort underway to undercut our most cherished rights and liberties, and that this process is being carried out by the sinister forces that crush Nation States? Do American citizens not see that these forces intend to crush our Nation State through a systematic, orchestrated scheme of disinformation, misinformation, pseudo-information, and non-information designed to demoralize the American citizenry; to impose a false sense of guilt onto the American citizenry; to confuse and confound the American citizenry; to devalue the Bill of Rights, to devalue the notion of 'American citizen,' to soften and mold and reshape the contours of this Nation's citizenry as if the American people were but a lump of clay; to transform the American citizenry into weak, guilt-ridden, anxious souls.We see that Americans have lost the right to privacy. They have lost the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. They have lost the right of free speech, the right to speak their mind, as threat of public reprimand, and threat of loss of employment are omnipresent. They are slowly losing their God-given right of the people to keep and bear arms.We see monopolistic corporate mega-structures emerging in all business sectors: technology, finance, media, entertainment. We see these colossal mega-structures imposing bizarre, alien rules and bizarre principles of behavior on society, across society. They are doing this with impertinence, impudence, false piety, and with a disgusting sense of self-righteousness, and with impunity. And they are using their horde of wealth and outsize power to influence Government. They are operating as if they were Government, but as a Government free of constraints imposed on Government by the Bill of Rights--a Document that is systematically being dismissed as irrelevant. We see our Nation awash in waves of illegal aliens, falsely and loudly clamoring for and oddly claiming rights they do not have and should never be given. And, we see waves of unassimilable, poverty-stricken, ill-informed, mentally lazy refugees flooding into our Country from failed States. These individuals make an unwieldy welfare State, that we are becoming, even more untenable. They strain our resources and require support from our citizenry. And, many in Congress support this, would allow this; would encourage this. They would enact new immigration laws that would further disrupt our economy, and negatively impact our mores, our values, our sacred roots. We see, even now, our history revised; our children taught alien ideas. Our sense of National identity is being turned on its head. More than questioned, national identity, as perceived by the founders of our free Republic, is now scorned, and reviled, and slowly revised.How far can this awful state of affairs go? When will the American people fight back to recover their sacred birthright? _________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT: GUARANTEEING THE SUPREMACY OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

NOW IS THE TIME TO GET MEANINGFUL FEDERAL SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS PASSED INTO LAW: LET'S GET THE SECOND AMENDMENT GUARANTEE ACT ("SAGA") UP TO SPEED.

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Thomas Jefferson, Resolutions Relative to the Alien and Sedition Acts, in 1 The Founders' Constitution 292 (Philip Kurland & Ralph Lerner eds., 1987).Our fundamental rights, as codified in our Nation’s Bill of Rights, are under constant assault. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the continuous, contentious, cavalcade of laws emanating on the State and federal and local governmental levels—laws that slowly but inexorably chip and whittle away at the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, codified in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But why is that? One reason for this aggressive assault on the right codified in the Second Amendment is that those supporting restrictive gun legislation view the right as an anathema, a thing of no positive value today. Those who support ever more arcane, restrictive, ponderous laws—a veritable cascade of them with no end in sight—may acknowledge that the right set forth in the Second Amendment had some import and merit, perhaps, at one time, early in our Nation’s history, but no longer. They see the right, today, as something archaic, anachronistic and, therefore, not a thing to be legitimately considered a right at all but, at most, a privilege, something that may be bestowed by government on a select few, whom Government trusts as worthy “caretakers” of society. What then becomes of the right as exercised by the common man? It is a thing lost, never to be recovered.Commoners—average Americans—are conditioned through propaganda to view firearms as an evil, as things to be reviled, and to view those who desire to own and possess them as individuals who are out of touch with reality, out of touch with the way the world works today, out of touch with the way things are or, as projected in the mind through incessant propaganda, out of touch with the ways things ought to be. The mainstream media pompously, piously, at the behest of its internationalist, globalist benefactors, proselytizes, telling us that firearms are responsible for the ills in society and that individuals who seek to own and possess them are rightfully to be shunned and viewed as slightly unhinged. The mainstream media, with the assistance of teachers and advocacy groups, condition children to fear firearms. Woe to the child caught bringing a toy gun to school or even pointing a finger at another child, simulating or suggesting a firearm. The school board ejects that child from the school, with great fanfare, as an object lesson for others. Thus, at an early age a child learns that “incorrect thinking” will turn that child into a pariah.Mainstream news sources at the behest of their benefactors—the secretive overlords of western civilization—seek, through constant, tedious, repetitive opinionating, to repress the desire in man to own and possess firearms. The argument made—specious though it is—is that firearms have no place in a “civilized” society. This modern-day excuse for a “Press” contends that Americans who desire to own and possess firearms are throwbacks to an earlier day and age and, so, need to be reeducated to forsake firearms. At times mainstream news sources—at the behest of their wealthy, powerful benefactors, the secretive, powerful, overlords of society—make these points overtly. At other times, the points are tacit, hidden in news accounts of criminals and lunatics who prey on us all. Yet, the American public is endlessly and noxiously bombarded with specious arguments remonstrating against firearms, arguing for destruction of firearm caches and castigating those who would deign to keep them. The ill-informed public thus perceives, in the constant barrage and fusillade of slogans and chastisements spat out by the propaganda machine of the mainstream media, that the loss of the right to keep and bear arms is nothing to be concerned about. The truth is ever lost on the public, as the very linchpin of the Bill of Rights falls to hundreds of unconstitutional restrictive State and federal statutes and dozens more of governmental edicts, and to tens of thousands of deliberately vague and ambiguous sentences and clauses and paragraphs tucked away in numerous local governmental rules, regulations, codes, and ordinances, designed to confound and mislead those among us who would dare to exercise the right believed important enough by the framers to carve in stone, but now to be dumped, unceremoniously, in a warehouse—like the statues and memorabilia of our Nation’s Confederacy—out of sight and, so, out of mind—lest raging anarchists and pseudo-moralists be offended.To convert the average American to its cause celebre—and to its way of thinking—to encourage the average American to accept the need for more and more firearms restrictions the mainstream media denigrates and trivializes the right embodied in the Second Amendment and, at once, castigates and ostracizes those who would dare support it.Clearly, it isn’t the career criminal, the psychopathic gang and drug cartel members, and the occasional lunatic, that gun restrictions are meant to target. No! It is, rather, the average, rational, law-abiding, American. It is that person who is the real target of ponderous gun restrictions. But, why is that? Why is it this individual that the mainstream media, and various like-minded politicians, and their benefactors—the inordinately secretive, extraordinarily powerful, insatiably and exorbitantly wealthy, and coldly ruthless internationalists, the destroyers of the Nation State and of a Nation’s laws—truly detest and truly fear? The answer is clear on reflection, and we see the answer in the mask shrouding the overt reasons the mainstream media blares out to the American public when extolling the virtue of ever more restrictive gun measures.The overt, pervasive reasons given for destroying the right of the people to keep and bear arms masks a more insidious reason the Second Amendment is under constant and vicious assault and it is the salient, true reason. It is one never given, nor dared to be given, nor is it even hinted at. Yet, it lurks ominously, in the shadows, ever present—and evident to those who pause to consider the constant, dogged, unwavering, and rapacious efforts to destroy the Second Amendment. It is clear enough to those who reflect carefully on the wording of the Second Amendment.The reason the gun grabbers truly seek to undercut the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is hidden in plain sight. It is found in the prefatory clause: “a well regulated militia being necessary to a free state.”  