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Our fast and furious president should slow down [UPDATED]
Published 5:50am Monday, January 21, 2013 Updated 7:51am Monday, January 21, 2013It is time to examine the motives of President Obama, in light of his campaign to weaken American citizens by restricting access to arms. We had the spectacle of a politician surrounding himself with children, assuming a posture as their protector.
President Obama blocked an investigation into his executive office about the use of federal funds that supplied weapons to Mexican gangsters. These gangsters used the guns to kill hundreds, including innocent bystanders and police on both sides of the border.
President Obama’s operation was called “Fast and Furious” which was quite different than President Bush’s “Project Gunrunner”. “Project Gunrunner” included the Mexican government, and utilized international data exchange to track the guns.
“Fast and Furious” guns were not tracked, Mexican authorities were not notified. “Fast and Furious” supplied over 2500 guns to Mexican drug cartels. John Dodson blew the whistle on “Fast and Furious” because US Border Patrol Brian Terry was killed with one of these guns, and the ATF and Justice Department ignored Dodson’s pleas to end the program.
President Obama’s exectutive branch armed criminals, resulting in murders in the U.S. and Mexico. The guns Obama’s administration authorized were primarily semi-automatic AK47′s, what Obama refers to as “assault weapons”. President Obama is advocating the American citizen to be weaker than the criminals that recieved “Fast and Furious” guns.
President Obama’s actions are the exact reason the second amendment was written.
Mike Van Horn
Wendell
I think Steven Colbert is hilarious!
It’s like Mike Van Horn said to himself…”I think I’ll write a letter to the editor with the biggest pile of steaming (you know what) ever printed in the Fergus Falls Journal, just to see how many gullible people there are in Fergus Falls.
I hardly know where to start, but lets start with that horrible scene of President Obama surrounding himself with children as he spoke about gun safety. It sort of reminded me of that scene of President Bush surrounding himself with children when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act. Remember when Mike wrote a letter to the editor protesting that? Yeah, neither do I.
The next conspiracy Mike Van Horn gets his knickers in a twist over is the so-called Fast & Furious intrigue. He forgot to include in his letter that Fast & Furious was started by President George Bush, (in addition to “Project Gunrunner”) and that President Obama has merely continued the program.
He further omitted the fact that Congressman Darrell Issa (Republican from California) has conducted months of so-called hearings on the issue and thus far has produced no facts that the administration did anything wrong. He has however managed to blow the cover of a few of our undercover field agents in his partisan hearings where he picks the witnesses and refuses to hear the testimony of any witness the Democrats want to call. He has also managed to produce enough rumors and conspiracies to keep the paranoid tea party flush with materials for years to come.
But the biggest pile in Mikes letter is the last sentence. “President Obama’s actions are the exact reason the second amendment was written”. First of all Mike, President Obama wasn’t even born when the Bill of Rights was crafted.
The facts I’m about to relate are available to anyone who can read and wants to know the real truth without the fabricated spin of the shills in the NRA.
The reason the second amendment was written was to re-assure the Southern States that they would still be able to control their slave population with their state militias or “Slave Patrols. Several Southern states had raised the issue that if their state militias were to be disarmed the slaves would rise up and kill their masters. And that’s why the second amendment uses the word “State” rather than nation. Without the amendment the state of Virginia refused to sign….see University of California Law Review, Dr. Carl T. Bogus 1998.
It is only when the gun manufacturers take over the NRA in the 1970’s that we hear the new theory that the second amendment was to protect us from a tyrannical government.
Which was hardly necessary since nearly everyone had a gun all ready. Several states were worried because they remembered the British attempts to disarm the state militias or slave patrols so as to cause the slaves to fight for the British.
In 1934 the President of the NRA, Karl Frederick said “I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses”. Today the NRA is nothing short of the mouthpiece for the gun manufacturers.
Richard, below are two of the founders defining the need for the second amendment, in their own words:
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
Tench Coxe, in “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution.” Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
“The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
James Madison, The Federalist No. 46
Many people made and recorded remarks about the proposed second amendment as draft versions were passed back and forth. The remarks you cite and many others like it came later in the debate. The issue of disarming the State Militias or slave patrols as some southern states feared was the stimulus for the proposal at the beginning.
The founding fathers knew the difference between a (free) State and the Federal Government. Witness the 10th amendment, and worded the second amendment to include the word “State”.
Are you able to cite examples of these debates?
Had you read my comment at 4;45 PM you would have seen my citation. Additionally the congressional record since day one. Also the instructions to the Virginia delegation but I don’t remember where I found them.
