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No Retreat, No Surrender
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/30/florida.shooting.law/index.html
How can they charge this man with her death? How do they know it wasn't her idea to steal the truck? HER actions caused her death when she WILLINGLY got into the truck they were stealing imho
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Authorities do not plan to file charges against a Florida orange grove owner who fatally shot a 21-year-old woman, saying he is protected under the state's controversial "no retreat" law.
Bullet holes pocked the windshield of the crashed SUV, and blood stained he passenger seat.
1 of 3 But the woman's boyfriend faces second-degree murder charges in her death, because the woman was shot to death during an alleged felony -- the theft of an SUV.
Tony Curtis Phillips, 29, didn't fire a single shot. He didn't even know his girlfriend, Nikki McCormick, was dead until police showed him an online news story.
Police said McCormick accompanied Phillips as he attempted to steal the SUV from a barn in an orange grove near Wahneta, Florida, before daylight Tuesday.
Grove owner Ladon "Jamie" Jones opened fire as the SUV approached him, according to an affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff's Office. Phillips fled; McCormick was shot in the head and later died.
Authorities said Jones is protected by Florida's "no retreat" law, which gives him the right to use lethal force if he reasonably believes his life is in danger. Phillips, however, faces charges because police allege he was committing felony grand theft auto at the time of McCormick's death.
"Because his conduct caused her death, he gets charged with a felony," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
Phillips was arrested late Tuesday in Polk County, near Lakeland, after a day on the run. Police said he didn't believe McCormick was dead at first, telling officers, "Of all the times you've questioned me, this is a nasty trick you're playing on me this time." He agreed to cooperate if detectives could prove she was dead.
Judd said detectives called up the shooting story on the local newspaper's Web site and "let him read it online, and that's when he broke down and cried, and gave us a confession," Judd said.
According to the affidavit, Jones heard his Toyota Land Cruiser, parked in the barn at his orange grove, start up before daylight Tuesday. Jones told police he grabbed his gun, a 9mm that he keeps with him while working at the grove. He said he could see two people in the SUV as it backed out of the barn, according to the affidavit. He said he saw the passenger's arm reach outside the vehicle, and believed that person might be holding a gun.
The Land Cruiser stopped directly in front of him, Jones said in the affidavit. He said he raised his gun and pointed it at the occupants, shouting "Stop," but the vehicle appeared to be moving directly toward him.
"Fearing for his life, he then fired what he thought to be six to eight rounds into the front windshield of the vehicle," the affidavit stated.
The vehicle backed up at high speed, crashed through a fence and ended up in a ditch. Jones told police a man jumped out of the SUV and ran away.
Sheriff's deputies found McCormick inside the vehicle with a bullet wound to her head. She was taken to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where she died.
Jones did not return a call from CNN seeking comment.
Authorities will forward their information to prosecutors, Judd said, but are "not going to file any charges [against Jones] at this point, because we don't see any reason to arrest Mr. Jones," Judd said. "... It appears, at this point in the investigation, Mr. Jones was completely, legally justified in his actions."
A Polk County judge on Thursday ordered Phillips held without bond. A public defender was appointed to his case.
Polk County Public Defender J. Marion Moorman declined to comment on the charges to CNN. "We will, of course, be interviewing the client very soon, and will be undertaking his defense from there," he said.
Phillips told police he assumed McCormick had also gotten out of the vehicle and run away, according to the affidavit. He said he was sorry for what happened "and said he knew he was partially responsible for her death," the affidavit said.
Polk County State Attorney's Office spokesman Chip Thulberry said his office will review the case when the sheriff's investigation is completed.
The Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence says Florida is one of 16 states that have enacted "no retreat" laws, which some call "shoot-first" laws. The laws extend the right to use deadly force beyond a person's home and into public places.
"The shoot-first law is not needed," said Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign. "This person, regardless of the situation, may have done the right thing, but he cannot be prosecuted for doing something wrong if he hit an innocent bystander," he said.
Other groups stand by the "no retreat" laws.
"At the moment a crime occurs, victims don't have the luxury of time," said Andrew Arulanandam of the National Rifle Association. "They have seconds to decide on a course of action to protect their lives and their families. This law provides law-abiding people with options."
