I was not paying much attention to social media this past weekend, as I was working on a home improvement project, so I only had a vague idea of the events that transpired in Charlottesville, Virginia. I made a few comments to twitter, mostly re-tweets and one asking anyone that agrees with the protestors to unfollow me, and emphasizing it with vulgarities.

It wasn’t until late Sunday and early into the week that I really started to dip my toes into the waters so to speak and get acquainted with the disgusting display that took place.

I really won’t discuss the actual events that transpired, only to say that as a lover of liberty that has long rallied against the watering-down and redefining of what it means to be a “right leaning” conservative I am disgusted that those hateful, racist “alt-Right” protestors and the movement itself gets associated with “conservative” or “libertarianism.”

I will say that I am even more glad that I gave up my former blogging domain name years ago of Right Wing Rebel. Though I mainly gave that up because I have come to realize that the left vs right political spectrum is complete hogwash.

My biggest concern over the Trump candidacy was the nationalistic sentiment that his campaign swept up. “Blood & soil” is the polar opposite of the very idea that our country is founded on, the idea that all men are created equal, and our endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But I don’t care to talk about Trump, Nationalism, or even racism really right now. What I really want to focus on, is something that has been brewing for a while now, but has really come to prominence these past few days and that is the “no free speech for fascists” or the “punch a Nazi” movement.

Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine, recently asked the very valid question, “Do you really want Donald Trump deciding who gets free speech”?

She writes:

… if fascists are to lose their free speech rights, someone must take them. And if you believe, as many of the counter-protesters do, that the white nationalists and their brethren were emboldened by the presence of a man in the White House who sees them as part of his coalition, then why on God’s good green earth would you want to turn around and hand that very man the right to censor anyone whom he labels fascists? Because I can tell you right now, the list of folks that Trump and the restive-but-still-Republican Congress would like to silence sure won’t look like the list those sign-wavers have in mind.

Living in a truly free and open society, truly respecting the concept of individual rights and liberty, means having to accept things that you dislike. That also includes having to accept some things that you find morally reprehensible.

Forcing the ignorant, disgusting and vile into the shadows does not eliminate ignorance and hatred. It just sweeps it under the rug where it is allowed to fester and grow like mold and spread into something even more hateful and disgusting.

The American progressive movement always claim to be the ones of peace, love, understanding and free ideas… but the caveat is, you are accepted only as long as that peace, love and understanding comes with the same pre-packaged manufactured group-think “free” ideas that they share.

The image that struck me the most this weekend was of the black police office standing guard and protecting the ignorant racists behind him.

Think about that juxtaposition for a moment.

Barely a full year ago, a crazed black power ideologue gunned down law enforcement in Dallas, Texas, where the media incidentally didn’t go bash ALL BLM supporters and ALL progressives, they pointed it out for what it was an isolated incident.

Now that police office, who is both a black life and a blue life but more importantly a HUMAN life and who is hated by many hardcore progressives who think all cops are corrupt is protecting ignorant fools who also hate him, albeit because of the color of his skin.

Things are not clear-cut. There is not one side, or the other side. There is not only right or left. There is not just black or white.

The issues facing us are far more complicated then anything I can explain.

Hatred begets hatred, violence begets violence. Ignorance breeds ignorance and anti-fascism, at least these days, is more often then not — fascism itself.

Free speech, as long as its non-violent free speech, must be protected and defended to full extent, even free speech that you find repulsive.

I’ll close out with the words of pastor Martin Niemöller, who knows a little bit of this, having spent a few years in a real Nazi concentration camp.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Today is not about the date.

Today is not about fireworks.

Today is not about backyard cookouts.

Today is not about a piece of cloth with the colors red, white & blue.

Today is not about patriotism.

Today is about an idea. The greatest idea in the history of civilized mankind.

One that unfortunately, all too often we lose sight of and ignore.

The idea that we are free people and not subjects of a monarchy or a tyrannical government. Government comes from the consent of the people and not the whims of the ruling class.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

Notice the word “pursuit.” Happiness has become an expectation, something that people feel they are entitled to and must be supplied to them by the government.

Every couple of years we fool ourselves into thinking this next person will be different, this one will be the person that will truly make a difference and who will fix all of our problems. However, what we end up with is a big load of garbage in the form of more rules & regulations and less freedom for everyone, irregardless of where your beliefs lie in the made up Red State / Blue State political spectrum that the media force feeds us.

Stop expecting happiness to come from the false promises of politicians and realize, much like the founders did in 1776, that the true path to happiness is through liberty. Free people with the freedom to make their own choices in life and the freedom to live with the consequences of those choices.

Stop looking towards the government for answers and start looking from within. Stop trying to regulate and enforce and standardize your view of happiness on the whole country.

To paraphrase Billy Joel, go ahead with your own life and leave everyone else alone.

This past week proponents of an independent California gained a small victory in their movement, as their Secretary of State Alex Padilla has approved a petition initiative to begin collecting signatures from voters.

Thanks to the recent vote in Great Britain to leave the European Union, which was dubbed #Brexit, California’s movement has taken on the hashtag name of #Calexit. The movement, which has gained steam after the the overall meltdown of the American Progressive Left after the election of Donald Trump, is not actually a new one. The Yes California Independence Committee PAC has been around for a couple of years.

