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Free Beacon:

There are now more non-military government employees who carry guns than there are U.S. Marines, according to a new report.

Open the Books, a taxpayer watchdog group, released a study Wednesday that finds domestic government agencies continue to grow their stockpiles of military-style weapons, as Democrats sat on the House floor calling for more restrictions on what guns American citizens can buy.

The “Militarization of America” report found civilian agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2014. Examples include IRS agents with AR-15s, and EPA bureaucrats wearing camouflage.

“Regulatory enforcement within administrative agencies now carries the might of military-style equipment and weapons,” Open the Books said. “For example, the Food and Drug Administration includes 183 armed ‘special agents,’ a 50 percent increase over the ten years from 1998-2008. At Health and Human Services (HHS), ‘Special Office of Inspector General Agents’ are now trained with sophisticated weaponry by the same contractors who train our military special forces troops.”

Open the Books found there are now over 200,000 non-military federal officers with arrest and firearm authority, surpassing the 182,100 personnel who are actively serving in the U.S. Marines Corps.

The IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment for its 2,316 special agents. The tax collecting agency has billed taxpayers for pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns, semi-automatic Smith & Wesson M&P15s, and Heckler & Koch H&K 416 rifles, which can be loaded with 30-round magazines.

The EPA spent $3.1 million on guns, ammo, and equipment, including drones, night vision, “camouflage and other deceptive equipment,” and body armor.

When asked about the spending, and EPA spokesman said the report “cherry picks information and falsely misrepresents the work of two administrations whose job is to protect public health.”

“Many purchases were mischaracterized or blown out of proportion in the report,” said spokesman Nick Conger. “EPA’s criminal enforcement program has not purchased unmanned aircraft, and the assertions that military-grade weapons are part of its work are false.”

“EPA’s criminal enforcement program investigates and prosecutes the most egregious violators of our nation’s environmental laws, and EPA criminal enforcement agents are law enforcement professionals who have undergone the same rigorous training as other federal agents,” Conger continued.

Other administration agencies that have purchased guns and ammo include the Small Business Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Education, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

I know a little something about NIST.  What on earth is the justification for allegedly needing to be armed?  NIST needs more PhDs, not armed bureaucrats.  Noteworthy in this is that the size of the Marine Corps is set by law (see 10 U.S. Code 5063), and Congress tightly controls how many active duty Marines we have.  The Marine Corps has been pressed to cut its size.

Not true of the bureaucratic executive in Washington and around the country.  Every law, every new regulation, every fine they levy, further empowers these armed bureaucrats with the Senate and House watching, while the courts further justify virtually every one of their actions, warrants or not.

And while the *.gov arms itself, the gun controlling whores in Washington seek to disarm the population at the whim of that very federal executive whom they expect to operate fully independently and in secret (h/t WoG)  This all exemplifies, by the way, just why we cannot disarm.

Finally, I’ll note that we seem to have come full circle, and I seem to recall from history that there has been something like this before.

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 erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

I’m just pondering the similarities.

America Is About To See How Guns Used In Mass Shootings Are Marketed:

When family members and survivors of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School filed suit against Bushmaster in December 2014, it seemed a lot like a lost cause. After all, a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was designed to prevent people from holding gun manufacturers accountable for wrongful deaths. Even last week, when a Connecticut judge shot down a motion to dismiss the suit, experts said she was just delaying an inevitable dismissal later down the line.

But then last Tuesday, that same judge, Barbara Bellis, of Connecticut’s Superior Court, issued another ruling that determined the suit would be more than symbolic. Specifically, she said the discovery process could begin immediately and set a tentative trial date for April 3, 2018. A jury hearing the case would be historic, but Katherine Mesner-Hage, an attorney for the plaintiffs, says that getting the gun company to open its books for discovery is arguably just as huge.

That’s because she and her co-council have constructed a creative PLCAA exemption, claiming, in essence, that the gun Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook massacre was specifically marketed as a killing machine. As part of discovery, they’ll dig through the gunmaker’s internal company memos and try to prove that the company was negligent.

