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The Truth Will Set You … Adrift?

May 16, 2013 /

Ah, if we were all more honest.  What a wonderful world it would be.

I really don’t like www.change.org.  Surprise!  Some time ago I made the mistake of actually signing one of their petitions.  I think it was for allowing openly gay scouts.  I’ve consistently made the mistake of not allowing myself to pick sides of the left-right spectrum.  The end result is often that I end up empowering those that seek to disempower me and my views.  Sometimes I wonder if I qualify as a useful idiot.  For example, I support gay rights.  The end result is that I more often than not am empowering statist leftists (as the gay community votes overwhelmingly democrat).  This hurts private property rights, gun rights, etc.

Presently, it has affected me with all the petition requests I get from www.change.org.  The current whipping boy is the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch.  His crime?  Honesty and good business sense.  In 2006 Peter Jeffries was quoted as saying during an interview, “We go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Banish the thought!  The CEO thinks it’s good for business to make your brand seem exclusive, and that wearing their clothes makes you cooler and more desirable?!  Monster!  Jeffries’s principal mistake was admitting it.  Rolex doesn’t want its watches on the wrists of the poor.  But that’s okay — they don’t admit it.  Beer commercials don’t have ugly girls in them — they just don’t acknowledge it.  Beautiful angry liberals won’t actually date an ugly person, but so long as they don’t own it out loud, they can maintain that moral high ground and bite their thumb at Abercrombie and Fitch.

Why do I care?  Well, I hate injustice in all forms.  I hate the fact that people must hide their true selves.  It prevents us all from reaching our potential levels of happiness.  It prevents growth.  It prevents us from developing fuller, healthier, relationships.

And, well, it scares me for my business.  I’m exceptionally open about my beliefs on this blog, yet I’m a lawyer.  I’m afraid that I will lose business.  Because I support gay rights, drug legalization, and don’t much care for religion, I will lose conservative clients.  Because I support property rights, don’t desire to eat the rich, and support gun rights, I will lose liberal clients.  Because I’m openly anti-government I may be perceived as unprofessional in the legal community.

That bothers me, because each of us are radicals behind closed doors.  Assuming that it’s bad for business, why do I blog so openly?  Well, 2 reasons:  To a lesser extent, I hope my honesty will be appreciated by clients (or perhaps someday, voters).  But mostly, because more than acceptance, more than money, I seek freedom.  Heck, that’s why I want money — to help secure my liberty.

I often carry in my mind of a quote by Jules Renard, “The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.” I feel bad because until I verified the author I thought it belonged to my man Emerson.  Being truly yourself is but an extension of this quote.  I seek freedom, and when you’re hiding your thoughts, you set your own shackles.  I’m not going to do it.  I’d rather deliver pizzas as a free man than be a lawyer in a gilded cage.

As for Jeffries, well, he’s twice as free a man as those protesting him.

Oh yeah, and Abercrombie and Fitch clothes suck, with their prepubescent looking shaved chest boys.  Gross.

Spring is perfect for country music.  I dunno though, this video only has cute girls.  But I’m sure it’s just an accident.  They didn’t say they only want pretty girls in their videos.

How They See Us (The Sheepdog v.2.0)

May 8, 2013 /

From the website of the Rosenberg, Texas Police Department:

The Rosenberg Police Department is a progressive department serving a rapidly growing city. The Department prides itself on hiring and training the most elite Officers and personnel. The Officers of the Rosenberg Police Department are dedicated to the highest levels of integrity, professionalism, excellence and pledge to continue to strive to enhance the quality of life for the citizens they serve.

Yet on their Facebook:

944221_367914913313107_180238813_n

Link: here

So the Rosenberg Police Department’s “elite officers and personnel” view you, the cat, no threat to these ~20 dogs, as a treat.  They’re eyeing you and just itching for an excuse to snap you up.  They then pat themselves on the back for having the “discipline” to wait until you, dangerous Mr. Kitty slip up.

But consider that this doesn’t say, “Just waiting for you to break the law” (thus making a morally justified arrest)  No, it says, “Just waiting for probable cause”.  The distinction is fine, but substantial in its implications.  Probable cause gives them the ability to mess with you, guilty of a crime or not.  With probable cause, an officer can make an arrest.  With probable cause, an officer can secure a search warrant.

This takes me back to the well-known sheep, wolf, sheepdog analogy made popular by LTC Dave Grossman, author of On Killing.  In the event you don’t wish to take the time to read it I’ll summarize:  Sheep are the pure and innocent good guys, heads in the clouds.  Us.  Wolves are your bad guys who love to snap up a sheep for dinner.  But ah, then there are the heroic sheepdogs.  These are your cops/military/etc.  They keep the wolf at bay, all the while being unappreciated and misunderstood by the sheep, for he looks like a wolf and is not afraid to use violence.

