WHAT IF THE HIJACKERS HAD BEEN STOPPED?"

Josey1

"News Nuggets" is Copyright c 2001 By Ray Thomas WHAT IF THE HIJACKERS HAD BEEN STOPPED?"The post-attack politicking, and the attempt to use the crisis to impose the national security state at home and expand the military empire abroad, has obscured a simple point: it all started with a multiple hijacking. This was made possible not with grenades or heavy explosives but with box cutters -- the most dangerous weapon on board the hijacked planes. If the hijackers had been stopped or even deterred, the twin towers would still be standing, and there would be no war." It seems to me to be really stupid to not only disarm all persons on an aircraft, but to announce that it has been done. That's like hanging a sign on the aircraft saying: "No guns here, hijack us with your bare hands if you can." If there were five or six hijackers who are experts at unarmed combat, they might have been able to take over an aircraft with no weapons at all while the crew had to stand by and watch, not being armed and able to defend their aircraft. I repeat: if a single person on any of those aircraft had been armed and able to attack the hijackers, more than 5,000 people might now be alive. Disarming the victims will never stop violence. (Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 9/27/2001) [100201-1] I'M NOT A GUN NUT, BUT: "I am not a 'gun nut,' BUT.....KUDOS and CONGRATULATIONS to John Burnett's Rules of Engagement. " this "Feedback" to Sierra Times from C. A. begins this way, but why? Whatever made C. A. think anybody at Sierra Times would think he/she was a "gun nut" because he/she was advocating carrying guns? It's a testament to the efficacy of anti-self defense propaganda that even people who believe in the right of American citizens to defend themselves and to own the means of doing so would find it necessary to begin a letter to a publication such as Sierra Times with "I'm not a gun nut, but....." One of the things the power seekers love is to hear people from "the other side" accepting and using their words in arguing that they are not what the label applied to them says they are. They know that when their opponents argue against the label, they have no time to argue against the whole point of the argument. That's the way they like it. Since they have no real answers when someone asks them a pertinent question such as: "What makes you think a criminal, who breaks laws for a living, is going to obey a gun law?" they can now deflect the argument. Their opponent now forgets the original question while he/she is defending against the spurious label that has been applied to him/her. Don't fall for it, folks. (Source: Sierra Times Mailbag, 9/28/2001) [100201-2] LET US DEFEND OURSELVES! Damn these bureaucrats who deny American citizens the right to defend themselves! America is under attack by a bunch of fanatical jerks whose own life at home is just above cave-man level and who brag that if we attack their country they'll just "drive us out like they did Russia," forgetting entirely that without the help of the people they are now threatening, they'd have been annihilated. Liberals in government have two rules when faced by something like this: more government power and fewer citizen rights. They don't really care if we get killed in large numbers so long as they get to increase their power. They'll do anything, say anything to accomplish that. So J. J. Johnson shouldn't be surprised that they're out there "beating the drums" about there being a great possibility of further violence so we should give them more power over our lives. It is possible for there to be more violence. Terrorists don't just do it once and forget it. Especially not after the stunning success showed here. But giving more power to the politicians and bureaucrats is not going to help. All it is going to do is make Osama bin Laden's fondest dreams come true: to cause this country to become a "police state" in response to his actions. Japan didn't want to "make a beachhead" on our shores because they were afraid of the fact that so many of our citizens were armed. But Osma bin Laden and his murderous thugs will have no such fear if we put our defense into the hands of politicians and bureaucrats and retain no tools for that defense for ourselves. We can't leave our self defense in the hands of the government unless we want to give the casket industry more of a boost than it already has had in New York and Washington. (Source: State Sponsored Fear Mongering, 10/1/2001) [100201-3] WHO IS RIGHT? The Founders made a big mistake when they added the wordage about a "militia" to the Second Amendment of the Constitution because those words have created a controversy that continues to this day with the bureaucrats and politicians who fear an armed populace using that part of the Amendment to deny that Americans have the right to keep and bear arms in their own defense, even if that defense is against our own government. The last Clinton Solicitor General claimed that the Constitution does not give citizens the right to bear arms. The current one, as well as the current Attorney General disagrees, while reading the same words. The Governor of California also denies that right as do many other bureaucrats and politicians, all based on the same Amendment wording. Supreme Court justices have, in the past, (the not-so-distant past, I might add) said that we do have that right. But let's examine the surroundings to that Amendment: when it was made, they were an agrarian society where all males (and some females) went armed because there was constant danger of attack from animals and humans. Those who were unarmed were in constant danger from those animals and from humans. No other Amendment "gave" rights to Americans. They merely recognized that those rights existed and pledged not to infringe them. Not a single one of them "gave" a new right to Americans. So why should this one be any different? But to serve their own purposes, certain "government officials" and private agitators deny what is right in front of their faces: that we do have the right to defend ourselves and to own and carry the tools for that defense. They do what that Amendment pledged not to do: infringe on our right to self defense and to carry the means to that defense. We need to do something about that, such as get rid of those bureaucrats and politicians who wish to infringe on that right. A right which government did not "give" us, but which it recognized in the Constitution and pledged not to infringe upon. (Source: Keep and Bear Arms Petition) [100201-4] CHILD KIDNAPPED TWICE: Maria Valdez had a boyfriend. She left her 3-year-old little girl, Carina Sandoval Valdez, in his care and he ran off with her. Since the news media made no reference to sexual abuse of this child, we don't know why. The boyfriend, Floyd Ray Lee, took the child from Denver and went to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where a motel manager saw his picture on television and "ratted him out" to police, who came and got him. So was this a happy ending? Was there a "tearful reunion" between mother and child? Maybe. But if so it was a short one, since after being found, the child was kidnapped again, this time by the child protectors. What twisted reasoning they used to support that I don't know and can't fathom. They say it's "only until the investigation into the case is complete." But those of us who monitor the doings of the child protectors know that this mother may never see her child again except for "controlled visits" until her parental rights are terminated (probably for the horrible crime of leaving her in the custody of a kidnapper) and the child is put up for adoption (and the child protectors will have "earned" $4,500 to $6,000 from the feds). (Source: Rocky Mountain News, 9/28/2001) [100201-5] RAY'S SHORTS: These are very short items, but on important subjects:Not surprising: "Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted." (Naseer Ahmed Mujahed, chief military commander of bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, in a statement faxed to news organizations in Pakistan, 9/25/01) The Enemy Within: "I could care less if somebody reads my email, spies on my voice-mail or cell phone calls. First of all, I don't have anything to hide - and if it takes this to help keep our country safe, so be it." (Bill Scott, letter-to-the-editor, Las Vegas Review Journal, 9/26/01) Stupid, stupid! "With regard to the proposals of the Attorney General, whatever can be passed can be reversed. If he goes too far, we can back up." (GOP News & Views reader, 9/26/01 [Editor's Note: Isn't that the same thing they said about the income tax? Government 101, folks: It's FAR easier to pass a law than repeal one once it's on the books.) Peeing section? Allowing these 'temporary' infringements (which always become permanent) on our freedoms in the name of freedom makes as much sense as a smoking section in a one room restaurant or a peeing section in a swimming pool. In a very short time the whole thing stinks. (GOP News &Views reader Denny Andrews) A Tale of Two Billionaires: "Two men, both billionaires. One develops relatively cheap software and gives hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism. That being the case, why is it that the US government has spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past ten years than Osama bin Laden?" I don't think anybody is going to even attempt to answer that question. (GOP News & Views reader William Conklin) [100201-6] http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/oct/02/nuggets.htm