Police union attempts to control and censor the press

By Seth Richardson

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the Los Angeles Police Protective League is demanding that the owners of the San Diego Union-Tribune fire editorial writers who are critical of public employee labor unions. The newspaper was recently purchased by Platinum Equity, which is heavily invested in public employee pension funds in California. The Los Angeles police and firefighters pension fund has more than $30 million invested with Platinum Equity.

Police union President Paul M. Weber claims that the investment with Platinum makes the union “part owner in the flagging Union-Tribune.” Weber wrote a letter to Platinum CEO Tom Gores on March 26 saying, “Since the very public employees they continually criticize are now their owners, we strongly believe that those who currently run the editorial pages should be replace.” (sic)

If ever there was a cautionary tale for avoiding government bailouts of newspapers, this is it. Thomas Jefferson knew this.

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.”

Freedom of the press relies for its very existence and credibility upon the ability of the press to resist pressure from special interests, political candidates, public officials and the subjects of editorial criticism. Without the independence that is essential to a truly free press, news organizations rapidly become little more than shills for their benefactors.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.”

The insidiousness of this corruption of the free press is easily seen in the liberal bias of most newsrooms, be they newspapers or television stations. CNBC and NBC’s ownership by General Electric has resulted in the destruction not only of the network’s ratings, but of its reputation and credibility. Under the direction of Jeffery Immelt and Jeff Zucker, the networks have taken a hard left and have exited the domain of the free press and become slaves to the Obama administration and the Progressive movement. The New York Times has fallen into the same trap, and is now nothing but a shill for far-left causes. Let the government take them over and the truth will vanish entirely.

Now Congress is involved. Democrat Benjamin Cardin has introduced a bill to “help” newspaper companies restructure as nonprofits with lots of tax breaks. “We are losing our newspaper industry,” Cardin said. “The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.”

Yes, it is, but turning the free press into a “public press” by making it beholden and answerable to the government by virtue of public benefits and/or funding will enslave the press to Liberal Democrats and Socialists, who will not hesitate for a moment to pressure press agencies to report only that which is favorable to the agenda of whomever grants the boons or provides the funds. This is far worse than no press at all, for when there is an absence of a free press, that vacuum is inevitably filled as the community demands information. But where the press is subservient to and controlled by the government, the people cannot find the truth, and a free press cannot compete when government largesse favors the government mouthpiece.

Nowhere is this socialistic control of the free press more obvious than in the words of the boss of the Los Angeles police union. He wants nothing more than to make the actions of Los Angeles police officers immune from public criticism by the only ones who can criticize with impunity because they are free, independent and protected by the U.S. Constitution against censorship by the government.

It would be better for newspapers to die a dignified death and become extinct than that they become organs of the state, because the danger to the public posed by government control of the sources of information and news are incalculable.

“This formidable censor of the public functionaries, by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution.” –Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.

But do we, the People, have the will to preserve the Fourth Estate? Jefferson was skeptical even in his own time, and said, “Our people, merely for want of intelligence which they may rely on, are become lethargic and insensible of the state they are in.”

It’s far more important that newspapers and other news organization, including the emerging on-line citizen-lead journalism, remain true to the principles of a Free Press, because without it, tyranny will inevitably be facilitated and protected. It is our duty to preserve the freedom of the press, and to resist, and revile attempts to manipulate it, such as that attempted by Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul M. Weber.

“To preserve the freedom of the human mind… and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.” Thomas Jefferson to William Green Munford, 1799.

© 2009 Altnews

Budget cuts call for individual initiative and participation

By Seth Richardson

Gazette reporter Daniel Chacon wrote in his article “Brown fields, no busses: Effects of city budget cuts sinking in” on Friday, “Hermine Wise got a lesson in trickle-down economics last week. Walking around Prospect Lake at Memorial Park last week, she noticed a sign on one of the restroom doors. The bathrooms were locked, and the sign was there to let the public know why: that the city couldn’t afford to maintain the toilets because it didn’t have enough money. “What are people supposed to do?” asked Wise, 78. “Go behind a tree or pee in their pants?””

Yup. Hermine should petition the Council to repeal the “urinating in public” ordinance, or she should tell the Parks Department to unlock the doors and put up a sign asking users to maintain the facilities themselves. If you use public restrooms, bring your own toilet paper with you and either bring a spray bottle of disinfectant or be prepared to be grossed out. Your choice.