How can they charge this man with her death? How do they know it wasn't her idea to steal the truck? HER actions caused her death when she WILLINGLY got into the truck they were stealing imho
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Authorities do not plan to file charges against a Florida orange grove owner who fatally shot a 21-year-old woman, saying he is protected under the state's controversial "no retreat" law.
Bullet holes pocked the windshield of the crashed SUV, and blood stained he passenger seat.
1 of 3 But the woman's boyfriend faces second-degree murder charges in her death, because the woman was shot to death during an alleged felony -- the theft of an SUV.
Tony Curtis Phillips, 29, didn't fire a single shot. He didn't even know his girlfriend, Nikki McCormick, was dead until police showed him an online news story.
Police said McCormick accompanied Phillips as he attempted to steal the SUV from a barn in an orange grove near Wahneta, Florida, before daylight Tuesday.
Grove owner Ladon "Jamie" Jones opened fire as the SUV approached him, according to an affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff's Office. Phillips fled; McCormick was shot in the head and later died.
Authorities said Jones is protected by Florida's "no retreat" law, which gives him the right to use lethal force if he reasonably believes his life is in danger. Phillips, however, faces charges because police allege he was committing felony grand theft auto at the time of McCormick's death.
"Because his conduct caused her death, he gets charged with a felony," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
Phillips was arrested late Tuesday in Polk County, near Lakeland, after a day on the run. Police said he didn't believe McCormick was dead at first, telling officers, "Of all the times you've questioned me, this is a nasty trick you're playing on me this time." He agreed to cooperate if detectives could prove she was dead.
Judd said detectives called up the shooting story on the local newspaper's Web site and "let him read it online, and that's when he broke down and cried, and gave us a confession," Judd said.
According to the affidavit, Jones heard his Toyota Land Cruiser, parked in the barn at his orange grove, start up before daylight Tuesday. Jones told police he grabbed his gun, a 9mm that he keeps with him while working at the grove. He said he could see two people in the SUV as it backed out of the barn, according to the affidavit. He said he saw the passenger's arm reach outside the vehicle, and believed that person might be holding a gun.
The Land Cruiser stopped directly in front of him, Jones said in the affidavit. He said he raised his gun and pointed it at the occupants, shouting "Stop," but the vehicle appeared to be moving directly toward him.
"Fearing for his life, he then fired what he thought to be six to eight rounds into the front windshield of the vehicle," the affidavit stated.
The vehicle backed up at high speed, crashed through a fence and ended up in a ditch. Jones told police a man jumped out of the SUV and ran away.
Sheriff's deputies found McCormick inside the vehicle with a bullet wound to her head. She was taken to Lakeland Regional Medical Center, where she died.
Jones did not return a call from CNN seeking comment.
Authorities will forward their information to prosecutors, Judd said, but are "not going to file any charges [against Jones] at this point, because we don't see any reason to arrest Mr. Jones," Judd said. "... It appears, at this point in the investigation, Mr. Jones was completely, legally justified in his actions."
A Polk County judge on Thursday ordered Phillips held without bond. A public defender was appointed to his case.
Polk County Public Defender J. Marion Moorman declined to comment on the charges to CNN. "We will, of course, be interviewing the client very soon, and will be undertaking his defense from there," he said.
Phillips told police he assumed McCormick had also gotten out of the vehicle and run away, according to the affidavit. He said he was sorry for what happened "and said he knew he was partially responsible for her death," the affidavit said.
Polk County State Attorney's Office spokesman Chip Thulberry said his office will review the case when the sheriff's investigation is completed.
The Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence says Florida is one of 16 states that have enacted "no retreat" laws, which some call "shoot-first" laws. The laws extend the right to use deadly force beyond a person's home and into public places.
"The shoot-first law is not needed," said Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign. "This person, regardless of the situation, may have done the right thing, but he cannot be prosecuted for doing something wrong if he hit an innocent bystander," he said.
Other groups stand by the "no retreat" laws.
