Category Archives: culture

A 2nd Amendment Ruling

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The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 ruling, has struck down a New York law that required citizens to show a proper cause and good moral character in order get a license to carry a firearm outside the home. That “proper cause” and the goodness of a citizen’s “moral character” were as defined by the State’s government personnel, and if they didn’t feel like it, or if the “need” didn’t suit them, or if these Moral Superiors didn’t like the man, they blithely could deny the applied-for license.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Court, said that was unconstitutional.

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,'” Thomas wrote.
Thomas added that there is “no other constitutional right” that requires an individual to demonstrate some sort of special need to government officers in order to obtain a concealed carry permit.
“That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense,” Thomas added.

And

New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

Here’s New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s (D) preemptive reaction to the then-pending ruling:

Hochul vowed in May to call for an emergency legislative session this summer to craft new gun legislation as a means to work around the expected high court decision that curtailed the state’s concealed carry permit law.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) announced that his office is

analyzing this ruling and crafting gun safety legislation that will take the strongest steps possible to mitigate the damage done today.

These are canonical examples of why the 2nd Amendment is so necessary.

Notice, too, that this ruling looks like the beginning of the end for the concept of a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.

The Court’s ruling can be read here.

The Fed and Equity

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And, no, I’m not writing about house ownership type equity. This concerns the Fed’s potentially increasing role in “social equity.”

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board expressed concern about Progressive-Democrats trying to legislate into the Federal Reserve’s mandates the matter of “racial equity.” They’re correct as far as they went, but they based their concern on the Fed’s existing workload and on the question of how to assess “racial equity” in the Fed’s pronouncements and enforce the concept in its controls.

The Editors, though, missed the most important distinction and problem.

Whether or not “racial equity” is a matter to be taken seriously, it’s a political matter only, and so belongs only to the political branches of our Federal government—Congress and the White House.

The matter has no place in any Central Bank, including ours. The Federal Reserve’s function, in particular, is to protect our currency by protecting our economy—by working, under its existing statutory instructions, to maintain stable pricing, maximum employment, and moderate long-term interest rates (which means working to maintain stable pricing, since employment and interest rates fall out of that).

The Fed has no business or place in the political environment.

The Progressive-Democrats’ Jan 6 Committee

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How’s it doing, so far? Aside from its poor viewership, I mean, as real concerns of us average Americans—things like high and increasing gasoline and diesel prices, high and increasing food prices, high inflation generally, loss of control over our southern border, illegal alien penetration into our nation’s interior (with unknown numbers of terrorists among them), the barbarian’s invasion of Ukraine, and on and on—predominate our worries.

Let’s review the bidding.

Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA) altered text messages between Congressman Jim Jordan (R, OH) and Mark Meadows, then-White House Chief of Staff, and presented his fakery as evidence for the committee.

And

…Capitol Police caught Massachusetts Democrat Congressman Jake Auchincloss’s (D, MA) chief of staff on security footage defacing posters outside the Capitol complex office of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA) this spring

And

…Capitol Police directly disputed allegations House January 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D, MS) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R, WY) made in May that GOP Congressman (GA) Barry Loudermilk led January 6 demonstrators on a reconnaissance mission the day before the Capitol riots

The Capital Police said, on the record, that security footage showed no such thing occurred.

And

…the committee accused former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik of attending a January 5, 2021, meeting in Washington, DC, to plot to block the certification of 2020 election results. In fact, Kerik was in New York that day, according to phone and toll booth records

It’s Party’s version of the Keystone Kops.

Aside from the Keystone Kops level of performance, all the committee has succeeded in doing is pulling together, sort of, into one place all the old news that the press already has published over the last couple of years, and from the same one-sided aspect as those…publishments.

And none of that reaches to the intrinsically unethical, if not illegitimate under House rules, nature of the J6 Committee. No cross-examination of witnesses is allowed; the committee consists of seven members of the Progressive-Democratic Party and only two members of the Republican Party; and the committee, contrary to 200 years of tradition in addition to those rules, consists of solely of members selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), including those two Republicans. The members selected by the Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA), which did not include those two Republicans, were deliberately barred by Pelosi from participating.

Pulling Patriotic Products

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Harris Teeter, a supermarket chain, used to sell, among other things, products that were distinctly pro-American—things with slogans like “Give me liberty or give me death” and “America, love it or leave it.”

Then a customer complained about their presence on store shelves—they were insensitive, after all, in light of recent mass shootings. Apparently, being pro-American, being patriotic, is insensitive today. Never mind that slogans like these have been around for decades and all the way back to the runup to our Revolutionary War.

Harris Teeter promptly folded.

Thanks for reaching out. As soon as these items were brought to our attention we put a recall request into place and these items are being removed from all store locations.
We appreciate your concern[.]

Not to be outdone, another person complained to Kroger, a chain of supermarkets and department stores, about the presence on its shelves of coozies with Arms Change, Rights Don’t printed on them. Not to be outdone by Harris Teeter, Kroger promptly folded and pulled the coozies.

Harris Teeter and Kroger may think this is a sound business decision, but it’s likely they’ve badly misread their customer base. In any event, it’s certainly true that the recall is decidedly unpatriotic and amoral.

Maybe it’s time we Americans educated these two store chains about the nature of their customer base by no longer being their customers.

Another Example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Racism

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This time, it’s in the housing market, via the Federal government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The plans released last week [by FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie] might have been written by California Representative Maxine Waters (D). Central to Fannie’s plan are “Special Purpose Credit Programs” that increase access to credit and encourage “sustainable homeownership for Black consumers.”
One program would assist black borrowers with down payments. Most home-buyers are required to put down at least 20% of the cost of a new home to reduce the risks of default. Fannie’s plan would effectively require taxpayers to subsidize down payments for black borrowers.

It goes downhill from there.

Once again, Party explicitly favors one group of Americans while explicitly disfavoring another group of Americans—solely on the basis of race.