I spoke to Mesner-Hage about how the gun industry became so protected from civil suits, what she and the other lawyers for the Sandy Hook survivors hope to find in discovery, and how their legal strategy is similar to the one used against Big Tobacco in the 90s.

VICE: What are you hoping to find in discovery that will be such a big deal?
Katherine Mesner-Hage: We’re looking for documents, and we’re looking to depose key people at Remington especially, but also at the distributor and the retail level. We’re asking for internal memos about how to market the AR-15 and how to market specifically the patrolman’s carbine, which is the one that Adam Lanza used.

We want to depose the head of marketing. We want to talk to the people at the company who are making the decisions about marketing. That’s how we build our case, although the marketing speaks for itself on one level. This is our chance to kind of peel back the curtain and see what’s really going on. One of the things about discovery in general is that you don’t know what you’re looking for before you start.

Has any other case against a gun company gotten to the discovery stage since PLCAA was passed? What are the broader implications of this recent decision?
I can’t think of any case that’s gotten to the point in which discovery was open in the post-PLCAA era.

Nothing good can come from this.  As I have said before, the Sandy Hook Families aren’t entitled to that information and the case has no merit.

I know what they’re after.  As I have documented before, the law protects firearms manufacturers, but excepts cases where there is “negligent entrustment.”  I recall thinking as I read this, “this is an oddball exception.”  The reason that it is odd is that firearms manufacturers don’t sell to customers.  They sell to distributors who then sell to stores (some manufacturers sell directly online, but go through a local FFL, e.g., Rock River Arms, LaRue Tactical, etc.).

They are thinking that this exception, the negligent entrustment clause, has not been tested in court and still need fleshing out as to its real definition.  But I don’t agree with lawsuits against gun manufacturers any more than I agree with Tobacco companies being sued over lung cancer.  Evil actions such as was perpetrated that day redound to federal headship in Adam, original sin, and the volitional decision to commit wicked acts.  Marketing has nothing to do with it.

Back in 2005 when I was headed for a professional conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I left Charlotte, N.C. that day and headed towards Western North Carolina.  Instead of driving one of those put-put-put cars companies like to put you in, the car rental agency apologized and told me that the only car left on the lot for me that day was a brand new 2005 Ford Mustang GT.  I recalled laughing out loud to the puzzlement of the sales clerk.  Little did she know, I thought.

I drove towards Murphy, N.C., and past the NOC (Nantahala Outdoor Center), and on the curvy roads past all of those TVA dams, curve after curve after curve, in a brand new Ford Mustang GT.  It was a great day, that Sunday, and I exceeded the posted speed limit by a wide margin.  A wide margin.  But I didn’t do anything unsafe, and I didn’t cause additional risk for anyone else on the road.

Or perhaps I’m lying or simply a bad judge of risk.  If I had harmed anything or anyone that day, it wouldn’t have been a great day, and I would have been responsible for it.  Ford’s marketing of its 2005 Mustang GT had nothing whatsoever to do with my decision to exceed the posted speed limit.

And Adam Lanza is in hell for what he did since he didn’t know Jesus Christ as his savior and advocate before the Father.  I’m certain that the parents have bitterness and heartache over what happened.  But they’re taking it out on the wrong person, the wrong company, the wrong workers, the wrong objects.  They are poorly trained, theologically and philosophically, and besides that badly mistaken that marketing carbines to young males is somehow responsible for the deaths of their loved ones (witness Charles Whitman who used a bolt action rifle, the best option for his choice of locations).

These parents are in danger of harm to their own souls with this continued blame of the wrong people.  The lawyers are going to get rich, and the judge is a wicked woman and will receive her just recompense eventually, and perhaps sooner.

Prior:

Judge Barbara Bellis Says Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Against Remington Goes Forward

Judge Barbara Bellis: Update On The Sandy Hook Families’ Lawsuit Of Remington

David Codrea:

“Twenty months into implementation, Colorado’s controversial gun-control laws are mostly unenforceable and have done little to nothing to attain bill sponsors’ goals, according to gun rights advocates and statewide data,” Stephen Meyers observed. Not only are prosecutions statistically almost non-existent, determined gun owners are flouting the law and satisfying their demand for standard capacity magazines in other states.

