INDEPENDENCE DAY

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ? That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.? Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

* He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
* He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
* He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
* He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
* He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
* He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
* He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
* He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
* He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
* He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
* 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:
* For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
* For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
* For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
* For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
* For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
* For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
* For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
* For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
* He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
* He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
* He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
* He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
* 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.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration were:

Connecticut:
Samuel Huntington
Roger Sherman
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

Delaware:
Thomas McKean
George Read
Caesar Rodney

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman-Hall
Geroge Walton

Massachusetts:
John Adams
Samuel Adams
Elbridge Gerry
John Hancock
Robert Treat Paine

Maryland:
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
Matthew Thornton
William Whipple

New Jersey:
Abraham Clark
John Hart
Francis Hopkinson
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon

New York:
Francis Lewis
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Lewis Morris

North Carolina:
Joseph Hewes
William Hooper
John Penn

Pennsylvania:
George Clymer
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Morris
John Morton
George Ross
Benjamin Rush
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson

Rhode Island:
William Ellery
Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina:
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Edward Rutledge

Virginia:
Carter Braxton
Benjamin Harrison
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
George Wythe

Have a glorious Independence Day and remember these words each and everyday:

"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

--WP

On Independence Day, Ammunition & Wal-Mart

This is a post from 2004 which I have regularly posted these past five years and over these years it has only become worse.

Yesterday, in preparing to honor today, a friend and I went to purchase some ammunition at the local Wal-Mart. We selected our ammo, the young man placed it on the counter, scanned the items and then stated, "I need your drivers license." He stated this in that dull, slow and overly bored tone of the drone. (Of course many will say, well look at the dead-end job he has so what do you expect instead of the realization that one should work to the best of one's ability. Perhaps we accosted him at the wrong drone moment but this is not the point of this missive and I have digressed.)

Naturally our response was, "What for?" He then explained that it was needed for the system, corporate policy, to verify our age, etc., etc.- ad nauseum. My friend started to walk away after we both said NO you are not getting it. I then explained to him, in a very forceful and direct fashion that I was not producing ID. I further explained that tomorrow was Independence Day which was started in 1776 when our Founding Fathers told their government to go FUCK THEMSELVES! and that this ammunition purchase was to honor and remember them. I told him then to get a manager and what does the drone do? He looks for permission to the woman on her knees doing inventory, who spoke NOT ONE WORD of English. He tried three times when he looked to foreigner on the floor once more and she told him to go ahead and sell me the ammunition.

The drone then asked me if I understood and had was okay with him selling me the ammunition without asking me for ID. This perplexed and pissed me off again. I explained to him that this was Texas and America and our Founding Fathers said nothing about showing ID to do so and in fact, just the opposite. He then attempted once more to tell that it was simply store policy. I told him that NAZI Germany started the same way and I would not stand for it and his simple stance of just following orders would not cut it. It is his responsibility, just as it is everyone's, to question such inane policies whether government or CORPORATE. I can no longer tolerate either- doing so only allows such filth to grow and flourish.

Of course, this leads me back to the following which I post every year on Independence Day and remind folks that you SHOULD tar and feather a politician or their supplicants today, I know the Paranoid family is certainly hoping to- so without further ado, the reminder.

I found this a couple of months ago:



And it made me think of just how far most people in this country have let slip their desire for freedom and liberty- so much so, that I remembered this:



Then, two days ago, my compadre No-Neck sent this to me:



I knew this would be true and I thought long and hard about these men:



The men, whose history is unknown my so many- and cared for by even less, gave us our start on this path and that so many of the men of their day were willing to do this:



Understand, they were traitors to their government, they conspired to commit acts that would bring certain death down upon them and their families, and I must ask, how many are willing, today, to risk the same?

Vin Suprynowicz has a column that has been around the net since he first wrote it in 1997, and it is well worth reading and then contemplating, particularly in light of recent laws, regulations and SCOTUS announcements.

Happy Independence Day!

-WP

On Farrah Fawcett and the Michael Jackson.

