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From  Soldier Systems:

Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

On this day, some 241 years ago, John Parker, Captain of Militia, uttered those instructions to his men as they stood on Lexington Green, ready, if need be, to engage 500 British troops set to sieze the militia’s arsenal.

What may have begun as a show of force on the side of the militia soon became an active firefight as the British advance guard met a percieved provocation with demands to disperse. The fog of war set in and a firefight soon broke out. The Colonist militia quickly gained the upper hand and drove a British force, which over the course of the day had grown to 1700, all the way back to Charlestown and beyond. This action would ultimately become the siege of Boston, happened over a year before the Declaration of Independence.

Whether they intended to or not, the concept of Liberty became cause as those men stood their ground.

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And I’m betting that most of the young’uns that saunter over here have little idea of what and how big Boston was back in the day.  In fact, my favorite band (and then followed ELP) when hanging out in the dorm (in the city of Boston).  Big, BIG deal.  But now, they’ve jumped onto the “Let’s let men parts folks brazenly be able to go into the lady parts room – to heck with privacy of the vast majority (and for some, their security as well) bandwagon” simply to make 0.1% of the population feel better about themselves (re: North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act.) and cancelled their three shows in North Carolina.

Well, a number of their 40 year fan base (yes, I am getting to be that old) decided to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that their feelings for the band’s music was far out trumped by the band’s decision to trample traditional mores (after all, they’ve existed for a long time for good reasons).  But before I do, it is clear that this is nothing more than the hypocriticalness that many of these self-righteous “artistes” because while they want to make a statement about NC, they’re all about grabbing the Benjamins by performing where it is far worse :

Boston’s 40th Anniversary tour will conclude in October in Tokyo, Japan, where businesses, hospitals, landlords, and other entities are not legally bound to acknowledge same-sex marriages.

Ayuh – far WORSE than NC which is only saying “use the bathrooms that fit the equipment you have” (and not the parts you think you should have or don’t have). Oh, the fans (emphasis mine)?

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Again, we are absolutely amazed and disheartened that socialism has made such a return to American politics – it is the antithesis of what the Founders stood for.  I’ve gone over why I believe it has over and over again, so I’m not going to do it here.  Instead, we mentioned on last Saturday’s show (ok, I started it) that we’ve had some of our friends on GrokTALK! (and its predecessor, Meet The New Press) that grew up and lived under Communist rule – they are aghast at what is happening.  Before, it was the inch by inch model in slouching towards Socialism – and now with the Republicans joining in and Bernie and Hillary promising to enact policies that put Government in charge of everything, what the heck is the difference?

I had come across this and tried to mention it on the show – badly.  So here’s the part that caught my eye (reformatted, emphasis mine):

SOVIET IMMIGRANTS TO SANDERS SUPPORTERS: “HAVE YOU EVER LIVED UNDER A REVOLUTION?”

• Janna Sundeyeva still remembers life in the Soviet Union, where stores in remote regions would lack meat for months at a time and toilet paper had to be snatched up quickly on the rare occasions it appeared.

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Having just sent in my taxes today (actually did all the record gathering and computations last week), where does it go?

And that is about a $4 Trillion budget.  But what would it be IF our leaders had never strayed from sticking to the strictures of the Constitution.  Well, certainly the military (Pentagon) would be in the mix as well as veterans benefits – 31.3%.  Add in paying for the Government itself – 2.9% more (34.2%).  Interest on the national debt – ayup at 13.7% (47.9%).

Like I said, strictly Constitutional?  That would be about it (roughly figuring).  I’d even shave down a couple of those percentages – shucking off all those other things that should be handled at the State level, let’s take a full 0.8% off the cost of Government (47.1%).  Given, too, would be at least half of the national debt payment – I’d go 60% less (better people in the know might have a higher percentage).  So decrease that to 5.5% – a final total of 38.9%.

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President Obama’s executive amnesty represents a “threat” to America’s very system of government, according to House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).  “The Constitution is clear: Presidents don’t write laws, Congress does,” Ryan said Monday ahead of oral arguments before the Supreme Court in United States v. Texas. “Presidents may disagree with the laws, but they are not free to ignore those laws and have unelected bureaucrats write new ones.”  “This is a threat to self-government itself,” Ryan added.

 

…“The Executive may disagree with the laws Congress enacts and may try to persuade Congress to change them. But neither any immigration law now on the books nor the Constitution empowers the Executive to authorize—let alone facilitate—the prospective violation of those laws on a massive class-wide scale,” the brief reads in part. “We have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution, and today at the Supreme Court, we will do just that,” Ryan added.