"At the moment a crime occurs, victims don't have the luxury of time," said Andrew Arulanandam of the National Rifle Association. "They have seconds to decide on a course of action to protect their lives and their families. This law provides law-abiding people with options."
Comments
assuredly we shall all hang
separately."
-Ben Franklin, at the
signing of the Declaration
of Independence
To All,
Ben Franklin sure was a prescient old bird:
No Retreat, No Surrender:
Imagine for a moment what would have happened in the United States if, instead of active political involvement, firearms rights activists were to have retreated to the haven of Second Amendment legalism.
Instead of surviving the regulatory Stalingrad of the Clinton Years, firearms manufacturers would be shuttered, gunowners would have seen their most prized personal possessions consigned to the smelter and the scrap heap, and the Second Amendment would have been consigned to some darkened vault in the basement of the Smithsonian.
Fortunately, dedicated individuals took it into their own hands to not only preserve their rights and traditions, but engaged in a political and educational offensive on the "enemy's" home turf. The domestic threat to the Second Amendment was countered by a most active engagement on a broad front across the American political battlefield. The result was that from the various and sundry state legislatures, to the hallowed halls of Congress and, yes, even the White House itself, a message supporting the individual right to keep and bear arms was made loud and clear.
Not surprisingly, one theater of this political war remained an active threat, a haven for those whose interest lies in seeing a rejuvenated Brady Bunch or a well-endowed VPC. It should not surprise anyone that the elites from a host of foreign countries, especially those who do not prize individual rights so much as their own ability to dictate outcomes, are still engaged offensively. They remain, even to this day, interested in establishing a global political apparatus that would prefer to eventually make civilian firearms ownership untenable.
So, like President Bush in the War on Terrorism, firearms activists are faced with the same decision, as to either take the battle to the enemy's terrain, or to stand passively by and concede the benefits of maneuver, concentration of force, and timing to those who oppose that most fundamental of individual rights.
Fortunately, in recent years, a number of "confreres" were formed and were able to be effective allies to the NRA's global efforts. Groups like the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities were able to assist at halting the supposedly invincible advance of those in the UN and NGO community who advocated a firearms confiscation agenda that included such "estimable" ideas as heavy taxation, restriction of calibers, and even rationing (Sort of makes you wonder if the "furriners" and the Brady Bunch have been having long chats together). The combined victory at the various UN Small Arms conferences may seem slim or even "pyrrhic" to the uninitiated. But then, so did the Battle of the Coral Sea seem to some of an earlier generation.
Yet despite this, those like David Codrea, in an article in the September 2003 issue of "Guns and Ammo", would continue to council disengagement, retreat from the global battlefield, and a kind of pseudo-isolationism that fails to recognize that there are no protective oceans to hide behind in a world-wide battle of ideas. It is apparently more important for Codrea and his ilk to maintain an ideological purity of thought, rather than achieve any of the incremental positional successes that could best guarantee eventual victory. What is more, it is hard to imagine how an almost Islamist-like exclusionary world-view will enable the Codreas of the world to convert more than the occasional wandering "Aryan" to the paradise of a rapidly diminishing gunowner "reservation".
Fortunately others, including the NRA leadership, council that it is a better strategy to take the fight to the enemy on their own ground, with as many allies as can be found, and by using the "weapons" appropriate for each and every venue. For it is only by active engagement, education, and persuasion of each and every foreigner available to the merits of the armed, law-abiding citizen can there be any hope at all of a future with a meaningful Second Amendment. In essence, the firearms owner's best defense is what amounts to an eventual, though gradual, globalization of a constitutionally guaranteed right of the individual to keep and bear firearms.
Of course, in this case, the applicable venues include the conference hall, the court of public opinion, and even the U.N. General Assembly Floor. Rather than mortars and machine guns, the choice of weapons are the lawyer-lobbyist (armed with a phone tree list that could sink the QE II) and as many fraternal NGO's as can be had. For it is only by lobbying foreign politicians and the citizens of a majority of foreign lands that a case for the individual right to keep and bear arms can have any global success.
And it is only by having an eventual global success that Americans can help preserve the right to keep and bear arms here in the United States. Victory will deny the gun-control fedayeen the political, logistical, and financial support they will need to reinvigorate themselves and wage their low intensity conflict here in the U.S.