Richard, you cited Dr. Carl T. Bogus (1998), opining on the motivations of the Founders. I cited writings of attendees of the Constitutional Convention.
History is replete with advocates of liberty endorsing an armed citizenry:
“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms.” ~Aristotle
Some ridiculed the naivety of disarming the citizenry for humanitarian sake:
“…quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
(Lucius Annaeus) Seneca “the Younger” (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)
The Founding Fathers studied western civilization, including Greek and Roman philosophy. The idea of a right to bear arms occurred long before American slavery.
So what’s your point?
Richard, your first claim, that Fast&Furious was a Bush program is disputed by Attorney General Eric Holder. There is a video clip of the AG stating this on YouTube, under the title “Holder contradicts Bush did it too”.
Your claim that the second amendment was written “to re-assure the Southern States that they would still be able to control their slave population with their state militias” may not be true either. There may have been a discussion of it, but you are apparently unable to provide evidence of that. The Founding Fathers, who wrote the amendment, provided other reasons dating back to Greek and Roman philosophy. Greek and Roman philosophy provides the base for our system of government, a republic with democratically elected representation.
Richard you are incorrect about operation fast n furious. President Bush did not start operation fast n furious President Obama did.Fast n furious was started on October 26, 2009 and received 10 million dollars from the Stimulus program.
Between the two operations (Wide Receiver) the bush program 2006–2008 and (fast n furious)the Obama program 2009–2011 there quite a bit of difference. Under Bush the Mexican government was informed and acted in concert with the United States. Under President Obama the Mexican Government was kept in the dark on the operation.As for the Administration doing no wrong that is not known since
the President has used his executive powers to withhold information. However both operations had been poorly run.I certainly hope at if anything comes of this is that this practice is ended forever.Two dead Americans and hundreds of dead Mexicans has resulted from letting loose and loosing over 2000 firearms to criminals and drug dealers.
Curly Acker, one point which is obvious is that you will not address the points Mike makes, instead you will insult him and attempt to trivialize his argumenst by saying that Barack 0bama wasn;t even born when the Constitution was written. That is true, but neither was Adolph Hitler, or Josip Stalin, nor Fidel Castro, Mao Zrdong, Chou Enlai, all fellow dictators who first required all their subjects to turn in their firearms before grinding their faces into the dirt and enslaving them. Th Founders had studied history to learn that whom would be enslaved should first be disarmed, and wanted to prevent the enslavement of the nation thay had risked all to free.
You can pronounce your insulting inaninities all you choose, but I submit, and the polls confirm, that a large majority of the American public believe that allowing the people to be armed is necessary to deal with potential dictators – a title which B.H. 0bama is relentlessly striving to earn.
camobabe
Hitler did not demand that firearms be turned in.The gun control laws had already been on the books.He expanded gun privileges (not rights). Those in the party by permit had been able to get firearms while those who opposed him had been denied. In 1938 He passed laws forbidding the Jews from
ownership of firearms plus laws making it a crime to pass sell or transfer firearms to the Jewish people.
The net result of what you say is that all who were not of his party, and all Jews, had to turn in their firearms or be imprisoned for having the means to defend themselves from the dictator Hitler.
camobabe
Yes you are correct. I often hear gun control advocates say that Hitler didn’t confiscate firearms which to a degree is correct.What they fail to mention is that Hitler kept them away from anyone not loyal to his party.So when you hear one say it you can say yeah he just kept them away from the Jews. Confiscation of firearms from certain groups of people ending in violence has happened here in the United States as well. Not really all that far from you if you live in the Fergus Falls area. Wounded Knee was a military action to disarm the Native Americans.Just something to remember when someone says it can’t happen here cause it can and did.
You suggest, when at war, the goal should not be to take away the weapons of the other side? How then does one win the war without killing everyone on the other side? (The purpose of the American-Indian War was to enforce the terms of a treaty, maybe an unjust one, but a treaty never the less) The purpose of both episodes of Wounded Knee was not to take guns but to enforce the law.
BTW–the purpose of a ban on semi’s and extended clips is to ensure the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness; it is not to ensure the power of one person /party of our government.
Camilla–no one is saying “turn in your guns” except fearful gun worshippers. What has been proposed, and as we live in a society dependent on the wishes of the people being actively represented by elected officials who must act in accordance with the Constitution, is a ban on the sale and public use of certain types of weapons. This is completely constitutional as similar legislation has passed the Supreme Court test in the past.
One of the ways to combat fear is to consider facts before forming an opinion.