From their website:

Yes California is the nonviolent campaign to establish the country of California using any and all legal and constitutional means to do so. We advocate for peaceful secession from the United States by use of an independence referendum to establish a mandate, followed by a nationwide campaign to advocate in support of a constitutional exit from the Union. By joining this campaign, signing up as a member, donating, volunteering, or otherwise supporting this important cause, you agree to these nonviolent principles.

While Yes California supports and encourages Californians to stand up and take direct action, to be bold, and to unapologetically demand the liberation of the people of California from its captors, we explicitly reject conduct or speech inciting open rebellion against the American government.

The idea of secession is not actually a new one in California, while the #Calexit people want to leave a Federal Government that they do not view as being attuned to their Progressive Political leanings, there is a much older movement within California’s more rural Northern State’s to breakaway and create the 51st State, The State of Jefferson.

I find it quite interesting that there is a group of people within California who feel that they are being bullied by the Federal Government & the Electoral College, who feel that they are culturally out-of-step with the rest of the Unites States — but who are completely oblivious the plight of their fellow Californians who feel the same way towards them.

Now, do I think that there is a reasonable chance that someday soon California will become a sovereign nation-state? No, I think there is about as much chance of that happening as there is of Donald Trump nominating Rosie O’Donnell to the US Supreme Court.

However believing that something is going to happen and believing in the right for that thing to happen are two completely different things. It was the inspiration for the name The State of Jefferson, who wrote the greatest declaration of secession of all time, otherwise known as the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas DiLorenzo, of the Mises Institute, wrote a few years back an article about the Jeffersonian secessionist tradition posted at LewRockwell.com:

Thomas Jefferson, the author of America’s July 4, 1776 Declaration of Secession from the British empire, was a lifelong advocate of both the voluntary union of the free, independent, and sovereign states, and of the right of secession. “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form,” he said in his first inaugural address in 1801, “let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it.”

In a January 29, 1804 letter to Dr. Joseph priestly, who had ask Jefferson his opinion of the New England secession movement that was gaining momentum, he wrote: “Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern . . . and did I now foresee a separation at some future day,, yet should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family . . .” Jefferson offered the same opinion to John C. Breckenridge on August 12 1803 when New Englanders were threatening secession after the Louisiana purchase. If there were a “separation,” he wrote, “God bless them both & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.”

I am firmly of the belief that, while not everyone may realize it on a conscious level or express it in these exact terms, the human heart yearns for liberty. Supporters of a strong and all-powerful Federal Government will bring up the “…one Nation under God, indivisible…” part of the Pledge of Allegiance or say things like the Civil War and Texas v White ‘settled’ the issue of secession.

As far as the Pledge of Allegiance goes, while I truly feel blessed to have been born in the what is still the greatest country on God’s green earth, I pledge my allegiance to no one. I am a free man, nobody owns me and I am not subject to the rituals of blind devotion to the State because of a pledge written by a socialist decades after our Republic’s founding.

The United States of America came to be after the Thirteen Original Colonies successfully used the God-given right to self-determination in unshackling themselves from the chains that tied them to King George’s England.

Ron Paul in a 2009 CNN Interview said:

The biggest surprise to me was the outrage expressed over an individual who thinks along these lines, because I heard people say, well, this is treasonous and this was un-American. But don’t they remember how we came in to our being? We used secession, we seceded from England. So it’s a very good principle. It’s a principle of a free society. It’s a shame we don’t have it anymore. I argue that if you had the principle of secession, our federal government wouldn’t be as intrusive into state affairs and to me that would be very good.

We as a nation have endorsed secession all along. Think of all of the secession of the countries and the republics from the Soviet system. We were delighted. We love it. And yet we get hysterical over this just because people want to debate and defend the principle of secession, that doesn’t mean they’re calling for secession. I think it’s that restraining element of secession that would keep the federal government from doing so much. In our early history, they accepted the principles of secession all along.

As far as I’m concerned the Declaration of Independence clearly set the precedent and Texas v White is an unjust ruling that no free people should abide by. While the outcome of the Civil War did rightfully end the greatest evil ever perpetrated on mankind, the practice of slavery, it does not end the precedent set forth by the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.

Walter Williams, libertarian professor of economics at George Mason University wrote:

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, “Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty.”

The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace. Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South’s right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): “If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861.” Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): “An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil – evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content.” The New York Times (March 21, 1861): “There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go.”

There’s more evidence seen at the time our Constitution was ratified. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated, should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought that they could not maintain their sovereignty.

With all that being said, as I have previously noted, while I believe in California’s right to leave the Union I seriously doubt that it will happen. Even if the #Calexit folks somehow manage to collect the required 585,407 valid signatures from registered voters over the next 180 days, they still face a long uphill battle in their movement.

However as long as the odds are, I do tend to agree with Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the Founders of Yes California, who said “America already hates California, and America votes on emotions.”

The election of Donald Trump sure proved that.

