Gun Control and El Salvador

 

Tucker Carlson tonight aired an interview with the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.  Bukele fretted over the fact that it was the bold, the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs, the economic drivers that were fleeing El Salvador and making a hazardous trip north to the United States.  The incentives the United States offers to new immigrants are draining the lifeblood out of his country.

As I watched him describe how murders in his country have been reduced by 75% in recent years, I wondered what 'gun control' looked like there.  This is what WikiPedia has to say on that topic:

Salvador law aims to allow and regulate civilian possession of firearms.  In order to get a firearm license one must have no criminal record, be at least 21 years of age (24 for a carry license), pay a tax stamp (around $32 dollars) and undergo a written test.  The process takes around three hours in total.  In 2017 there were 344,587 registered firearms in El Salvador, or 5.6 per 100 people (1 in 18).

All things considered, that's pretty easy-going for a Central American country, and that may be related to the sudden drop in murder.  An armed society, after all, is a polite society.

What does that say about Salvadorans who flee the poor economic climate at home for the United States?  People like David Codrea worry that Central American immigrants are going to be heavily Democratic in their politics.  This says something different: Salvadorans are going to expect to be able to arm themselves in this country, and I suspect they will not be closely attuned to Democrats' traditional stance on guns and gun ownership.  I suspect they're going to be joining the NRA or GOA and thumbing their collective noses at Democrats' efforts to disarm the American people — of which they hope to soon be part of.

Such a population merged with others from the same or similar cultures constitute a contractable virus.  Salvadorans are going to infect their compadres with the desire to be free (at last) from the fears that drove them north.  They're going to want to be free — freer — than they were back home.  They're going to want their own guns.  They're not going to be Democrats, at least when it comes to 'gun control'.  On that issue, they're going to be Americans.

 

On The Epilogue of "Tipping Point"

 

Several people have remarked to me regarding the ending of "Tipping Point" that they didn't understand what happened (or what was happening) in the Epilogue, chapter 28, specifically with reference to the interactions between Lulu Pleasance and Bobbie Farquhar and between Florence Persky and Steven Miller.  This is as I intended.  You have to write your own ending for this tale.  That's not simply 'fair', it's necessary — for no one can predict the outcome of a civil war in all its ramifications.

As of that point in the story, the U.S. Constitution has been amended to make clear that secession is within the powers of the states, and several states have taken advantage of that power to separate themselves from what was once the United States of America.  Deliberately left unsaid is whether or not any of the naturally expected changes (the contraction of the federal government chief among them) have acted to draw any of those states back into the "united States" (as the Declaration of Independence itself identifies them), or whether or not there now exists two (or more) independent polities within that territory.  What do you think?  That is the most important question left unanswered as Tipping Point closes:  how do you think this has all worked out — if it has worked out.

What is the significance of the crossbow pins and emblems?  Have the erstwhile "freedom fighters" been able to come out into the open or are those pins the equivalent of "a secret handshake" among people whose involvement can only be known among others in the same situation?  What do you think?

Those pins are all of a single design it seems, yet are differentiated by small, perhaps barely noticeable decorations.  What's the significance of a diamond chip as opposed to an amethyst chip?  Those who can read the language of flags may sometimes be able to say something on the order of "that cruiser is Brazilian and is commanded by a Rear Admiral; the crew is on shore leave, and there's no smoking allowed just now because they're transferring ammunition".  The decorations on the pins are of such a nature, but to catalog the meaning of each is not relevant to the story.  If you really need an explanation, you could just as easily make one up yourself.

Some have scoffed at the notion that states ought to be able to secede at will, yet the 10th amendment seems to leave such powers with the states, and the notion of secession vs. permanence of the union is nowhere else addressed; the 10th amendment would seem to be the controlling law.  Viewed from a strictly rational vantage, one has to wonder what benefit is gained by forcing some region or people to remain united after changes to their worldview have separated them (philosophically) from their former neighbors.  If we are to treat each other as comrades, does that not require us to wish each other the best of futures?  And, if our neighbor thinks their best future is attained by independence, should we not wish them well and let them go?

As well, to think that such questions can be adequately answered by civil war has proven to be wishful thinking of the highest order.  The first U.S. Civil (sic) War is still being fought — it did not end at Appomattox; only the shooting and the killing ended there.  Would any sane person suggest that we could finally get a definitive answer by doing it all again, but this time bigger and better?  I don't believe that, and I hope no one else does, either.

"But, wait..."  I hear someone say,  "that implies that regions could secede from nations, counties secede from states, neighborhoods secede from cities, and neighbors secede from neighborhoods!  That's madness!"

