Tag Archives: freedom

New Publications

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I’m pleased to announce two new pamphlets, A Conservative’s Thoughts on Rights and Duties, their Duality, and some Implications and A 21st Century American Crisis.

In Rights and Duties I talk about our inalienable rights and our inalienable duties and their attributes as endowments from and by our Creator, as well as how they and the fact that they’re duals of each other, are a part of the fabric of our existence—both as those individual rights and duties and in the capacity of those duals.

Further, and just as importantly, our inalienable rights and our inalienable duties are in each of us as individuals; they are not in groups of us, they are not in the whole of us as a nation. Each one of us is possessed of them entirely in ourselves.

This, of course, has implications for the role our government, and especially the roles of “civil law” and “civil rights,” have in our lives.

American Crisis is a call to arms for all of us to become active and to rescue our Republic from its dangerous drift away from our founding principles of small, limited government; individual liberties; personal responsibilities.

From the pamphlet:

In the era of our War of Independence, governments, said the Conservatives of the time—those monarchists, forerunners of today’s Big Government Progressive disciples—exist first and above the people, and the rights of the people are those granted by these governments.

“The time’s Liberals, though—the men and women of our War, of our Founding, and of our earlier history—had a different view. A man, they held, has rights that are indivisible from him because they are inherent in his humanity, in his very existence, as endowments from his Creator. Government, they held, exists to protect these rights and for no other purpose.

And

The blows we struck in 2010 were a worthy start, but they were only a start. The progress we added in 2012 has been inadequate to our cause. But we are not finished. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day.

See the links to the right or my Books page for information about how to get them in either Kindle or epub (Nook-compatible) format.

I hope you get as much out of them as I enjoyed putting into them.

Coups and Freedom

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Thailand’s new ruling junta said Thursday it has no desire to “cling to power” but also has no clear timeframe for when it will allow free elections.

“We will definitely have an election,” said Lt General Chatchalerm Chalermsukh, the army’s deputy chief of staff. But he added, “this will take some time. If you ask me how long it will take, that’s difficult to answer.”

And

Several political figures, mostly on the pro-government side, were held incommunicado for a week and freed only after signing a waiver agreeing not to say or do anything that could stir conflict.

And

The military has said it will crack down on online speech it considers inflammatory.

And further from Chatchalerm:

Today there are still protests. It shows that some people want to create turmoil. So it’s impossible to hold elections at the moment.

Well, all right, then.

It’s For Your Own Good

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…if you know what I mean.

Thailand’s General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the man in charge of his military’s overthrow of the Thai government,

has ordered dozens of outspoken activists, academics, and journalists to surrender themselves to military authorities….

The military, which is already holding most of the Cabinet ousted in a coup Thursday in secret locations, said it would keep former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and others in custody for up to a week to give them “time to think….”

In other words, to give time for Prayuth’s reeducation rehabilitation to take effect (Shinawatra was released from “custody” Monday).

One of Prayuth’s spokesmen, Colonel Weerachon Sukondhapatipak, added that

all those held have had their cellphones confiscated because “we don’t want them communicating with other people. We want them to be themselves and think on their own…,” adding that they need to “calm down and have time to think.”

Can’t have distractions interfering with their reeducation, after all.

Another of Prayuth’s spokesmen, Colonel Winthai Suvaree, is saying that Prayuth

urged every group of citizens to avoid joining the anti-coup protests because at the moment, the democratic principles cannot be executed normally.

Because the people screwed up and didn’t democratically govern themselves in accordance with the military’s approved principles or outcomes.

Later in the week, Prayuth finally spoke for himself:

I’m not here to argue with anyone. I want to bring everything out in the open and fix it.

Everyone must help me. Do not criticize, do not create new problems. It’s no use.

Indeed. He’s just had Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang arrested—in mid-news conference, yet—for the heinous crime of criticizing Prayuth’s takeover and pushing instead for a return of Thailand to civilian rule.

Because shut up. Because reeducation. Because your Betters…Know Better.

A Coup in Thailand

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The Thai Army has tossed the civilian government and seized control of the country, for the 19th time in the last 80 years—just about once per election cycle….

General Prayuth Chan-ocha had convened and chaired, over the preceding two days, a meeting between government and anti-government leaders at “an army facility in Bangkok,” and when that didn’t produce outcomes suitable to him, his henchmen took into custody most of the participants.

Among those detained by the army after the talks broke down were five government ministers, the leadership of the governing Pheu Thai Party and the opposition Democrat Party…as well as leaders of anti- and pro-government groups.

And then Prayuth said this over now-army controlled television:

The military has to return peace and order to the country as soon as possible and to reform [the] political and social structure to ensure fairness for every side.

Because factions and democracy are too messy for the army. Especially for an army too used to its own power in that country.

Another Administration Overreach

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A family built a stock pond on their private property in order to provide more reliable water for their cattle.

The Johnsons believed they had done everything necessary to get permission for the pond, where the tiny Six Mile Creek runs through their property south of Fort Bridger, WY. The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office provided the permit and even stated in an April 4, 2013 letter to the Johnsons: “All of the legal requirements of the State Engineer’s Office, that were your responsibility, have been satisfied for the Johnson Stock Reservoir.”

The pond not only improved the situation for their cattle, it improved the local environment. The Johnsons noted:

Before we didn’t have ducks and geese. … Now you can see bald eagles here, we have moose come down. We have blue herons that come in every evening. Before we did this…it was basically just a little irrigation canal.

But they didn’t say, “Mother, may I?” to the EPA. The EPA is up in arms about this effrontery, and they seem to have gone so far as to make stuff up in their assault on the Johnsons, their property rights, and the property rights of American citizens in general. The EPA is charging that the Johnsons’ pond is guilty of

“…the discharge of pollutants (i.e., dredged or fill material) into the waters of the United States….”

Never mind that the only tests done—not by the EPA, curiously, but done by the Johnsons, instead—demonstrate

…that the water leaving the pond is cleaner than the water entering it.

Meanwhile, the EPA also is continuing to ignore Congress as Congressmen ask for clarification of what the EPA thinks it’s doing on this matter.

In a follow-up letter to the EPA, [Senator David (R, LA), Ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee] Vitter and his colleagues have asked for, but so far not received, clarification of the potential fines involved.

Those fines run from $75,000 per day to $185,000 per day, depending on how the rule the EPA claims to be operating is interpreted. Hence this question, among others.

But this administration, and its EPA henchmen, are above the law. They say.