I am, at least as of the time that I am writing this post, a registered Republican. Truthfully however, at this point that is only because of the ridiculous ballot access laws and Ohio Senate Bill 193. I am not currently a member of the Libertarian Party, nor do I have any sort of affiliation with any member of the Libertarian Party.

Recently I have seen an article by a former legislative aide for Rep. Ron Paul, that was posted at the Ron Paul Institute make the rounds on libertarian leaning social media sites. The title of the piece, “Libertarian Party Chairman Denounces Ron Paul’s Support for States’ Rights” caused an eruption in comments across Facebook.

The article was loosely about an interview that Nicholas Sarwark, the current chairman of the Libertarian Party had on a Lions of Liberty podcast recently. I say “ loosely” because the entire basis of the article was a completely taken out-of-context piece that used one line out of a forty minute long interview.

I even saw a liberty minded Facebook friend of mine re-post the article with the comment “Looks like the Libertarian Party is being destroyed by socialists.” I can understand given the title of the posting at the RPI how a liberty minded individual might get upset , I mean denouncing Ron Paul and for supporting States Rights of all things.

The thing is, if you listened to the actual Lions of Liberty podcast, you would see that at no point did Nicholas Sarwark ‘denounce’ Ron Paul or Ron Paul’s support for States Rights.

But hey, let’s not allow things like facts to get in the way, no one can speak ill of muh Ron Paul.

The Ron Paul discussion in the podcast started at about 25:30 minutes into the interview and came after a discussion about the Gary Johnson campaign and how Bill Weld displeased many hardcore libertarians. Sarwark himself admitted that many of the things that Bill Weld said during the campaign were not things that he would have said, or things that he necessary agreed with. His point was however, in growing the Libertarian Party as a viable third option — do you want a pure ideological person standing on a soapbox speaking to ten people or do you want a slightly less pure person with a giant microphone who is able to reach millions?

Mark Clair, the host of the podcast, responded by saying that he thought a lot of ideologically libertarian leaning people got spoiled by Ron Paul and his manner of speaking libertarian ideas. Clair, then went on to say that “…we still have to look at Ron Paul and what his… success was, I mean he floundered out of the Republican Primary.” Clair followed up with talking about how the bigger thing to look at Ron Paul was at how many people he turned on to the idea of liberty, partly because of his ‘ideologically pure’ libertarian message. Moving forward Clair wondered how do liberty minded people turn on more people to the liberty message as not everyone can be Murray Rothbard.

Sarwark, in talking about Ron Paul, commented that you ‘run a very dangerous line’ if you get too caught up with any one personality, be it in politics or any other aspect of life.

His point was that there is no one true pure as fresh snow ideological libertarian and everyone is capable of being wrong on some things. He had mentioned how he had spoken to Ron Paul supporters who if you were to mention an issue that Ron Paul was not a pure libertarian on they would twist themselves up into pretzels while trying to say otherwise because “Ron Paul could do no wrong.”

Sarwark also pointed out that the strength of libertarianism is that the principle doesn’t care who the messenger is. It is either a libertarian position or its not, no one is perfect and its okay to not be pure and it is also okay to be able to call out the things of libertarians that are not really libertarian positions.

Sarwark was particularly talking on same-sex marriage, citing Ron Paul whom for a long time said that it should be up to the States. His point was that “States rights” do not trump individual rights or civil liberties.

Clair, even agreed mentioning how you see people get caught up in personalities, such as opposing something, but then supporting it because Obama does or opposing something but then supporting it because Trump does. Then saying that he agrees with about 95% of what Ron Paul says but “heaven forbid” you mention that other 5% and then the name calling ensues.

That is exactly what happened with the reaction after the article was posted on the RPI website.

Nicholas Sarwark did not “denounce” anyone and “the socialists” are not taking over the Libertarian Party.

I swear libertarians are more often then not, their own worst enemy.

Also, in regards to the whole “States Rights” issue, the 10th Amendment provides that the “powers” not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the States and/or the people.

States don’t have rights, we the people do.

Nicholas Sarwark, rightfully stated that you can’t use “States Rights” to allow government to take away individual rights based on gender, race or [in this case] sexual orientation.

The 10th Amendment does not provide for allowing the States the “right” to trump the natural individual rights of American citizens.

Early this morning, President-elect Donald Trump took to social media to announce his desire to take a piss all over the Bill of Rights. “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Is what he posted to twitter.

That belief is a slap in the face to those who truly value our liberty.

In the 1989 US Supreme Court case, Texas v. Johnson, a split court (5-4) held that burning an American flag as political protest is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.

At a demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Gregory Lee Johnson, a member of the evolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, was involved in a political demonstration that turned violent. The demonstrators marched through the streets, shouted chants, destroyed property, broke windows and threw trash, soiled diapers, beer cans and various other items, and held signs outside the offices of several companies. At one point, another demonstrator handed Johnson an American flag stolen from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings.

Johnson was charged with violating a Texas law that prohibited the desecration of a venerated object. He was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. He appealed his conviction to the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, but he lost this appeal. On appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals the court overturned his conviction, saying that the State could not punish Johnson for burning the flag because the First Amendment protects such activity as symbolic speech.

