All I Want for Christmas is a Kevlar Vest…

How come so many people want to shoot me? Am I not the most lovable guy known to those who have met me?

I was warned that in the data collection phase, there had been some incidents in Newbury that warranted sending in a new face. For about two months I traversed that township doing the review, visiting every home (almost like Santa Claus, but no presents, and I stayed far from the chimneys). Everyone I met was either friendly or neutral, with the exception of one fellow last week who firmly insisted that I had to leave his property (he was having a war with Zoning, and anything that looked like Official Business was unwelcome). That I could live with -- the aerial photos are good enough that you do NOT want to be sunbathing when the plane flies over!

Yesterday I finished Newbury. Today I started in on the south side of Bainbridge. Things were going smoothly. I pulled into one driveway on Pettibone Road, where the sign on the garage said, "If you can read this, you are in range." I've seen plenty of those. Most of the people who post that sign are friendly as long as you knock on the door. I had a pleasant chat with the lady who answered the door -- I had to get out because her house had a deck on the back that was not on the tax card sketch -- and then drove to the next driveway.

It was one of those houses like any other house. Piece of cake. There were, however, some strange signs posted on the house. Nothing threatening, but sort of nutty. I didn't need to leave the car. I jotted a few notes on the tax card, turned around, and drove to the next house.

I was about a half mile away, maybe a half hour later, when my phone rang. It was Nedra, at the office, abrupt and hurried, "When you get to such-and-such address on Pettibone Road, do not pull into the driveway."

"I've already been there."

She sounded worried. "Don't go back, not even to turn around or do any paperwork."

"I don't plan to go back. I don't need to go back."

"The owner called and said you were trespassing on his property. He said that if you pulled into his driveway again, he would shoot you."

"I didn't even see him. All I did was pull into the driveway, take some notes, turn around, and leave." (My practice is to get out and introduce myself if anyone appears at a window or door).

"Well, don't go back. He obviously saw the signs on the car, because he knew where to call."

An hour or so later I decided to drive to McDonalds for a cup of coffee. As I passed his house, the man was at the mailbox getting his mail. He gave me a strange look as I went by. Must have left his gun at the house.

Somehow guys like that worry me a little. The fellow in Parkman who tried to chase me off his neighbor's property, threatened to call the Sheriff, and told the Sheriff's dispatcher that he should have shot me, did not seem like a real threat. He was loud and visible, and obviously his threat was in the past tense -- "I should have…". Same thing for the old farmer in Huntsburg; it came out in the course of conversation, and I took it as a joke. Somebody who would hide inside a house threatening future action is a different flavor fruitcake.

I just hope nobody else with a black car pulls into his driveway to turn around.

Maybe I need a light bar to make the car more distinct. Low profile amber lights. That would be fun. As it is, people hit their brakes when they see me sitting in a driveway.

Come to think of it, some of the Sheriff's cruisers, like the one that pulled up behind me yesterday as I sat on the roadside shuffling paper (flashers ON!) and turned on his lights before he saw the side of the car, are small and look similar to my car -- but we do have different color signage (they have gold, I have red, white, and blue) on the sides. (Bainbridge police cruisers are bigger and have white signage).

And I think that Mr. Hospitality can expect a visit from one of those black cars sometime soon. if he hasn't had one already.

***FOOTNOTE***
I wrote this last Friday, and delayed publishing it because I was uncertain what follow-up actions had been taken. I've been told a police report was filed, so its a public record now. I've also been told that the incident report shows the irate caller had a limited vocabulary but no speech impediment with respect to the "ph" sound. Anyway, the pen is mightier than the sword, and I carry a 0.7 mm semi-automatic pencil …

"Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

This morning Bro. Reini Webel took his text from Mark 2:1-12. As I listened, I was drawn to the fact that in almost every instance of Jesus' healing, a statement is made regarding the forgiveness of sins.

Let it be abundantly clear that I do not believe that illness is a punishment for sin, although it may be a consequence. There is a difference. Scripture informs us that the same event happens to both the just and the unjust.

We are told in the Gospel that the primary message of Jesus was, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." That message is predicated on the concept that all men are sinners, falling short of the righteousness of God. It is therefore no surprise (although the connection may be / has been missed by the casual reader of the Gospels) that the underlying purpose of the healing ministry of Jesus was to reinforce the idea that He was capable of forgiving sins, and, ergo, that He was God incarnate.

The discourse reads, (6) "But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, (7) 'Why does this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?'"

This was precisely the teachable moment Jesus was seeking -- (8) "And immediately when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, He said unto them , 'Why reason ye these things in your hearts?' [Transliterated, "You're on the right track, there, Bubbas -- only God can forgive sins."] (9) 'Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?'" ["Talk is cheap, fellas. I'll put my money where my mouth is."]

(10) "'But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins,' ["Let me show you that not only are you correct about Who can forgive sins, but you must also believe the corollary … "] (He saith to the sick of the palsy,) (11) 'I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.'"

(12) "And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed [You betcha!], and glorified God, saying, 'We never saw it on this fashion.'" ["Did you see that, Clyde? He has us over a barrel now!"]

So, you ask, what is the link between healing and faith and sickness and sin? James gives us a clue [actually, much more than a clue ] when he writes, (5:14) "Is any sick [asthenia] among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: (15) and the prayer of faith shall save [ sozo, not therapeuo] the sick [kamno] , and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (16) Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

There is the nub of the problem. The sickness may not have been caused by sin, but sin is endemic to the human race. The passage in James does not refer specifically to an issue of disease (although most translators and their readers have preferred to view it that way) but could also broadly apply to any area of weakness, physical or spiritual. The emphasis is on acknowledgment of sin, confession, and repentance -- "for the Kingdom of God is at hand."

The application is as thorny today as it was twenty centuries ago, and even farther back. Jesus could have preached from 2 Chronicles 7:22-39 & 8:14 -- Solomon's plea -- that if his people would sin (he gets very specific about calamities which could cause the people to suspect that they were being punished for wrongdoing) and repent, that God would accept their prayer, maintain their cause, and grant them forgiveness -- is answered by the Lord,

"If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Unfortunately, in order to believe that forgiveness is available, that restoration to fellowship with God can be obtained, that we can be healed of whatever it is that troubles us, we must first also be willing to believe that we are in need of forgiveness.

In September 2001, the United States was already in deep trouble. Socially, morally, and economically, the nation was at a fork in the road. Then on the 11th of that month, disaster struck. The President called for a day of prayer. Unfortunately he did not call for a time of repentance.

Without doubt such an act would have been unpopular. In the common mind, people are essentially good, and when disaster strikes, the work of wicked men must be avenged. The Christian concept that all have sinned, without exception, and that it is by the grace of God that we exist -- the Divine Providence so wondrously regarded by the Founding Fathers -- has long been gone from the national conscience. A call to repentance would have been viewed by the larger part of the population (and even the rest of the world) as an admission that the World Trade Center attacks were in some way a consequence of sin.