The framers of the Constitution, the founders of our free Republic, expressed concern over two primal threats to the young Nation. One threat emanates from outside. It is the threat posed by foreign aggressors. The other threat—by far the more serious and insidious one—operates from the inside. It goes by the name, “tyranny.”The dependent “militia” clause has no purpose other than to make clear why the right of the people to keep and bear arms is necessary. The operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” is clear, categorical, unequivocal, and absolute. The operative clause is not conditioned by the prefatory, dependent “militia” clause. It is not conditioned by anything. The prefatory clause simply sets forth the salient reason for the codification of the right, as set forth in the operative, independent clause—the supreme importance of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as the mechanism by which and through which the Nation guarantees that it remain a free Republic and, in that, therefor, the need for the right.Consider: there is no prefatory clause in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, justifying the right of Free Speech and Free Press. There is no prefatory clause in the First Amendment because the framers of the Constitution knew that freedom of expression and freedom of the Press—although powerful and critical rights—are not, in themselves, a check against armed invasion from the outside, nor do they constitute infallible checks against tyranny arising from within the Nation. Indeed, we see that the Press has been coopted by those who seek to destroy our Republic, thereby inviting tyranny—in fact, working indefatigably to see that tyranny comes to fruition even as the Press poses, deceptively, as a force poised against it—hence, the inherent, insidious, destructive nature of it--born from a poisonous seed within the Nation and nourished along by a chained Press. And, we see, in recent months attempts to constrain freedom of expression—deviously—through claims that it is improper for one to voice opinion that others might find objectionable. But, there is no equivocation in the Second Amendment. An armed citizenry either exists or it does not. If it exists, there is, in that armed citizenry, a perfect check against tyranny. If an armed citizenry does not exist, there is nothing to constrain tyranny.That is the salient reason for including a prefatory clause, a preamble to the Second Amendment. The prefatory clause serves no other purpose and it has no other purpose. But, those who seek to install autocracy in this Country see, in the inclusion of a prefatory, dependent clause, not the impetus the framers had for including it at all, but, a sly, devious way to suggest that the absolute right of the people to keep and bear arms—a right that, in its clear wording, is not and cannot be infringed—is not absolute, but structurally conditioned through the prefatory clause: namely, that one’s right to keep and bear arms is limited by and through and to one’s connection to a militia. That notion is false to be sure. In fact, the notion is ludicrous; and that notion has, fortunately, thankfully, finally, been laid to rest by the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal Heller case.The intent of the framers in codifying the right of the people to keep and bear arms is abundantly clear. For, if the right could be infringed, namely, in the event one sought to keep and bear arms but had no connection to a militia, then the prefatory, dependent clause would contradict the import of the independent clause, namely, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. As a matter of formal logic, either the right of the people to keep and bear arms can be infringed or it cannot.Under the law of non-contradiction, it must be one or the other. It cannot be both. The independent clause makes clear that the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. If the prefatory clause were truly to suggest that the right of the people to keep and bear arms could be infringed, as the gun grabbers insist, then the Second Amendment would make no logical sense. Its legal import would be totally lost; and the right expressed in the independent clause would be reduced to a nullity—which is how the liberal-wing of the U.S. Supreme Court sees it, anyway.Thus, the import of the Second Amendment is determinative here by the absolute principle of sound logic, quite apart from its import in law. To suggest that the framers would deliberately draft a self-contradiction would be to presume them insane. On the other hand, to suggest the framers drafted a self-contradiction, negligently, would be to presume they were dunces. Neither, of course, is the case. The framers of the Second Amendment were extremely intelligent, extremely capable, competent, and rational men and, as well, they were extremely wary of the nature of the existence of some ambitious but ruthless men—men, not at all like them--who would be capable of transforming and predisposed to transforming a free Republic into an autocracy if given half a chance, to serve their own private purposes and desires.The Second Amendment, as with every other component of the Constitution, was crafted with great care. The Second Amendment is a hedge—the one best hedge against the introduction of tyranny into a free State. Thus, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed makes clear that, in the event Government sought to impose tyranny upon the American people--and intrusion upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms would be clear evidence of such design to introduce tyranny--such illegitimate encroachment upon a sacred right shall be met with lawful force exerted by the American people, to preclude any Government attempt and effort to insinuate unlawful power against the true Sovereign of this Nation: the American people themselves. The prefatory clause must, then, have no use and serve no use other than to make clear to those servants of Government, the reason why the right cannot be infringed: namely, to remind those servants of Government that the People are Supreme; that Government was designed to serve the people, and not the other way around; and that, if the servants of Government should forget their role and should forget Government's place in the grand Constitutional scheme, the American people will remind them of their role and will remind them of Government's place in that scheme, and the American people will do so harshly, exacting a heavy price upon those who have thoughts of grandeur—those who have thoughts that it is the People who serve them--the Government Heads--and not the other way around. And, Government Heads will roll for the audacity to attempt to exert control over the American people.Thus, it is that the framers of the Constitution intended for the Second Amendment to be the one, true, and absolute check on tyranny. The late Justice Scalia knew that to be so, but was reluctant to make that point manifest in the seminal Heller case—instead discussing the tacit reason for the presence of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights—that of self-defense. Justice Scalia had to get Justices Roberts and Kennedy on board, and they, likely, would not have done so, had Justice Scalia asserted that the primary import of the militia clause was to make clear that an armed citizenry was necessary as the best check against tyranny. To mention the salient import  and purport of the Second Amendment is, apparently, today, to make too emphatic a statement; but, then, that tells us just how far we have fallen as a Nation and how expansive and powerful and treacherous the federal Government has become and as it continues to devolve, unless our present U.S. President, steps on the brake and reverses the trend toward dissolution of our Bill of Rights and our free Republic. Passing effective federal legislation that serves to strengthen our Second Amendment, as the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended, would be a good start toward reversing the deadly trend and tendency of an increasingly powerful federal Government to thwart the Bill of Rights, thereby instituting tyranny. Justice Scalia must have been aware of this horrible trend and, given the opportunity, in Heller, to set things right, he made clear the import of the Second Amendment as the drafters of the Second Amendment made intended: that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right unconnected to one's service in a militia. In that regard, Justice Scalia, writing for the Majority, pointed to the natural right of self-defense as implicit in the individual's exercise of that sacred right.Still, Justice Scalia’s discussion of one's right self-defense through firearms means--as I am sure he was aware--not only defense of one’s physical self but also defense against oppression, whether that oppression manifests outside this Country or, more frighteningly, within it. And, we have seen, in the regime of Barack Obama and as we would have seen in the regime of Hillary Clinton tyranny raising its ugly head, manifesting obliquely, tangentially, but most assuredly. We see in the Presidency of Donald Trump, a circumambulation around our Bill of Rights—an attempt to set things right, as Chief Executive of our Nation. But, he has his job cut out for him for the Deep State does not wish to cede the stranglehold of tyranny it has been weaving around this Nation for many years