The case eventually made it’s way to the Supreme Court and in their decision the court found that the right to free speech does not end at the spoken or written word, but also includes “symbolic speech.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, in his concurrence expressed the sentiment that sometimes standing up for liberty, means standing up for things that you don’t agree with.

The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result. And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.

Our colleagues in dissent advance powerful arguments why respondent may be convicted for his expression, reminding us that among those who will be dismayed by our holding will be some who have had the singular honor of carrying the flag in battle. And I agree that the flag holds a lonely place of honor in an age when absolutes are distrusted and simple truths are burdened by unneeded apologetics.

With all respect to those views, I do not believe the Constitution gives us the right to rule as the dissenting Members of the Court urge, however painful this judgment is to announce. Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt.

This morning after seeing, Chairman of the Libertarian Party, Nicholas Sarwark post his own brief thoughts on flag-burning to Facebook, I went ahead and shared my own updated version of that

I want to make this clear, I believe that the act of burning the American flag is a sick and disgusting thing to do. Furthermore, I believe that individuals who purposely desecrate the flag are asshole’s of the highest order.

I just believe that, you either believe in liberty or you don’t. Those flag burning assholes have the same right to burn Old Glory as I have to think they are assholes for doing it.

I will defend their right to be assholes until my dying breath.

In a conversation about the topic with a co-worker, I was accused of being “lukewarm” on the issue and told that burning a flag is disrespectful to the brave soldiers who died for that flag.

To that I said, only tyrants lock people in jail for the victimless crime of burning a piece of cloth. No man died for a piece of cloth, they died for the idea that that piece of cloth represented. Amongst those ideas, as our founding fathers so eloquently put it is that we “… are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

To lock someone up for burning a flag, makes us no better then the type of despots we claim to have opposed, if we start doing that… then those soldiers who many claim “die for the flag,” will truly have died for nothing.

This past Friday evening, prior to his team’s preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided, in an act of protest, not to stand for the traditional playing of the national anthem prior to kickoff. Kaepernick defended his actions with the following statement:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

I won’t go into the details of the type of responses towards his actions Kaepernick has received, but if you check out the comments section of any pro-Trump website or almost any twitter user that has the hashtag #TrumpTrain in their bio, you’ll be subject to some stuff that might even make the most hardcore Klansman blush.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with Kaepernick’s actions one bit, furthermore, I disagree with his reasoning behind his refusal to stand for the anthem. The idea that the Unites States of America, in 2016, is a country that “oppresses black people and people of color,” is a flat-out ignorant belief to hold.

That being said I find it somewhat ironic that many of those who are the most vocal in their disdain of Kaepernick’s stance are those who consider themselves conservative. What is so conservative about blind devotion to the State?

Had our Founders wanted a national anthem at the creation of our republic, would they have not taken the time to adopt one? It wasn’t until the 20th Century, thanks to the father of the modern progressive movement, Woodrow Wilson, that we even had an “official” national anthem.

Woodrow Wilson, the man who pretty much spent his entire life trying to destroy the dedication to natural rights and limited government that the framers put into our republic through our founding documents, is the man who spearheaded the effort to make The Star Spangled Banner our national anthem. Let that sink in for a moment.

Patriotism and love of country are not bad things, as a matter of fact American conservatism has always included a strong sense of both. What is alarming in recent years, particularly in this most recent election cycle, is the confusion of patriotism and nationalism, the latter of which goes against the heart of the conservative principles of individual liberty and limited government of which our republic was founded.

The 49ers organization issues the following response to their quarterback’s actions:

The National Anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.

They are absolutely right

If you disagree with Colin Kaepernick and want to show your displeasure with the 49ers and the NFL for not taking stiff action against his act of defiance by boycotting the team, the league or their sponsors that is also your right as well.

While I don’t hold the somewhat radical view that suggests that standing for the national anthem or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is designed to deprive one of individuality while instilling blind nationalism — I can’t in good conscience deny someone the freedom to refuse to stand, even if I find his reasoning repulsive.

Being a law enforcement officer is a difficult and often times thankless job. Police officers are at risk countless times throughout the day while conducting their job duties, a potentially life-threatening situation can arise at any moment with no warning what-so-ever, because of this they have to be prepared for all possible scenarios with every encounter.

They are not highly paid, for a job at any given moment may cause them to pay the ultimate sacrifice while in the line of duty. The men and women who choose to put on the uniform to “serve and protect,” are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts.

The great Paul Harvey once said, “A policeman must be a minister, social worker, a diplomat, a tough guy and a gentleman. And, of course, he will have to be a genius, for he will have to feed a family on a policeman’s salary.”

However, they are still not infallible and they are most definitely not absolved from criticism, especially when that criticism is warranted. Much like it appears, upon an admittedly quick review, may be the case in two separate police involved shooting deaths this week in Louisiana and Minnesota. In both of those situations, the law enforcement officers were white and the shooting victims were black.

The first of the two incidents that occurred this week was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 37-year-old Alton Sterling, was standing in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart, selling CDs, something he had done for years, with permission of the store’s owner.

Alton Sterling

According to a “source with knowledge of the investigation” CNN reports that at some point in the evening on Tuesday, Sterling was approached by a homeless man asking for money.