Victory will also mean a broader consensus on the real meaning of individual rights, enough so that even our domestic judiciary will not be tempted by the siren songs coming from the elite salons of European socialism.
Thus it is left to the firearms activist to compare and contrast the two world visions, that of the Codreas of the world versus that of one of the pre-eminent civil rights organizations in the country. One countenances retreat from the world stage and a shunning of civilized (though seemingly interminable) dialogue. The other advocates active engagement with, and the eventual defeat of, those in opposition the most basic means of self-determination and self-defense. If this were war, the choice could never be clearer.
But then again, it is politics-as-war, after all.
Story basis may be found at:
September 2003 Issue, Guns and Ammo,
at news-stands now;
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/in_the_field/world_forum_0519/
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:VKPrk2TcAncJ:www.unidir.ch/
pdf/articles/pdf-art13.pdf+world+forum+on+the+future+of+sport+
shooting+activities&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Hollywood Blacklist?:
In one of the more intriguing stories from this weekend, Linda Deutsch writes about the conviction of actor Tom Sizemore on several counts of domestic violence.
A jury convicted Sizemore of one count of physical abuse (sort of sounds like assault and battery, before Lautenberg changed the legal landscape), along with having made verbal threats. He faces perhaps as much as 4 years in a California prison (Up to 2 years if he eats the creamed corn and keeps the guards happy.).
Sizemore and his attorney did note that the jury acquitted him on additional charges of physical abuse, thus trying to position Sizemore as favorably as possible for an additional trial where he is charged with punching another woman in the face. In the first trial, the victim was none other than Heidi Fleiss, who had been released from jail after having served time for tax evasion.
But Sizemore's wish to ".put this behind me and do what I have always loved doing, making movies." may actually run into some interesting limitations.
After all, he may no longer be eligible to make movies where he is in the presence of firearms. The former star of "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan" now belongs to a prohibited class when it comes to firearms, and thus might find it harder to obtain work in the types of films he has been accustomed to getting.
Now, Hollywood Magic can extend to making props, which are not guns, look like guns. But Sizemore now belongs to a cadre of actors (Robert Downey Jr., possibly even Alec Baldwin) whose personal antics may have put standard action roles out of reach if real firearms are involved for the sake of "realism" or "plot".
Now, the real issue will be to see if Hollywood will fight this latest prohibition on actors' and actresses' ability in "getting work" in the same manner in which they differed on the original "Blacklist" or even the more recent tribulations over the war in Iraq. It would be heartening, to say the least, to see if Susan Sarandon or Martin Sheen will take up the cause of a revision to Senator Lautenberg's handiwork.
Just don't hold your breath.
Story may be found at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/news/archive/2003/08/15/state1952EDT0168.DTL
Respectfully,
Anthony Canales
SFVMC-NRA
c 2003 Anthony Canales
All rights reserved
http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/newsbriefs/030817.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
By Nicki Fellenzer
It's official. The members of the New York City Council have lost their collective minds.
The lawmakers in the gun control utopia where murder rates are sky-high, where the law abiding have to jump through flaming hoops on one leg just to be able to practice their right to keep and bear arms, and where the criminals are armed, while the innocent are helpless against them, have decided that draconian gun laws - some of the most rigid and inflexible in the country - are just not enough.
Apparently, according to a recent news report, the death of City Councilman James Davis has rekindled lawmakers' interest in yet more gun control.
Never mind that the city, which has arguably shredded the U.S. Constitution and replaced it with the tyranny of the bureaucracy, already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States.
Never mind that the process for applying for a license to practice a constitutional right - and a human one - is so daunting that it often costs hundreds of dollars, months of bureaucratic hassle, lots of grey hair and perhaps one's sanity.
Never mind that despite the ritual rigmarole, interviews, intrusions into one's private life and pre-requisite * probing of those who dare try to exercise their constitutional rights in New York City, the violent crime rates are some of the highest in the country.