and which it shad ought to complete through the coronation of Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, that "coronation" never took place. Americans weren't hoodwinked.But, the failure of the secretive internationalist forces to elect their puppet, Hillary Clinton, hardly means we are out of the woods.We see the insinuation of tyranny through the instigation of international pacts and treaties, that operate to circumvent the sovereignty of our laws. We see it in the use of our military for purposes altogether unrelated to our national defense. We see it in attempts to draw this Country—an independent sovereign Nation—into the throes of the EU; we see it in the opinions of the liberal wing Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who argue that international law and jurisprudence should govern the decisions of cases impacting our fundamental rights, effectively subordinating, then, our Constitution and our written law to that of foreign bodies. We see it in the subordination of our laws and our sacred rights and liberties to that of international courts and tribunals. We are slowly, inexorably being sucked into a whirlpool that reshapes our laws, and our rights—to be twisted and molded and reformed into a thing that effectively loosens the underpinnings of our core values, traditions, and history. Our Bill of Rights, and, particularly, our Second Amendment, has no place in this new world order and must therefore be consigned--so the architects of our Nation’s destruction have ordered--to the dustbin of history.To that end, State and federal statutes and local governmental rules, regulations, and ordinances are enacted, to attack the free exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms to excoriate it; to exorcise it from conscious thought and memory—ostensibly to benefit society in its entirety, to benefit the collective, to benefit the “beehive,” never the individual, and, thus, to see our once independent sovereign Nation incorporated, as but one cog, into a larger “grand” design that embraces many other Nations in one seemingly seamless, cohesive whole. We see governmental regulations enacted in a scarcely disguised attempt to destroy the sacred right the framers of our Constitution knew to be necessary to restrict the power of Government and they saw the necessity of etching those rights and liberties in stone. But, attempts are made to undercut the Bill of Rights, and, particularly, to undercut the Second Amendment. Ominously, State and federal statutes are enacted to attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms at the root level. Statutes are enacted to attack the right codified in the Second Amendment in the hope that, at some point in the future, the Second Amendment will wither and die of its own accord, since de jure repeal of it outright is virtually impossible.Indeed, the framers intended that de jure repeal of the Bill of Rights would be, ought to be, must be, extremely difficult to accomplish. Repeal of fundamental rights should be difficult to accomplish, lest an uneducated or ill-informed public, hoodwinked by, and easily manipulated by  propaganda, spouted by a compliant Press, controlled by those who place no stock in the Bill of Rights, be led by the nose to believe that Americans really, truly, don’t need this or that right, codified in the Bill of Rights, and that we would all be better off to do away with the right altogether.Since actual de jure repeal of the Second Amendment outright won’t happen, cannot happen, even as those who detest the continued existence of the Second Amendment would love to see that happen—would fervently love to see formal repeal of the Second Amendment—it behooves those who seek to destroy it to find some other way or means to do so. And, they have done so, through a process that takes longer, but, through the inexorable tide of time, money, and effort expended in enacting ever more exacting, restrictive, convoluted, and redundant firearms legislation and through an easily malleable, complacent, compliant ill-informed public, they have exacted their toll on the Second Amendment, and have successfully eroded Americans’ exercise of the sacred right. Thus, the net result, if not reversed, would reduce the Second Amendment to a virtual nullity, even as it continues, formally, to exist.Thus, where we see the creation of ever more State and federal laws, and federal governmental rules and edicts, and local governmental codes, rules, regulations, and ordinances—enacted in defiance of the clear meaning of the Second Amendment and in clear defiance to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, we become aware that the destruction of the Second Amendment is no less certain than had the Second Amendment been repealed outright. This is what is meant by de facto repeal of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment continues to exist “on paper” but it has no efficacy. It means nothing. It means that no right exists that can be exercised through it.De facto repeal, then, has the same effect as outright de jure repeal. It just takes a little longer. Of course, the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court seeks to destroy the Second Amendment in its own way, through its misinterpretation of law, rather than through misuse of legislation. We see this in the dissenting opinions of liberal wing Justices. By corralling the operative clause of the Second Amendment—“the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—in the dependent clause, “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” and as the concept of a State militia, as understood by the framers of the U.S. Constitution is essentially non-existent today, the Second Amendment would be nugatory, as it would be impossible for an American ever to exercise the right under it.” Thus, if those Justices who dissented in the Heller and McDonald cases, had been writing for the Majority, the Second Amendment would effectively be reduced to a nullity. Thus, the right of the people to keep and bear arms would be transformed into a mere privilege, something Government could grant to a person or deny a person, at whim.Occasionally, as in Congressman Chris Collins’ Second Amendment Guarantee Act, we do see some relief—a welcome pushback against offensive restrictive firearms’ legislation. Yet, as we also see, that pushback is often gratuitous, designed merely to award a Congressman political points for taking a stand that, although unpopular to some, is welcomed by many, and should, even if it never were enacted into law, be heralded by all.But, Chris Collins’ bill, will wither and die, like the Second Amendment could, itself, unless the public spurs Congress to action. *Proponents of strong pro-Second Amendment bills must have the fortitude to see their bills through to fruition to the same extent, if not more so, than do opponents of the Second Amendment when introducing their own anti-Second Amendment bills. For we have seen, on several occasions, how opponents of our sacred right push their bills through to upend our most sacred right. It is unfortunate that those Legislators who ostensibly espouse their support of the right of the people to keep and bear arms demonstrate, at the end of the day, a lack of fortitude to see their work through to completion. They certainly do not exhibit the same exuberance as those who seek to undermine the Second Amendment exhibit, for, when introducing anti-Second Amendment legislation, such legislators generally work toward moving their bills along. They are serious about getting their anti-Second Amendment bills enacted into law. Such anti-Second Amendment bills don't simply die in Committee, much as we would like to see them do, unlike pro-Second Amendment bills, which we would like very much to see passage of.Thus, the best crafted bill in the Nation doesn’t get us anywhere unless serious effort is made to push it forward. We can get started on the first part—assisting Legislators—to craft effective legislation, and we are doing so. Yet, without a strong nudge from the public we see Congressional legislators unwilling to do their part, proceeding half-heartedly, at best, and then stopping short of their goal. That is hardly encouraging and we find it wholly unacceptable.The Republicans, for the moment, at least, control both Houses of Congress; and we have a U.S. President who has not been bought and paid for by internationalists—unlike Obama and the Clintons who have taken their marching orders from these internationalists—these ruthless and cunning individuals who owe their allegiance to no Nation—who seek to undermine all Nations, to bring them under the sway of their corporate control, operating through private charters that would undercut the constitutions of Nations. This we see as the fate befalling the Nations of the European Union. Lest we fall under the sway of the EU directly or otherwise fall prey to an EU styled dictatorship, it is necessary for Americans to take a stand and do our best to strengthen our Constitution and our Bill of Rights--those sacrosanct and inviolate documents that the founders bequeathed to us through their tremendous courage and through their great sacrifice.______________________________________*Let your U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative know how you feel about your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Phone (202) 225-3121. It is a fast and easy process; and a critical one. Only through your active participation, can we help secure our Second Amendment right. _________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.         