The man was persistent, and Sterling showed him his gun, the source said.

“I told you to leave me alone,” Sterling told the man, according to the source

The homeless man then used his cell phone to call 911, the source said.

The details about the 911 call shed new light into the Baton Rouge police’s high-profile fatal shooting of Sterling, a 37-year-old black man.

A graphic cell phone video of the shooting was shared widely on social media, quickly sparking local protests and drawing national attention. Federal authorities have taken charge of the investigation. Read More…

In the grainy first video that was released to social media Tuesday evening, Alton Sterling was seen being wrestled to the ground by two officers, someone can be heard shouting, “He’s got a gun! Gun!” One of the officers then holds a gun over Sterling. Soon after, multiple shots are heard.

A second video obtained by The Advocate, emerged Wednesday evening, also captured on a cellphone, but from a different angle.

Before you hit play, be warned, that it is violent and graphic.

After watching both the original video and then the second video posted above, I don’t know if I am ready to say that it was cold-blooded murder, but there is no doubt in my mind that Alton Sterling would be alive if not for the actions of those two police officers.

The second incident this week occurred Wednesday evening in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, where 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot and killed after being pulled over for a busted taillight. Much like the previous shooting in Louisiana, this one two was captured on a cellphone and shared to social media.

Philando Castile

Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, the passenger in the vehicle, live streamed the incident on Facebook, starting from the point after the shooting took place.

What we saw in the video was a remarkably calm & composed woman watching her boyfriend as he bleed out. We saw a police officer, weapon still drawn and pointed at the dying man, shouting and swearing and not keeping his cool.

Stephen Green, aka Vodkapundit, had an interesting breakdown, on his thought of the video, which I tend to agree with.

When you are legally carrying, you refer to your pistol as a “firearm” so as not to alarm the police when you inform them that you are carrying, and to indicate that you have received proper training. The word “firearm” is supposed to help put the officer at ease in a tense situation.

Throughout the video, Reynolds refers to Castile’s pistol as a firearm. That might be a small detail, but it is a compelling one. Reynolds kept her calm and used the proper language in a life and death situation. I’m inclined to believe then that she has had some kind of firearms training. When she says at the start of the video that “He’s licensed to carry, he was trying to get out his ID,” I’m inclined to believe that, too.

What the video doesn’t show is how Castile was pulling out his license. Was he as cool and calm as Reynolds? Was he moving quickly? Had he used the word “gun” or “weapon” when telling the police officer that he was carrying? Was he following instructions? Were those instructions lawful?

We just don’t know, but there are some things we may reasonably conjecture — subject, of course, to whatever new evidence may come out later.

According to Reynolds in the video, Castile had “never been in jail, anything. He’s not a gang member, anything.” Add that to the calm, good sense, and tactical knowledge demonstrated by Reynolds, and my inclination is to believe that Castile’s behavior during the initial phase of the traffic stop was also lawful and proper. Read More…

I agree with those sentiments, we don’t know what happened before the video started rolling, however based solely off Reynolds’ actions and demeanor in the video, I tend to believe that Castile would be alive today if not for the actions of that police officer.

In a press conference today Reynolds shed more light on the incident.

“I’m the woman who recorded the video,” said Reynolds, referring to the footage she streamed last night on Facebook Live, in which Castile could be seen bleeding through his shirt while Reynolds’s young daughter looks on from the back of the car and a police officer stands over Castile with his gun drawn.

“We got pulled over for what allegedly was supposed to be a broken taillight,” Reynolds said. “[The police officer] let us know that we had a broken taillight. He asked us, were we aware of it and we said no. As we said no, he tells us to put our hands in the air.”

According to Reynolds, she and Castile complied with the order, at which point the officer at the driver’s side window asked Castile for his license and registration.

“My boyfriend carries all his information in a thick wallet in his right side back pocket,” Reynolds said. “As he’s reaching for his back pocket wallet he lets the officer know, ‘Officer, I have a firearm on me.’ I begin to yell, ‘But he’s licensed to carry.’ ” According to Reynolds, the officer started firing shortly after.

According to Castile’s uncle, Castile died of his wounds around 9:30 p.m. at the hospital where he was taken after the shooting. According to Reynolds, “nobody checked his pulse” in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Instead, Reynolds said, she was placed in the back of a police car as other officers “soothed” the officer who fired on Castile. “They pulled him over to the side and they began to calm him down and tell him that it was OK and he would get through this,” Reynolds said. Read More…

Philando Castile, a law-abiding and legally licensed concealed carry permit holder who was exercising his God-given 2nd Amendment rights is dead because of the petty law enforcement of a busted tail light. I apologize if that sounds like hyperbole, but it is the truth. A busted out tail light is the excuse that the officer had to stop Castile and begin an interaction during which some point something happened that made him uncomfortable or nervous. Was it Castile’s skin color? I don’t know, I’m not going to begin to question what is inside the heart of a man, especially with limited evidence.

I’m not going to go the “Trumpservative” route and say that all cops are great and Alton Sterling & Philando Castile have criminal records. I’m also not going to go all “social justice warrior” and say that cops are evil and are systematically targeting black men.