Government shouldn’t be allowed to shut us out of our public facilities and property merely because it cannot maintain or police it to its satisfaction. This “lock ‘em out” response is typical passive-aggressive retribution on the part of bureaucrats when they don’t get all the money they ask for, despite their insistence it’s not. The U.S. Forest Service is notorious for closing entire National Forests because they are denied money for administration or patrol. Cities are no less immune from such petty displays of power.

“I think it’s time to go back and ask for more resources,” Mayor Lionel Rivera said. “It’s self-evident that we can’t provide the level of service that the community desires with what we have.”

Well, Mr. Mayor, I’d say you’re wrong about the “community desires,” given how often the community rejects tax increases. You’re free to ask for more tax money, but you haven’t had much success with that, so how about focusing on efficiently using what you have and allowing citizens to learn to lower their expectations and do some of the work themselves?

Chacon wrote, “Some residents, however, suspect the city is cutting back on things like watering parks and bus service to punish voters for not approving tax increases. Such suspicions are unfounded, said Sue Skiffington-Blumberg, a city spokeswoman. “We will gladly show any citizen how their money is spent in detail,” she said in an e-mail.” “Lane miles have expanded, population has grown, costs for basic operational materials like asphalt, gasoline and cement has gone up substantially over the past few years, but our sales tax, which is over 50 percent of the general fund revenue, has shrunk,” she said. “People are feeling the impact,” Mayor Lionel Rivera said. “But the bottom line is we have limited resources.””

Good. That’s how we like it. Keeping bureaucrats and their budgets lean and mean enhances individual liberty, and we’ll learn to adapt to the changing conditions just fine, thank you very much. Times are tough all over, and what we expect you to do is to cut ALL discretionary, “entitlement” and luxury spending and focus on priorities, and here’s how you do it: Start by writing down every category of budget request you have and then prioritize them top to bottom. Then, start fully funding at the top of the list, and work your way down, and when you run out of money, stop.

Start with the essentials:

• Firefighting and emergency medical response
• Water
• Sewer
• Electricity
• Roads and bridges

That’s the first five in order of priority. See how easy it is?

Now, on to parks.

“Candidly, if we have a summer this year like we had last year, I am very, very concerned about the condition of the parks,” Paul Butcher, director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, said Friday. “We are taking every measure possible to keep them at least alive,” he said. Butcher said his office is fielding about one or two complaints a day, from all the dandelions in the medians and parks to the grass turning brown. He said the blue grass in the parks needs about 24 inches of water over a season,” writes Chacon.

Every possible measure? Well, how stupid was it to plant a water-hogging wet-climate, delicate turf grass like Kentucky Bluegrass in the first place, instead of a tough, hardy native grass like Fescue or better yet, Buffalo Grass? D’oh! Let the bluegrass die and replace it with something that uses much less water.

Here’s an idea: Everybody who uses one of those neighborhood parks should go and buy two pounds of Buffalo Grass seed and scatter it in their favorite park. It’ll cost you about $35 and will cover about 1000 square feet. Expensive? Only at first. Once established, it’s hardy and drought-resistant, and it’s native. Eventually, it will overtake the bluegrass and over a few years of natural expansion and volunteer seeding by citizens, the water bill for parks will be cut considerably.

Dandelion greens make great eating, if they haven’t been soaked in poison, and the flowers are pretty, so just ignore them.  They make adequate ground cover to help prevent erosion and you don’t need to water them at all. As for the “one or two complaints a day,” give me a break! Ignore those whiners, don’t try to use it as an excuse to extract money from the rest of us. If the whiners don’t like dandelions, then let them get out in the medians and root them out themselves.

Does your park’s grass need mowing? Then hop on your lawnmower and go mow it. Does the public toilet need cleaning? Then clean it if you want to use it. Do the park benches need painting? Then go paint them. These parks belong to you, so either take care of them or quit carping to the City Council.

Or, vote them more tax money next time they ask, but make sure when they ask, they tell you exactly what they are going to use it for, and hold them to it. Force them to line-item all expenditures and make them pass an ordinance requiring them to abide by the budget once established. But whatever you do, learn to get by with what you have, and take care of it yourself if you care about it, because nobody else ought to be burdened with doing it for you if you don’t care enough to put forth some individual effort. Stop sucking at the public teat and expecting government to provide for you. Such attitudes are destroying our nation.