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HILLARY CLINTON: A FLAWED CHARACTER FOR THOSE WHO SEE THE U.S. AS FLAWED

Individuals are unique and that is to be applauded; but unethical and criminal conduct is never unique, and when such conduct occurs, it is to be brought to light and roundly condemned.

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” ~ William Penn“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, and licentiousness, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams (Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798)Hillary Clinton is likely a criminalnot merely a misdemeanant, but, rather, the worst sort of criminal—a felon. Her supporters don’t want to acknowledge it. They certainly don’t want to talk about it. But they must accept the truth of it even as they choose to ignore the searing reality behind it; the transparently clear evidence for it.Moreover, even though Hillary Clinton, to date, has not been indicted on felony criminal charges, this does not mean that Hillary Clinton did not commit one or more felonies as Secretary of State. The failure of the F.B.I. to recommend an indictment to the Attorney General and the failure of the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to proceed with an indictment regardless of the F.B.I.’s recommendation, does not entail that Hillary Clinton didn’t commit a crime. This point is contrary to the mainstream media’s take on the matter and it is the very point that supporters of Clinton hang their hat on, postulating that, “after all Hillary Clinton is not a criminal precisely because the Department of Justice failed to bring charges against her.” Hogwash! Probable cause dictates a finding that Hillary Clinton committed several felonies, and the lack of indictment does not obviate the truth of that assertion one iota. At times prosecutors will not charge an individual with a crime for a multitude of reasons, notwithstanding that probable cause exists that an individual did in fact commit a crime. Sometimes evidence of a crime is clear and indisputable, but, the evidence may be tainted. If so, that evidence of a crime will not be admissible in a Court of law, rendering the possibility of a conviction unlikely or moot.Perhaps prosecutors go after “bigger fish to fry” and will agree not to charge an individual with a crime if that individual is willing to “turn State’s evidence” and agree to testify against another in return for leniency or freedom from prosecution. Prosecutorial discretion permits prosecutors to charge a person with all the crimes that appear in a police report or just one or a few of them. Or prosecutors can charge a person with a crime less severe or even more severe than what appears in a police arrest report. Sometimes prosecutors will bend to political pressure to bring charges against an individual when, in their best judgment, they would rather not do so.Contrariwise, as we see here, the Justice Department may decide not to bring charges against a person who, by all reasonable accounts—if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation governed by the rule of law and not by men—should have been indicted on multiple felony criminal charges and on multiple counts within any one felony.Perhaps, Hillary Rodham Clinton, like the major banks, is too big to prosecute. Perhaps, as is increasingly evident, Hillary Clinton is protected by shadowy, sinister, wholly evil, extraordinarily wealthy, and extremely powerful interests both here and abroad, who want their “puppet” in the highest Office of the Land. These secretive, powerful interests want a creature in high Office that has done and will continue to do all that they ask of it and that will be able to deliver ever more sizable returns as President of the United States. So, if the F.B.I., and the entirety of the Justice Department, of which the F.B.I. is a critical component, has not been corrupted, it definitely has been compromised. For probable cause of Clinton’s crimes is clear and irrefutable.Substantive and substantial evidence supports a finding that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 793, “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information” because substantive and substantial evidence exists that she mishandled, either intentionally or through gross negligence, classified Government information during her tenure as Secretary of State.Substantive and substantial evidence also supports a finding that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001 is titled, “Statements or Entries Generally,” because substantive evidence exists that she lied to the F.B.I., during the Bureau’s criminal investigation. Substantive and substantial evidence supports a finding, third, that Hillary Clinton likely violated 18 U.S.C. § 201, titled, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses," because substantive and substantial evidence exists that, while serving as Secretary of State, both she and her husband utilized the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation as an illegal conduit through which wealthy donors— including individuals, foreign governments, NGOs, and multinational corporations—paid the Clintons handsomely for personal favorable treatment at the expense of the American people and in contravention of the U.S. Constitution and in contravention of our Nation’s laws. The offering of bribes to public officials and the taking of bribes by public officials is a serious federal offense.The penalty for conviction on any one of the aforementioned laws includes incarceration in federal prison—incarceration for several years.It is unlikely that a person who is convicted of a felony can obtain employment with the federal Government—whether as a low-level civil servant, or one who holds super-grade under the General Schedule of the U.S. Government service. The F.B.I., for example, will not hire a person who has been convicted of a felony. One can only wonder whether the F.B.I. would seriously consider hiring Hillary Rodham Clinton for any position in the Bureau if she were to seek employment with the Bureau. Would all her sins be forgiven? Not hardly!Of Course, the Director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, had made a recommendation to the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, not to indict Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Loretta Lynch, not surprisingly, accepted that recommendation. But, one would be hard-pressed to believe that James Comey would permit Hillary Rodham Clinton to work for the F.B.I. as an agent of the F.B.I. or, for that matter, as a clerk-typist within the F.B.I., based on what he had learned about her—a tidbit, no doubt, of what the public has learned about Clinton’s misconduct—and what he shared with the American public in his unprecedented statement to the American public, on July 5, 2016, the day following and marking our day of independence from tyranny. James Comey made abundantly clear to the American people that Clinton’s mishandling of Government information falls into the category of “extremely careless.”Would James Comey permit the hiring of such a person to handle F.B.I. information? And, if Hillary Clinton was extremely careless in handling classified information coming across her desk as Secretary of State, is it not likely she would be just as careless in her handling of classified federal Government information that comes across her desk as “U.S. President” Hillary Clinton?U.S. President Barack Obama, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind. He obviously doesn’t care whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled Government information in her capacity as Secretary of State, for he was off campaigning with her the very day James Comey delivered his statement to the American people, —a statement clearly damning Clinton even as Comey refused, for some unexplained and inexplicable reason, to recommend indictment, assuming that he, otherwise, wasn't compelled to recommend, to the Attorney General, no indictment on felony charges against Clinton.And, what is one to make of Obama’s assertions against Donald Trump. The President casts aspersions on Donald Trump, whom the F.B.I. has never investigated for federal crimes amounting to serious felonies and whom the F.B.I. never had to investigate for federal crimes amounting to felonies. Yet Obama tells the American people that Hillary Rodham Clinton is admirably suited to run this Country. Obama says this, oddly enough, even as Director Comey certainly must now—especially now—have serious doubts about Clinton’s ability to lead this Country—serious doubts based on the fact that the F.B.I. had a rational basis to undertake its criminal investigation of Clinton for possible violations of federal law in the first place—very serious violations of federal law—violations of specific federal law amounting to felonies. The sound conclusion to be drawn is this: probable cause exists that Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies. This is not mere speculation. This is predicated on the findings of the Bureau as illuminated for the American people through the Director’s candid July 5, 2016 statement to the American