Words No Longer Have Meaning
BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 5 months ago
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” — Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Scalia dissented from the recent SCOTUS Obamacare ruling.
“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so,” Scalia wrote.
Scalia added, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words ‘established by the State.’ And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words ‘by the State’ other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.”
Roberts also dissented, but of course words weren’t so important to him when he created rights out of whole cloth and the supreme court forced every state to accept same-sex marriage. He wants to pick and choose when words mean something, and get his self-righteousness on when he opposes the policy.
As I had stated to someone else this weekend, you have the political right to advocate what you want, but God will judge us – individually and collectively – for our choices. But constitutionally, the court has absolutely no business bossing the states around.
This ruling – and many more like it – marks the end of the state. The grand experiment in states as the laboratories of democracy is finished. It failed, and not because it couldn’t have worked. Evil men vandalized the experiment. If Roberts has his problems, Scalia does too. In Heller, he stated:
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of fire arms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
“Shall not be infringed” means as little to Scalia as ‘Exchange established by the State’ means to Roberts and the other progressive justices on the supreme court. Scalia is clever, witty, smart, fun to read and biting in his dissents – and just as inconsistent as the rest of them. Scalia gets a taste of his own medicine in the Obamacare and same-sex marriage ruling.
As I listened to the quiet conversation and whispers this weekend as I went about my business, I think Mike Vanderboegh’s words will turn out to be prescient.
But even as staunch an anti-communist as I am now — as hard-nosed a supporter of the Founders’ Republic and the Constitution as I have become — I can see that the regime has dealt itself a crippling blow to its own legitimacy. I further note with somber acknowledgement that as bad as this confluence of events is for the country as a whole that it makes our job easier for it confirms everything we have been saying about the regime of both corrupt political parties being destructive of liberty and the rule of law. This will swell our ranks with people who are finally convinced that for the purposes of protecting our liberties, the present system has broken down completely and that the only thing we can count on from this point on is ourselves, alone. And our rifles. I will not celebrate this as a Marxist would but I will give a most sincere, albeit grim, “thank you” to the Supreme Court and the two predatory gangs of a tyrannical regime.
I would add that we can always count on God to honor His promises. God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7). His words never change, and will always mean what they have always meant.
On June 29, 2015 at 3:26 pm, Bobbye said:
Words have two meanings, detonation and connotation. Both can, and often do change over time. Of course that has noting to do with the Humpty Dumpty use of words by the government.
To be sure I was!’ Humpty Dumpty said gaily as she turned it round for him. ‘I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right — though I haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just now — and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents —’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
6. Humpty Dumpty
Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll
‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ Indeed!
On June 30, 2015 at 10:38 pm, Dennis said:
Interesting that Miller should be brought up in discussion related to Heller. A close reading will show that the Court did attempt to rule on the real merits, militia type weapons are not subject to the NFA. What the Court said was in light of Miller not showing and the attorney as well not showing. “Absent a showing that a short barreled shotgun is a militia type weapon”…..
The showing was absent because no one showed up to present an example. The language stating that the meaning applied to weapons in use by the military at the time mean weapons un sue at the time. They did not mean muskets, they meant the same weapons that the military used. At the time in 1792 or at the time in 2015 is relative to the weapons used by the military. No one by any stretch of the imagination understood that since the military used muskets the militias must use bow and arrow, or rocks…..
The key to this absurdity is the fact that the colonists had in their possession canon, field artillery. This blows the rationalization of the Court since Miller right out of the water. The Colonies possessed 4 canon at the outset of the Revolution. Two were owned by the Government of Massachusetts and two were owned by several citizens of Boston.
These words accompany the “Adams” which is on display in Minute Man Park in Concord. The words were from a statement from Henry Knox the First Secretary of War. They were written to commemorate the return of the guns, Adams and Hancock, to the several citizens of Boston by order of the US Congress. The rest of the words are moving to say the least. These two guns represented the absurdity of the words woefully misrepresented by the Court when the rationalized that the weapons addressed in the 2nd Amendment were limited to what the individual militiaman could carry. The weapons stated in the militia statute the Court presented were the very basic and the minimum that each man had to have by law in their possession for a quick response, including the bayonet. Of course these were used for hunting….. the enemy. Only a moron with no military experience could not see that the charge of failure to repair, the individual kit of the militiaman, resulted in a fine and the same is punishable by an article 15 in todays modern Army. But let us not stop there….
The United States Maritime Museum tells us some more interesting facts. The Privateer Navy numbered nearly 2000 ships with a compliment of over 14,000 mounted canon and swivel guns. These were privately owned and armed ships. The fledgling US Navy numbered about 64 ships with a compliment of around 1200 mounted canon and swivel guns. Clearly the civilians out armed the regular army and navy.
Now mind you the canon was the very pinnacle of military hardware. It was the most destructive weapon in the arsenal of the period. So please tell me how have we been relegated to small arms. The Federalist Papers state that although a select militia was a good thing so as to have a readily mobile force that was well drilled and equipped, the correct meaning of well regulated. The Federalist also states the bulk of the militia, everyone capable of bearing arms, were to be as well armed as the select militia and the standing army. So does anyone possibly think the advancement of technology negated the basic principle of being as armed and as ready as the military. No, no one of a sound mind could possibly conceive of attempting to rationalize the perverted interpretation to an informed and motivated citizenry, from fear of being lynched I think.
But therein lies the rub…. We are not informed and we are not motivated. The perversion over time has had the desired result. We now lack the knowledge with which to strengthen our resolve and or self confidence in demanding what we know. We have lost the knowledge and the motivation to articulate the truth and the knowledge that has been so carefully and maliciously kept from us. Why else would it be erased from our history in the Marxist run schools.
This is not providing for the general welfare, it is evil pure and simple. It is promoting and institutionalizing a lie for the purpose of disarming the people, nearly to the point of being combat ineffective, and rendering them subordinate to their servants.
The is one perverted interpretation of the Constitution isn’t it??? If by a construction of laws the very thing not given to the general government, and certainly denied by express provisions in the Constitution, are brought into being, then the entire scheme must at once present evidence of an attempt to seize more authority that is delegated by the Organic law. “..evinced to reduce us to absolute Despotism”… Declaration of Independence. Things denied or not permitted overtly cannot be constructively done. The substance of the actions are the same.
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
James Madison
Treason smells the same regardless of whatever name you color it.
On July 1, 2015 at 1:53 pm, Phil Ossiferz Stone said:
‘The pen is mightier than the sword, but only if the sword is very small and the pen is very sharp’ — Terry Pratchett.
These times will also require guns. Lots and lots of guns. Without which all the wit and wisdom and learning and heartfelt prayer is helpless against a Caesar run amok.
Massive armed civil disobedience seems to be the single thing that holds Leviathan at bay these days. Ask Cliven Bundy. Ask the protestors in upstate New York burning their firearms registration forms. Ask the people who put on and attended the Yakima Arms Expo — a ‘constitutional’ gun show that permitted no background checks, and dared both Feds and post-I-594 Washington state to do something.
A crowd of Henry David Thoreaus with unloaded rifles slung across their chests and cartridge boxes in their pockets, quietly telling the powers that be that no, we will not permit you to desecrate or seize our church; no, we will not let you subpoena our sermons or our homeschooling materials; no, we will not register or surrender our firearms; no, we will not stay in your First Amendment Zone…. this alone is our hope and our future.
You don’t have to join the NRA or become a born again Tea Partier, but for the love of God — whatever your religious or socio-political convictions are — arm yourselves. Educate and train yourselves as is your God-given birthright. Not for violent revolution. For simple defense of all that is sacred in this profane and profaned age.