The truth is somewhere in between.

Shame on anyone who calls themselves a liberty-loving Constitutional Conservative and is not absolutely outraged at the total denial of the civil liberties of these two men. It doesn’t matter what their skin color, gender or sexual orientations were. They are both dead because their Civil Rights were violated and anyone who refuses to see that is blinded by hatred, bigotry or stupidity.

A lot of people are angry, and rightfully so. I don’t know what the answers are, I just hope that we are able to find it.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
(U.S. Const. amend. IV)

Until the past few years with the rise of NSA spying and TSA pat downs, the Fourth Amendment has not been talked about as much as the Second or First. That does not make it any less important, as a matter of fact eliminating Fourth Amendment Rights, pretty much eliminates First & Second Amendment rights along with them.

Recently, Democrats in both New York and California have introduced bills that would outright ban the sale of mobile devices with encryption technology. The similar bills introduced in California by State Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) and in New York by Assemblyman Matthew Titone (D-Staten Island), if passed, would require all smartphones that are sold to be “capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider.”

Via endgadget:

Cooper’s reasoning puts a novel spin on the same, tired “The police can’t do their jobs unless tech companies do it for them” argument. This time, he used human trafficking as the boogeyman that needs defeating and which can only be accomplished if the government has unfettered, disk-level access to its citizens’ cell phones.

“If you’re a bad guy [we] can get a search record for your bank, for your house, you can get a search warrant for just about anything,” Cooper told ArsTechnica. “For the industry to say it’s privacy, it really doesn’t hold any water. We’re going after human traffickers and people who are doing bad and evil things. Human trafficking trumps privacy, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Apparently human trafficking also trumps the 4th Amendment as well. Read more…

Forcing everyone into using un-encrypted mobile devices and opening up not just the government sector thieves but private sector thieves as well to be able to access your private information is much worse. People use their smart phones today for banking, medical information and a whole host of other legal activities that require privacy.

While I agree that human trafficking is a disgusting and vile criminal activity that has to be stopped, it is not more important than the fundamental right to privacy. If a warrant can be obtained for all those other things it can be obtained to search a smart phone as well.

The latest hero that the religious right is touting as a staunch defender of “traditional marriage” is a thrice-divorced registered Democrat who has given birth out-of-wedlock in-between her four marriages.

Combine that, with the fact the Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and eccentric billionaire reality television star Donald Trump are currently leading most polls in the race for President, and it makes one think that we must be living in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Kim Davis is a Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who defied a U.S. Federal Court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.

Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis continued to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses on Tuesday, despite a Supreme Court ruling against her the previous day, was jailed for contempt of court.

Davis filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court seeking to put the lower court’s order on hold while she seeks an appeal, however the Supreme Court denied the application. Stating that she was acting “under God’s authority,” Davis ignored the court order and continued to deny the licenses. Last Thursday she was jailed for contempt of court and has been labeled as martyr by many on the religious right.

Mike Huckabee and other instigators in the religious right claim that jailing Davis for refusing to do her job because of her religious convictions is the “criminalization of Christianity.” The problem is, unless her Apostolic Christian beliefs require her to keep her job in the public sector (which I seriously doubt they do), she’s not in jail for violating her religious beliefs.

Working for the state is not a “right.” Kim Davis, whatever you may feel about her religious convictions, was wrong to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in her office. If you are not willing to enforce the law, you should not be an officer of the state. Her job as a county clerk is not to determine the constitutionality of laws, it is to perform the issuing and registering of various licenses, recording and keeping of various legal records, registering and purging voter rolls, and conducting various election duties and tax duties. There are many other occupations that she can pursue if her current job no longer suits her religious beliefs.

Signing off on state documents is not the same as being forced into participating in a same-sex wedding ceremonies as private business owners such as bakers, photographers and ordained ministers have. If she was an ordained minister and refused to marry same-sex couples in her private establishment I would vehemently support her right to do so. If you want to participate in civil disobedience, don’t work for the state.

The hypocrisy amongst the so-called conservatives of the religious right who have infested the conservative movement is down right sickening. If Kim Davis was a soldier who abandoned her post after the country goes into war, because her religion tells her that “thou shalt not kill,” would Mike Huckabee and other social cons be as quick to defend her? If she was working for the INS and refused to deport a criminal invader because her religious convictions were against it, would the religious right be holding rallies in her honor?

As I’ve stated before the religious right have nobody to blame but themselves for what has happened to the institution of marriage, if they were true small-government conservatives and not bigots masquerading under the false banner of “religious liberty,” the fight all along would have been to get the government out of the business of issuing licenses to marry all-together.

This past March, Esmeralda Rossi, of Chandler, AZ, was in the shower when two police officer’s came knocking on her door.

“I was in the shower,” Rossi said. “My daughter came to the shower and said there are two officers at the door. So I just grabbed a towel.”

Rossi has not committed any crime, the police who arrived had not had any sort of warrant, yet the actions that occurred that night were the type of police tactics you would thing would be reserved for a violent criminal brandishing a weapon.

The police were there because they were responding to a call about an earlier argument between Rossi and her estranged husband.