I like Grossman.  I think On Killing was an excellent book.  I don’t agree with many of his conclusions, but he’s a great thinker nonetheless and I respect him.  But I don’t think he took the analogy far enough.  What do we do with sheep?  We herd them.  We group them together into an unthinking mob ready to move to the whim of their betters.  A wolf occasionally sneaks in and eats one.  But we herd them to the same purpose.  But instead of one, we intend to eat them all.  But just as important to the analogy, what does a sheepdog do when a sheep decides to leave the herd?  They nip at their heels.  They bark.  They put you back in that herd.

As a side note, remember who it was sitting behind the president calling for gun control.  Cops.  Sheepdogs.  Who suggested a limit on assault rifles?  Moscow Police Chief David Duke.  Deprived of arms, you NEED your sheepdog.  And the sheepdogs know this.

Barack Obama

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather the ability to occasionally leave the herd, sufficiently armed in a world that if a wolf bares his fangs, I’m able to protect myself.  The alternative is to be that kitty in the meme, with both wolves and sheepdogs looking at you like a snack, all the while stuck in the herd.

We Need to Have a Talk, Part the First

January 31, 2013 /

(allow me to begin by noting I am not intending to engage in, or incite violence)

Now, you people need to stop lying.  All of you are engaging in dishonesty.

The University of Idaho’s student paper published an article regarding gun control and applied their usual lean to it.  My expectations of the Argonaut  (which has more editors than pages) have been pretty low since one of their editors referred to the events of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775 as “terrorist acts”.  But this isn’t about the Argonaut, but rather two esteemed gentlemen quoted.

First, let us go to the Chief of Police in Moscow, David Duke.  Mr. Duke is quoted in the Argonaut thusly:

The letter was based on a memo issued by Moscow Police Chief David Duke that laid out actions the police department believes would limit gun violence. The letter included the following recommendations: defining and limiting assault weapons, stricter requirements for background checks, limiting access to high capacity magazines, increasing documentation of gun sales, controlling and recording the sale of ammunition, support of national standards for concealed carry permits, mandating of a database including a fingerprint for every gun sold and steps to ensure law enforcement can mandate and encourage safe gun ownership.

The Second Amendment exists for a military purpose…that the body of the people be capable of bearing arms in defense of enemies foreign and domestic.  Our founders were rarely in lockstep in agreement on anything, but there was nearly no notion more universally agreed upon than that of standing armies being anathema to liberty.  Today’s standing army is not the military, but rather the modern police force.  They do the policing that was done by standing armies in times past.

Moscow Police Chief David Duke advocates limiting assault weapons.  He should.  His position is completely understandable, because the purpose of assault weapons are to shoot government agents.  Men like police officers.  Mind you, the Second Amendment exists as a doomsday provision.  I am not advocating violence against government agents.  We must do our best to use peaceful means before resorting to arms.  As a lawyer, I clearly believe the legal path to be ideal.

A week ago I sat in a courtroom and witnessed a Latah County Sheriff’s Deputy admit to making bigoted statements against a homosexual defendant.  I witnessed this very same deputy, who just so happens to be the son of Moscow Police Chief David Duke WHO WANTS TO LIMIT ACCESS TO ASSAULT WEAPONS (in case you’ve already forgotten), admit in open court that the law enforcement profession as a whole is homophobic.  During this same hearing I watched as the court uncovered that potentially exculpatory evidence against the defendant was withheld from not just defense counsel, but also the prosecutor’s office.

Take a moment and let this all sink in as context the next time a law enforcement officer makes his opinion about your ability to own an assault weapon known.

As an aside, I’d like to add that I think that neither of these men are necessarily bad people, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The Learned Sergeant’s Law: Constitutional Law Analysis

June 28, 2012 /

The first question to ask when a person asserts that X is/is not in line with the Constitution is whether or not they are actually saying that X is/is not in line with Supreme Court precedent.  These are two very distinct concepts.

Put more simply I suppose you can narrow this entire statement down to: Madison ≠ <insert Supreme Court Justice>

Keep this in mind tomorrow when the Court affirms ObamaCare.  It is wildly unconstitutional.  However, there is plenty of good precedent to uphold it.  As I said some weeks ago, Sharia Law is the Commerce Clause’s bitch.

In reality it’s pretty much 50/50 at this point as to how it’ll turn out.  My money says that they strike down a few parts to placate the firebrands *cough* but the individual mandate will in fact be upheld.  But I’m sufficiently jaded that I haven’t put much thought into it.  They can take my money, but they’ll never take my freedom time to read a massive .pdf.  (Hint:  yes, they will)

Bar Tally: 207 Hours

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