Update: Having been schooled in the finer points of growing grass, I am informed that Buffalo Grass doesn’t grow well at this altitude, and is not hardy under use, and that according to the experts, Bluegrass, as thirsty as it is, is the best alternative they have found. I must therefore concur with Wayne Laugesen’s editorial on the subject and advocate the installation of artificial grass on playing fields. What to do about other parks is still in question, but hopefully a less water-hungry grass can be found.

© 2009 Altnews

Obama’s plan to close Gitmo endangers U.S. citizens

By Seth Richardson

President Obama is determined to fulfill his campaign promise of closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in a speech Thursday he claimed that U.S. prisons are tough enough to keep terrorists in. “Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal, supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists,” he said.

This is true, but it’s as disingenuous as it is irrelevant. Nobody’s ever escaped from Guantanamo Bay either. The question is not whether we can keep terrorists locked in, it’s whether we can keep their sympathizers and cohorts locked out. Prisons are designed to keep prisoners locked in. Military bases are designed to keep the enemy out. Supermax in Canon City is designed to keep Zacarias Moussaoui in, Guantanamo Bay is designed to keep the Cuban military out. And because it’s designed to keep Castro’s soldiers out, it’s also coincidentally designed to keep al Qaeda out.

The techniques of keeping the detainees inside Guantanamo are relatively simple and cost-effective. The climate is salubrious, which minimizes physical plant needs. The facility is inherently secure, which deters escape attempts, and as a result, simple chain-link fences topped with razor wire, combined with careful prisoner management is sufficient to prevent escapes. We didn’t need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars creating a secure facility with state-of-the-art, court-mandated prisoner amenities and facilities that are required of all new U.S. federal prisons. We adapted what already existed to the minimal needs of the situation in a way that provides maximum protection from escape from within and attack from without. The only reason to change things is pure ideological opinion, and Obama’s opinion ignores the safety of the public in favor of political posturing and appeasing international terrorists and quislings.

Obama admitted, “We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again.”  And there is no better motivation or target for an al Qaeda attack than on the prison holding its leaders. Freeing Ramzi Yousef or any of the other al Qaeda leaders would be a political coup for the terrorists. And as good as our prisons are, they are ill-equipped to fend off a determined, multi-pronged military assault employing truck bombs, suicide bombers and trained military fighters. The soldiers at Guantanamo Bay, however, are well equipped and trained to do exactly that.

This is not a speculative threat. Not only are the prisons vulnerable, the civilian population is likewise placed at risk when many high-value terrorist leaders are housed in their communities. Al-Qaeda threatened a wave of suicide bombings against Britain in early 2008 if Afghan and Islamist prisoners were not freed from the high-security Belmarsh prison in London. The attacks did not emerge, but the threats contributed to the “continuing high level of threat to the UK,” according to Britain’s security service, MI5.

Just under a year ago, on June 14, 2008, Taliban commandos and suicide bombers attacked Kandahar’s main provincial jail, freeing more than 390 Taliban militants. A truck bomb with 1,800 kilograms of explosives shattered the gate and killed all the guards. Heavily-armed Taliban fighters then attacked the jail and freed inmates from their cells, escaping before Afghan military forces could respond.

The principle benefit of Guantanamo Bay is that it’s located in Cuba, which puts any attempted attack far from our shores, and it’s a secure military installation, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone wishing to attack and free the detainees. Such a facility could be created here on U.S. soil, but why bother? We already have a facility that’s humane and far more comfortable than anything offered to our prisoners of war during WWII. No complaint has been sustained that the facilities are inadequate or that the conditions are abusive. In fact, the military has bent over backwards to ensure humane and comfortable conditions for the detainees. To duplicate it here in the U.S. merely to achieve an ideological political victory is at the very least a complete waste of money in a time when our economy doesn’t need any extra stress. More importantly doing so would create a high-value terrorist target that would endanger the residents of any community it’s located in.

But Obama is deliberately downplaying the risks and is accusing those who voice concerns about the dangers of bringing terrorist detainees to the U.S. of being alarmists. ”[W]e will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue. Listening to the recent debate, I’ve heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country. … As Republican Lindsey Graham said, the idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.”

Of course, what he really means is that opposing HIS political views on our national moral rectitude in the eyes of terrorists and enemies who want to kill us is more important than the political views of people who prefer to put the safety of the people of this nation first. His speech is right out of leftist Saul Alinsky’s playbook, “Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals:” “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Moreover, this is a rather egregious case of the pot calling the kettle black. Obama panders to fear himself when he says: “There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. … [I]nstead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained. … Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies.”