But of course.  And we won’t obey any of the laws that we consider infringements of our God-ordained rights.  So are you prepared to bust in doors and get shot up in order to enforce those stupid laws?

David Codrea:

Racine’s public air of confidence will be tested as conflicts between courts leave an ultimate judicial ruling on “may issue” vs. “shall issue” concealed carry permits up in the air, while a movement in the states to adopt permitless “Constitutional carry” is growing. The Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Maryland’s “may issue” law in 2013, but state challenges to “shall issue” rulings before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California could force the High Court’s hand.

As far as I’m concerned, the supreme court is full of cowards, and “may issue” may as well be “shall not issue” since it gives the right to infringe to humans rather than God.

Um, so what’s the deal with Mike Vanderboegh not getting media creds for the upcoming convention?  Can someone from the NRA explain that one to me?  We’re waiting.  Right here in the comments.  Or by email.

Kurt Hofmann:

You see, when, as a 15-year-old, Thrasher was threatened by a thuggish armed hooligan, he modestly reached the conclusion that his experience with guns defines their value, and that, therefore, the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms is null and void–because he modestly says so.

Kurt makes an outstanding point.  The writer presumes to decide rights for everyone because of (and in spite of) his limited, self-important world view.  But then, don’t all elitist rulers do that?  It’s just that the writer doesn’t consider himself to be an elitist ruler.

Comment of the week from WRSA:

America is the rent-a-cop enforcer who just happens to reside on some good farmland. The mineral rights under his feet have already been sold off and his wife is in bed with a different man every hour while he’s away. He doesn’t care as long as he comes home to a big TV and a cold beer. He’ll pass out in his easy chair and if he doesn’t die from heart failure, one of her lovers will eventually slit his throat.

Gun control in the Ukraine:

Ukrainians can volunteer to surrender their firearms, ammunition, explosives and other weapons to the police, without punishment, from April 1 to 30, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry public security department said.

The ministry noted that citizens who would bring their firearms and other dangerous ordnance to the police would be exempted from criminal liabilities.

In addition, citizens who surrender their hunting guns, cold steel and gas pistols will be able to register these weapons as their property and use them on legal grounds.

Non-lethal weapons firing rubber bullets will be registered in the case and in the procedure established by the Ukrainian legislation, the Interior Ministry remarked.

Note to the Ukrainians.  Don’t do it.  Don’t even think about giving up your guns.

From reader Mack H, this:

As this survey illustrates, animosity toward Christians involves racial, educational, and economic factors; the people most likely to hold negative views of conservative Christians also belong to demographic groups with high levels of social power. Rich, white, educated Americans are major influencers in media, academia, business, and government, and these are the people most likely to have a distaste for conservative Christians.

Mack worries that the progressives are learning and that this may affect their tactics in the fight against gun rights.  Yes, perhaps faster than we are.  Furthermore, reflecting (very briefly) on the recent religious controversy in Indiana, Governor Mike Pence lost some respect from me.  If they had never brought legislation to the table to protect religious rights, I wouldn’t have thought of the issue (as it pertains to Indiana).  But they passed the law, and then walked it back.  Disgusting.  Finally, do you think there is a bit of overlap between “conservative Christians” and gun rights?  Me too.  But what’s this stuff about being “educated” and hating on Christians and conservatives?  I know men who work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and teach at colleges of engineering across the country who are conservative Christians.  Methinks someone doesn’t know what it means to be educated, if it involves passing humanities courses at Duke, University of North Carolina, American University, Dartmouth and Emory.

Well, it would have worked equally well to shoot the billboards up with several hundred 12 gauge 00 buck loads.

Uncle asks:

I often wonder if I’ve lost my sense of reality because of what is “news”.

Hands up don’t shoot did not happen.

The UVA rape incident did not happen.

Trayvon Martin was not shot in cold blood by a racist white guy.