As long as City Council members do SOMETHING by venting their impotent rage at the criminal haven that is New York City against the law-abiding, the ignorant morons accustomed to sucking at the government teat while being ruthlessly shackled by that same band of tyrants will be mollified.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's that easy. It's not about protecting the public or even placating them with empty legislation. It's not about making the city safer. And it's not about fighting crime. A quote by one of the aforementioned slugs says it all: "There was no urgency prior to the shooting," said Councilman Peter Vallone. "But now there is a sense that we all want to move as quickly as possible on these bills..."
And there you have it - the motivation behind these cowards' sudden interest in yet more tyrannical limitations on the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a selfless desire to protect the citizenry or a committed ambition to cut down on crime, but a gutless, spineless, sniveling fear that something like that could possibly happen to one of them. They weren't motivated by the 660 murders that took place in the city in 2001 and the 590 murders committed there a year later. They were motivated by one deranged loon, who decided to finish off his political opponent - one of them.
No, there was no urgency to even misguidedly attempt to protect the public from violence. But now that it's one of them - one of their own that was harmed - all of a sudden someone lit a fire under their voluminous derrieres. Now - all of a sudden - it's urgently important to punish someone, to hold someone responsible for the death of one of their fellow goons. And since the real bad guy has already eaten a lead sandwich, it's time to hold the innocents' feet to the flame. It's time to hold those who manufacture a perfectly legal product responsible for the misdeeds of an evil few. It's time to hold those who are trying to make a living by selling a tool of self-defense responsible for those who misuse that tool.
So what do you think these gutless twits are proposing?
One proposed change would hold gun makers and sellers liable for damages for deaths caused by their weapons. Another proposal would require gun owners to have liability insurance.
Anyone with a shred of sanity must wonder why these petty tyrants wouldn't impose similar liabilities for car manufacturers and car dealers for deaths caused by their automobiles or alcohol distilleries and beer breweries for the criminal deeds done while under the influence of their product.
One must speculate how these insignificant dictators can justify trying to legislate what the courts around the country have rejected time and time again - holding the gun industry liable for the misuse of their product.
And anyone with a scrap of intelligence must ask how much money the insurance companies poured into the coffers of these "public servants" for the right to siphon thousands of dollars from those wishing to exercise their constitutional rights.
Of course I shouldn't be surprised. This is the same city that fined a pregnant Crystal Rivera $50 for sitting on subway steps for blocking the stairway.
This is the same city that fined Jesse Taveras $105 for unauthorized use of a milk crate when the poor guy tried to cop a squat during this work day.
And this is the same city that fined Pedro Nazario $50 for feeding pigeons in a park and fined Sal Boyd, a Greenwich Village merchant, $400 because, according to the donut munchers of New York, there were too many words on the awning over his store!
No wonder New York has some of the highest murder, rape, aggravated assault and burglary rates in the country! Apparently many of its finest are too busy generating income for its pathetic statist government and the mayor who spends every weekend he can in the Bahamas, while the citizens who elected him are getting shot, mugged and raped by armed thugs and then fleeced by their own elected officials!
I'd be in the Bahamas too for fear that the populace would tar and feather me!
But I digress.
Back to the spineless hypocrites who are making concrete plans to make their little Politburo safe from armed thugs, while unilaterally disarming the rest of the good citizens of New York who can't afford fancy security systems, metal detectors or armed guards at their gates.
It's unbelievable to me that a city that has symbolized freedom to so many immigrants who escaped their tyrannical hellholes and headed for the shores of Liberty, has mired itself so deeply in the tactics of its supposed diametrical opposite - communism.
It's incredible that a city that is still home to the Statue of Liberty is acting like a third world dictatorial Gestapo.
When my family and I first came to this country, we landed in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. After being oppressed, beaten down, disarmed and abused at the hands of the state in the Soviet Union, my parents breathed a long sigh of relief to be able to finally live in a place that didn't tyrannize and subjugate its citizens.
We left New York a short nine months later.
I don't know if my parents realized that the city they thought was a beacon of light and freedom was, in fact, only marginally better than the socialist hellhole from which we escaped. I don't know if their primary reason for moving was a subconscious awareness of the dictatorial nature of New York City's government.