This is a preposterous and entirely unsupportable statement. It’s pure political rhetoric. Terrorists around the world don’t need a “symbol” to hate America, America IS the symbol, the Great Satan. They hated America long before we captured any of them on the battlefield while waging war against us. They hate us because we are prosperous and free, but mostly because the United States is not an Islamic Caliphate operating under Sharia Law. They hate us because we defend democracy and individual rights. They hate us for many reasons, and to suppose that Guantanamo Bay is of any real significance to the greater aims of radical Islamists and terrorists is ridiculous.

If we move the detainees here, the outcry will only be renewed and terrorist sympathizers will decry “Guantanamo, version 2.0” just as vociferously as they do now. Al-Qaeda and their supporters don’t care where its operatives are held, they care only that the ARE held, and they will continue to use the detentions of radical Islamic martyrs as a rallying cry no matter where they are held.

This is a conundrum that we simply cannot avoid if we are to fight the war on terror effectively. We must take prisoner those who wage war against us when we can, and we must have somewhere to put them until the war is over or they are no longer a threat to us. The only other alternative is not to take any prisoners, and to simply execute terrorists and spies on the spot, after a summary court-martial. That’s not likely to go over very well either.

But, there’s a ray of hope in this mess. Congress seems disinclined to write Obama a check for closing Guantanamo Bay and moving detainees somewhere else. Amazingly, Democrats are aligning with Republicans, not to mention their constituents, and are telling Obama that his vague plans are unacceptable. In presenting idealistic, abstract arguments for closing Gitmo, Obama has slipped up and departed from Alinsky’s instructions, who said, “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying “You’re right—we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.”

And that’s exactly what Congress is telling the President.

© 2009 Altnews

Fight to protect your airspace rights, because your neighbors may covet what’s not theirs.

By Seth Richardson

Denver Post columnist Susan Greene doesn’t seem to understand either the concept of “private property” or “property boundary.” In her March 15th column, she bemoans the loss of her beloved “swatch of sky” seen through her kitchen window, rudely taken from her by the builder of a “McMansion” two lots away.

Here’s a clue for Ms. Greene: You don’t own the “swatch of sky” two doors down. As it happens, the owner of the lot on which the “McMansion” now stands owns the sky above his property.

The doctrine is the common law “heaven to hell” theory of property ownership which says that he who owns the surface owns everything below, to the center of the earth, and everything above, to the heights of heaven. Practically speaking however, the “heaven” part of property ownership has been limited by the Supreme Court to that airspace above the surface that the underlying owner can reasonably make use of, which absolutely includes all the airspace within the mandated building envelope.

One’s ownership of space, at least in Colorado, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, is not just a common law principle, it’s enshrined in Colorado statutes. The Condominium Act, C.R.S. Title 38, Article 32, Section 102 says,

“Estates, rights and interests in such areas….may be held, enjoyed, possessed….in the same manner, upon the same conditions, and for the same purposes as estates, rights, and interests in land and shall be in all other respects dealt with and treated as estates, rights, and interests in land.”

And Section 104 says,

“The provisions of articles 30 to 44 of this title and of any other law of this state shall be applicable to estates, rights, and interests created in areas above the surface of the ground and to instruments creating, disposing of, or otherwise affecting such estates, rights, and interests wherever such provisions would be applicable to estates, rights, and interests in land or to instruments creating, disposing of, or otherwise affecting estates, rights and interests in land.”

And if that’s not enough, the Aeronautics Act of 1937, C.R.S. 41-1-107, makes it absolutely clear:

“The ownership of space above the lands and waters of this state is declared to be vested in the several owners of the surface beneath, subject to the right of flight of aircraft.”

That makes it pretty clear that Ms. Greene’s “swatch of sky” didn’t belong to her in the first place, so her “view” was the result of “visual trespass” and was subject to revocation at the will of the landowner. And certainly if she valued that swatch so highly, she had every opportunity to offer the owners of the airspace through which she was viewing the sky compensation for granting her an easement to continue looking through their airspace. But she didn’t. Like every NIMBY, she’s decided that what’s her’s is her’s, and what’s her neighbor’s is her’s to control too.