Indiana’s RFRA doesn’t allow discrimination. It’s a silly law but it doesn’t do that.

The story of the pizza joint not catering gay weddings was bullshit.

There’s a nuclear deal with Iran, except it’s unenforceable and not written down.

Yet, these are prominent narratives among the media and pundits.

No sir, you’re not the one with the distorted sense of reality.  And if any readers believed any of those main stream media narratives, you’re a dumb ass.

Sorry for the light posting lately.  I’ve been sick and will resume soon.  I guess I should have gotten my flu shot.

A fascinating interview by Fox News provides an infuriating look into all that is wrong with U.S. foreign policy and the so-called “war on terror.”

Fox News claims to have gained access to Dr. Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who cooperated with the CIA in verifying the location of Osama bin Laden in 2011.   The magnitude of Afridi’s statements have both the Pakistani government, the ISI and prison officials all denying that the interview took place.   Even Afridi’s lawyers deny that Afridi spoke to Fox News.  On the other hand, this BBC news account raises the possibility that the interview could have taken place using a cell phone secretly passed to Afridi by relatives.   The denials are, at any rate, less than categorical.   Speculation posits that Dr. Afridi may be making a desperate bid to generate news and sympathy in the U.S. for his plight in the hope that he will be released or the prison term reduced.

According to the Fox News story:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan –  Pakistan’s powerful spy agency regards America as its “worst enemy,” and the government’s claims that it is cooperating with the US are a sham to extract billions of dollars in American aid, according to the CIA informant jailed for his role in hunting down Usama bin Laden.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Shakil Afridi, the medical doctor who helped pinpoint bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound before last year’s raid by SEAL Team 6, described brutal torture at the hands of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, and said the agency is openly hostile to the U.S.

“They said ‘The Americans are our worst enemies, worse than the Indians,’” Afridi, who spoke from inside Peshawar Central Jail, said as he recalled the brutal interrogation and torture he suffered after he was initially detained.

***

The ISI, Afridi said, helps fund the Haqqani network, the North Waziristan-based militant group that was last week designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The agency also works against the U.S. by preventing the CIA from interrogating militants captured by Pakistan, who are routinely released to return to Afghanistan to continue attacks on NATO forces there.

“It is now indisputable that militancy in Pakistan is supported by the ISI […] Pakistan’s fight against militancy is bogus. It’s just to extract money from America,” Afridi said, referring to the $23 billion Pakistan has received largely in military aid since 9/11.

TCJ readers will not find any of Afridi’s statements surprising.   Pakistan’s duplicity is well documented over the years since the 9/11 attacks.   Nonetheless, the Afridi interview serves to highlight the futility of fighting a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan while allowing both Iran and Pakistan to actively support the insurgents.    Moreover, the U.S. government goes out of its way to curry favor with Pakistan, providing billions of dollars in aid while they assist our enemies.   This is simply immoral and an insult to the families who have lost loved ones in the Afghanistan theater of operations.

Finally, compare the treatment of Pakistan and their barely concealed contempt for the U.S. with the treatment given to Israel.  Setting aside any considerations of cultural or religious ties to Israel, from a national interest perspective, Israel is an irreplaceable ally in the heart of the Middle East.   Israel provides the U.S. with intelligence of all kinds that is otherwise unavailable (given our severe lack of human resources).   Israel effectively ties down the military assets of Egypt, Syria and the quasi-states of Gaza and Hezbollah-stan in Lebanon.   The Obama Administration is simply throwing Israel under the bus when it comes to a nuclear Iran.  Israel has sensibly asked for some “red lines” to be set in an attempt to stop the Iranian rush to obtain nuclear weapons.    Obama refuses.   More than that, Obama undercuts efforts by Israel to act on its own to protect itself from an Iranian threat that is catastrophic.