That such a misconception could exist in the United States can be laid squarely upon those who call themselves Christians. Had the pastors and teachers in the churches been presenting the true Gospel, that ALL (without exception) have sinned, that Jesus paid with His own blood the price of our reconciliation with God, and that He continues to call all people to repentance from their sin, there might have been a willingness at the moment of need to confess the idolatry, disrespect for law, adultery, murder, theft, and covetousness that permeates our society.

Instead, there has been from the nation's pulpits tacit and even overt admiration for :

• the glorification of "heroes" of all stripes,
• the glorification of humanity instead of the glorification of the Creator,
• civil disobedience without an expectation of personal consequences,
• divorce and remarriage,
• homosexual activity and heterosexual promiscuity,
• abortion,
• condemnation of the innocent based on statistical constructs,
• authorities stealing from one group to give to another,
• admiration for business practices that harm the poor and ignorant,

and the list could go on.

It is not an accident that those who are opposed to God are also opposed to God's people boldly labeling behavior that is contrary to Scripture as sin. They are thus willing to persecute believers, whether by legal or illegal means. The Church has failed in its mission in America, and can only win back the high ground through bloody martyrdom -- believers surrendering their lives that others might live.

Revival in America will come when we crave the words, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

Slanted News -- Shilling for Obama is Fun

Yesterday I read a CNN headline that said a CBS poll showed a majority of Americans favored the nude body scans and genital groping techniques that TSA is using. Within a CBS article about the poll "Poll: Do New TSA Airport Screens Go Too Far?" it was stated that "a new CBS News Poll released Monday found 81 percent of Americans think airports should use these new machines -- including a majority of both men and women, Americans of all age groups, and Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. Fifteen percent said airports should not use them."

So I looked at the polls. Not only did they show that BOTH CNN and CBS were lying, the polls have some glaring deficiencies in their design. The primary deficiency is a failure to ask if the participant actually intends to fly. If they do not, then their responses are similar to asking a well-fed American if it is morally right for starving Africans to eat an animal that is a member of an endangered species.

So here are the polls and their responses.

The CBS poll:

...and its response:

The CNN poll:

...and its response:

Obviously people who read CNN (liberals, mostly) feel differently than people who read CBS (just brain-dead sheeple, mostly).

Again, these polls (did you note CNN's disclaimer?) are silly if they do not include a breakdown of the numbers of people who actually intend to risk their lives on an airplane.

Don't fall for headlines, whether Drudge, CNN, Fox, or CBS. Read widely, take it with a spoonful of salt, and while you may have a strong dislike of Mormonism, Glenn Beck's admonition to stock up on a food cache still makes sense.

I'm going out to dig the rest of my potatoes. SEE! I USED AN "e". IN YOUR FACE, REPORTERS! POTATOE!! TOMATOE!! I'M STANDING WITH DAN QUAYLE!

Flashbacks

It is wonderfully strange how the mind can leap from one thing to another faster than Superman. As I fossilize, my mind regurgitates memories in streams of the bygone, triggered by the most unlikely events.

This morning I rolled north on 21 to Montrose and at the I-77 merge it became evident that somebody had been practicing for the Darwin Award -- traffic was backed up across the Medina Road bridge. I made a quick decision to go around (knowing it was a gamble and that just patiently staying in line would eventually get me through) and exited westbound, then went north on Crystal Lake to Granger and over to Cleveland-Massilon.

Just north of the Shade Road intersection my memory was triggered by the Flower Hutch building; that used to be the site of an orchard. Then I remembered how the State Highway Patrol used to sit there to clock cars coming over the hill from the north. Then I remembered Dad driving us north to pick up the Turnpike on the way to Harrow.

The thought of the Turnpike triggered memories of other roads -- Medina Road, old Route 18, with its roller-coaster hills. Then the sudden recollection that it was only after the Turnpike opened in 1955 that we used Old 21.

Late 1950's, Dad taking us north in the old 1955 Chrysler -- the car I would learn to drive in, and which we drove back and forth from Patch Rubber Company when we worked there together. That old blue Chrysler, that ended it's career in the Demolition Derby at Barberton Speedway in 1969.

Trips to Harrow, stopping at the roadside park on Route 51 west of Elmore. The summer of 1959, when I stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Mary Miklovic and they took me to see the Brittania on it's Canadian cruise at the inauguration of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (I was intrigued by the fact that the masts had to be hinged so the yacht could pass under some of the bridges).

All triggered by the careless driving of The Unknown Motorist.

Ah, Dad. You left us 5 years ago today. Before you left, though, you made a lot of memories.

Huh? No Comment?

Wonder why Google won't comment?


You Tube Yanks Islamic Cleric's Jihad Sermon Videos

Google, as a private entity, has every right to control comment on its sites. What is suspicious is the timing of this censorship.

Sick Semper Tyrannosaurus

What is this plot by the British to control free speech in the United States? Undoubtedly the American media is too busy with election results to post the following:

White House Must Shut Down Hate Videos on You Tube

In it, we read that, "Baroness Neville-Jones, the security minister, called on President Barack Obama's administration to 'take down this hateful material' in cases where servers were based in the US. She said websites that 'incite cold-blooded murder' would 'categorically not be allowed in the UK'". As well, we read, "The Home Office confirmed yesterday that pressure was being put on the White House to remove the sermons. A spokesman for the US State Department would say only that it had 'significant legal authorities' to act 'where activities on the internet pose a clear threat to the public'".

Two hundred thirty some years ago 13 colonial legislatures and their armies rejected the things that would not be allowed in the UK.

Once upon a time, in a newly formed nation that styled itself The United States of America, the representatives of the people put forward a Constitution that was designed to prevent the government from having power over the people. One of the first things the young nation did was reinforce the chains on government by instituting a law that Congress -- the only authority in the United States which could legitimately pass rules for all the people of all the States -- "shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech …"

Freedom is at best an uncomfortable luxury. It requires the exercise of responsibility, both personal and communal. A free people must practice self control, and self denial, of desires to force others to view thoughts, expressions, and events in the same manner as does the majority. Personal freedom is the antithesis of democracy.

In the desire to be comfortable we, as a nation, have sunk to pitiful degradation of our liberties in that we commonly discuss what are viewed as necessary restrictions on speech. Congress has seen fit to put limits on political speech through "campaign finance reform", and on unpleasant -- perhaps humiliating or aggravating or frightening to the hearers -- speech through "regulation of hate speech". Let it be remembered that no man is free unless all are free; free to believe and express their beliefs freely no matter how offensive the expression.

The only legitimate limitation we have historically placed on the freedom of expression is the requirement that each person be responsible for his or her actions. In the Christian tradition, each individual makes the decision to carry out a good or an evil deed. "The Devil made me do it" is not a valid defense before the Judgement Seat of God, and was never held to be a valid defense by our Founding Fathers. The Paganization of America has brought us to the point where it is acceptable to think that someone or something else is responsible for a person's lack of self control.

If indeed a "spokesman for the US State Department would say only that it had 'significant legal authorities' to act 'where activities on the internet pose a clear threat to the public'", then that spokesman has committed treason against the Constitution of the United States by giving them "Aid and Comfort" (Article 4, Section 3) and needs to be punished by Congress as stated in that section. No such "significant legal authorities" exist in our Constitution.