But what’s a “monstrosity” for NIMBY neighbors is an exercise in property rights for the owner. There’s no indication that he violated any regulations or zoning codes, notwithstanding Greene’s carping about the builder utilizing “nearly every buildable inch of the city lot — a house with no sense of its own space” (evidently Greene also thinks that she’s qualified to determine what a house’s “sense of its own space” ought to be, and cities determine what’s “buildable” after giving due regard to the necessities of light and space for the neighbors), and “annoyed longtimers” (whom she evidently thinks gain power and control over others merely through the expedient of tenure), and historic preservation laws that prevent her from replacing windows without city approval. Wah. That’s what you get when you buy a “historic” home, or when you allow your city to infringe your rights of architectural expression by enacting “historic preservation” ordinances.

The fact that Greene, or her neighbors don’t like the new house shouldn’t be given the slightest consideration or degree of pity or sympathy. She and her neighbors all had the opportunity to buy the lot when the widow died, but they didn’t. You snooze, you lose. Instead, she’s pining for someone else (government) to come to her rescue and save her from her cupidity.

Greene complains, “It’s the nature of Denver’s market that certain houses will be scraped, bigger ones built and some owners forced to foreclose, many due to circumstances beyond their control. Such isn’t the case with Mr. Infill, who showed no regard for the differences between commodification and the concept of home.”

Well, Ms. Greene, even if the owner intended to “flip it,” as you claim, so what? It’ll eventually be someone’s home, and the developer, just like you, has every right to consider the place a “commodity” because that’s what every house is in the end. Even some of your neighbors agree and hope that the house will start a trend that will result in higher home values for them.

Good for them. They are forward-thinking individuals who recognize that stultifying decay caused by NIMBY insistence on unchanging “neighborhood character” suits only those who never plan to sell their homes, and harms those who might want to move up to better housing in the future, either by rebuilding or by selling and moving elsewhere, presumably where the NIMBYs don’t have as much power.

People come and go, but houses remain, and they become homes to those who occupy them, and the design of one’s home is the most expensive and fundamental expression of personal character that most people ever have, and their desire to build, or live in a home of a particular design and character far outweighs the petty aesthetic concerns of NIMBY neighbors who merely wish to exercise power and control over others.

Architecture is art, and has been for thousands of years, and art is expression, and free expression is protected by the First Amendment, so before anyone lobbies government to further infringe on our architectural freedom of expression, they had better come up with a compelling need to do so, and their regulation had better be the minimum necessary infringement required to achieve the legitimate governmental objective. Or, rather than complain and support more oppressive legislation, buy the lots adjacent to you that might affect your “swatch of sky,” raze the houses and do what you want with the lot.

Otherwise, leave your neighbors alone and mind your own business.

©2009 Altnews

The New York Times editorial board goes off the deep end into anti-gun paranoia…again.

By Seth Richardson

The New York Times, with a typically virulent foaming-at-the-mouth tone, opined on May 14th that the “gun lobby” has suborned the U.S. Senate and blood will be spattering the halls of Old Faithful Lodge because senators passed a rider to the Obama-mandated credit card reform bill allowing law-abiding and licensed citizens to carry defensive concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges.

In December, 2008, the Bush administration approved a regulation allowing citizens to carry concealed firearms for self-defense, just before Obama took office, but on March 19, 2009, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the regulation because, according to the judge, the Department of the Interior didn’t perform a comprehensive environmental assessment as a part of the final rule. Although the DOI addressed National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requirements and decided that the final rule constituted a rule change that would have no significant NEPA impact, Judge Kollar-Kotelly disagreed, characterizing the DOI’s final rule as “tautology” and “arbitrary and capricious.”

As a result, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., proposed an amendment to the credit card bill to reverse the judge’s injunction, which was approved by the senate in a 67-29 vote.

What’s particularly laughable about the Times’ hysterical response is their claim that the law has been “saddled with a dangerous and utterly nongermane amendment allowing visitors to openly carry loaded firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges.” Not really.

First, attaching “nongermane” riders to legislation is a hoary old political tactic that the Democrats have never hesitated to use when it suits their fancy. Second, the final rule enacted under Bush by the Department of the Interior specifically addressed the issue of open carry and of the possession of “AK-47s and other war weapons” and it specifically prohibits open carry unless one is lawfully hunting. (36 CFR Part 2, Section 2.4 and 50 CFR Part 27, Section 27.42).

The pertinent provisions of the amendment read:

(b) Protecting the Right of Individuals To Bear Arms in Units of the National Park System and the National Wildlife Refuge System.–The Secretary of the Interior shall not promulgate or enforce any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm including an assembled or functional firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System if–

(1) the individual is not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing the firearm; and

(2) the possession of the firearm is in compliance with the law of the State in which the unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System is located.