That is, in fact, what such an attitude implies.  It's the ultimate "freedom of association" that we are free to associate or to disassociate down to the individual person.  That is, after all, what marriage and divorce are, is it not?  We call it 'independence' as if it is something different when practiced by nations, but it is precisely the same thing.  Why can we not go to court and get a decree separating ourselves?  Why, in fact, might we need a court?  The answer is that, in a rational society, political dissociation ought to be as simple as "I'm done here!"  Imagine how much bloodshed might have been prevented over the eons by simply understanding that keeping a polity — or a person — captive harms both sides?

Forced unity is, in fact, a way to maintain one’s power — nothing more.  The king, the duke, the earl always has the wherewithal to force the peasants to stay where they are.  There’s no need to negotiate when armed soldiers are ready to enforce the will of those at the top of the food chain, yet... if the duke can get the peasants to do the work voluntarily — because they see it as a win-win situation — the duke no longer needs to maintain so large an army and so needs less revenue, making the peasants better off.  ‘Coercion’ always has a cost associated even if we can’t see it.  So it is with nations.  So it is with all of us. 

Some have specifically asked about 'Steven Miller', the man who rents a car from Hertz rental agent Florence Persky in the very last paragraph of Chapter 28, and as in several other cases, I have declined to further identify him.

Like the character 'V' from "V For Vendetta", Steven Miller is 'Everyman'.  He is you and me and your cousin Bob and the neighbor you don't particularly like.  In the grand scheme of things, he is nobody, and therefore he is everybody, and he made the events of "Tipping Point" possible.

 

 

Corporate Charters

 

Here's a question you may have never before considered:  How does a corporation come into being?  Here's how:

A corporation comes into being because a group of investors, having decided to incorporate, asks a State for a (corporate) charter.  When the State issues that charter, the corporation springs into existence.  The corporation is a creature of the State that issued the charter.

People (and courts) sometimes treat corporations as if they were persons; they are considered 'artificial persons', 'artificial' meaning 'created'.  Because of this, they are often considered to have all the powers and rights of real persons, but this is not logically defensible.  A real person is the biological output of other real persons and can participate in producing other real persons, all without the intervention of the State.  None of that is true for artificial persons like corporations.  Corporations cannot create other corporations without the approval of the State;  they are, in this respect, sterile like mules.

Because a corporation is a creature of the State, it has only the attributes acquired by heredity from its parent.  That is, it can have only those powers that were endowed to the State by the State's creators, viz.: the people of the State.  Conversely, any powers that were withheld from the State by the people cannot have been passed on to the corporation.

A wide variety of powers were withheld from the States and from the federal government that, via Congress, creates new states.  Most of us are familiar with the Bill of Rights — which probably should have been called 'The Bill of Prohibitions' since it mostly lists things the federal government (and, by extension, States) are forbidden to do;  things like:  interfere with the free expression of peoples' opinions,  discriminate among customers based on their exercise of rights retained by real people,  &c.

So, if a State is forbidden to discriminate among its customers (i.e.: citizens), how can a corporation, a creature of that State, have such a power?  If a State is forbidden to block the free exercise of expression by its citizens, how can a corporation, a creature of that State, have such a power?  The answer is that a corporation cannot and does not have any such power.  Doing such acts is a violation of the corporate charter.  The proper remedy for a corporation that violates its charter is for the State to withdraw the charter, killing the corporation.

Adios, FaceBook, Inc.

Adios, Twitter, Inc.

Adios, MasterCard, Inc.

There are plenty of others waiting to feast on your carcasses.  There are lots of companies anxious to take up any slack your absence creates.  You will not be missed.

 

 

Timing Is Everything

 

There's a fresh new piece of anti-gun legislation being groomed for its prime-time appearance before a largely Democratic Congress.  It's called H.R.127 and it has all the elements of a gun-grabber's wet dream:

• universal background checks,
   
• psych evaluations on entire households,
   
• a ban on vast categories of heretofore-otherwise-lawful weapons,
   
• HUGE taxes and fees required for mere possession of what's left,
   
• mandatory periodic training,
   
• a publicly-accessible database of all gun owners (and their inventory?),
   
• and increases in the budget, authority, and power of the most corrupt of all corrupt federal bureaus and agencies, the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Totally unconstitutional, of course, but when has that ever stopped Congress?  Why is it unconstitutional, you ask?  Stop me if I get any of this wrong...

Rule #1 of 'jurisprudence' world-wide is that later law trumps earlier law.  A law passed today can be repealed by a law passed tomorrow.  That's so straight-forward it almost doesn't rate putting it down on paper.  Then

1. The fundamental axiom of the American System is that 'rights' are an endowment from God or Nature or some other metaphysical entity that is outside of and above government and, in fact, pre-exists government.
    