All I know is that nine months later, my parents moved out of the roach-infested dump that was our first home in the free land - a home which they were not allowed to protect with the most effective tool in existence, but were rather expected to give to armed thugs freely, while praying for their lives and hoping that the thugs didn't harm their young daughter.
Today, my parents know what kind of city they left.
They left a city whose legislators are so paranoid, they would ban toy pistols.
They left a city whose legislative whore of a district attorney would prosecute a father for protecting his family with a firearm not approved by the nanny state.
They left a city where a son would be prosecuted for defending his mother with yet another "illegal" gun.
They left a city where an immigrant who has worked hard to create a business and a source of pride as well as income would be prosecuted and possibly deported for using a gun against an armed invader without asking the permission of the petty legislative tyrants who run that grimy hole.
And it's now a city where the imbeciles at City Hall are attempting to blame and punish law abiding merchants, manufacturers and consumers because they feel powerless against the armed thugs who have overrun the city where self-defense is treated like a crime, instead of a virtue.
It would be laughable if it wasn't so frightening and sad.
Nicki Fellenzer
Nicki is a US Army veteran, who spent nearly four years in Frankfurt, Germany on active duty at the American Forces Network. She is a former radio DJ and news anchor and a Featured Writer and Newslinks Director for Keepandbeararms.com. She is also a former contributing editor to the National Rifle Association's newest monthly magazine, Women's Outlook and writes occasionally for the Libertarian Party. She resides in Virginia with her family. We are also proud to have Nicki as regular contributor to Armed Females of America.
Copyright c 2003 by Armed Females of America
http://www.armedfemalesofamerica.com/takingaim/bureaucracy.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>
by Ed Lewis
It seems our people now believe that "being an American" and patriotic is waving - or fastening to their auto, truck, or whatever - a tiny flag made in China or elsewhere, that "American patriots" support whatever decisions any "person" in government makes.
It seems now that one is "unpatriotic" if one questions the actions of the Bush administration or anyone else in any level of government. However, is "blind support" really being "patriotic"?
Isn't patriotism supporting, protecting, and thereby preserving the ideas and beliefs that led to this union of states being formed?
Isn't patriotism assuring that the meanings of the Unanimous Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies, the actual document establishing the union as an entity separate of all others, never again has to be declared?
Isn't patriotism supporting without compromise the provisions in the Constitution that limit government to specific, detailed limitations?
Isn't patriotism refusing to accept the breakdown of the separation of powers the founders deemed so important in assuring tyranny did not develop?
Isn't patriotism refusing to allow a small group of people to control the actions of our country, particularly when those actions cause violent and unimaginable deaths and maiming of other people - including our own - that have caused no harm to America or Americans?
Isn't patriotism refusing to sit back in comfort while thousands of people across the land are robbed of their property and dignity - and sometimes their very lives - by local governments that refuse to obey the principles of liberty and justice outlined in the Unanimous Declaration and the Constitution for the United States of America?
Isn't patriotism taking the time, money, and show of physical force, if necessary, to fight against oppressive and coercive measures used by government and its enforcers of law destroying the principles and values our forefathers epitomized?
It must be said that people who accept government's actions just because it is "the government", or the lesser of two evils, or because of ignorance, are the most unpatriotic of all people.
One would think ignorance would excuse them but - no - they do not have to stay ignorant but choose to do so. The overwhelmingly sad truth is many of these simply refuse to believe the truth even when they are face to face with it. They add up that "two lies plus two lies" equals the truth, rather than four lies.
One cannot accuse these people of being Americans except in the geographic location of where they live. I.e., just because they live within the borders of the United States of America doesn't mean they have the fine qualities we usually associate with "being an American."
Such qualities are integrity, morality, compassion, a willingness to help others, a thirst for liberty and a refusal to accept otherwise, and a determination to see only justice is administered.
The hundreds of thousands of injustices going on in the so-called "courts" of counties and municipalities cause great queasiness in those true Americans that accept only justice. The terrible injustices we now witness in every court of the land are abhorrent to patriots.
To be blunt, people who continue supporting the actions of government while knowing those in and behind government have lied, or lack in honor and integrity, or destroy justice, are not patriots. In fact, one might think of them as traitors to the values and principles this union was founded on.
