Without the Second Amendment (protecting Americans’ individual right to keep and bear arms), the First Amendment (protecting Americans’ individual right to free speech) would be meaningless. As in non-existent. The enemies of firearms freedom scoff at any such notion. They point to Europe, where gun rights are gone, yet free speech remains. Or does it? Under the 2012 European Data Protection Regulation Article 17, Europeans now have the “right to erasure.” They have the right to . . .
obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data relating to them and the abstention from further dissemination of such data, especially in relation to personal data which are made available by the data subject while he or she was a child or where the data is no longer necessary for the purpose it was collected for, the subject withdraws consent, the storage period has expired, the data subject objects to the processing of personal data or the processing of data does not comply with other regulation.
In other words, upon request, European courts can order Internet publishers to remove information from the web. Permanently. What could possibly go wrong? For that answer, we need only turn to any “first world” country that’s disarmed its citizens.
In Mexico, for example, the drug cartels and their government co-conspirators say “we don’t need no stinkin’ Article 17.” They simply kill the bloggers. Well, not so simply. First they torture them. Then they decapitate them. Then they display their mutilated bodies in public as a warning to anyone else who would dare use the Internet to report on the cartels’ criminal activities.
Here’s a brief description of one such atrocity from borderlandbeat.com:
The third victim was, a woman identified by her “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo” cyber name; “La Nena D Laredo”, was found decapitated on September 24th of 2011. Her head was left on top of a computer keyboard with a message warning others against using social media sites to report cartel activity.
Disarmed? Of course she was. Mexico’s weak constitutional guarantee for its citizens’ gun rights has resulted in a de facto gun ban, similar to the one in New York City. Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you? If you’re a citizen journalist in Mexico trying to keep your fellow countrymen safe from rape, torture, extortion, murder and mutilation, you’re going to die.
I know it’s hard to draw a line from the horror above to the streets of Manhattan or, indeed, the keyboard upon which I’m banging on borderlandbeat’s behalf. But make no mistake: nature abhors a vacuum. If citizens aren’t armed, politicians and other criminal elements assume the power/authority that’s left on the proverbial table. The inherently fragile balance between good and evil tips towards evil, and human rights disappear.
Yes, even in America.
Ask yourself this: why is police abuse worse in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where the populace has been disarmed? If it weren’t for the Internet, it would be a lot worse. In fact would be as bad as it was before the Internet, when the police and media colluded to suppress stories of police torture and summary execution. Oh, and racist beat-downs.
What would happen if American criminals, cops, politicians, lawyers, prosecutors and judges could exercise their [European] “right to be forgotten”? If criminal corruption could operate without worrying about the cold light of publicity? Not just in big cities, but everywhere? By the same token, what if the government had the power to censor the Internet in the name of anti-terrorism, preventing the media from writing about spying, secret detentions, etc.? Canada’s having that discussion right now.
Of course, none of that wouldn’t happen here. America couldn’t possibly descend into the death-dealing criminal kleptocracy that’s become our neighbor to the south. Why there’d be a revolution! Which is why it doesn’t happen. See how that works?
And if anyone doubts that disarmament by the U.S. would never happen, just remember that the government:
disarmed Native Americans (and put them in “reservations”)
disarmed Blacks (and threw them in jail or lynched them)
disarmed Japanese Americans (and put them in “camps”)
State govt. in commiefornia and other slave states are actively doing the same thing right now.
Their intended impact with the gun control bills is to reduce the number of civilian (legally) owned firearms as much as possible. Some people just think of it as misguided crime control, but that doesn’t explain how the bills are calculated for maximum public effect.
All through history, the State is always in the business of deciding who the “Inconvenient People” are.
Just look at the list of Inconvenient People in U.S. history. In no particular order:
Native Americans
Hollywood Blacklist
Catholics
Atheists
Women
Anabaptists
Chinese
Jews
Blacks
Jean Seberg
Irish
Drinkers
Germans
Mexicans
Quakers
Mormons
Hippies
Pot Smokers
Those in power use prejudice to drive a wedge between peoples in order to consolidate power.
State of the Union (Spencer Tracy speech)
“The secret to our great plenty is Freedom!”
I wept.
All through history, the government has always decided who the Inconvenient People are.
Why just look here at a sample of some of the Inconvenient People from U.S. history, in no particular order:
Pot Smokers
Christians
Native Americans
Blacks
Chinese
Jews
Irish
Germans
Catholics
Anabaptists
Quakers
Hollywood Blacklist
Italians
Jean Seberg
Hippies
Mormons
Women
Homosexuals
Inuit
Peace Protestors
You get the picture.
Those in power will always attempt to divide people in order to consolidate and expand power.