people.So, whether Director Comey recommended an indictment of Hillary Rodham Clinton or not, that is beside the point because there is nothing in the Director’s July 5, 2016 statement to the American people that vindicates Clinton. He certainly didn’t say that Clinton did not commit a crime. To the contrary, the Director’s statement makes clear that the F.B.I. believes—contrary to the conclusions drawn by some mainstream media publications that Clinton did not violate Federal law—that she did in fact commit a crime—that the evidence supports a finding that Clinton did in fact commit more than one federal crime and that the evidence supports a finding that she committed federal crimes over an extended period of time—several instances of misconduct of each crime over an extended period of time.James B. Comey, then, did not give Hillary Rodham Clinton "a free pass" or “a clean bill of health,” when he failed to recommend an indictment against her on charges of violating federal law. Indeed, Comey’s arguments for not recommending indictment are so lame, when juxtaposed with the clear, cogent, and comprehensive litany of wrongdoing by Clinton that one comes away suspecting that Comey expects—indeed wants—the public to see through the obvious weaknesses of his arguments in support of not recommending an indictment of Clinton on federal criminal charges.First, Comey says, in his statement to the American public that, "although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." That is all well and good, but for the fact that the F.B.I. wouldn't be prosecuting Hillary Clinton; the Criminal Division of the Justice Department would be handling the prosecution of Clinton and it is for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, not for the F.B.I., to determine whether to proceed with the prosecution. So it is the Criminal Division's call whether or not, ultimately, to prosecute Clinton. There is certainly sufficient evidence to warrant a recommendation of the F.B.I. to the Attorney General. James Comey interjected a matter into his decision to recommend an indictment or not that isn't his to make. As Comey said, in that very same statement to American public, "in our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect." The F.B.I. collected substantive and substantial evidence of crimes. So, if the prosecutors within the Criminal Division of the Justice Department make the decision whether charges are appropriate, why would Comey attempt to preclude the prosecutors in the Justice Department from making that decision to prosecute? Of course, the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, could have indicted Hillary Clinton, regardless of the decision of the F.B.I. She said, though, that she would abide by the recommendation of the F.B.I., which is not what she said originally. The Attorney General is supposed to exercise independent judgment. Did she know what Comey's decision would be prior to Comey's statement to the public? Sure she knew. She must have known, just as Obama must have known, as he was flying off with Hillary Clinton, campaigning with her the very day Comey was delivering his unprecedented statement to the American public on July 5, 2016. The Director said that no one knew beforehand what he would be saying in his statement--that he had not coordinated his remarks with any one in the Justice Department or with any other part of government. That may be true. We can take that at face value. But, then, that is not to say, that Comey didn't inform the President and the Attorney General what his decision would be. They knew. They must have known, for if they didn't know, the Attorney General would not have expressed confidence in asserting that she would abide by the F.B.I. Director's decision, whatever that decision might be, and the U.S. President, for his part, would not have been encouraged to campaign with Hillary Clinton before he knew, with absolute certainty, what Comey's decision would be. For, how would it look for the President and for the Nation for Obama to be seen campaigning with Hillary Clinton on the very day that the F.B.I. Director asserts that he, the Director of the F.B.I., will be recommending indictment of Hillary Clinton on multiple federal felony charges?Second, Comey, asserts, "In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here." That assertion suggests that the only time a prosecutor will bring a case is when there is specific case precedent for it. That is false. Precedent is always a great thing to have. It makes a conviction virtually certain. But, it is very rare  for a prosecutor to find two cases that have essentially identical facts. Rather, a prosecutor looks to see whether a given set of facts comply with the elements of a crime as set forth in statute. If they do, that is a sufficient basis to seriously consider bringing charges against an individual. But, again, whether the Criminal Division of the Justice Department chooses to prosecute or not, that is a decision for the Criminal Division, together with the Attorney General, to make. That is not a matter for the F.B.I. to decide because, again, the F.B.I. would not be prosecuting the case. The Criminal Division of the Justice Department has responsibility for that.Third, Comey stresses the lack of finding intentional or willful misconduct by Hillary Clinton in the mishandling of classified Government information as a ground for not recommending indictment. That assertion doesn't follow from the litany of damning evidence he presents to the public in his statement. But, be that as it may, the Statute, U.S.C. § 793, “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information”  doesn't require that intentional or willful misconduct be present as part of the crime, "gross negligence" is sufficient--a lesser standard. Comey's failure to even mention "gross negligence"--curiously, he does say, in his statement, that, Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government information, which is essentially the same thing as "gross negligence"--illustrates sloppiness in Comey's remarks against recommending indictment of Clinton on federal criminal charges, and that sloppiness stands in stark and marked contrast to the cogency, the clarity, the precision in his detailing of Clinton's misconduct in that very same statement. One can only suspect that the Director of the F.B.I. intended for the American public--and certainly for attorneys--to see through the charade, to recognize that the F.B.I. has been compromised but that he feels, just the same, the need--perhaps for his own legacy--to let the public know that he had no choice in the matter--that the F.B.I., as with the entirety of the Executive Branch, does not serve the public--that something sinister and profane--even evil--has taken over our Government.Regardless, Comey’s statement to the American people, in its totality, makes very clear what he thinks of Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. The portrait the Director of the F.B.I. has painted of Hillary Clinton, for the American People's purview, is not a flattering one.So, another logical inference to draw from Comey’s July 5, 2016 statement to the American people is that the Director believes Hillary Rodham Clinton’s behavior as Secretary of State is morally reprehensible, and that Clinton is morally unfit to hold any position of responsibility in Government—least of all the position of President of the United States.Yet, Barack Obama continues to sing his praises of Clinton and at one and the same time casts aspersions on Trump. There is to be seen a marked inconsistency between what the public is to gather from Comey’s statement to the American people about Clinton’s conduct and what the President, Barack Obama, would have the American people believe about Clinton. Given that inconsistency, a rational person can and should dismiss, out-of-hand, Obama’s negative statements against Trump, as those statements are facially nonsensical in light of Obama’s support for a person who could not obtain employment with the F.B.I. had Clinton desired to do so because she is likely a criminal and she is certainly a security risk.In fact, Hillary Clinton would have a devil of a time securing a job with any federal agency given, one, the fact of a lengthy, intensive, and comprehensive investigation into her actions as a Cabinet Level Official of the federal Government; two, given the F.B.I.’s damning report against her and; and, three, given the fact that she is a security risk.Of course, Barack Obama has a vested interest in Hillary Clinton, for he is interested in seeing the continuation of his legacy. James Comey, though, has no vested interest in a Clinton candidacy and he certainly has no desire to support a likely criminal for President of the United States.The continuation of Obama’s legacy is something Hillary Clinton intends to promote. That legacy is something Donald Trump has no intention of promoting. None of this seems to trouble Obama, for he continues to sing his praises of Clinton and consistently maintains she is fit to serve as U.S. President. But, then, the American public should not really be surprised; nor should the public put stock in