This insanity cannot continue.  It is hard to imagine that President Obama could have brought the U.S. to the brink of irrelevance in the Middle East in just four, short years, but, as U.S. embassies and consulates are attacked with impunity throughout the region, we are witnessing the first bitter fruits of what promises to be a horrific harvest to come.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Isn’t this just swell?  According to this article in Technology Review, there are two, new approaches being tested for making coal-burning power plants cleaner and more efficient:

A pair of new technologies could reduce the cost of capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants and help utilities comply with existing and proposed environmental regulations, including requirements to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Both involve burning coal in the presence of pure oxygen rather than air, which is mostly nitrogen. Major companies including Toshiba, Shaw, and Itea have announced plans to build demonstration plants for the technologies in coming months.

The basic idea of burning fossil fuels in pure oxygen isn’t new. The drawback is that it’s more expensive than conventional coal plant technology, because it requires additional equipment to separate oxygen and nitrogen. The new technologies attempt to offset at least some of this cost by improving efficiency and reducing capital costs in other areas of a coal plant. Among other things, they simplify the after-treatment required to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

The article doesn’t state how much money is being sent down the rat hole to develop these new technologies, but, regardless of the amount involved, this is such a colossal waste that I don’t know whether to laugh or punch the fake rhino head on the wall.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is still on a holy crusade against “global warming” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, despite the fact that the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory has been repeatedly exposed as a sham.   As a result, precious time, money, talent and resources are being directed towards solving a “problem” that doesn’t exist.

The Left wants to talk about stimulating the economy, but what about the stimulative effect of lowering the cost of electricity to businesses and consumers?  Imagine the effect of simply eliminating the EPA’s carbon dioxide emission standards on the generation of electricity?  This is the sort of thing that should be high on Romney’s to-do list in January 2013.

Recommended that SWAT units around the country stand down and relax just a bit, I have.  Regarding the ATF SWAT failure in Greeley, Colorado:

… apprehension can be done safely and without ugly incidents such as this one.  According to my friend, Captain Dickson Skipper of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, most apprehensions can be done physically, or with the really belligerent ones, using pepper spray.  But military tactics have replaced basic police work in America, with the behavior of tacti-cool “operators” justified by judges looking the other way, as if all of this is necessary to maintain order and peace.

And regarding D.C. Police bullying:

That night it would have been perfectly reasonable to send over a couple of uniformed officers (common uniforms, shirts and ties), knock on the door, and then communicate their concerns: “Sir, we received a phone call concerning a potential problem or disturbance in this area, and we would like to sit and chat with you for a few minutes.  May we come in, or perhaps you would like to come down to the precinct to chat with us?”

But with the increasing militarization of police activities in America, this is rarely good enough any more.  But the police aren’t the military, and even if they were, such tactics are inherently dangerous.  PoorEurie Stamps perished in a mistaken SWAT raid due to an officer, who had no trigger discipline, stumbling with a round chambered in his rifle and shooting Mr. Stamps (due to sympathetic muscle reflexes) who was prone on the floor.  Mr. Jose Guerena was shot to death in his home in a SWAT raid that looked like it was conducted by the keystone cops.  Such tactics are also dangerous for the police officers conducting the raids.

But a recent raid in Evansville, Indiana, proved just how reflexive it has become to conduct military-style raids on unsuspecting victims – and how unnecessary and dangerous it has all become.

The long-standing, heavily documented militarization of even small-town American police forces was always going to create problems when it met anonymous Internet threats. And so it has, again—this time in Evansville, Indiana, where officers acted on some Topix postings threatening violence against local police. They then sent an entire SWAT unit to execute a search warrant on a local house, one in which the front door was open and an 18-year old woman sat inside watching TV.

The cops brought along TV cameras, inviting a local reporter to film the glorious operation. In the resulting video, you can watch the SWAT team, decked out in black bulletproof vests and helmets and carrying window and door smashers, creep slowly up to the house. At some point, they apparently “knock” and announce their presence—though not with the goal of getting anyone to come to the door. As the local police chief admitted later to the Evansville Courier & Press, the process is really just “designed to distract.” (SWAT does not need to wait for a response.)

Officers break the screen door and a window, tossing a flashbang into the house—which you can see explode in the video. A second flashbang gets tossed in for good measure a moment later. SWAT enters the house.