Ginny, sometime before you fall off the twig you should try to pick up a real book and read it. One of the things that make you look so foolish is that you never fully read anyone’s comment. Instead, you read a few words, get all hysterical, then respond by screaming at what you think someone wrote rather than what they actually wrote. You remind me of all those old panic-stricken hens in the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Everything from you is frenzied, agitated rumor and screaming points from people like Alex Jones. Trotting out a line of dead dictators does not mean anything you say about them is true.
Actually Ginny you are quite comical, always bouncing from wall to wall, spouting more claptrap than Sarah Palin, on a caffeine high. No other commenter, has your powers of misinterpretation of others writings.
Truthfully it is a waste of my time to correct any of your rants because you don’t read them anyway. Your comments above reaches a new low, even for you. It looks like someone else wrote that one for you, then you came along and made what you consider corrections to the original draft. The spelling and syntax is reminiscent of a monkey playing with a typewriter.
Facts and history being important, this is what Issa and Congress have determined in their hearings so far–Project “Gunrunner” was started in 2006. It allowed the sale of firearms, intended for misuse, to agents of bad guys in Mexico but stopped the guns from crossing the borders. This program with its operational code names resulted in the capture and conviction of many small time illegal gun buyers but no big crime lords. Seeing the relative failure of the program, meetings were held in
Washington DC with the intent of creating a more effective program, one in which guns would actually cross the border and transfer into the hands of the real big bad guys. The operational name “Fast and Furious” and the details and execution of the program was left to the Assistant Attorney for Arizona, he being new to the job, and he relying on the advice of career ATF experts hired during many administrations prior to Obama. There is zero evidence President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder knew anything about the details, execution or consequences of “Fast and Furious” until after the fact.
The letter writer walks the road to Colbert-esqueness by beginning with a point of fact and embellishing it to the extreme of comedy and fantasy.
Typical of you Larry/Walt/whoever that you would use the vicious tactics of Richard Acker Curly Chipmunk to assail those who would expose his tactics. Richard et al his aliases is denying his ad hominem attacks on others by saying that it is the targets of his attacks who are the attackers rather than his victims.
Typical of all you who use the Alinskey handbook to attack your detractors.
BTW, you were really slick in the manner you managed to avoid acknowledging the inconvenient truth that the Fast and Furious methods of sending weapons over the border to the drug cartels began under 0bama, not Bush. My belief is that it was actually a means to arm the dealers and their assasins to protect the flow of cash which is laundered back into his Highness 0bama campaign coffers, and to ensure the election of socialist Democrat candidates nationwide. You and Curly Acker make a good team of “good cop” and “Snarling attack dog”.
Currently, Eric Holder is in contempt of congress, 0bama has exerted executive privilege over documents pertaining to the approval of “Fast and Furious”.
There are two types of executive privilege, executive communications privilege and deliberative process privilege. 0bama has claimed deliberative process privilege, because he claims to not have known about it.
“The reason why Obama’s assertion of that deliberative process privilege over these documents is weak at best is because the Supreme Court has held that such a privilege assertion is invalidated by even the suspicion of government wrongdoing. Obama, Holder, the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and virtually everyone else involved in this scandal have admitted that government wrongdoing actually took place in Operation Fast and Furious.” ~Matthew Boyle
You must not have known this, Larry.
Mike, here’s where your argument enters the world of the absurd. You have a House of Representatives controlled by one party sitting as both prosecutor and judge of an administration of the other party. If you pay any attention at all of the current disharmony of the political parties you must at least consider some of their actions might be political in nature. Now you also have the Assistant Attorney General for Arizona, claiming under oath he never passed the details of Fast and furious to his bosses in Washington and you have Holder saying he knew nothing the specific details of the operation until after the fact. At this, the Republicans in the House then demanded every possible communication to and from the AG office which might have some bearing on this case even though they had no proof of or hint of proof of wrong-doing. This blanket demand for documents is a violation of the separate nature of the parts of government.
Were it not don’t you think the House would have RUN to the courts to enforce their contempt. (yes they have that option) A skeptic might doubt the honesty of one party or the other but in this country you must have some evidence of wrong doing, for unless America has changed completely, witch hunts for evidence without first having any evidence is illegal.
I am impressed the Journal would offer a service like this place to comment and discuss ideas with each other. It takes a lot of work and effort to maintain such a service. Thank you for that service. My response to one of Mike’s earlier comments is in the “security file”. I doubt that Mike would understand a Contempt of Congress can be a purely political ploy and requests for evidence can be a fishing expedition for political dirt, but those with some common sense and life experience already know those things.