The mutterings and screechings of Al Quaeda may be incitement to mayhem when weak-minded people listen to them. The British Members of Parliament, however, have every power under their own laws to cut off access to You Tube in Great Britain. That they are too cowardly to do so against the wishes of their constituencies is no reason for the government of the United States to violate its own charter of legitimacy.

Aunt Sue's Obituary

Requiem for Rich

In 1950 my Dad contracted to have a new house built at 1171 Dover Avenue in Akron. We moved there with my new baby brother John; I vaguely remember the open fields across the street. In 1952 the lot directly across from us sprouted a new house, and I met the boy who moved in there -- Richard Robart Wimer.

Rich and I became good friends. We walked to and from Schumacher School together most days. Because of Rich, I remember the elections of 1952. Rich was rooting for Stevenson, but I liked Ike. We stopped by the voting booths that used to sit near the water towers (those are long gone, even!!) and warmed ourselves next to the coal-fired heaters inside.

Summers often found us "camping out". Rich had an old army surplus wall tent that we would set up in the lot (we called it "the field") next to his house, and we would tell scary stories until we fell asleep. We occasionally rode our bikes on distant adventures, riding to Fairlawn to "Wolf Cave" in what is now the Frank Boulevard Park, or to go swimming at White Pond.

Summers also brought out all the other kids who had nothing to do. Rich and I and a few other kids on our street formed the Dover Gang. We had occasional "wars" with the Winton Gang and the Hardesty Gang, in which "wars" we lined up and threw green apples at each other. That is where I learned the magic of the applestick, which could extend my throwing range significantly.

One summer the Dover Gang joined forces with the Winton Gang and the Hardesty Gang to do battle with the Hartford gang. Somebody in the Hardesty Gang had a contraption they called a "nail machine gun" which was spring powered and would shoot nails. It was mounted on a small platform in a tree on a vacant corner lot. Since I was the smallest kid on the block, I was chosen to climb the tree and guard the gun while the others went off to hunt for the Hartford gang.

While they were gone, the lady in the house diagonally across the intersection called the police. When the cruiser arrived, I slithered down the tree and ran around the block to find the guys but they had completely disappeared. Later Rich told me that they had found the Hartford Gang and went somewhere to play baseball.

The summer between second and third grade I found a new friend -- a girl who lived a block away on Hardesty. The details of that summer are a bit fuzzy, since I was mostly into cowboys and Indians, and hunting frogs and crayfish in Mud Run where it used to run through the woods at the northeast and northwest corners of Diagonal and Hawkins. She had a girlfriend she would bring to my back yard, and they wanted to play house and telegraph. When she told us that she was moving to Toledo, I was relieved.

Too soon. As we walked to school on what was to be her last day in Akron, she announced that she wanted to kiss me good-bye. I tried to run, but Rich grabbed me -- he was a lot bigger than I was -- and held me down while she kissed me. I sat there and cried, madder about the betrayal than the kiss. Rich thought it was funny.

That was our relationship. Like brothers, mad at each other one day, and eager to share adventures the next. Then, in 1959, the Wimer family moved to Copley. Dad and Mom took us to their new house that fall, and Rich introduced me to Mike and Andy Wineberg. In a few months, our new house was under construction right across the street from the Wimer's house, and I started 9th grade at Copley in 1960. Dad had to drive me to and from school for a few weeks until we were able to move in.

Rich and Mike built a small plywood "cabin" about a hundred feet from the Barberton Reservoir, and it was frequently used by all of us for sleep-outs and as a base for overnight fishing trips or skinny-dipping parties. It was heated in winter with an old army surplus woodstove, and there were bunks built against the walls. The door had a padlock, and the window was a chunk of hinged plywood.

Rich graduated from high school in 1964 and I followed the next year. He was drafted and was sent to Viet Nam. While there, he wrote me a letter describing his work as a boat driver on the Mekong River. He also was awarded the Soldier's Medal, but he never spoke of it, and I would love to be able to find the citation.

We drifted apart. When we lived in Edmonton, Rich stopped by on his way up the Alaska Highway. He had had a breakdown, and we were able to locate a car dealership that could handle the warranty work that was needed. After we moved back here, Rich and I occasionally crossed paths, but we never really spent any significant amount of time together.

On Labor Day, Rich and his wife went camping. He was not feeling well. Things got worse, and when he got home on Wednesday, he was admitted to the hospital. Exploratory surgery was done on Thursday; the doctors found that his appendix had burst and peritonitis had destroyed him. Rich never woke up; the ventilator was disconnected last Friday morning. He will be buried tomorrow.

Farewell, old friend.

T'mater Juice

Ya puts the seeds in the ground, ya transplants 'em, ya waters and weeds 'em, and God makes little green t'maters that grow up to be big red t'maters. Then ya mooshes 'em an' strains 'em an' biles 'em an' cans 'em. M-m-m-m-good!


Work to be done tomorrow.

Book-Burners R Us

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Based on the commentary that I have been picking up regarding the proposed burning of a Koran by a preacher in Florida on September 11, the United States has lost the War on Terror. Because Mohammedans around the world are violently protesting that man's actions, condemnation by governments, religious leaders, ordinary citizens, and even the commander of U. S. forces in Afghanistan, due to fear of Mohammedan retaliation, has fallen on that man's head.

Without a doubt, his proposed action is designed to spit in the eye of any practicing Mohammedan. This post is probably similarly offensive; those who follow Mohammed's teachings dislike being called Mohammedans because, they reason, they are not really following Mohammed. If that confuses you, think how they must feel. But, I digress. A follower of Jesus might offend someone by virtue of doing what Jesus taught, but will not perform an action solely for the purpose of creating an offense. The preacher in Florida is being perverse.

That said, I can start unknotting my shorts.

As a Christian, I find no problem with disposing of a Bible by burning it. It is the respectful way of disposing of copies which have become unusable through wear or other damage. I understand that burning is also considered to be the proper way to respectfully dispose of worn out copies of the Torah. Burning certainly beats dumping them in the trash to be buried in a landfill.

There is another consideration, though. The Bible that I read is printed on paper. The words are visible through the medium of the ink. What I consider as the Word of God, however, transcends ink and paper and abides forever. If all the Bibles in the world were burned, I believe that God's Word would still live in His people through the agency of His Spirit. I feel embarrassed for someone whose god is so small that his words must be so jealously guarded because they might be lost if all paper copies were burned.

As an American, I find no problem with disposing of a United States flag by burning it. By law, that is the respectful way to dispose of worn out flags. I sneer (not very Christlike, but I am human) at those who so disrespectfully fly the flag in inclement weather, at night without spotlighting, from the antenna of their pickup truck, or wear it as an article of decoration. I am struck by the imbecility of those who do such things and who then rage at someone who burns a flag in protest of something or other.

The flag of the United States is the symbol of our nation; the banner of our Constitution. It has been shot to pieces on the battlefield, but the Constitution that it represents has lived on. If all the U. S. flags in the world were to be destroyed, the Constitution would live on as long as the citizens of our nation were willing to preserve it at the costs of their lives, fortunes, and honor. If the will to preserve the Constitution should die, the flag would be meaningless.