Farrah Fawcett arrived at the Pearly gates and Saint Peter said "You've lived a good life, if you had one wish what would that be?" She thought for a moment and answered "I'd like all the little children in the world to be safe." Thirty seconds later Michael Jackson's heart stopped.

Decoration Day

Today it is called Memorial Day.

Never forget why they died.

WP

GUEST POST: From the pen of Jim Huston

Things have been a bit hectic the past two weeks and I see no need to go into detail- suffice to say, things have been hectic. Now, this morning, when I checked the Paranoid in box, I found a request from Mr. Jim Huston asking to if he could submit a guest post. Now, if you do not recall, a few weeks back, I posted a link to as well as a good portion of a post that CSMK brought to my attention entitled, A Defense of Defense. I was surprised by his request but more than happy to oblige this man, as I truly respected that short essay, and without further ado, I gladly post more of his words and thoughts.

WP

I am presenting some of my thoughts on Millions, Billions and Trillions. I have been simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the dollar amounts being used in all of the "Bailout" and "Deficit" articles and wanted some amount of scale, for my own understanding. I fashioned this as a narrative...

My ignorance knows no bounds.

I readily admit that I do not know the currently accepted definition of "man" or "mankind." The genus "man," as applied to the meaning of "human," is estimated to be about 2.5 Million years old. But do not worry; this is not about quibbling over the details of precise definitions. This simply is a preface to introduce some of my confusions.

I was reading a column that included some "ancient history," and wondered how old that history had to be, to call it ancient. A quick check for the term, taking only minutes in this age of computers, revealed that ancient history is considered to begin with the advent of writing; the ability, oddly enough, to record history; somewhat circular I know but as I said, is that anything to quibble about?

Another computer check found that the term "ancient history" validly applies to many civilizations, those of Persia, China, Rome or Greece, for instance. Recorded "Ancient History" itself, is said to begin with that of ancient Egypt, at about 4000 BC, for a culture that then lasted for 5,000 to 5,500 years.

My original wonder about the word "ancient" in relation to history was prompted by a column about finance and the current state of the economy; the budget and the bailout. And while you may consider this foray into historical age to be a tiresome digression, I was fascinated by the fact that in history, for the genus "mankind," the entire period that our species has existed on earth, mentioned no number larger than "million," and even at that, it was a paltry 2.5 Million years..!

Yet here I was reading figures in, not just Billions, but Trillions and the meaning of the numbers had begun to lose all meaning. Despite the fact that it is the primary function of numbers to express quantity, they had lost that value. One article told of Microsoft having the problem of possessing too much money; needing to find a valid use for its Sixty Billion Dollars in cash. That's $60,000,000,000, 60 followed by nine zeros!

The author evidently had the same problem as he attempted to give this some scale, with: "that is more than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Hungary. It is more than the GDP of Iceland, Luxemburg and the Slovak Republic combined. Kind of him, but this of course does not help me, as neither the population nor the GDP of these countries are familiar enough for size comparisons; it might just as well have said "A Bunch."

I do know that the US has a total population of about 333,000,000 people (that's 333 Million) and even I can mentally multiply by counting 333 to 666 to 999 to find that I remain, at three times our population, at 999 Million, still under 1,000 Million (one billion). Rounding that up to 1,000 Million still requires counting ten times; 100, 200, 300, ... 900, 1000 (to ten hundred million) to reach One Billion.

I am neither lazy nor innumerate, but I had demonstrated to myself that Bill Gates may be perfectly and properly compared to the early comic book character Scrooge McDuck, fond of swimming in his money bin.

While the real dollar value still escapes me, I am overwhelmed and impressed with the magnitude in the difference. But here is the quandary: I have only considered Millions and Billions, and most of the articles on the debt and the bailout are talking about Trillions of dollars, neither subtle nor academic; as the full phrase used by the senators is "Trillions of Taxpayer Dollars."

So; is the difference between Million and Billion comparable in magnitude to the difference between Billion and Trillion? Can it be expressed as a ratio: Million is to Billion as Billion is to Trillion? How might this be illustrated?