While the amendment itself does not explicitly forbid open carry or long guns, the Department of the Interior still has regulatory authority to prohibit hunting and target shooting, as well as “brandishing” of firearms, all of which were addressed in the 2008 final rule. Keep in mind that it’s still illegal to discharge a firearm in a national park, unless your life is in danger, so the  threat of bullets zinging hither and yon in Yellowstone won’t be any greater than it is today. The purpose and intent of this law is to respect the 2nd Amendment and to allow citizens who hold valid concealed carry permits to continue to peaceably carry their defensive firearms while in the wildernesses of our national parks and national wildlife refuges.

The dangers individuals face generally do not stop at a park border. In response to the Bush administration rule, the Department of the Interior, National Parks Service, in its December 5, 2008 final rule, said,

“The available data indicates that National Parks and Wildlife Refuges are less prone to criminal activity than other areas in the United States. However, we also recognize that current statistics show an alarming increas in criminal activity on certain federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior, especially in areas close to the border and in lands that are not readily accessible by lan enforcment authorities. In 2007, for instance, the NPS reported 8 murders, 43 forcible rapes, 57 robberies, and 274 instances of aggravated assault. The fact that these crime rates may be lower than the national average does not mean that parks are free from violence, nor do these figures suggest that people should be less cautions or propared when visiting a national park unit or national wildlife refuge.”

The final ruling also explicitly addressed the claim that citizens need not carry firearms because park rangers are adequate security for visitors:

“[T]he NPS and FWS together employ approximately 3000 full and part-time law enforcement officers who are responsible for patrolling and securing millions of acres of land, a substantial portion of which is remote wilderness. In these circumstances, NPS and FWS law enforement officers are in no position to guarantee a specific level of public safety on their lands, and cannot prevent all violent offenses and crimes against visitors. See, e.g., Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982) (no federal Constitutional requirement that police provide protection; Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (“the government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen”).”

In fact, the final ruling that was enjoined by the federal court reviewed approximately 125,000 comments on the proposed rule, and it addressed specifically all of the relevant concerns, including the hysterical rantings of the New York Times.

In short, the New York Times is obfuscating, pettifogging and outright lying about the impact of the amendment, which would do nothing more than restore the rule put in place by the Department of the Interior by superseding the federal court injunction that prevents the Bush-era rule from being applied.

The New York Times’ opinion piece is titled “Who’s Senate Is This?”  Well, it’s the Senate of we, the People, and it’s duly exercising it’s constitutional role; to make law.

©2009 Altnews

Having armed and trained teachers in public schools is the only way to protect our children

By Seth Richardson

Hoplophobe claim: “I work in a high school, and we have to protect the students, and some civilian yahoo with a gun trying to respond to an active shooter will do more harm than good. We’re trying to do our best to keep students out of harm’s way and a civilian with a gun just adds to our stress. ”

Teachers aren’t doing their “best.” If they were doing their best, they’d disobey the law, carry a gun anyway, and put their lives on the line to stop the shooters. It is the people who are in the building in the first critical seconds and minutes of the attack who are going to determine how many innocent children are murdered, and it’s utterly disgusting that our legislators and our educators fail to understand this simple fact.

Do you know how many terrorist attacks there have been on Jewish schools in the last few years? Go look it up. Then look up the reason. Here’s a clue: The reason that attacks on Jewish schools by Arab terrorists has dropped to zero is because armed citizens carrying machine guns guard schools in Israel, each and every day, on the alert for terrorist attacks. To suggest that armed citizens, teacher or administrators in schools would be ineffective only demonstrates an abysmal ignorance or an uncaring ideological agenda.

What teachers are doing is what they are trained to do because they are forbidden to do anything else, and what it amounts to is cowering in fear waiting for the gunman to get around to them and execute them. That’s no way to live, and it’s certainly no way to die. During the Columbine incident, we had courageous teachers trying to use fire extinguishers as weapons because they had nothing else. (How about a beaker of hydrochloric acid in the face, that’d be pretty distracting…)

But, you do have a choice, though it’s an unpleasant one to contemplate because it requires courage and a willingness to sacrifice your life to protect your students.