And another thing. There are a whole lot of people out there uttering nonsense about bookburning somehow being an act of repression. If I took a book from you and burned it, that might be repressive. However, if I burn my own copy of a book, how is that repressive? I am simply exercising my right to dispose of my own property. If the preacher in Florida were to take copies of the Koran from someone else and burn them, I would be first in line to tell him to end his thievery. If he goes to the store and buys a Koran and burns it, what business is that of mine or anyone else?

Let me ask another question you may never have considered. What is the respectful way to dispose of a copy of the Koran? If I have a copy I want to get rid of, and do not want what I consider to be perverted teachings to be spread about, do I throw it in the dumpster, bury it in my garden, use it instead of a Sears catalog -- or do I treat it with the same respect as a Bible or a U. S. flag, and burn it?

So the bottom line is this : what price freedom? To all the officials in our government who are more concerned with world opinion than with the right of an American to dispose of his own property, I say, shame on you. To all the generals who have forgotten that they swore to uphold the right of citizens to exercise freedom of expression, even at the cost of their lives -- and nobody forced them to take that oath -- I say, shame on you. To all those who writhe in terror at what Mohammedans might do as a result of this man's burning of his copy of the book Mohammed wrote, I say, shame on you.

You have forgotten what America is all about.

Wanted : A Wise Electorate

Once upon a time there was a nation that was founded on the concept that the citizens of that country would choose people to represent them in a Congress which would meet periodically to deliberate laws pertaining to the common good of the inhabitants of the several states which formed that nation. It was a unique concept -- "We the People" would be the government; the representatives would simply find ways to avoid conflicts between the independent States that comprised the nation.

The gentlemen who cobbled that system of government together came out of a background wherein the rulers had favored one ideology over another. Those gentlemen had a common concept that there was a God who ruled in the affairs of men, but had disagreements as to the technical details as to how that was accomplished. They realized, from their own history, that any group which attained complete freedom would be tyrannical toward any other group. Thus, they agreed to limit their own freedoms in order to share common liberties.

With the passage of time, the thrill of being free diminished. "We the People" became somewhat lazy, allowing the representatives to act as independent agents on their own behalf. Additionally, there was the growth in the population of immigrant groups jealous of their own beliefs and customs, and unwilling to limit their Old World identity. Finally, there was a smug self-righteousness that expressed itself in the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny"; a doctrine rooted in the belief that ultimately the entire world must share the same type of government which "We the People" possessed, even as that form of government became warped by it own evolution.

The federalism that drove the westward expansion of the country through the use of military power also led, in the War Between the States, to the destruction of the concept of the people of each independent State ruling over its own affairs. That same self-righteous federalism then reached out beyond the continental shores to entangle "We the People" in the Spanish-American War, two World Wars, the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, and currently the Southern Asian Wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). "We the People" have forgotten that in order to be maximally free, we must limit our own freedom, and in doing so, must avoid trying to remake other nations in our own image.

If "We the People" are to regain maximal freedom, we must restore the concept that in order to be free we must subject ourselves to the basic rules of our Constitution. The wise gentlemen who drew up that document were students of human nature, well acquainted with the perverseness which dictates that individuals have the greatest freedom within small groups. To limit the possible tyranny of the Federal government, they ordered that the independent States, through appointing Senators concerned only with the interests of their own State legislatures, should have a form of veto power over the popular democracy of the Congress; the 17th Amendment needs to be repealed to restore the rights of the states to protect their own interests.

Those wise gentlemen believed that the Congressional representatives should represent only their local constituents and decreed that the "Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand"; the unconstitutional Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 must be repealed to restore the power of representative government.

Both cures will be difficult to effect. Both will require amending the Constitution. Both will be opposed by interest groups which politically and/or financially benefit from the deviations which have taken away the power of "We the People". Both are vital changes, and without them, the Union will either dissolve into open civil war, or will descend into tyranny unimagined by those gentlemen who so bravely risked their new-found freedoms in the Great Experiment.

Ahm Tarred

Unfortunately, the A/C on the ZX2 is back to not-working mode. Jesse definitely thinks the clutch has to be replaced. The 90+ degree days are making it tough out there; I saw about 130 parcels yesterday but only about 90 today. Part of that was spending an hour at a horse boarding place looking for structures that were demo-ed, replaced, or simply mis-described by people in the past. The property owner was stunned to find out that there were two non-existent in-ground pools listed for his property. The saving grace was that both were given values of $0. Go figure.

So I tells ya, go on-line if you can and look up your tax card for your house. Read what somebody has said is there.

Tonight Jesse came over and tore apart Nurse Mixy's dashboard and replaced the burned out dash lights. She's been driving for over a year with no lights in the dash -- when she wanted to see how fast she was going, she would open her cell phone and read the speedometer from the glow.

Ingenuity. My kids exercise alternative strategies. Chips off the old blockhead.

Derumbler

I guess the iMac can stay on 42/7 now. One thing for sure -- the Apple 20" display is much crisper than the Samsung 23" display on the Mini.

For the past several weeks the ZX2 has been making squealing/rumbling/grinding noises. Since the A/C was not working, I blamed that on the A/C clutch. Jesse, however, pointed out the other day that the water pump pulley was wobbling.

The water pump was replaced just 8 months ago, when the new timing belt was installed. Whooda thunk it would go bad so quickly? At least it was under a 1 year warranty.



So we replaced it. The engine is again quiet. And, Jesse tapped the A/C clutch with his finger, and the A/C kicked in. It is also still working. We have a few 90 degree days scheduled for this week -- the A/C should help.

iMac iSBack

This afternoon I pulled the power supply out of the iMac G5 and went after the last of the capacitors that have been identified as potential troublemakers. It was the 10mf 50V part that had its leads soldered right next to a bunch of surface-mount components. Being a shaky sort of fellow at my age, I was a little afraid to stick that 1/4 inch wide 80W tip into the midst of all those nearly microscopic pieces-parts, but the job went surprisingly easily.

After putting the power supply back into the case, I plugged in the cord and was rewarded with a steady green light from the power indicator LED - the one that had been lighting up and then fading away. It stayed green, so I pressed the internal diagnostic switch and watched the next two lights take off to the accompaniment of the chime.

It's been running for about 3 hours now, and is barely warm at the top vents, fan almost inaudible. I'll leave it running overnight.

I have not been able to migrate my iCal files back -- the Mini logs into all the other machines on the local net but they can't seem to connect to the Mini. That will be the next adventure.

Bad Eggs

The Biology teacher in me shakes his head, mutters, laughs a little, then shakes his head again.

Congressional hearings are to be held on the link between the Great Salmonella Egg Recall and the farms where the eggs were produced. The CEOs of the companies that produce and sell the eggs must appear before Congress to explain. Why has no one called for a Congressional investigation of the American public, questioning how it could possibly elect such morons?

OK, chicks, time for your Biology lesson review.

Subject : Birds. Birds are not people. Birds are not mammals. A bird is a super-modified winged snake, and can also be viewed as a type of warm-blooded toad with feathers.