Rossi, after answering the door, felt that the manor in which one of the officers approached, from the front door of her home, was very aggressive. She asked for them to wait for a moment so she could put on some clothes and get a cellphone to record their conversation.

“It made me very uncomfortable,” Rossi said. “So I closed the door. I turn to go into my living room, and I probably get about five steps in; and all of a sudden, I just hear boots running in after me, telling me stop or I’ll arrest you.”

Doug Rose, Chandler, AZ, Police officer who falsely arrested woman. Now retired and free to receive tax-payer funded pension.

It was at this point in which Rossi’s daughter began filming the encounter.

Without any provocation, or probably cause, the two officers stormed into the her home and proceeded to assault a woman, who was wearing nothing but a towel, doing so in front of her daughter.

As the sex-offender in a badge begins to assault the victim, under the threats of an illegal arrest, her towel drops completely exposing her now naked body. That didn’t stop the bastard from attempting to assault I mean “arrest” Rossi.

Rossi was handcuffed and subdued by her attacker, but was never charged with any crime.

Because she committed no crime.

Via KNXV-TV:

After reviewing the incident, Chandler Police internal investigators determined Rose entered the home illegally and without probable cause. The investigation also determined that Rose didn’t document arresting or un-arresting the woman or the fact that she was naked.

There was also no video from his body camera for the call, records show.

After the incident, the other officer involved immediately contacted his supervisor to raise questions about Rose’s actions. The second officer was cleared of wrongdoing.

Chandler Police declined to comment, citing the potential lawsuit. Rose also didn’t respond to requests for comment. Read More…

It’s assholes like this piece of trash, that give the vast majority of good police officers a bad name. He should be charged with breaking and entering, false arrest, kidnapping and sexual assault.

However, the kicker is that the bastard retired from the force and is eligible to receive a full tax-payer funded pension.

Land of the free and home of the brave…

Today, in a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that “...the right of same-sex couples to marry…is part of the liberty promised by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

In the decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

As a conservative, I have to agree with Justice Kennedy’s words. For the government to deny the rights of same-sex couples is a fundamental attack on the very principle of liberty.

Social conservatives, such as Mike Huckabee who called today’s ruling ‘judicial tyranny,’ are upset of course. I actually don’t necessarily disagree with all of Huckabee’s sentiments — mostly because I don’t believe that this issue should have even had to have been decided on by the Supreme Court.

If the religious right is upset about the Supreme Court affirming the government sanctioning of same-sex marriage they have absolutely no one to blame but themselves. They have been fighting the wrong battle this whole time.

Advocates of ‘gay marriage’ claim that what they are fighting for is ‘equal rights,’ the right to marry the person they love. But what they are really fighting for is the right to have a previously government-sanctioned ‘privileged status’ extended to them as well.

The truth is, government does not grant marriage licenses to certify a couple’s love. The government issues permits to marry so it can designate those who qualify for the benefits attached to being in a government-sanctioned marriage.

The religious right, in their opposition to ‘gay marriage,’ claim they are fighting for ‘traditional marriage.’ True conservatives however, understand that there are certain aspects of life that should be left to be conducted solely within the confines of your own home, family, churches, synagogue or mosque. This belief if part of the fundamental core of what it means to be a conservative, yet social conservatives have abdicated that position and granted the governmental role in those matters.

The primary role of the federal government is to uphold the Constitution and to defend our rights. The act of granting the government the power to regulate the institution of marriage, takes away it’s duties in serving its primary purpose.

Conservatives should have never been fighting for foolish efforts like the idiotic ‘Defense of Marriage Act.’ Instead of focusing their time, effort and money into trying to pass laws throughout the country that offer a government-defined sanctioning of marriage — the real battle should have been to remove the government’s role from marriage altogether and to put it back where it belongs as a private matter between two individuals with each-other or two individuals with their religious community.

Not anywhere within the Constitution is their any mention about marriage. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments, clearly state that any power that is not explicitly granted to the federal government is reserved solely for the people and the states. If marriage is even to be regulated at all, it should be done so only at the local level.

One of the few true responsibilities of the government in a free society is to enforce private contracts between individuals or groups. If two consenting adults enter into a contract with one another, it is not the business of the government to deny those particular individuals the right to do so.

All conservatives, the religious-right includes should be fundamental opposed to government regulation of private matters. Sadly, it is those so-called conservatives who make up the religious right who actually advocate for more government intrusion into our lives. The religious right is blaming the desires of gay & lesbian couples as an attack on the ‘sanctity of marriage.’ All the while ignoring the real threat… the government.

Strike one up for Fairfax County Virginia, as they have nabbed another bunch of violent criminals that were doing irreparable harm to the citizens of The Commonwealth. No longer will these violent thugs be able to rip the very fabric of society to shreds and corrupt the populace by playing cards inside the privacy of an upper class home.

Via The Washington Post:

On a quiet weeknight among the stately manors of Great Falls, ten men sat around a table in the basement of a private home last November playing high stakes poker. Suddenly, masked and heavily armed SWAT team officers from the Fairfax County Police Department burst through the door, pointed their assault rifles at the players and ordered them to put their hands on the table. The players complied. Their cash was seized, including a reported $150,000 from the game’s host, and eight of the ten players were charged with the Class 3 misdemeanor of illegal gambling, punishable by a maximum fine of $500. The minimum buy-in for the game was $20,000, with re-buys allowed if you lost your first twenty grand.