Courageous teachers, at the sound of gunfire, could band together and rush a gunman in a group and physically overwhelm him, even if it means some of them would get shot. How many teenage gunmen are going to be able to stand there like a trained Navy SEAL and mow down a dozen teachers rushing screaming at him from all directions while throwing anything hard at hand at him? Very few, I’d guess.

There are documented instances of school teachers and other students attacking and overwhelming armed students, thus preventing a larger massacre. This should be the universal response by students. Not cowering in fear, but full-fledged, outraged, rip-him-limb-from-limb attack by every person present. Kids, teachers and administrators should be taught to be courageous  and to respond to being attacked by someone with a gun with courage and ferocity, because it’s better to die facing your enemy than on your knees.

Where’s the beserker rage full-frontal attack training in our schools? Where’s the classes in courage and honor and self-sacrifice? Where’s the “war face” training? Do you know why the military teaches soldiers a “war face?” Because it’s terrifying to your opponent.

How do you think a depressed, deranged 15-year-old is going to react to a dozen teachers shrieking like harpies with a look of murderous rage on their face rushing him from all sides? Has he trained to react to such an event? No. Is he mentally prepared to stand his ground and shoot at enraged adults rushing him? No. He’s in a precarious mental  state already and it’s all he can do to concentrating on killing the students he perceives have abused him, and he’s enjoying their submissive cowering, and it’s highly likely that what he’ll do in response to being rushed by a shrieking horde is to freeze up completely, because he’s not been trained in resisting the natural fear of being attacked himself. And even if he remains as cool as a drill sergeant facing a horde of North Koreans, at least his attention will become focused on the teachers attacking him, which gives students more time and opportunity to escape.

Teachers need to step up and recommend a change in tactical planning at their schools, and they need to start group (and individual) attack training using improvised weapons and distraction devices, both for teachers and students. That way they’d be doing something that might actually be effective in preventing student deaths.

© 2009 Altnews

Gun-haters will use any sort of ridiculous argument to impugn the integrity of gun owners

By Seth Richardson

Hoplophobe claim: “Tactical considerations are not part of CCW training and certification, so civilians cannot be trusted to do the proper thing in a mass shooting scenario and therefore innocent civilians will get killed.”

In the better classes tactics are mentioned, but no, it’s not the focus of the CCW class, which is about basic firearms safety, proficiency and the law. But as has been belabored by those of us who actually know what we’re talking about, every CCW instructor tells his students that the permit class is merely the first step in becoming qualified and proficient with a handgun, and that extensive and ongoing training is a very good idea. And given the number of people who enroll in the advanced classes I’m familiar with, I’d say that the majority of people who obtain CCW permits do go on to obtain further training. But even if they don’t, the idea that they should be disarmed and thus rendered defenseless based on the specious argument that they might miss their target in a gunfight is unsupportable, particularly since police officers miss their targets on an alarmingly routine basis. Your demand for such a standard of perfection is irrational and is just an excuse, not a valid objection.

Hoplophobe claim: “You might have a gun, but an insane person with nothing to lose is going to shoot you without hesitation or remorse.”

Perhaps. This just goes to show you that sometimes you die. However, I’d rather die on my feet, exchanging fire with him than trembling on my knees, waiting for a bullet in the back of the head. Your mileage may vary.

Hoplophobe claim: “ You gun nuts are more concerned with yourself and you have no regard to the safety and well-being of anyone else around you.”

This is a bald-faced and reprehensible lie. I’ve carried a gun for 25 years because I’m concerned about the safety of others to a much greater degree than I am about my own safety. There is no evidence to suggest that those who choose to be armed are not fully cognizant of the risk to others in a gunfight. Factually speaking, civilians are eleven times less likely to shoot when faced with a deadly threat than police officers are. This indicates a high degree of concern with collateral damage, to the point where they don’t shoot when perhaps they should.

Worse, you suggest that people should not carry defensive arms because in a gunfight, a bystander might be injured, and you thereby argue that a citizen has a duty to simply capitulate to an armed aggressor and be victimized, raped, robbed or murdered because it’s selfish to defend themselves if anybody else might possibly be hurt. What a morally bankrupt argument. What a disgusting display of utter disregard for individual rights. What a noxious and pernicious lie as well, to suggest that armed citizens are going to disregard the safety of others and shoot wildly when attacked.