Kinda reminds me of the Congress’ demands for information when George W. Bush, acting legally within his purview as Chief Executive dismissed several assistant U. S. attorneys from office. The (Socialist Democratic) majority in the congress launched “fishing expeditions” in numerous committees to cover up the fact that many of those attorneys were working against the policies of the President who had appointed them to their positions , in regard to enforcing immigration laws and (failing to pursue) prosecution of drug dealers.
Further, that same congressional majority attempted to force members of the president’s staff to divulge all manner of information unrelated in any way to the dismissal of the U.S. Attorneys. Those efforts included inflammatory threats of charges of contempt of congress for any who resisted and refused to yield to unauthorized political demands of the Socialist Democrat demands.
I guess it works both ways, eh, Walt?
Of course, Jerome, that was my point–it’s politics. If you read Mike’s letter and his comments carefully you will notice, I hope, he thinks the contempt of congress citation is proof something criminal has been done. It’s politics. (What is that saying about your baby’s diaper as opposed to you neighbor’s kid?)
Can You Guess Who I am? (hang in till the end, your first guess may be wrong)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rrjU-HBkmLE?feature=player_detailpage
Sarah Palin?
NBC Demonizes Gun Owners With Phony ‘Heckler’ Story
ALEXANDRIA, VA – On Monday’s edition of “Martin Bashir,” MSNBC ran footage of the testimony of Neil Heslin, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, in which it appears he is heckled by gun rights activists. MSNBC’s accompanying graphics box read “Mocked and Loaded. Sandy Hook Victim’s Father Heckled by Gun Rights Advocates.”
In reality, Heslin was not heckled. He posed a challenge to the audience, and the audience responded. The MSNBC version deliberately cut out Heslin’s challenge to make it appear as though he was interrupted by heckling gun advocates.
Not quite Merle. Your misrepresentation of this incident is not unexpected , especially since you attempted to demonize this grieving father yourself two days ago.
Neil Heslin, asked those gun enablers in the audience “Why they needed assault weapons”. It’s a “Why” question Merle. They did not answer why. Instead they shouted “second amendment” several times. Screaming “second amendment” does not answer “why”. Shouting second amendment was nothing more than a red herring dragged across the debate to avoid answering the question.
They could not answer his question, because NOBODY NEEDS an assault style weapon. They may WANT one but that’s not the same as needing one.
You can defend those hecklers if you want to, that’s your right. It is also my right, when you do, to lump you in with those kooks in the Westboro Baptist Church. The behavior is the same.
Honesty, which includes not “stretching” the truth, seems to be a significant part of the Christian’s pathway to the presence of the Father. Still looking for Christ’s instruction to arm yourself and “shoot to kill.”
Why the ‘Citizen Militia’ Theory Is the Worst Pro-Gun Argument Ever
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-the-citizen-militia-theory-is-the-worst-pro-gun-argument-ever/272734/
Not surprising you cite a far left anti-gun rag to bolster your socialist democrat plans to speed up the Marxist takeover of the USA by taking away our last line of defense against tyranny – personal firearms.
I understand you don’t like the source, but what are your arguments to counter the content?
I just came from our monthly meeting of the NRA and I have great news…..
We are sponsoring a Brownie Troop this year. As an incentive to help sell cookies this year we are providing prizes for the highest sellers.
In the 5 – 7 year old category the little girl who sells the most cookies will receive a Colt M-16 with the selector switch covered with painters tape for safety. This little girls Colt will include a Infrared “Starlight Scope” for personal protection if attacked during the wishing hours, and an autographed photograph of Wayne LaPierre in a Smurf Blue frame.
The little girl who sells the second highest number of cookies will receive her very own 81mm mortar with 12 white phosphorus projectiles, and a layout map of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art which displays degenerate art and bans handguns on it’s premises.
Third place will get a Red Beanie with a propeller and a stern lecture about the evils of a tyrannical government and a book on survivalist road kill diet by David Koresh.
Prizes for the 8 – 12 year olds will be a step up from the 5 – 7 year olds.
First Prize. This lucky little girl will be presented with her very own suppressed M – 5 with bayonet and engraved with song lyrics by Ted Nugent
Second Prize The first runner up will receive her very own Glock G30 in subcompact form. Her accessories will include a concealed designer “Pink” shoulder holster with quick release feature and rhinestone encrusted shooting gloves made from the hides of 16 little bunnies.
Third Prize As the second runner up this little Brownie will receive a used Army surplus M-1 Grand with cleaning kit and a small can of 3 in 1 oil. Some brass knuckles and a scholarship to the NRA’s 10 minute safety course which includes our publication “ Crowd control shooting techniques for the blind”.