State of the Union (Spencer Tracy speech)
Didn’t help that the one who pushed for most of the laws to be put in place was using the seized weapons to sell to Filipino rebels. I still don’t understand how those laws maintain credibility after seeing something like that.
As I get older, the list of things that I think “can’t happen here” gets shorter and shorter.
Yeah I get that too. I would say it’s similar to when I was a kid and started to learn the worlds secrets(Santa, Tooth Fairy, etc).
Spot on Mike.
Spot on.
Brilliant Mike.
Under Obama and the progressive/authoritarian movement which created him, my “can’t happen here list” has gotten shorter month by month. In fact, there’s not a whole lot left on the list at this point.
Too true. The scariest part is that it’s a shortening not by the compounding suspicions of an aging mind, but by the astounding additions to the list of things that have already happened here.
“gonna get a tv dinner an’ cook it up”
I said it before and I’ll say it again, I really can’t blame Mexicans for jumping the border. I’d do the same thing in their shoes. Corruption, kidnappings, mutilation, slaughter, they live in hell. It’s change my perspective on why they come here. I recently said this to a Hispanic guy who I’ve known for several years now and he told me “why you think I come live here?”. He said it bothers him how bad it is there, but he’s more worried about taking care of his family here. And before you assume it, he’s been a citizen here for near a decade, and isn’t on welfare.
It’s not the immigrants that come through legally, pay the administration fees, wait their turn, get interviewed and take the oath of citizenship that I am worried about.
“And before you assume it, he’s been a citizen
here for near a decade, and isn’t on welfare.”
If only the other millions were so wise….why are
all the public transportation signs in my
town english AND spanish ? There ARE some
signs a few Mexican citizens are finally
learning why the 2nd Amendment is the 1st
among equals here but it’s far to late for most. Political power ALWAYS comes out of the
barrel of a gun…always…
My town is surrounded by 3 large farms that employ migrant workers every summer. Most are quiet and keep to themselves, but some like to drink like fish and get in fist fights with each other every weekend. Never a dull moment. Come every spring, the population of this town practically doubles. Sometimes I think I was somehow Twilight Zoned to Tijuana while I slept, because walking or driving down the street, I’m the only white boy in sight!
And I’ll tell you what, you need someone to make a beer run in a hurry, call one of those guys. One night a couple of years ago, I watched two of them take off running from the cops while carrying 2 cases of beer each (bottles, not cans) and somehow evaded them. I was impressed.
Unlike you I won’t assume to know how many work vs leach but I will say that I have worked with countless mexican immigrants including I suspect a few illegals and almost to a man they were hard working modest people. I learned rather quickly that if I were teamed up with a white guy I was in for a day of doing most of the work playing supervisor and listening to non stop whining. A day with a Mexican was a revelation in comparison. Watching a 120lb 5’3″ kid from down south throw him self at the task of moving objects that made my six foot two forty self ache was motivational. White people by comparison are lazy and despite lacking any skills most fel entitled to get more and do less. Half the time I feel like the last hard working natural morn American.
You are not the last hard working American. They are out there. We built a society where work is not essential for survival, and it has had very predictable results. There is a example in history of two colonies started by settlers to the new world. One failed miserably, and the other succeeded. One colony had a rule that you either work or starve, and the other did not. Guess which colony failed.
Let me add a little more to this. I live in Maricopa County Arizona. I am around immigrants from Mexico all the time. Many of them are great people and some are good friends. But, do not believe that all migrants from Mexico are good people. Our jails in this part of Arizona are filled with illegal immigrants who came to the US and committed serious crimes.
So, Bob, you notice the difference between illegal aliens and immigrants daily, but you still call the illegals “immigrants”?
Just a major pet peeve of mine:
Calling an illegal alien an ‘illegal immigrant’ makes as much sense as calling a home invader a ‘illegal roommate’.
Europe, at least the UK, have some of the tightest restrictions on speech.
The European laws are complicated and sure include a lot of things against the EU Citizens.
However, in this case of the Data Protection act, this is a right for citizens to request the erasure of collected personal data by the government. This act was done after the whole NSA spying thing on law abiding citizens (as well as Facebook thing at the time that wasn’t really deleting an account and was keeping all personal data).
So it wasn’t probably the best introduction for the article. However, they (EU government) are preparing some laws (maybe even already passed some) about a possibility to remove citizen personal content from the internet by government decision (not even court).
Of course, they’re saying it’s for terrorism, racial, anti-semetic and other hateful contents. But let’s not be naive and keep in mind that sooner or later, talking about guns will be considered as a “hateful content”.
http://votesmart.org/
The mid-term elections are next week. It is your right to vote and make your voice heard. If things don’t improve and they(you know who they are) continue eroding our rights or restricting US WE may lose more than WE would like.
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