Birds, snakes, and toads reproduce by laying eggs. Chicken eggs are unborn chickens. If your mommy and daddy gave you the "birds and bees" lecture on human reproduction, you probably have some of your facts wrong.

Human females have separate plumbing for reproduction and pooping. Human females hatch (yeah, that's a stretch, I agree) their eggs inside and the babies are laid from the front orifice. When they are finished digesting food, they poop out the waste from the back orifice -- the anus.

Chickens, however, are single-oriface critters. Their plumbing has a cloaca (Latin for sewer) which exits at their anus. When they lay an egg, they poop it out through the anus. When they finish digesting food, they poop that out through the very same anus. Disgusting as you may think that to be, it is what it is.

Therefore, people who handle chicken eggs carelessly, or eat them raw or even inadequately cooked, subject themselves to potential danger. That fact is understood by every little kid that grew up on a farm. It is understood by every informed adult. It is not understood by Congresscritters. Anything coming out of a chicken's anus is likely to be contaminated. Simple common sense.

One final word. This post will undoubtedly earn me some fan mail about using the word "poop". Too bad. It is a perfectly good English word, and when it is used, there is no mistaking what is meant. If "poop" offends you that badly, try going a few days without it.

Now I know I'm in trouble...

Simplifying...

We will now see how well this works. I added the button for posting this blog to Facebook. Rather than logging in there to see what is going on, I'll just hit the button when I think I have something important to say. Or not so important. Whatever. Then anybody who sees it on Facebook can email me or write a comment if they are so moved. Arrogance on my part, I will admit, but I really do need to cut down on the frittering away of my time.

Late August

I have to admit that FaceBook is addictive. It is a very good way to keep in touch with oodles of poodles. Unfortunately, it is also a fantastic way to waste time as you read all the news you really didn't need to know.

I set up the FaceBook account as a means of reaching out during my primary campaign for Congress. However, as noted above, it has turned into a time consumer, and ultimately has made me less productive in terms of articulating my ideas. Ha! We are now all less intelligent due to my use of FaceBook -- contagious stupidity has struck.

So, since there is now a FaceBook app that allows blog posts to show up, what I propose to do is severely limit my FaceBook visits and instead spend more time with this blog and with hRubik's hRramblings.

Update time. I have not been able to spend any additional time working on the Speedex. The swarm of bees weakened and has died out; that has me puzzled, but I think part of the problem was a leaky feeder and attacks by robber bees. I did spend some time on the raised beds; that should pay off in seasons to come.

The iMac is still in the morgue, very dead, but I have hopes for its resurrection. Meanwhile, a new Mac Mini has been doing the work, displaying to a 23" Samsung HDTV. That is a very sweet combination.

It is raining right now -- a steady, thorough soaking rain, the first like this we have had in weeks. In fact, it has very much the feel of a fall rain. Even though it is late August, the leaves have been starting to turn. The days have been hot, but the nights very cool; tomatoes have had trouble ripening.

Stay tuned for more.

Good Medicine

Last time, we left the hive to drink the potion. Opening it up two days later, we see that for the most part, they have ignored the syrup for fresh nectar that is available all over the countryside. Still, they have been sampling the special hooch...



...but we need to provide more ventilation, and the mite treatment needs to be added. Taking off the feeder and the inner cover, its obvious that the crew is at home.



I found a partial package of Apistan™ in my bee supplies; I'm going to try using that package up before I open the new one. It has been cool, dark, and dry in the closet, so the strips should still be OK. One strip is in the lower left corner, between the frame bars, and the other toward the upper right. The bees come into contact with the strip, and the Varroa mites die.



Since this colony is small to begin with, and the queen is going to be laying at top speed, treatment right now is critical. The mites attack the larvae; by the time they have matured, it would be too late to treat. It will be almost three weeks before the new workers emerge, and the older workers -- the original swarm -- will be weakening and starting to die off. If too many of the new bees have "crooked wing" because of the mites, the colony will not be able to maintain itself.



A different inner cover has been modified with screened holes for ventilation. It is hard to get too much air flow through the hive. As the bees bring in nectar, they change it to wax, for the comb cells, and honey. In the process, huge amounts of water need to be evaporated. If the moisture cannot be vented quickly enough, the result will be sick bees. Even in winter, air flow is critical. The colony can maintain 95°F around the queen in sub-zero temperatures, but must vent the moisture that is produced.



Everything is back together and its work, work, work as usual.

The Doctor is IN

Thursday morning Jesse called, asking if I was willing to pick up a swarm in Tallmadge. I was, but it would have to wait until evening; that was OK with the swarmees. About 7:30 PM I arrived at the site. The swarm was roughly the size of a big football, clinging to a chemical tank about six feet off the ground. I had a super stapled to a bottom board with a screen in the opening; I sprinkled some sugar on the top frame bars and brushed the ladies into the box. Most of them went in like a waterfall. A small group, about the size of a baseball, refused to play, and after checking thoroughly that the Boss Lady was not in their midst, I left them there to die. Nothing else to be done for it.

Arriving at home, I waited until almost dark, then pulled the screen from the entry. In the morning, the little buzzers got themselves oriented to their new location, and went nectar-hunting. Yesterday I noticed that there were some Nasty Bugs around; I watched one yellow-jacket go into the hive and then beat a quick retreat. I grabbed an entrance reducer and closed down the doorway.



This morning I headed out to Queen Right Colonies, where Denzil sold me some Apistan™ for the mites and some Fumagilin-B™ for nosema. Just under $50 for vet supplies. Imagine what the cost might be if I were running feeder cattle again!

I decided to start the feeding right away to build up the hive numbers, so I mixed up a half-gallon of sugar syrup with a half teaspoon of the antibiotic and set up the feeder. Opening the top, the bees were clustered to one side. Not a whole lot of them home -- it was a small swarm -- but my guesstimate is that at least half of them were out foraging at the time of the portrait.



A piece of baseboard was chosen as a riser for the feeder. The relief cutout on the back will allow some air flow for cooling, at least until the bees plug it up. The feeder is a plastic mayo jar with some 1/16" holes drilled in the lid, and works like a poultry waterer.




Tomorrow or Monday I'll open it back up to check the syrup level and at the same time install two of the mite strips.



Its good to bee back in operation. I'm going to do my best to keep this harem happy.

Speedex S19 Project

It was time already to get the old Speedex out of the shed and get to work on restoring it.


It's a neat little tractor, with all kinds of real tractor features.


The Lawn Chief towed it to the top of the hill, flat front tires and all.


The front hitch point, where I hope to be able to attach the snow plow in winter.


The 8 horse Briggs 190407 engine, with its 12V electric starter. Mice packed the space behind the flywheel with maple seeds, and possibly messed up the wiring to the capacitor. I cleaned out as much as I could, added a new muffler, replaced the gas line, and drained and replaced the oil. Wouldn't start. No spark at all.


Here's the PTO linkage, in case I want to add a mower deck or use a sickle bar.


The rear hitch -- a sort of three-point arrangement. It is a manual lift, though. No hydraulics on this machine.