what Barack Obama has to say about Clinton. After all, Obama has, through Executive Order, made it easier for convicted felons to gain employment with the Federal Government.See, for example, the New York Post article, titled, "Obama makes it easier for felons to become government workers." That should tell the American public all it needs to know of the true worth of Obama’s remarks concerning who is and who isn’t capable of serving as President of the United States.But, it isn’t Obama that the American people need long concern themselves with. He has done his damage to this Country. One would think the American people, who voted for him, would have learned from their mistakes. For, one tacit assumption can be drawn from his remarks, as he supports Clinton and attacks Trump.A vote for Clinton is a vote for the extension of the Administrations of both Obama and Bill Clinton. Beyond the obviousness of that assertion, it should trouble any American to elect to the highest Office in the Land, a person who likely would not—indeed, probably could not—be hired at the lowest General Schedule pay Grade of the Federal Government were she to apply for a job with the Federal Government; for, a person who applies for a job with the Federal Government must undergo an F.B.I. investigation.It beggars belief that any federal agency or department would hire a person whom the F.B.I. had investigated for serious violations of federal law, regardless of the outcome of those investigation, notwithstanding Obama’s Executive Order, making it easier for criminals to secure employment in the federal Government. It is by the mere fact that the F.B.I., armed with substantive and substantial evidence of Hillary Clinton’s criminal wrongdoing, and it is by predicate acts that gave the Bureau jurisdiction to investigate Hillary Clinton at all, that Americans should think long and hard before supporting Hillary Clinton for U.S. President.Did the F.B.I. investigate Clinton for any other crimes? Is there a legitimate basis for concluding that Clinton broke any other federal laws? Did Hillary Clinton likely commit the most serious crime that any American citizen can be charged with? That is the topic of discussion in Part 2 of this article and in succeeding articles._________________________________________

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: A QUESTION OF TREASON

PART TWO OF TWO PARTS

ALL ELSE MAY BE FORGIVEN: THE CRIME OF TREASON CANNOT! AND THE SIN OF TREACHERY TO GOD AND COUNTRY MUST NOT!THE INFERNO CANTO XXXIICIRCLE NINE: COCYTUS ROUND TWO: ANTENORAThe Treacherous to CountryAt the bottom of the well Dante finds himself on a huge frozen lake. This is COCYTUS, the NINTH CIRCLE, the fourth and last great water of Hell, and here, fixed in the ice, each according to his guilt are punished sinners guilty of TREACHERY AGAINST THOSE TO WHOM THEY WERE BOUND BY SPECIAL TIES.The ice is divided into four concentric rings marked only by the different positions of the damned within the ice. This is Dante’s symbolic equivalent of the final guilt. The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God’s love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice. ~Ciardi, John; Alighieri, Dante; MacAllister, Archibald. The Inferno (Signet Classics) Penguin Publishing Group

DOES HILLARY CLINTON’S MISCONDUCT EXTEND TO TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit to serve as President of the United States. In fact Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit to serve as a federal Government official in any capacity of responsibility. These two straightforward assertions are not suppositions. They are valid and logical inferences drawn from several incontrovertible facts.One, concrete evidence supports a finding Hillary Rodham Clinton had, during her tenure as Secretary of State, a Cabinet level position in the Obama Administration, either intentionally or through gross negligence, mishandled classified Government information. Doing so constitutes a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Two, concrete evidence supports a finding that Hillary Rodham Clinton had knowingly obstructed justice by lying to federal officers engaged in the legitimate criminal investigation of Clinton’s conduct. This is a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Three, concrete evidence supports a finding that Hillary Clinton engaged in an ongoing practice of corruption, having used the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Foundation as a conduit for the selling of favors through the Department of State—a high level component of the Executive Branch of Government—to wealthy, prominent, and powerful individuals, and to multinational corporations, and to non-governmental organizations (“NGO’s”), and to foreign governments, some clearly unfriendly to the U.S. and to U.S., interests in exchange for hard cold cash. Bribery is a serious breach of federal law, amounting to a felony if convicted.Conviction on any one of the above mentioned crimes is sufficient to send a person to federal prison for several years.The mere possibility that a person has engaged in any one or more of the above crimes raises serious doubt about that person’s ability to serve this Country, and about that person’s character, namely and specifically, that person’s honesty, integrity, sincerity, sense of values, and willingness to sacrifice his or her personal needs and desires and wishes to the more sacred needs of duty to Country, duty to our Country’s Constitution and to its system of laws, and duty to our citizenry; and that duty of service does not extend to the citizenry of other Countries, contrary to what the present U.S. President, Barack Obama, says and what Hillary Clinton also ascribes to.But, let us consider whether Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her seeming service to the American people as Secretary of State, transgressed in any other way. Let us consider whether Hillary Clinton committed a crime so serious, so ignoble, and so heinous, that every other crime pales in comparison and significance. Let us consider whether evidence supports a finding that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s wrongful conduct, as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, amounts to a crime directed against the very Sovereignty of this Nation, against this Nation’s Constitution, and against the citizens of the United States.Let us in fact ask this question: apart from likely committing serious felonies during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration that have been detailed, did Hillary Clinton likely commit the most heinous crime of all—a crime so horrific that no one, from either political Party, will talk openly about it; that no one in either political Party will even speculate about? Did Hillary Clinton commit treason against this Nation? Is there a basis, in either the U.S. Constitution or federal Statute, or both, to indict Hillary Clinton on one or multiple counts of treason? And, may we not consider, concomitantly, that, apart from considering whether Hillary Rodham Clinton committed the crime of Treason, under our Constitution and under Federal Law, did she not also break God’s law, and commit the cardinal sin of treachery to Country?Now, to be sure, the Arbalest Quarrel is not the first party to consider the issue of treason in relation to Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. Some commentators and some websites have heretofore broached the subject of treason in connection with Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State. Indeed, some commentators and some websites have even asserted, categorically, that Hillary Clinton did commit treason. But—and this is an important but—it is one thing to call a person a “traitor,” as rhetorical hyperbole, and this is more often the case than not. It is quite another to apply the term, ‘traitor,’ to a person from a legal standpoint, with all the consequences that such assertion constitutes. And, it is from the legal perspective—and not from the matter-of-fact, colloquial, rhetorical, man-in-the-street standpoint and perspective—that we look at treason here, that we consider the legal grounds, if any, for legitimately, realistically, and appropriately positing a charge of treason on Hillary Rodham Clinton.In undertaking this investigation into the merits of bringing a charge of treason against Hillary Clinton, we must always bear in mind that the worst citizens among us, along with the best, do have and should have, that protection afforded all citizens of the United States, under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says clearly, cogently, succinctly:“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." The Sixth Amendment guarantee holds true for me; it holds true for you; and it holds true for Hillary Rodham Clinton. It holds true for all citizens of the United States.The American citizen’s natural right to defend him or herself against a criminal charge levied against that citizen is a right no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as codified in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution; and no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right