This was not your everyday cash game with the neighbors. The buy-in was twice what it costs to enter the World Series of Poker’s main event in Las Vegas (though the Great Falls players did not have to pay the whole $20,000 up front). Two established poker pros were at the Great Falls table and another was hosting the game, taking a roughly 1.5 percent cut from the buy-ins to pay for two dealers and two assistants to make coffee runs or give massages to the players. “Taking a cut” is what elevates a poker game, in the minds of the Fairfax police, into a criminal enterprise. But the host has not been charged and the search warrant used to raid the house remains sealed. The host declined to comment. Read More...

My favorite quote in the Washington Post article comes from Fairfax police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell, who said, “With these large amounts of cash involved, the risks are high. We’ve worked cases where there have been armed robberies.”

Yeah, like the one just committed by the fucking government? All is not lost however, while the strong arm of the government frowns on the violent thug who hosted the game taking a cut of the action, the State only seized 40% of the money and let the players keep the rest.

This is of course about 1000X the size of the average buy-in that I’ve played in basement poker games with friends, but this is fucking ridiculous none-the-less. The only crime that was perpetrated was the government sticking the hands where they don’t fucking belong.

In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with law enforcement in a case arising from a police officer’s misunderstanding of the law. In their decision in the case of Heien v. North Carolina, the Supreme court held that a person’s 4th amendment right against an unreasonable search are not necessarily violated even if the arresting office is unaware of the law.

In an 8-1 decision, writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that “Because the officer’s mistake about the brake-light law was reasonable,” no 4th amendment rights were violated.

In 2009 Nicholas Heien was driving with a broken taillight in North Carolina when he was pulled over by police for a single broken brake light. At the time of the incident and arrest the police had mistakenly believed that state law required vehicles to have two working taillights — which was not in fact the case.

Upon receiving consent to search the vehicle, police found cocaine and charged Heien with drug trafficking. At trial, Heien’s lawyer tried to suppress the evidence arising out of the search by arguing that the officer never had the reasonable suspicion needed to the defendant over, because having one broken taillight was not illegal.

The trial court ruled against him, but later on the appellate court found that Heien’s 4th Amendment rights were violated and reversed the decision. Later, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the decision again, holding that an officer’s understanding of the state’s taillight requirements could form the basis for reasonable suspicion because that understanding, while incorrect, was reasonable

Which led to the case being heard in the US Supreme Court. Writing for the majority, Cheif Justice Roberts claimed, “Because the officer’s mistake about the brake-light law was reasonable, the stop in this case was lawful under the Fourth Amendment.”

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayer criticized her colleagues for granting so much leeway to police. She wrote:

To my mind, the more administrable approach—and the one more consistent with our precedents and principles— would be to hold that an officer’s mistake of law, no matter how reasonable, cannot support the individualized suspicion necessary to justify a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

I can’t believe I am agreeing with Sonia Sotomayor, but she is exactly right. This rulingf by her colleagues on the Supreme Court, opens up citizens to the possibility of searches based on all kinds of lawful conduct, as long as the police office making the search has a “reasonable” misunderstanding of the law.

Basically to avoid being searched by the police, citizens will not only have to avoid appearing to be participating in an illegal activity, but avoid appearing to be involved in a legal activity that a police office may possible misconstrue as criminal.

So now, “ignorance of the law” is still no excuse for citizens facing a conviction, but it is now perfectly acceptable for law enforcement to be ignorant of the same laws they are supposed to be enforcing.

Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, believes that the NSA should have unlimited access to digital data.

Privacy? It’s not really that important, according to one Federal Judge, Richard Posner, who currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Last week, during a conference in Washington, D.C., about cybercrime, Posner stated that he believed that privacy is “overvalued.” “Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” he said.

Via PC World:

Congress should limit the NSA’s use of the data it collects—for example, not giving information about minor crimes to law enforcement agencies—but it shouldn’t limit what information the NSA sweeps up and searches, Posner said. “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine,” he said.

In the name of national security, U.S. lawmakers should give the NSA “carte blanche,” Posner added. “Privacy interests should really have very little weight when you’re talking about national security,” he said. “The world is in an extremely turbulent state—very dangerous.”

Posner criticized mobile OS companies for enabling end-to-end encryption in their newest software. “I’m shocked at the thought that a company would be permitted to manufacture an electronic product that the government would not be able to search,” he said

…

Posner questioned why smartphone users need legal protections, saying he doesn’t understand what information on smartphones should be shielded from government searches. “If someone drained my cell phone, they would find a picture of my cat, some phone numbers, some email addresses, some email text,” he said. “What’s the big deal? Read More…

So, basically according to Posner, as long as its in the interest of ‘National Security’ the State has the power to do pretty much whatever it damn well pleases to you. If you don’t think those thoughts coming from a sitting Federal Judge are not downright terrifying, there is something seriously wrong with you.

This is what America has come to, the use of quotation marks is perfect.