2. Governments do not have rights;  they have powers and authorities granted to them by we the people, from whom all such power originates ('the consent of the governed').
    
3. The vehicle for granting such powers and authorities is The U.S.Constitution.  The Constitution was ratified and came into force in 1789.
    
4. The Second Amendment, concerning the right of the people to keep and bear arms, was ratified in 1791, two years after the Constitution.
    
5. In 1934, and then again in 1968, Congress passed gun control laws, justifying them as part of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.
    
6. Both of these acts should be considered unconstitutional because the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted in Article I of the Constitution in 1789.  If those powers ever included authority over firearms and other weapons, that authority was revoked in 1791 with the passage of the Second Amendment.  Timing is everything when it comes to 'constitutionality'.
    
7. That 'fresh new piece of anti-gun legislation' being prepped in the House suffers from the same disability.

But the worst part of H.R.127 isn't that it's unconstitutional.  The worst part is that it will be impossible to comply with.  The monstrous cost of attempting to comply will price most poor or minority families out of the market or, alternatively, send millions of them to prison.  Clearly, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) either hasn't given this much thought or simply doesn't care that she has codified a brand new poll tax on many of her constituents.

The former marks her as more stupid than Maxine Watters;  the latter as more cruel than Bull Connor.

Keep up the evil work, Sheila.

 

Executive Orders

 

There's a lot of chatter on social media about how many EOs Biden is producing, so I thought this might be an opportune time to talk about Executive Orders and their effect.

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
      — U.S.Constitution, Article I, Section 1

Pretty plainly, laws come from Congress.  How to explain, then, the off-handed remark by Paul Begala, an aide to President Clinton:

"Stroke of the pen.  Law of the land.  Kinda cool."

on how Clinton was going to use EOs to make happen what he wanted to happen.  The explanation is that Begala got it wrong, although most Americans, being not-too-well-versed in their own Constitution, probably didn't realize it.

Executive Orders cannot be law, because they don't come from Congress.  Okay, so what are they?  They are instructions to employees of the Executive Branch from the Chief Executive, their ultimate boss.  They tell those employees in the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Treasury, the State Department, and all the other less-well-known departments and bureaus how they are to operate.

They can't tell you what to do or not do, because then they would have the force of law, and the President can't make law.  Only Congress can make law.  That's what it says in Article 1, Section 1.

The fly in this ointment is that the way employees of the Executive Branch operate on a day-to-day basis often affects citizens who are not themselves employees of the Executive Branch in ways that are indistinguishable from laws that Congress passes.  When the guards at the Capitol are told to "admit no one who is not wearing a mask", the effect is that you must wear a mask in order to get in to see your Congressman — without Congress having acted.  That's why EOs sometimes feel like "the law of the land" even though they're not.

Occasionally, a President will issue an EO that a President clearly has no authority to issue.  This happened when, for instance, President Obama (who was, let us recall, a 'Constitutional scholar') committed us to the Paris Climate Accord.

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.
      — U.S.Constitution, Article II, Section 2

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
      — U.S.Constitution, Article VI

but the Senate did not concur.  The 'treaty' was never presented to the Senate for their consent.  So, when President Trump issued an EO taking us out of the Paris Climate Accord, he was undoing something his predecessor had no authority to do in the first place.  President Biden just (illegally) put us back in, reversing Trump's (legal) EO.

It will be interesting to see if anyone objects to any of Biden's EOs on the grounds that some of them do attempt to make law without involving Congress.  I'll actually be surprised if that happens.

 

 

Cleaning house in the Senate

 

The House of Representatives has impeached former President Trump for a second time.  With much fanfare, the (Democrat) House Impeachment Managers then solemnly marched across to the Senate and delivered the Articles of Impeachment to their (Democrat) majority leader.  Yesterday, Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced a resolution declaring the proceeding moot because Trump has already left office.  The vote failed 55-45 with five Republican Senators voting to continue to trial:  Susan M. Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.).

It's true that someone who has already left office may be impeached, and if convicted, can be barred from holding public office in the future.  This is the purpose of impeaching Trump again: to prevent him challenging President Kamala Harris in 2024 when she runs for re-election.