The gearbox and rear pulleys. These are terribly misaligned. But then, so are the front pulleys. Replacing and aligning the sheaves ought to be simple, and I'll need to create a replacement belt cover and battery cover. I've already straightened some of the sheet metal on the hood.

As this project moves forward, I'll post more pix of the progress. Main thing for right now is to get it running.

Spoke Too Soon

iMac just when "Ptht" and turned black. The restart was quick and smooth, so it has to be the MOBO caps this time. Ah, well. One item at a time. I have the MOBO caps here already -- they only cost $12.00 plus shipping.

Ah, It Feels Good!

It took long enough to get all the pieces together, but the iMac G5 is back up and running -- very quietly, I might add, with less fan noise than when it was new! -- for $3.95 in parts and a lot of frustrated work getting the lead-free solder to melt in the capacitor removal phase. It took hours of work to get those little thingies out, and about a half hour to solder in all the new caps. With 60-40 lead-tin solder, of course. Lead-free is for masochists.

Still have to remove and replace all the caps on the motherboard, but the power supply seems rock-solid right now. I'm looking for a narrower tip for the Weller 80W iron; 3/8" is simply too wide when you are working in close proximity to surface mount components.

Gotta get inside the Bondi Blue iMac's upper case and check to see if it was the same kind of problem.

Yip-yip-yippee!!

Pieces Arriving...

The order from Computek arrived today. Also an email from Allied saying they shipped today.

Took the Bondi Bue iMac mostly apart last night, but then decided I'd better quit while I was ahead since the instructions I was following were on-line and the lightning was a-flashin' outside. Sure 'nuff, I was mostly back together when the power went out for a second.

I'll try again later. I am really curious if that machine died due to a capacitor problem in its power supply.

Gettin' It Together

Today I took a little trip down to PhilCap to see if they had the caps I need for the iMac repair. They had one - a 10mF 50V 5x11mm -- for $1.64. Back home, I started looking for a cap supplier on-line, and stumbled across Allied Electronics. The prices were right, and the cap manufacturer that predominated was Illinois Capacitor. I ordered enough to do 2 "C" style power supplies, including another 10mF 50V 5x11mm for $0.11. Live and learn.

The order from Allied came to $9.76 plus $5.00 handling plus they will charge OH sales tax and probably about $6 for Priority Mail. Then I went to the Computek site and ordered the motherboard caps. Needed 25, but had to order 40 (minimum 20 of each type), which came to $28.55 including shipping and handling.

Picked up the Artic Silver Ceramique heat sink compound at Radio Shack for $6.70. I decided not to use lead-free solder on the installation; I have lots of 60-40 resin core in my toolbox. I'm ready to go when the caps get here.

The power supply is sitting on my desk, disassembled. Last night I whittled away all the silicone goop that Apple injected around the capacitors. They are ready to be extracted.

Maybe by the weekend I can be back up and running.

New Post

I thought I needed a catchy title for this post; there it is.

Progress on the iMac is nearly non-existent. Lots of other stuff to do. I miss having that machine running 24/7, with Mail open and Firefox just a click away. Not having access to iCal and Quicken is definitely inconvenient.

Bought a new soldering iron at Ace Hardware today. They kindly sent me a coupon to take $5 off any purchase over $20, so I used it. Its a Weller 80W with a 3/8" chisel tip, develops 900 degrees. That should be plenty of heat for the led-free solder on the boards.

Now I think I should also pick up a de-soldering iron from Radio Shack, and practice with it.

Still have not ordered the capacitors. I may be able to find some of them at the Shack or at PhilCap; if they don't have them, there are some on-line sources that have what I'll need. I did not order from J West Sales because they will accept payment only through Google checkout. Since I have no desire to give Google the right to run a credit report on me -- my credit is none of their nosy business -- I'll just find the parts elsewhere and use the normal payment process.

Fixed one lawnmower today. Tore apart the carb, cleaned everything out, and installed a new carb cable. Fixed the shredder (sort of). Tore off the head, scraped out all the carbon and cleaned the valves, and it starts easily and runs fine. Needs some major welding on the other parts, though.

'Nuff fer this post. Iff'n I write any more, the borer bees might get into it.

iMac Blues

My iMac G5 was purchased as a refurb from Apple, and it was a good thing that I bought the 3-year extended service plan. Almost immediately it had to be worked on; the Superdrive was refusing to read/write DVDs. Some time later, the computer died, and the power supply had to be replaced. Finally, just before the 3 years was up, it died again, and once again, the power supply was replaced. A few months ago (back last Fall), it suffered a hard drive crash, and I installed a new hard drive.

We've had a number of brief power outages, and several weeks ago I called home and the phone rang continuously; the fax modem did not pick up. Sure enough, when I got in, the iMac was dark. Following SOP, I tried a restart. After the chime, the Apple came up, and then suddenly the machine shut down. I tried again. The second time, the desktop picture came up, but there were funny squiggly lines across it, and when I clicked on a widget, the machine crashed. The third startup seemed stable, and the machine ran for several days before it began having problems again.

Diagnostic testing using the diagnostic LEDs seemed to point to the power supply again. I started looking for a replacement on-line. Then I came across a site which described fixing the power supply. It also had instruction for repair of the motherboard.

It seems that Apple, and a number of other manufacturers, in looking for a cheap supply of capacitors, had bought from a Chi-Com manufacturer that had cranked out defective units. The problem is so widespread that there are distributors on-line which sell replacement capacitors specifically to tackle this problem.

I now have the instructions for the fix, and started collecting the necessary tools. Here are some shots of the problem:


Motherboard, showing bulging caps (red marker added by me)


The bulging is evident here and in the next picture


While only 2 caps appear to be damaged, the advice is to replace all 25 of them.

The real problem, probably the cause of the failure of the MOB caps, was in the power supply :


Here you can see that one of the caps is leaking. That is NOT marker on the top of that capacitor; it is capacitor juice. 8 of the 11 are bulging


The scorch marks on the PS cover show how hot this got.

The cost of replacement capacitors is about $60. The cost of a replacement motherboard and power supply is more than the value of the computer (well over $700). I picked up a T-10 Torx security bit today (for opening the "No user serviceable parts inside"), and I'll be getting an 80W soldering iron. One supplier I found sells the caps for about 50 cents each, but you have to order in multiples of 20, and that supplier doesn't carry all the caps for the power supply.

For anybody with a 17", 20", or 24" iMac (Intel versions as well), sooner or later you will need to either replace the power supply or replace its capacitors. I'm curious now whether that was the problem in Maria's G3 Blueberry iMac. When I'm feeling real fixy I'll have to peek inside that one. It would make a nice email machine for Granny.

25 Cents Worth

Yesterday was the quarter-century mark for my flapper. I can only thank God that He worked things out the way He did. Spent the evening splitting more of that black locust firewood. Wow.

Dis'n'Dat

1. Granny is coming home Thursday
2. Planted onions, cabbage, broccoli, and some more lettuce in the greenhouse Saturday
3. Started soaking some of Dad's old (1992) pepper seeds in HOHO (that was Bruce's suggestion, that HOHO would possibly provide extra O to break dormancy); they have swelled up and I need to get them in potting soil

What a Turkey!