People who accept that politicians lie during campaigns and merely accept that the "lesser of the evils" was voted into office are admitting to their own treason against the principles and control of government laid down in our three most important documents - the Bible, the Unanimous Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution for the united States of America.
This is not the form of government we are to have. We should not accept a government that is made up of the lesser of evils, particularly when the lesser of the evils are known liars, thieves, and immoral "lacking-in-integrity-back-room-dealers" as any leader of any murderous criminal mob has ever been.
We do not have to accept it, and indeed we should not accept it. We should be giving up comfort and fighting every inch of taking of our Liberty these un-American, anti-Liberty, miscreants in government are stealing from us.
There can be no quarter on this. It must be stopped, meaning there can be no let up until the people are once again sovereign over government, just as it is supposed to be.
If you sit back waving your little flag while supporting actions such as the war-making actions of the bush bunch and the people now controlling government, do not think of yourself as a "patriot" or "American" with the positive connotations of such. Such people lack convictions, honor, morality, any value for respecting mankind and human life, and integrity. Such are mere human resources for the use of those they blindly support.
They are not, and cannot be a true American. You may live here; and you may die here; and you may have been and will be comfortable - - just as long as you pay the many tithes demanded by government.
However, there is no way these people are an "American" as epitomized by our forefathers. Our very liberty has been sacrificed by these gutless people for security the government can never - and will never - provide. What fools they are to believe otherwise.
Such blind people are as dangerous to Liberty as the thief in the night that takes your property without your permission is to your personal property.
Waving a little flag without taking action against the wrongs when the knowledge that wrongs exist is despicable. Taking action is admirable, as it requires great courage to do so. Nothing - short of one's life being threatened - is as scary as one just simply does not know the extent government will go to as it strives to shut up American Patriots. Often it is by one's life being threatened - or taken - as history has proved beyond any doubt whatsoever.
Besides, the adoration of the little flag that now represents the most corrupt government on Earth just really isn't anything to brag about or wave about with pride. At least, that is, it isn't to those of us who cannot stomach the slaughter and maiming of human beings for the corporate greed of those in and behind government.
For those that think the little flag is important, and that the large flag it represents in turn represents truth, justice, and the American Way, take it to the next traffic court you go to. Tell the judge you stand under the US Flag and that he must do the same. Make him treat you as the sovereign you are.
And then as you walk away after the black-robed thief has taken you money and maybe infringed on other rights - like holding you in contempt of court - wonder exactly what it is "old glory" stands for in the year of our Lord, 2003.
Folks, the flag is a piece of cloth. When displayed it has symbolic meaning, primarily that of control - military control, that is. Supporting military control, which is what our system of "justice" has deteriorated to is, is exactly what the founders wanted to avoid or else there could be no liberty.
Liberty is largely defined by private property ownership. If you do not own your property free of government interference, you do not live in liberty. Thus, when you are coerced into paying rent on it annually (figure out the monthly amount sometime), you do not control it, nor do you own it, as you don't have sole proprietary ownership over it.
And without having sole and plenary control over your earnings from your labor, and over property accumulated through your labor or the labor of your predecessors, you do not have Liberty. You are as chained in servitude and slavery as any slave ever was.
To be blunt, it would appear that most Americans are too dumb to realize it even as they write another check to stave off the thieves and thugs in government.
Most people living in America believe they are Free. Yeah, but what was the annual price that was paid again? Fifty to sixty percent of what one earns plus they may take your home, your cars, or anything else they want anytime they want because people let them.
So, take down your flag and pick up the laws that are to control government and its creations. Learn the way this country is supposed to be.
Then shove it down their lawless throats until the officials paid to preserve and protect the human rights we hold inherent are forced into line.
In addition, if elected/appointed officials don't get into line - meaning acting within the limits of the Constitution - then try them for treason, racketeering, fraud, deprivation of rights, conspiracy, mail fraud, grand larceny, and a host of other violations on the state level.
This is patriotism. This is serving the duty every American is bound to serve if they wish to be an "American" in every sense of the word.
And to be FREE.
http://www.libertyforall.net/2003/archive/aug31/american.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878<P>