On the news that night, the reporter ends his piece by talking about how this is “an investigation that hits home for many of these brave officers.”

But the family in the home was released without any charges as police realized their mistake. Turns out the home had an open WiFi router, and the threats had been made by someone outside the house. Whoops.

So the cops did some more investigation and decided that the threats had come from a house on the same street. This time, apparently recognizing they had gone a little nuts on the first raid, the police department didn’t send a SWAT team at all. Despite believing that they now had the right location and that a threat-making bomber lurked within, they just sent officers up to the door.

“We did surveillance on the house, we knew that there were little kids there, so we decided we weren’t going to use the SWAT team,” the police chief told the paper after the second raid. “We did have one officer with a ram to hit the door in case they refused to open the door. That didn’t happen, so we didn’t need to use it.”

Their target appears to be a teenager who admits to the paper that he has a “smart mouth,” dislikes the cops, and owns a smartphone—but who denies using it to make the threats.

De-escalation is the order of the day.  There is no reason to reflexively assume that a SWAT raid is in order, and every reason to take more care and concern for the unintended consequences of the use of such military tactics on American citizens.  Note to police departments around the nation: relax, call a uniform, and let him tell you what needs to be done, if anything.

Prior:

DEA SWAT Raid And Ninth Circuit Ruling

ATF SWAT Failure

D.C. Police Bullies

One Police Officer Dead and Five Wounded From No-Knock Raid

Judges Siding With SWAT Tactics

The Moral Case Against SWAT Raids

Department Of Education SWAT Raid On Kenneth Wright

The Jose Guerena Raid: A Demonstration Of Tactical Incompetence

Right now, the U.S. is saddled with more hydrocarbon riches than we know what to do with.  Well, that’s not quite accurate.  Many of us know exactly what to do with them: produce mind-boggling wealth and energy independence and national security for the rest of the 21st Century at least.

But since the mid-1970’s or so, the Environmental Extremists, or “Greenies” among us, have been thwarting every effort by normal Americans to develop and use our abundant, natural resources.   They long for a pure and Green planet that will turn away from nasty, dirty, global-warming-causing hydrocarbon fuels.

What do we do with these mindless utopians and their lackeys in Congress and the White House?

The answer is at hand in this article in Bloomberg Businessweek:

Talk about North Korea usually centers around how the regime starves its people, whether it has the bomb, and if Kim Jong Un is really in charge. The UN’s Kyoto Protocol doesn’t make the list.

Yet under the terms of the protocol, North Korea, as a developing country and a member of the United Nations, has the right to build clean energy projects that may apply for Certified Emission Reductions, or CERs, popularly known as carbon credits. The North Koreans can then sell them to a rich country or company that needs the credits to offset its own greenhouse gases. Dig into data from the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, and you will find seven North Korean projects registered for carbon trading.

***

North Korea is now building seven hydroelecrtric plants, which provide some of the cleanest energy going. Most can earn tradable carbon credits. [Miroslav Blazek, who runs a company that facilitates such carbon trading] says the North Koreans “jumped” at the opportunity to get into carbon trading: “They immediately grasped that this is a way to make money.” Korea’s seven dams may generate as many as 241,000 CERs a year, worth almost €1 million ($1.3 million). “The projects are already in a relatively advanced phase,” says Ondrej Bores, director of carbon advisory services at Virtuse Energy in Prague, who’s worked with Blazek on other deals.

***

When he visited some of the hydro dam sites, Blazek saw workers digging with their bare hands. “Human labor has practically no price there,” he says. Maybe peaceful trade in carbon credits will make the regime a little less monstrous.

The bottom line: Although its initial foray into carbon trading may fetch only €1 million, North Korea has ambitions to be a player in the market.