Yesterday (3-4-2010), by a 23-22 vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved sending House Resolution 252, "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution" to the House floor for a vote by the full House.

As a result of this action, the government of Turkey has recalled its ambassador Turkey recalls envoy to U.S. over panel's 'genocide' vote. The Turks, who once went under the name "Ottoman Empire", and who butchered their way into the heart of Europe, are unhappy that their actions against the Armenians in the early 20th Century could possibly be censured by the Representatives of the American People.

So unhappy are they, that they have resorted to threats. It seems, however, that you have to read foreign newspapers to find out what is going on over there Ankara warns of 'consequences'

"Turkey warned the Obama administration on Friday of negative diplomatic consequences if it fails to impede a US resolution branding the World War I-era killing of Armenians as genocide.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country, a key Muslim ally of the US, would assess what measures it would take, adding that the issue was a matter of "honor" for Ankara."

...

"Davutoglu said the Obama administration had not put sufficient weight behind efforts to block the vote and called on Washington to do more to prevent the measure from now going to the full House.

The measure was approved at a time when Washington is expected to press Turkey to back sanctions against Iran to be approved in the UN Security Council, where Turkey currently holds a rotating seat. Turkish cooperation is also important to US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also at stake are defense contracts. Turkey is an important market for US defense companies, many of which had lobbied against the measure."

News reports in this country have told of the Turkish unhappiness, but the JPost article was the first I had seen that contained the revelation that the Turks simply do not understand how the United States government works.

The President is the representative of the United States. The Congressman from each district is the representative of the people of his State. When an American points to a President and says, "He's not my President, in a certain sense of the phrase, he is correct. The President is simply one citizen among equals, not a king or dictator. Because of this, there is often a sense of anger when a President attempts to tell Congress what to do.

Maybe the Turks should get a history book and look up the "XYZ Affair". Ha! Maybe some Americans should do the same. We may not be the most diplomatic people in the world, as some nations consider diplomacy, but we do tend to react as Charles Pinckney is said to have done when the French tried to interfere in American policy by asking for a bribe to avoid war, "Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute."

It takes a Turkey to try to influence the representatives of the American people by threatening the President of the United States. The real question is whether this President is anything at all like John Adams.

Spring is Coming

Yesterday I was able to get into the greenhouse for the first time since the beginning of the year. Had to shovel away almost a foot of snow from in front of the door; in spite of the melting the snow is still piled around the sides from where it slid off, and the door had been blocked by several feet of snow that had accumulated through normal snowfall plus drifting.

Outside, it was barely above freezing. Inside, the temperature was a balmy 56 degrees. The lettuce I planted in the Fall with a hope of having fresh greens at Christmas seems to have survived. We shall see. In a day or so I maybe there will be some new growth, I hope, and then perhaps there will be home-grown salad for Easter.

The sweet basil and pepper plants that were left over the winter need to be cleaned out and the soil improved with some manure and lime in preparation for planting.

I need to get a thermometer with a probe in order to take the soil temperature a few inches down. It is March; time to seed onions, cabbage, broccoli, some more lettuce...

Any more suggestions as to what I should try to grow in there?

Amendment Four

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Fourth Amendment was a reaction of the Founding Fathers to police power abuses that allowed public officials to invade private homes to search for items which might be used to incriminate the owners or other occupants. It has been the subject of fierce debate between those who style themselves the champions of personal rights, and those who claim that it has been overly broadly used to coddle criminals.

A major concern is that Fourth Amendment rights are widely misunderstood or even waived; the authority to search can be given to public officials by default if a citizen does not understand where to draw the line. Those close to me know that I often deride and mock the ACLU and its liberal friends, but I recommend several resources that they have made available on-line : BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters (FlexYourRights.org), Don't Talk to Cops, Part 1 (Professor James Duane, Regent Law School), and Don't Talk to Cops, Part 2 (Officer George Bruch, Norfolk VA Police Dept.).

The multitude of laws on the books has created a situation where it is nearly impossible for a citizen to avoid breaking one of them. It is not far from the truth to say that the primary cause of crime in the United States is Congress (or, your State legislature, or city council, etc.). In Ohio, it is against the law for a driver to pass another car without giving an audible signal; if you are an Ohio driver, do you blow the horn every time you pass a car on the Interstate? If not, you are breaking the law. That may sound ridiculous, but it is true. When the law was written, there were no multi-lane highways, and the situation was not anticipated. You will not, however, be arrested for that violation unless the cop you just passed has had a really bad day. In fact, if you use your horn while traveling between the sound barriers in a residential area, you might be arrested for breaking the law against disturbing the peace as you comply with the traffic law.

That exposes the crux of the problem. There are so many laws, many of which conflict with others, that if the police were to do their job, by the book, we would all be in jail and traffic would still be backed up from last week as we waited for our tickets to be written out. Thus, the police tend to look the other way (in violation of their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and the laws of their State) simply because it is impractical to enforce every law. They tend to use their discretion when deciding who to stop and question, and consequently, casual encounters with the police sometimes inadvertently turn into arresting events.

The operative phrase is "unreasonable searches and seizures". So what is a "reasonable" excuse for a search or seizure? The courts have held that if an officer has "probable cause" to think that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed, that can be "reasonable". The ability of police to carry out such searches is crucial to our security, especially in view of the possibility of terrorist acts being committed among our midst, and great care must be exercised in limiting their ability to do their job. The danger is that law enforcement officers are just as subjective as the rest of the citizenry, and their perception of an activity may influence their judgment as to probable cause. Coupled with the power of the badge, citizens may unwittingly yield their rights.

There are those who would say, "So what? If you have nothing to hide, why be afraid of a search?" I can think of two reasons immediately. The first is the insult that accrues to being accused of illegal activity by virtue of coming under suspicion because of another individual's perceptions. In times when personal honor was more highly valued, such an accusation would have precipitated violence, possibly a duel to the death. Indeed, that may be the reason why some individuals even today react angrily to such an accusation.

The second reason has to do with the multiplicity of laws created by people who try to force perfection on a human society. Nanny-state governance always takes away freedom from the individual and is usually excused as being "the will of the majority". The person whose unique dreams and desires are crushed by the imposition of democracy will no doubt call it the "tyranny of the majority".

One of the possible partial solutions to the problem is to simply not make so many things illegal. The idea of being secure in "persons, houses, papers, and effects" is strongest in a society where individual liberties have not been restricted. Sometimes those liberties may offend our sensibilities, sometimes they may outrage us, sometimes the liberty that another person has may reduce our own ability to make a monetary gain, and sometimes that liberty may give an individual the opportunity to hurt himself. Freedom is always obtained by the destruction of the power of an oppressor, and often is held at the peril of the possessor.

I believe that the most reasonable way to strengthen and preserve our rights under the Fourth Amendment would be a systematic culling of outdated laws, and repealing of laws which restrict personal liberties. When government requires a citizen to participate in a program, or attempts to protect a person from his/her own actions, or provides relief for the consequences of foolish actions, it ultimately paves the way for the surrender of basic Constitutional rights.