I did attempt some research on this. I saw the "dollars laid end to end to circle the earth" descriptions, complete with graphics. I've also seen the "dollars stacked some number of miles high" graphic, along with the lists of how much could be bought with this vast amount of dollars. None of these, for me, conveys the amounts or values in any meaningful way. But I thought of one comparison that could resonate for almost anyone: A Time and Dollars equivalency.

How old are you; how long have you been alive? How long do you expect to live? How old will your children or your grand-children be when the public debt is once again under control or paid off? Here are some relevant time/dollars:

One Million seconds is 12 days.
One Billion seconds is 31 years.
One Trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

I can now treat spending and time as equivalent examples: one dollar can be expressed as one second of time or one second may convert directly to one dollar. Thus, with 86,400 seconds (or dollars) in one day; in spending $1 dollar per second for 24 hours, you have spent $86,400 dollars.

One Billion seconds from your birth, you will be half way to retirement (to retire at 62 years or Two Billion seconds).

Microsoft's 60 Billion Dollars, spent at a rate of one dollar every second, 24/7 would last 1,860 years. That may be fine for that Egyptian civilization mentioned, but our country is just a bit past 230 years old.

And most amazingly, the difference in magnitude between Billions and Trillions displays that the human race was just beginning to walk upright and to acquire those traits that make them human One Trillion Seconds ago, or 31,688 years in the distant past.

That first Man, had he begun spending at the rate of $1 dollar per second, (86,400 seconds or dollars per day) and continued doing so, round the clock 24/7 to the present time, he would have both lived and spent only One Trillion seconds and Dollars in the entire history of the human race.

He would, however, have spent less than 1/10 (one tenth) of the National debt, which is now reported at 10.7 Trillion Dollars. A group of ten of those "first men" doing the same would still be short of the National debt by .7 Trillion - 700,000,000,000 (Billion) short.

None of this addresses "The Bailout" as I can find several differing figures (estimates) for that amount. Suffice it to say that it is well past and beyond my comprehension. Of course I am not alone; I do not believe that any congressman understands or appreciates these magnitudes any better than you or I do. I suggest that there are some congressmen and other politicians that cannot even write the figures for Billion or Trillion correctly.

The cost of the war in Iraq is stated to be: $255 Million per day. That is spending at a rate of $ 2,951.40 dollars per second for that one day. Said differently, it takes a full 12 days of seconds to equal 1,036,800 (one million 36 thousand 800 dollars) and that twelve day's worth of seconds is spent daily. Again said differently, that $ 255 million per day for one year, or 365 days, is: over 93,075,000,000 (Billion dollars) or $280 dollars for every man woman and child of our population. That calculates to $ 1,118 dollars for a family of four, just for the costs of that war per year.

I still cannot claim a thorough understanding of magnitudes expressed in such figures, but I know with a personal certainty, that neither I nor the taxpayers can afford to pay at the rate the government is spending. Period.

Jim Huston

Lessons from the Columbine School Shooting

Schneier on Security

A blog covering security and security technology.

Lessons from the Columbine School Shooting

Of course, there never was an epidemic of school shootings -- it just seemed that way in the media. And kids are much safer in schools than outside of them.

Though Schneier's post is a short one, it is the comments that are worth viewing- such as this one:

"It pays to be nice to *everyone* if the alternative is tomorrow they come back with a gun." Or if they do, have means of making that disturbed outsider cease and desist.

I carried a knife starting around 3rd grade through the entire rest of my life, until the invasive fools at the TSA made me not do so when flying. I never thought of the knife as anything other than a tool, until I was perhaps 22 or 23 years old. To me, a gun is no different than a golf club, a hammer, a knife, a car or many other potentially misused mechanical devices. The difference is the mindset of the person in control of the device. Focusing on the device is always going to result in failure to defend against the misuser. Having the means to thwart the misuser of the device will always succeed. As Robert Heinlein wrote, an armed society is a polite society.

Posted by: Toy at April 29, 2009 7:30 AM

Take note however, there are several other whose comments deserve rebuke:

The gun you're carrying completely fails to protect you against the influenza that I'm carrying.

Posted by: Pete Austin at April 29, 2009 9:38 AM

AND

@blake

"With the good guys disarmed by policy and law, the active shooters have free reign and don't stop until the run out of ammo or they meet armed resistance."

Will good guys always be good guys? How often do good guys go crazy? In a culture of fear and mistrust good guys will occassionally (how often?) shoot people because of a false alarm. It is a trade-off, and the heavier weaponry people carry (i.e. the less physical effort required to assault someone), the heavier the consequences. I wonder what the stats are or would be on 'lives rescued by brave fire-arms carrying citizens' versus 'lives lost because good citizen had an off-day'. I come from a very different culture and am glad to live in a country with no debate on the right to carry arms. I can see this is different from the USA, I see the historical/cultural reasons for it, and I believe it has dire implications.

Posted by: Stijn at April 29, 2009 10:56 AM

There are many good comments and it is good to see some very supportive posts- we just have to remember, there are lots of geeks (especially tech security geeks) who are armed, and they tend to know how to use them.

The CNN article linked at Schneier's post is nothing more than a Propgandasist Foot Soldier's attempt to glorify the STATE and the UK video proudly displays the indoctrination of our British brethren's children being taught to OBEY the STATE! Both articles tell us THE GOVERNMENT IS YOUR SAVIOR! When in fact we know that it is not. The CNN article fails to even mention the cowardly ONLY ONES who hid behind there cars ten years ago, just as they recently did in Binghamton, New York.

I do not think children ARE safer in the propaganda camps known as the public education system than outside, but a stupidly common mistake made by many, and some people are stuck with them, and then correct the propaganda at night at home, or in the car, or when walking the dog, or any spare moments of time we can make for our children to correct the bullshit from the propaganda camps known as the public education system.

WP

GO FUCK YOURSELF CASS SUNSTEIN!

U.S. regulatory czar nominee wants Net 'Fairness Doctrine'
Cass Sunstein sees Web as anti-democratic, proposed 24-hour delay on sending e-mail

Posted: April 27, 2009
8:41 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period.

The revelations about Cass Sunstein, Obama's friend from the University of Chicago Law School and nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, come in a new book by Brad O'Leary, "Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech." OIRA will oversee regulation throughout the U.S. government.

Sunstein also has argued in his prolific literary works that the Internet is anti-democratic because of the way users can filter out information of their own choosing.

"A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government," he wrote. "Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom's name."

But wait, there's more!"

"We propose a Civility Check that can accurately tell whether the e-mail you're about to send is angry and caution you, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil e-mail. do you really and truly want to send it?'" they wrote. "(Software already exists to detect foul language. What we are proposing is more subtle, because it is easy to send a really awful e-mail message that does not contain any four-letter words.) A stronger version, which people could choose or which might be the default, would say, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil e-mail. this will not be sent unless you ask to resend in 24 hours.' With the stronger version, you might be able to bypass the delay with some work (by inputting, say, your Social Security number and your grandfather’s birth date, or maybe by solving some irritating math problem!)."

Take your tired, commie-ass elsewhere and both you and your idiot partner Thaler can stick your bullshit where the sunstein don't shine.

In fact, I am going to go dump a sunstein&thaler in just a few moments...

Angry and uncivil enough for you Nancy-Boy? If not, click the link you traitorous pansy.

WP

The 60s: Assassinations, a School Shooting, and Nazi Gun Control

The 60s: Assassinations, a School Shooting, and Nazi Gun Control

by Michael Gaddy

The 60s were a tumultuous time in America. There were the Vietnam War and its subsequent peace movement; the Kennedy assassinations; the Martin Luther King assassination, and the mass shooting at the University of Texas by Charles Whitman. The high-profile assassinations and the mass shooting prompted the government to lobby for stronger gun control, leading to the passage of the unconstitutional, NRA supported, 1968 Gun Control Act.

For those not familiar with this history, Mr. Gaddy lays things out quite well.

WP

Fuck the Earth Day!

A big thank you to Hammer!

WP

Gun Free Zones

You criminals pay attention!

A thank you to CSMK.

WP