[Emphasis added]

Yes!  Greenies no longer need to live bitter, frustrated lives here in Gaia-exploiting, meat-eating, pollution-ridden America.   North Korea is living the Greenie dream of eco-friendly hydroelectric dams everywhere, providing cheap, plentiful electricity to the mud and straw huts of its starving peasants!  Greenies can move there now and live their fantasy of a 18th Century society that is literally digging with their bare hands rather than use evil, polluting diesel excavation machines.   Imagine the teeny, tiny carbon footprint of North Korea:  virtually no automobiles to foul the air, the vast majority of the people living simple lives, close to the earth, eating whatever they can find (literally).   A model to the world of “sustainable living” in harmony with nature.   Sure, life is nasty, brutish and short, but, in the minds of Greenies, humans are afterall a kind of virus afflicting Mother Earth.  A short existence is a plus.

So do a small favor for any Environmentalist zealot you know and pass along the brochure for North Korea.  It sounds exactly like the kind of lifestyle that they want.

Hat tip to Drudge Report.

God bless the good people of North Dakota.  Apparently at least 30,000 of them decided that they were tired of living at the mercy of local tax authorities and decided to do something about it.

The New York Times gives a brief summary of a proposal to repeal all property tax assessments in the State of North Dakota:

BISMARCK, N.D. — Since Californians shrank their property taxes more than three decades ago by passing Proposition 13, people around the nation have echoed their dismay over such levies, putting forth plans to even them, simplify them, cap them, slash them. In an election here on Tuesday, residents of North Dakota will consider a measure that reaches far beyond any of that — one that abolishes the property tax entirely.

“I would like to be able to know that my home, no matter what happens to my income or my life, is not going to be taken away from me because I can’t pay a tax,” said Susan Beehler, one in a group of North Dakotans who have pressed for an amendment to the state’s Constitution to end the property tax. They argue that the tax is unpredictable, inconsistent, counter to the concept of property ownership and needless in a state that, thanks in part to wildly successful oil drilling, finds itself in the rare circumstance of carrying budget reserves.

“When,” Ms. Beehler asked, “did we come to believe that government should get rich and we should get poor?”

An unusual coalition of forces, including the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce and the state’s largest public employees’ unions, vehemently oppose the idea, arguing that such a ban would upend this quiet capital. Some big unanswered questions, the opponents say, include precisely how lawmakers would make up some $812 million in annual property tax revenue; what effect the change would have on hundreds of other state laws and regulations that allude to the more than century-old property tax; and what decisions would be left for North Dakota’s cities, counties and other governing boards if, say, they wanted to build a new school, hire more police, open a new park.

“This is a plan without a plan,” said Andy Peterson, president and chairman of the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, who acknowledged that property taxes have climbed in some parts of the state and that North Dakota’s political leaders need to tackle the issue. “But this solution is a little like giving a barber a razor-sharp butcher knife — and by the way, this barber is blind — and asking him or her to give you a haircut. You’ll get the job done, but you might be missing an ear or an eye.”

What I love most about this ballot measure is the way it brings into question every assumption of local governance for the last 100 years. You can almost hear the local politicians sputtering and choking as they consider the changes that would be needed if they suddenly did not have this $800 million to keep themselves employed.   Public employee unions, too, obviously see that the elimination of the property tax means an empty trough.   Although total elimination of the property tax may not be the exact solution, it forces everyone in North Dakota at least to re-think basic assumptions about public services and reconsider whether there might be alternatives.   This is the kind of thinking that America desperately needs today, and not just in North Dakota.

For example, one of the main arguments that supporters of the tax put forward is that police, schools, local government and fire and rescue will no longer exist without this tax money.   But that is simply not true and amounts to a scare tactic, a sure sign of a weak argument.  Elimination of property taxes simply means that government must find an alternative source of funding or that the provision of these traditional, taxpayer-funded services will have to change.   Might there be other ways of providing an education?  Public schools, afterall, are a 20th century creation.   Who is to say that there may not be a better way to educate children without the public school harness?   The same could be said for police, fire fighting and other local government services.   The failure here is one of imagination.   The supporters of the property tax simply cannot imagine a different way of doing things (and have no incentive to do so).

The fight over local property taxes also reveals in a stark way the limits of our actual freedoms.   Anyone who owns real property prefers not to think about the fact that we will never, truly own anything.   Even if we should manage to pay off the mortgage covering the purchase price of our home, the county government will always be there, year after year, demanding ever greater sums for the “privilege” of living on their land.

The usual, counter-argument here is that property owners benefit from all of the services provided to them by the county (fire, police, ambulance, schools, etc…), so it is only right to demand a contribution to the costs.    Setting aside the question of whether a tax assessment on the value of my property is even a rational or fair way to determine my “contribution,” however, there are fundamental problems with this kind of thinking.   What about those who make little or no use of county services?   They have no children in school, they provide for their own protection under their Second Amendment rights and they are more than willing to re-build with neighbors’ assistance in the event of a fire.   Anyone with any actual experience with local government officials knows that they do not improve the quality of our lives.  Just the opposite.   Furthermore, the coerced taxation of property owners entrenches an entire system of “public employees” who have absolutely no interest in any changes that would save taxpayers money, improve quality or find alternative means to provide services.   Simply compare the mindset of a business that must constantly respond to customers’ needs and compete with others to retain business or fail entirely with that of government.

Every indicator around us points to the fact that we cannot continue to follow the same, outdated model of taxation and governance.  Whether the North Dakota ballot initiative is the answer or merely the first, halting step, we had best be about re-inventing the American way of life.

Hat tip Hot Air.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) expressed profound regrets about the four years during the George W. Bush presidency when Republicans had control of Congress:

“During the Bush administration, they had four years where the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the executive branch. We had a great opportunity to do great reform to fix what was wrong with this country. We didn’t do it — that’s where careerism comes in,” Coburn told TheDC.

“Careerism isn’t just a problem for Democrats. It’s a problem for Republicans too. When the number one goal is to make yourself look good at home, rather than fulfill your oath and fix what the country needs to have fixed, you’re actually adding to our downward spiral, and so I think it was a missed opportunity of tremendous proportions that the Republicans didn’t embrace what they said they believed in during those times.”

***

In his new book, “The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America,” Coburn writes about a phone conservation he had with President Bush.

“The night of my victory in 2004, I received a call from President Bush. After he congratulated me, I said, ‘Mr. President, I’m looking forward to helping you cut spending.’ There was nothing but silence on the other end,” Coburn writes.

“By the end of 2004, Republicans were becoming increasingly agitated about President Bush’s excessive spending. I was determined to follow through on my campaign promise to go after earmarks and wasteful spending even if it meant clashing with my own party.”

Good of Senator Coburn to express these sentiments some eight years later.  Better late than never, I suppose.  But Coburn does not quite capture the essence of those times.   The problem then (as now) is not politicians trying to “look good” to the voters back home.  The problem is much deeper and more parasitic.

The problem, first and foremost, is the overwhelming power that has been invested, over the last 100 years, in the central government in D.C.  Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined the sheer size and scope of the Federal Leviathan today.   If so, it is doubtful that they would have proceeded with the Constitution as written.  This enormous power hopelessly corrupts all but the most invulnerable persons who spend any length of time in the Capitol.   It is not about looking good, Senator Coburn, it is about wielding power and influence that garners great wealth, special treatment, exemption from the laws that apply to the rest of us citizens, incessant flattery from hordes of sycophants and an almost irresistible temptation to hang onto to this power at all costs.

If there is anything like a glimmer of light at the end of this long, dark Debt Tunnel, it may be the election of principled conservatives to Congress who will not cave in to the “careerists” in Congress already infected with the power disease.

The danger is that new Congress Critters may fall into the same psychological trap that many an NFL team has fallen into when they make it to the Super Bowl: Just Happy To Be Here.

It is fine to talk about changing Washington and restoring the Constitution while on the campaign trail and let’s grant that all the talk is sincere and deeply authentic.   Nonetheless, like those hapless NFL teams that struggle against all odds to appear in the championship game only to be trounced by a veteran opponent, it is an open question whether freshmen in 2013 will be awed just to walk the halls of Congress and forget all about playing for keeps.