It was pointed out by a reviewer that the examples I cited above were local and State laws, and that there are Federal laws which also need to be reviewed and, if not modified to fit the times and possibly redesigned to be flexible as society's needs change, repealed. These include :

• "hate crimes" laws of all sorts, which create a degree of criminality based on what an accuser believes a criminal's intent to be,
• tax laws which create special "tax courts" not bound by ordinary rules of evidence and procedure,
• any and all laws, whether civil or criminal, in which the accused must pay for his/her legal defense, even if found innocent,
• portions of the Davis-Bacon Act, which allow the Secretary of Labor to arbitrarily set the "prevailing wage", and which clearly violate Amendments One and Fourteen, and
• portions (or the entirety) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which assumes that all business owners are guilty of corruption until they can prove themselves innocent.

Many of these laws were passed as knee-jerk reactions to special interests, and are examples of why a representative republic with limited opportunity to change the law is preferable to a democracy in which emotions allow mob rule to create repressive conditions for not only a minority at one point in time, but for the whole of society over a long period.

It is my hope that in some way I could be instrumental in repealing Federal legislation that unduly restricts the rights of citizens to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects".

Amendment Three

"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

Very few Americans give thought to this amendment, yet its origin lay in the practice of the British military to conscript civilian housing for its soldiers. The Declaration of Independence complains,

• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

and because the Congress had the power to both declare war and raise an army, the States were concerned that the abuses they had suffered before could be repeated.

While this amendment to our Constitution may seem unnecessary today, it is a reminder of our history and the reasons why the Founding Fathers were willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and honor for the cause of freedom. It is one more restriction on the government, and the more tightly the government is bound, the less likely it will hurt the people.

Amendment Two

As free Englishmen, the American colonists could point to a history in which local yeomen were called upon for defense of their towns and for mutual aid when disasters struck. They were the frontline of homeland security, foreign wars being largely the province of knights, nobility, and conscripted serfs.

When the United States came into being, the inhabitants of the States were concerned with being able to defend themselves from attack by a hostile power to the north -- British Canada. Previous to its absorption by the British Empire, that region, as French Canada, had also been a dangerous enemy. American history courses tend to minimize coverage of that time period.

There was also an enemy to the west. One of the reasons specifically given for the Declaration of Independence was the failure of George III to protect the colonies from Indian attack:

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

From the time of the Pequot War (1635), through the French and Indian War (1763), and on until almost the beginning of the 20th Century, the frontier was a dangerous place where no man, unarmed, could feel safe.

Finally, after independence had been gained from Great Britain, there was also the danger of interstate warfare : a classic case is the Toledo War, in which the Michigan Militia occupied the City of Toledo, Ohio. Thus the States were unwilling to ratify any document which would take away their rights to maintain a militia. The militia was to be at the service of the State governor, and had traditionally been recruited from the general populace and with officers chosen by the troops themselves.

Article I of the Constitution gives to the Congress specific powers, among which are:

• "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"

This, however, was not completely satisfactory to some of the more exposed frontier States. It was objected to by several of the States which claimed that it contained no prohibition on Congress disarming the militias, and the Bill of Rights contained a specific amendment which supersedes that portion of Article I :

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290 the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Second Amendment provided for the personal keeping and bearing of arms, stating in the majority opinion,

"...the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

and in response to part of the minority dissent, which focused on both the preconceived notions of courts in settled case law, and the perceived need by some of the Justices for the SCOTUS to interpret the Constitution in view of current fads and whims, further stated,

"A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. We would not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second Amendment is no different."

While I agree with the conclusion of the Court that the Second Amendment guarantees to the individual the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and sport, I am dismayed that in all the scholarship the construction of the Amendment itself has been misconstrued.

In every accurate transcription of the Second Amendment, there are three commas. Commas are used to set off appositives, noun phrases which identify or define a preceding noun or noun phrase, and the Second Amendment clearly has two appositives. This was pointed out to me through simple sentence diagramming (remember high school English?). "A well regulated Militia" is defined by the Amendment as both "being necessary to the security of a free State" and also as "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms". The concern of the dissenting States was the possibility that the Congress would refuse to support the State militias. The clear intent of the Amendment is "A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed."

Thus the majority opinion of the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller was correct, but based on a faulty reading of the Amendment text. I believe that the Second Amendment establishes an absolute right of the individual (who is the functional unit of any militia) to keep and bear any weapon, without restraint by Congress, and therefore by extension, without restraint by any governmental body in the United States.

Thus, as per the quote by Thomas Jefferson in the previous post with respect to Amendment One, the government's interest in this matter can only legitimately concern itself with an individual's actions.

Amendment One

Congress shall make no law

• respecting an establishment of religion,
• or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
• or abridging the freedom of speech,
• or of the press;
• or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
• and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is unique. No other nation limits the powers of its government to regulate the free expression of the people to such an extent. People refer to this amendment's provisions as the rights to freedom of the press, and of speech, but the broader implications of this restriction on Congress are often overlooked.

The Constitution of the United States was designed to protect the rights of the people and the States from encroachment by the Union. The oft cited letter of Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists provides a window into the thinking of the Founding Fathers.

The fear of repression by the State of minor sects was expressed by the Danbury Baptists thusly [emphasis is mine]:

"Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our revolution. And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, [so] that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if those who seek after power and gain, under the pretense of government and Religion, should reproach their fellow men, [or] should reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dares not, assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ. " (Danbury Baptist Association, 10-7-1801)

To which Jefferson replied,

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." (T. Jefferson, 1-1-1802, Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists).

Note that Jefferson's comment about "separation between Church & State" is an afterthought to his insistence that government should not interfere in the rights of the people to express themselves, and is not a restriction on those rights, as was asserted by the Supreme Court in Reynolds v. United States (1878). [For an interesting discussion, see A Wall of Separation].

As to social duties, he wrote, "Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816. His position appears to be that the natural rights of man, those freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, make the accomplishing of the social duties possible.

The Founders were well aware of the history of abuses by government toward religious observance, and specifically included the ban on prohibiting the free exercise of religious faith. Many of the European immigrants to the United States have made their pilgrimage because they suffered persecution by the "State Church", or officially recognized religious sect, of their homeland. The nation of Switzerland, vaunted as a pioneer in "democracy", is still a prime example of a European nation which boasts of religious freedom, but which taxes its citizens to subsidize the three recognized major sects.

In the early 1800's, S. H. Frohlich, a Swiss anabaptist leader who suffered intense persecution by the official State church, wrote his treatise Matrimony According to the Word of God. In it he explained why government has no business regulating marriage; while he probably never read Jefferson's writings, he would have undoubtedly agreed with Jefferson's position respecting the First Amendment to our Constitution.

One of the great dangers of democracy is the tendency of a majority to tyrannize a minority, especially in regard to belief systems and practices. The Constitution of the United States thus is specific about protecting personal expression from government. It is for this reason that I oppose all legislation that attempts to criminalize speech, whether in the form of "hate speech", or restrictions on personal opinion in political campaigns. Such legislation clearly violates the First Amendment. I stand with Jefferson in the sentiment, that "the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions".