On the Rights of Mankind

Our nation's Founders set down principles of the Rights of Mankind which they described as "self-evident" or as Merriam-Webster defines the term clearly true and requiring no proof or explanation. Yet, today we have a difficult time asserting a single principle of the Rights of Mankind which isn't quickly whittled away by well developed counterpoints, diluted by qualification or exception, or laughed off as antiquated. We are left bereft of self-evident principles regarding our Rights. This is exactly what the Framers and Founders feared. This is why they took so much time, risked much personal wealth, and their lives along with their families well-being. It seems a long time ago, and the patina of time adds a mythical color to our history. It seems more fable than fact. That allows us the opportunity to minimize the risks that were taken in order that we might fully possess those self-evident Rights which come directly from God without intermediary or interpreter.

God > People > Government

This was the flow chart for power, authority, and sovereignty which the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights lays out. In by much as God made people and holds sovereign power over them, so people made government and hold sovereign power over it. The Founders used the phrase, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.."
Note that the Rights pre-exist the formation of government. The government is only a tool for securing, or making safe, these Rights.

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
with the UN Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed on 10 December 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations makes no claim to such a hierarchy of power. Instead, the flow chart of power, authority, and sovereignty looks like this...

Government > People > God

Article 8 states, "Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."

President Nixon said, "When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal." [1]

The monarch our nation's Founders rebelled against, King George III said, "I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." [2]

Herein lays the problem with the type of "rights" stated in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are not Rights but privileges which originate from the government by Constitution or by law. One moment one may have a Right, and a stroke of the pen later they have it not.

Rather than a touchstone of inherent Rights bestowed by God as the Ultimate, Eternal, and Unchanging Law Giver upon individuals the Declaration constitutes a non-binding resolution of feel good language about privileges we may, or may not, be afforded to possess depending upon what manner of government holds sway over our heads.

We err in believing that governments are lasting institutions. The most fortunate government lasts but a few centuries before they collapse under their own bureaucratic weight or are swallowed by another government with an appetite control problem. What remains in the rubble are the people who imagined the fiction they called government to be a thing of permanence. If Rights are derived from government by law or constitution, then how can individuals posses them without government? Are we to assume that by the establishment of government we thereby create tangible Rights as a result of a new fiction or are the Rights of mankind endowed by a higher permanent Authority?

One of these paradigms anchors the Rights of mankind in a permanent and unchanging monolith, the other is built on ever shifting sand, ebbing and flowing with whatever winds prevail for the moment. One elevates humanity to the pinnacle of Creation and the other reduces human beings to the law of the jungle. One appoints us with onerous responsibility for each other and all else in Creation, the other only requires that we eat and propagate. One of these imparts that we are our brother's keeper, the other justifies that we may be our brother's murderer. One of these emulates the Nature of God, and the other represents the school of the Serpent and man. One walks in the Light of Truth, the other clings to shadow and deception.

Our nation signing this Declaration would indicate a paradigm shift away from the Natural Rights of God and the Sovereignty of God towards the synthetic privileges of tyrants and the rule of men. Subtle deceptions are the mark of the serpent and this is that. The document is pleasing to the eye, its text emits a fragrant aroma, but its taste is bitter and its succour is death.

This should never be in our future.

1.http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1

2. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. Henry Holt and Company, Inc. p. 65. ISBN 0-8050-4681-X.

A Desert of Extremes

Terrorism and Islamic extremists have become a staple in the nightly news, White House sound bites, and newspaper headlines. We always seem to be just about there with putting these handful of nutty Jihadis out of business permanently. Just about there. Any time now. Almost done, and then the lull.

Massive explosions shook downtown Someplace, Somewhere. The Allah Al-Akbar Waka-Muslim game starts all over again. New strategies, new weapons deals, and a new "moderate" Muslim ally we can count on to quell the oddly Al-Queda like junior varsity extremists cadre. It's Groundhog Day in or around the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of our misguided perceptions.

America took up the banner of being the Arsenal of Democracy after World War II. In truth, we manufactured the banner, staff, and the occupation all on our own. However, we did not live up to our lofty job title because we sucked so bad at the mission statement. We jumped between the sheets with every two-bit thug with a national check book at his disposal. If there wasn't one, we'd depose the democraticly elected  LEFTIST government and install one we found to be more "democratic and freedom oriented", or whatever catch phrase covered our covert intentions.

We pay for the sins of our ancestors, sometimes immediate ancestors, or elected office predecessors. We don't always live up to our own expectations.

Moderate Islam is portrayed as a religion of peace, tolerance, and is accredited with giving us numerals we can easily multiply. Oprah gave it a thumbs up and so does every politician and U.S. Government, Corp. compensated public relations speaker. Yea Allah!

But don't you draw a cartoon of peace be upon him Muhammad or these peaceful, tolerant, numerate devotees will #%$ing kill you! Kill you at the market or car bomb you at the disco. Yea Allah!

The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Does this Right cover any and all actions of Religion? No! For instance, some religions may call for human sacrifice and such exercise is not covered under the "free exercise thereof" clause. Yet, the faithful of Islam are called by their prophet, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, to do precisely this kind of exercise in the practice of Islam (Arabic for "submission").

Does this Right cover political action, sedition, and economic subversion? Obviously not. However, these things are part and parcel within the practice of Islam. The Islamic republic is the model of what Islam seeks to achieve world wide. It is called Dar al-Islam, and that is the intended goal of Muslims. The world in submission.

Individuals may disagree on how to implement and achieve Dar al-Islam, but make no mistake, this is the ultimate goal of a faithful Muslim. The wishy washy Muslims will simply sit by and let it happen.

Painting Islam as just another religion of peace is a disservice to understanding the threat that our Constitution, our nation, and our beliefs face. It's like fighting Communism while claiming Communism is great. Yea Communism!

There is apparently no shortage of " Islamic extremists", because Islam is extreme. While one hand calls for tolerance and peace the other supports Jihad, and we seek to support the "moderates" in this desert of the extreme. Islam in both theory and practice calls for the subjugation of all non-Muslim believers.This constitutes a call to arms among Muslims who practice what their prophet preached and their illah (god) commands. There is no middle ground for the moderates we hear so much about to occupy. The Koranic landscape allows for only dominance or submission.

The all-encompassing nature of Sharia law reveals the true nature of Islam as a political, judicial, and economic ideology wrapped in a viel (perhaps "burka, is a more appropriate analogy) of religion.

Are Muslims evil? No, they are being misled, kept ignorant of the caustic nature of Islam, and we should be reaching out to them. This is a difficult task since as a part of the Islamic ideology the adherent is warned never to question or examine their faith and conversion (apostasy) is punishable by death.

Yea Constitution!

Fuck it! I'm Going Shopping.

Chart includes all forms of suicide attacks

The reports of suicide bombers in the Middle East are inaccurate. Every one of these news stories is a bold-faced lie. They are fabricated to mislead and confuse, to present a fictional storyline based upon a false premise. There has not been a single intentional suicide bombing anywhere in the Middle East as a result of Islamic fundamentalists acting alone or in concert with others of like mind. Not one.

Suicide  noun /ˈsu·əˌsɑɪd/
the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind. Merriam-Webster

The purpose and intent of suicide is to end one's own life, this DOES NOT include other unwilling participants to end their lives. As I said, There has not been a single intentional suicide bombing anywhere in the Middle East. Not one.

Murder noun  /ˈmər-dər/
the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought  Merriam-Webster

Their intent is murder, cold blooded, unfeeling, inhuman murder. It is the premeditated murder of anyone and everyone regardless of age, political persuasion, religious beliefs, innocence, or saintly intentions, all die in a volcanic blast of shrapnel and fire. The victims of this ultimate form of violence one human can commit upon another are done no justice when they are reduced to a body count.

What we hear reported as news is,

"A suicide bomber attack in Rumalah today killed FOUR, the bomber is suspected to be affiliated with Islamic (whatever) and the suicide bombing came as a reprisal against (blah-blah-blah)". 

Nothing can possibility justify this insane murderer's action! No thing!

What should have been reported is,

"A mother and her two young children were murdered along with the father of two honor students by a psychopath who brought a bomb into a peaceful market in Rumalah and then murdered them as they shopped for their suppers. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims in this difficult time."

That is what matters, not what motivated the murderer or those who bear such contempt for human life or any life. If the murderer had walked into a zoo and took out a family of penguins there would be world-wide moral outrage. Instead, the story becomes a ten minute fluff piece on how to paint murder as "martyrdom".

Martyr noun /märdər/  

a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs (Merriam Webster)

The martyrs are the victims, NOT the perpetrators! Perhaps, we in the West are as morally wrong as the perpetrator when we so casually accept that wandering into a crowded venue with explosives strapped to one's chest and blowing to kingdom come as many human beings as you can conveniently fit into your blast radius as a suicide!

I posit if such a flagrant and blatant inaccuracy of fact goes unnoticed, unquestioned, and uncorrected for years in the reporting of news, then we cannot be informed, educated, or aware enough to run a republic. Not that we would be able to discern the specific nature of our deficit. We would remain blissfully unaware of the down-side of republic which imparts, "We have no one to blame but ourselves."

We might be inclined to settle for an exciting brawl in the (political) arena, the stuff of good politics a Roman plebeian would revel in. Distracted by bread and circuses, free health care, victories on distant battlefields, plentiful entertainment, and generationally deferred taxes life is good! The world is our empire and we are too big to fail or fall. With all this and anything else we desire why should we concern ourselves with the facts when we can't discern it from fiction.

On my way home this evening I'll be tossing a brick through a jewelry store window and taking what I please. This should be reported as, "shopping".