of an American citizen to speak his or her mind openly and freely, as codified in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, uninhibited by and irrespective of the current penchant for “political and social correctness” as thrust on us all because of the personal peculiar sensitivity of a few; and no less to be honored and safeguarded than the natural right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms, as codified under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Also, when looking at the possibility that an American citizen’s conduct amounts to a crime—whether considered relatively minor in scope such as an inoffensive infraction, or one codified in our law that is so horrific that we consider it, as well, a mortal sin—a crime against nature and against God’s strictures—we must consider one’s conduct from the standpoint of federal and State statute and from the standpoint of individual State Constitutions and from the standpoint of the U.S. Constitution.Our criminal codes, whether enacted by State Legislatures or by the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. Constitution, and the Constitutions of the various States establish, one, the fact that certain conduct amounts to a punishable offense; two, the specific elements necessary to establish a prima facie case for the existence of a punishable offense; and, three, the penalties for conviction on that offense. In other words, our system of laws pertaining to criminal behavior requires the codification in the U.S. Constitution or the in the Constitutions of the States or in federal or State statute saying that particular behavior is criminal.So, under the U.S. Constitution and under State Constitutions, and under our federal and State system of criminal law, it is not sufficient a particular species of behavior be deemed reprehensible in order to exact a penalty for the commission of it. That is to say, if a person’s conduct isn’t statutorily prohibited, then that person’s conduct does not rise to the level of a crime, upon which a person can be charged and tried in a court of competent jurisdiction, and, if found guilty, assessed a penalty once the prohibited conduct, for which the person has been formally charged and tried, has been finally, and firmly, established and adjudicated.We point this out in exacting detail here for a reason. We do this because the discussion of treason, from a legal and philosophical perspective is not so easy to understand and to fathom as some might think.The subject of treason, seemingly simple to understand in a straightforward colloquial sense, is actually quite opaque, difficult to comprehend and to apply in the legal sense. And, it is the legal sense of “treason” you must come to know, that you must become familiar with, that you must be receptive to and come to appreciate that is important here, even if the subject matter is abstruse.That can’t be helped. Indeed our founders struggled with the very notion and concept of ‘treason’ and we’ll explain why and how in upcoming articles.So, the rhetorical use of the term, ‘treason,’ as applied, by some, to Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State, does nothing to help us to effectively defeat Hillary Clinton on that ground. So saying, doesn’t make it so. Simply calling Hillary Clinton a traitor does not, in the mere assertion, serve to persuade anyone who is predisposed to see Clinton as someone suitable to lead this Country that she isn’t.Rather, to call Clinton a “traitor” in the absence of a good legal ground for so saying simply informs those who support Clinton in her quest for the U.S. Presidency, that those who call Clinton a traitor are wrong-headed. Better then not to use the term, ‘treason,’ or ‘traitor’ in reference to Hillary Clinton at all. For, one simply displays his or her own ineptitude. So, we must be cautious. And, at worst, so saying opens one up to a defamation action. So, we must be circumspect and careful.In the next few articles, The Arbalest Quarrel shall discuss treason, from a legal, historical, and philosophical perspective. If there is a legal basis for charging Hillary Rodham Clinton with the crime of treason, we will present the grounds for doing so. In the articles that follow we will explore the legal basis, if any, for doing just that.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

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FIRST AMENDMENT UNDER ATTACK . . . IN CHICAGO WHERE THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS TRAMPLED ON!

U.S. Under Attack: Chicago, Trump, Outrage . . . And the Trampling of Our Constitution

The American public must ask and a serious investigation to find answers must ensue: did the disruption in an auditorium in the City of Chicago, at a rally for the leading Republican candidate for President of the United States, that occurred Friday evening, March 12, 2016, just happen or did it happen because someone or some group intended for a riot to happen?In other words, was the disruption in Chicago that led to cancellation of a rally for the leading Republican candidate for U.S. President, on the eve of the most important Super Tuesday 2016 primary elections, a happenstance – a mere spontaneous outpouring of anger and rage expressed by certain unhappy segments of the population toward the leading Republican candidate, as the mainstream media is playing this, or was the disruption something more – a staged event in and of itself – carefully orchestrated and choreographed by certain powerful and ruthless interests that are willing to do and, apparently, are capable of doing whatever it takes to destroy the momentum of a popular political candidate for the highest Office in the Land?At the moment the public can only speculate as to the root cause for the disruption. One thing is certain, though. Our Bill of Rights is under attack and has been under incessant assault for many years. Our Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms” has, for many years, slowly and systematically suffered erosion through Congressional enactments and State action. If the leading Democratic Party contender for the Office of U.S. President gets the nod and ultimately secures the Oval Office, the right of the people to keep and bear arms will likely cease to exist except as a short footnote in the history texts. And, what shall become of other fundamental rights and liberties of the People?The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Since the early years of the twenty-first century, that fundamental right has been quietly and systematically eroded by federal Government intelligence and police apparatuses – all in the name of promoting “safety” for the collective, for the masses, generally. But, one would be hard-pressed to find, through a careful reading of the U.S. Constitution, any clause, sentence, or passage that authorizes the federal Government to undermine an individual citizen’s fundamental right to privacy – the sacred right to be left alone and the sacred right clearly setting forth that an individual’s personal effects are to remain free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as entailed by and codified under the Fourth Amendment – ostensibly to promote and ensure public safety; and one would be hard-pressed to find, through a careful perusal of the U.S. Constitution, any clause, sentence, or passage that authorizes the federal Government to undercut the fundamental right of an American citizen to keep and bear arms – the inviolable right of the individual to take responsibility for one’s personal security, as entailed by and codified in the Second Amendment – ostensibly to promote and ensure public safety.Yet the federal Government – especially in recent years – incessantly, unashamedly, and unapologetically invades the sanctity of both these natural and fundamental rights – all under the mask, the guise, of ensuring public safety. But, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – in the United States Constitution, either explicitly or impliedly, that authorizes the federal Government, under any set of actual events or, as we are more likely to see, under any set of contrived circumstances, to denigrate the fundamental, natural rights and liberties of the people – the rights and liberties that are clearly, cogently, and unambiguously set down in the first Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution.And, what of the First Amendment guarantee? The First Amendment as set forth in the Bill of Rights says, in meaningful part: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . . .”For many years the American people have been asleep. They have been fed pabulum by the mainstream media as the rug has been pulled out from under them. But, as law-abiding Americans, hard-working citizens, have seen their wages stagnating, their jobs shipped overseas or given over to foreigners here – whether those foreigners are in this Country legally, having secured temporary visas, or are in this Country illegally, having simply walked across unsecured borders – Americans have begun to wake up. The Americans are now placing their support behind candidates who have not been paid off by