Hmmm.  true, all true.  In fact, very true – it’s all in black and white in the Constitution.  But why did you go to the bother of going to the Supreme Court?  So let me ask you this, Speaker Ryan, as you have a much better, much more powerful tool at hand – one you can do all by your lonesome:

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And I thought Socialists were against the Right to Private Property?  Seems like someone wants to defend Bernie’s Intellectual Property (a very important part of Private Property)?  From Overlawyered we see some lawyers haven’t figured out that the Internet has a vote in all this.  IMHO, this should be a flat out free speech issue, especially if in the political arena:

Daniel McCall of Liberty Maniacs has put out a parody image in which the likeness of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is lined up as the latest in a row of figures such as Marx, Lenin, and Mao.

And this is supposed to be surprising? Just LISTEN to the man and the role he wants Government in taking over ruling your life making major decisions for you AND taking most of your money in taxes for the privilege of doing so.  What policy has he enumerated DOESN’T fit in with Marx, Lenin, and Mao?  You go to the Kremlin for your honeymoon and not expect to be called “comrade”?  Stand up for avowed socialists in South America (e.g., the Sandinistas)? Hold up Cuba and Venezuela as models?  Well, he’s already set the stage.  And then a lawyer got upset at this satire and invoked the Streisand Effect:

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Here’s something that I read on the show today as we were talking about laws being passed to keep those with men parts out of bathrooms frequented by those with lady parts (even if the former are delusional about not having such) in the context of Steve’s great post here.  From This Ain’t Hell (a mil-blog I frequent) this is from Poetrooper with a great question:

Here’s my conundrum: if it is immoral, even criminal or civilly liable for these mom-and-pop Christian businesses to deny services based on their fundamental beliefs, why is it not also immoral or legally actionable for large corporations to refuse their services to the citizens of those states where those who govern choose to pass legislation to protect the religious freedoms of their citizenry?

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It may not be long before machetes are banned in New York.  The Empire State’s Senate passed a bill, S.3199A, by a 54-5 vote margin Tuesday classifying a machete as a “deadly weapon,” making it a crime to possess one with the penalty of up to one year in prison.

Ayup.  Having already made a large percentage of their citizens into felons by passing the gun-hating SAFE Act (which hasn’t done what the gun-haters wanted as there are a very large percentage of gun owners subject to that law that have decided that being in a state of Irish Democracy is just fine with them), the Progressive who want ONLY The State to have the tools of Force are at it again.

Many of the legislation’s co-sponsors have long advocated the criminalization of machetes, and it will now head to the state Assembly, where the fate of the bill will be decided.   “Despite the obvious serious injury that can be caused by the use of a machete,” state Sen. Tony Avella (D) wrote in a memo, “such weapons have not been included in the penal law’s definition of ‘deadly weapon.’”

Well, of COURSE he’s a

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“We are going to disrupt business as usual until our demands are reached,”

Sorry, been a bit distracted – shoulda kept up on NH Rebellion’s participation in the Democracy Spring march (here, here, and here) and “get arrested-fest”.  Sure, they were all about forcing Congress to bend to their will on getting money out of politics (that isn’t going to happen given the stakes of power over others and reaping some of the trillions spent by the Fed Govt), corruption, and other Progressive nostrums.  So, how many of the NH Rebellion actually stood up to be sat down in the back of the paddy wagon(s)?  Emphasis mine, reformatted:

Local man among many arrested in Capitol demonstration against ‘big money’ in politics

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From the Concord Monitor from a little bit ago (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Will hospitals voluntarily pay $40M to keep expanded Medicaid going?

Newly approved plan relies on voluntary contributions from hospitals, insurance carriers.  New Hampshire’s newly reauthorized Medicaid expansion is riding on a hope that hospitals and insurance carriers will voluntarily help foot the bill, or else it’s doomed.  Legislation Gov. Maggie Hassan signed into law Tuesday, which continues the expansion for two more years, relies on those organizations to voluntarily donate an estimated $40 million to the state to help fund the program’s operation.

Really?  Are both Parties that insane to think that a major program is at the whim of a group of large corporations (face it, most hospitals are the biggest businesses in their regions) thinking “should we or should we not”?  Or what’s really going on under a quid quo pro?  Who really benefits?

(shush….it is never we taxpayers, btw)

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I have written about Dr. Brooks and his surprising research (to him, anyways, when he went to prove that Liberals “care” more and found out he was very wrong (here, here, and here).  Here is some updated research showing, indeed, that people of faith are happier with their extended families, more likely to volunteer…

…and just plain happy when compared to less religious people.  Strange that, for all that our secular society claims that one of the highest values is to be happy, it’s the folks they berate that are (dare I say, heh!) happier-than-thou.

and the other component that Dr. Brook’s research still held up:

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