I'm not a fan of Trump.  I think he's boorish and (quite frankly) stupid.  People hold that he's a 'street fighter from Queens', but the last four years haven't shown that.  Boorishness, yes; street savvy, no.  If he were as smart as people think he is, his first official act should have been to fire anyone in DOJ, FBI, CIA, or NSA who was even suspected of being less than 100% on his side.  That's what 'draining the swamp' looks like.  He didn't do that, and there can be only two reasons:  one, he really wasn't serious about draining the swamp, or two, he really isn't that smart.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

But there's something else going on here.  In case after case, Republicans drop the ball on this hot-button issue or that one.  They seem always one step behind their Democrat foes.  That's why issues like gun control seem to always get worse: the Democrats make it worse, but the Republicans never make it better.  If the GOP is to survive this, it has to change its thinking in a radical, fundamental way.  They have to adopt 'no prisoners' as their modus operandi, and they have the perfect opportunity to do that right now.  I mean 'today'.

The RNC must pull those five Senators aside and tell them in no uncertain terms that their defection on this issue has consequences, specifically, that they are ejected from the party, that they may no longer present themselves to their state party officials as 'Republicans'.  The RNC should start with Romney, Collins, and Murkowski who typically vote with the Democrats anyway.  If they're going to vote like Democrats, let them run like Democrats.

Now, I am not a member of the Republican Party, and I don't expect them to pay attention to my opinions, but there are plenty of Republicans out there who see the GOP's record of failure and wonder why those wily Dems seem always to be ahead of the game.  Their party will listen to them and, if their voice is heard, it may not be necessary to burn the GOP to the ground, My-Lai-fashion, in order to save it.  Better to lose a few incumbents now than the whole shebang in 2022.

 

 

On Abortion

 

Received in email today from The Babylon Bee an appeal from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to sign a petition in favor of the "Life at Conception Act" (LACA) that would define 'personhood' as beginning at conception.  Should such an act ever be passed, abortion would be summarily reclassified as 'murder'.  A number of typical and ordinary medical procedures would likewise be summarily recategorized as 'murder'.

How odd that the pro-life movement waited until both houses of Congress and the Executive Mansion are all in the hands of Democrats to bring this issue forward.  They should have done this in 2017 when both houses of Congress and the Executive Mansion were in the hands of Republicans.  Perhaps they were anxious that, were such legislation to fail under perfect laboratory conditions, their entire movement might collapse.

It's not even theoretically possible that LACA might pass now, but this appeal does have the potential to raise money.  Beyond that, LACA would suddenly and, in the manner of unintended consequences, affirm the legitimacy of rape.  How so, you ask?

From a strictly non-denominational perspective, a strictly non-religious perspective, we Americans have a few axioms by which we maintain our society:

1. we assert as a foundational principle that all political power originates in the people.  What powers the government has it has because we the people granted those powers to the government.  There are powers we have not granted, and powers that we have previously granted that we may at some future time un-grant.

2. we have thus far as a society declined to define when life begins, although it seems quite certain that 'birth' is the latest point at which anyone may claim that life has not yet begun.  Conception, likewise, is the earliest point that life can be claimed to have started.

Let us assert, for the sake of argument to be refuted later if necessary, that when two persons (instances of 'we the people') behave in such a manner that it is fair to assume their intent was to create life (as by engaging in unprotected sex), then if pregnancy occurs they have created life.  It would be fair in such a case to assert that life exists from conception because of the ability of those persons — from whom all power originates — to create life.

We are forced to address a second scenario, one in which two persons engage in unprotected sex but do not intend to create life.  This is the situation in a rape, whether statutory or otherwise.  In statutory rape, society has already determined that one party cannot, by operation of law, have intended to create life and, therefore, life has not been created.  The fact that Nature disagrees with the legislature by enabling both parties to conceive is a side issue I am unable to address, but suffice it to say that LACA would severely warp the doctrine of 'statutory rape' by forcing a victim to carry the proceeds of a crime to term.

Relieving the victim of the burden of carrying an unwanted fetus to term is, by this act (LACA), unlawful.  It must therefore be true that rape has been elevated to, if not a completely lawful act, at least to the status of 'not entirely criminal'.

Now, if a person requests an abortion for an unintended pregnancy, the question only need to be asked: "Has life been created?"  For cases where one party was an unwilling participant (rape) there ought to be a criminal charge against the other party, thereby proving that both parties did not intend to create life.  If there is no criminal charge, this should be taken as prima facie evidence that both parties intended to create life, that life was therefore created, and an abortion cannot therefore be legally allowed.

Perhaps one or both parties used a contraceptive and one or both failed and a pregnancy ensued.  Given the nature of consensual sex, proving that contraception was used is problematic, and that's also an issue I can't adequately address.  If one can prove via a civil action that there was not consent to create life, the fact that consent was absent should be enough to disprove life and thus an abortion would be permitted.

Any abortion should be accompanied by a criminal charge or a civil action for damages.