wealthy, powerful, ruthless interests to do the bidding of their sponsors.All bets are off now. Those powerful, ruthless interests that have been slowly, quietly, insidiously taking over our institutions, rewriting our history, forcing an alien morality and an alien culture down our throats are now aghast that the American public is no longer falling into lockstep behind the newly minted puppets or, in one case, a dusted off old puppet. The American public is no longer listening to the vapid, insipid, soothing, carefully rehearsed melodies that the song writers have composed for their ears, as sung to the public by their string pullers in sweet-sounding three part harmony.There is, in this U.S. Presidential election cycle, one candidate from each major political Party who dares to speak his mind rather than parrot the views of paid sponsors. That fact bothers the ruthless interests that have slowly taken over this Country. It has made them uneasy. It is even making them frantic. These ruthless interests are devising ways – legal, quasi-legal, and even illegal – to silence those candidates they have not been able to buy and whom they can never control.The University administration officials in Chicago must certainly have known that elements would be attending the political rally on Friday who were not interested in hearing what one particular candidate from one particular political Party had to say. They were only interested in creating a disturbance, to silence a voice, and these University officials must take responsibility for the disturbance that did occur and that occurred quite spectacularly on their turf. And, they did, indeed, silence a voice, if but for a moment and only for a moment.In a City that has in place some of the most stringent gun control measures anywhere in the Country – in a City that requires its citizenry to place full stock in the police to protect it – University officials did not take sufficient advantage of police utilization to protect those individuals who sought simply to attend a political rally to hear what one candidate for high political Office has to say. University administration officials should have seen to it that the right of free speech and right of the people to peaceably assemble rights guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – was assured. Instead those officials chose to send the First Amendment down the toilet just as the City of Chicago had, years ago, sent the Second Amendment down the toilet.Had there been an adequate police contingent at the auditorium on that Friday night, the police would certainly have been able to vet those individuals who sought attendance at the event, permitting entry only to those who honestly and sincerely wished to hear what one candidate for President of the United States had to say, and turning away those who sought to prevent the candidate from exercising his guaranteed freedom of speech and voicing his beliefs, his views, his policies and in his typical blunt, candid manner. And, in their desire to prevent an American citizen from exercising his right of free speech, those individuals who attended the political rally for the purpose of disrupting it showed their defiance of and contempt for the First Amendment, and, for some of those individuals, their obvious ignorance of the import and purport of the First Amendment.Make no mistake, the American people bore witness to a savage beating that took place the other night in Chicago, a beating abetted by both a complacent University administration and a treacherous news media. But, it wasn’t an individual who was harmed. It was the sanctity of the First Amendment itself that was savagely assaulted Friday night. Yet, that fact was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media either during the disturbance, nor at any time thereafter. Instead the mainstream media, at the behest of those interests that control it, have placed blame squarely and bizarrely on the candidate who was compelled to cancel the event and who was thereby silenced! The First Amendment freedom of speech died that night and without a whisper of its death.The mainstream media – the press – mentions the First Amendment in passing but never takes the First Amendment to heart. The press has lost its focus and direction, its purpose. It sensationalizes rather than enlightens. It seeks merely to sell a product, a commodity, rather than to inform and educate the American public.The mainstream media further denigrates the freedom of speech, guaranteed under the First Amendment, by demanding that the candidate apologize for the disturbance. Really? To whom and for what ought the candidate apologize?The First Amendment provides for and guarantees the right of every American to speak his or her mind, even if the ideas expressed are unpalatable, even repugnant to some individuals. Certainly, the public has a right to hear from a candidate, who seeks the highest Office in the Land, that candidate’s views on those topics and matters impacting all Americans. And each American may choose to hear, or not, what that candidate has to say. But no candidate should be silenced on the ground that some people do not like what the candidate has to say.There are mechanisms for peaceful protest. But, no person is permitted, in our Democracy, under our First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom to peaceably assemble, to shut out the voice of another person with whom one happens to take exception. To understand  Americans’ First Amendment guarantees is to appreciate the benefit it serves in a Democratic society and free Republic. For those few among us who do not appreciate the First Amendment, they should view it as the obligatory cost of living in a Democratic society and free Republic; and, if they are not content with that, such individuals ought to leave the Country.Of late we see our institution of higher education – an institution that should welcome diverse expression of thought – becoming decidedly intolerant, inhospitable to any view that is deemed inconsistent with a particular bland norm. That intolerance, that pretentious, impertinent, pious regard for the irrefutability of one’s own set of beliefs and values is now spilling over and into the political arena. Certainly, the American public has the right under the First Amendment to hear, unfiltered and unmediated, the thoughts of those individuals who seek to secure the highest Office of the Land.No candidate for public Office should be ostracized and denigrated simply because some individuals think that person’s views extend beyond the pale. No candidate should ever be silenced. The American public has the right to hear all viewpoints, to hear all sides of a debate. The First Amendment dies when the freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble, is shattered because some people don’t like the message recited and personally abhor the manner of recitation. Odd it is that the press – our press – that should be the first to recognize and defend the freedom of speech – becomes, instead, the voice of oppression that would gag free speech. Is the press – colloquially and affectionately referred to, in times past, as the “fourth estate” – not now, less an independent and necessary institution of a democratic society and free Republic, and more reminiscent of and, in fact, reduced merely to a tool of government – a tool of oppression that one witnesses in despotic nations?How is it, then, that we see our First Amendment guarantees crumbling before us? The public must understand: the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee does not guard against offending one. It was not designed to do so. It was never designed to do so. An adult should not be so easily offended anyway. And the U.S. Supreme Court has never held that the freedom of speech clause has such parameters carefully woven around it, to protect the sensibilities of peculiarly sensitive souls. The American public ought to be made of sterner stuff.The mainstream media, instead of supporting a candidate’s right to speak freely, in accordance with the First Amendment guarantee, has the temerity to denigrate America’s fundamental First Amendment right of free speech. And, what does the mainstream media – the press – suggest a candidate for the highest Office in the land ought acquiesce to? Just this: timidity, banality, sophistry, careful modulation in thought and speech lest this or that sensitive or ignorant soul be offended. Nonsense!The American people are not supposed to think too deeply lest they begin to see what roils beneath the surface; lest they see through the vapidity of the puppet masters’ “talking heads;” lest they come to recognize the cupidity and ruthlessness of the creatures who seek to destroy the sanctity of the individual; lest they become aware that their Constitution is becoming no more than a curious relic of a by-gone age; lest they come to realize the loss of a free Republic, through the loss of the Bill of Rights; and lest they come face-to-face with the very real possibility of annihilation of a once great sovereign Nation State.[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

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