It’s an utter lie as demonstrated by the fact that the millions of citizens like me who do carry firearms simply do not discharge them recklessly in crowded places. I cannot think of a single notable incident where a citizen licensed for concealed carry has so much as wounded a bystander during a shootout. If what you suggest were even remotely true, we’d see Hollywood-style masses of injured or killed bystanders clogging emergency rooms. We don’t, and I conclude that you’ve been watching too many “Die Hard” movies.

©2009 Altnews

Colorado Springs City Council increasingly favors collectivism over private property rights

By Seth Richardson

Last week, Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighborhoods & Organizations asked the Colorado Springs City Council a couple of loaded questions: “What is a neighborhood?” and “who decides that?”

Munger, who is concerned with fascistic notions of “neighborhood character” and “not in my back yard” control of other people’s property, interfered with developer Kristine Hembre’s Horizon View subdivision plan because it wasn’t rustic enough to suit Munger’s aesthetic tastes.

Munger’s desire to control other people’s property is particularly pernicious because he argued that every tiny group of existing homeowners, no matter how small, should be given veto power over the development plans of their neighbors for no better reason than their particular aesthetic sensibilities. And Vice Mayor Larry Small, who mouthed platitudes about respecting private property rights while simultaneously destroying Hembre’s property rights, is a hypocrite of the highest order. Small said, “I am very sensitive to the right of people to use their property. This is about compatibility. They can still develop their property, just in a more compatible way.” But the essential question is why should Vice Mayor Small, or anyone else, have the power to determine what’s architecturally “compatible?” Architecture is art, and has been for thousands of years, and art is expression, and freedom of expression is explicitly protected by the First Amendment. How dare Small or Munger or anyone else presume to infringe on that right and substitute their tastes for those of the landowner?

“Neighborhoods are defined by their character, their inhabitants,” said Small, which while true, is wrongfully used as an excuse  to infringe on architectural expression. But the historical facts of life are that neighborhoods, like cities, evolve and change over time as the needs of the occupants change and it’s an injustice and an act of tyranny for the “character” of a neighborhood to subsume the right of a property owner to use and enjoy his property for no better reason than to pander to the aesthetic desires of his neighbors.

If architect Frank Lloyd Wright were alive today, he’d blow his brains out in frustration at the sclerotic aesthetics of government-supported NIMBYism. Fallingwater, Taliesin, the Robie House, the Wescott house, Graycliff; none of these masterpieces of architecture would be permitted to exist in today’s atmosphere of static, unchanging “neighborhood character” driven development review.

When did the selfish aesthetic desires of one’s neighbors take on legal significance? How did the subjective aesthetic judgments of a city council member come to enslave the free expression that is the design of one’s home? How did the desires of one’s neighbors for sameness and stultification come to be raised above the rights of the individual? How did we allow this to happen, and why do we permit it to continue?

Neighborhoods are indeed defined by their residents, but until very recently, with the advent of covenant-controlled cookie-cutter architecture brought on by the financial realities of large suburban developments, one found an entire universe of architecture in a few square blocks.

Parts of Colorado Springs, the pre-1960 areas, are shining examples of diversity of architecture. Just drive down Nevada Avenue from downtown to the north and look at the houses. Literally every style of architecture is represented in the old part of town north of Bijou and west of North Wahsatch. From mock-Tudor to Wright’s Prairie style, to Craftsman style bungalows to Spanish haciendas and everything in between can be seen cheek-by-jowl in a glorious riot of architectural anarchy. This old part of town is one of the most beautiful and diverse neighborhoods in all of Colorado, and it’s utterly impossible to assign it a “character” other than perhaps to characterize it as a soul-filling example of individual liberty and freedom of expression that characterizes the way things ought to be done.

So, what is “neighborhood character?” It’s the synthesis and conglomeration of the character of the people who live there and their personal expressions of individuality as manifested through their choice of architecture and lifestyle. Neighborhood character cannot be artificially created or preserved, it just exists as a natural and ever-changing manifestation of the many and varied tastes of the residents. It’s an organic and ongoing process of creation and decay that should not be embalmed just to satisfy your neighbor’s desire for sameness.

Who should decide what the character of a neighborhood is? No one, and everyone, through the organic evolution of the individual aesthetic tastes and desires of the people who live in it and change it to suit their needs and desires. No one person, no government and certainly no group of selfish, self-interested individuals holding themselves out as having aesthetic authority over others should be permitted to interfere with the superior right of every property owner to decide for him or her self how they will express their individuality through architecture.

And the only way to protect the organic evolution of neighborhoods and indeed entire cities, is to make sure that those who are elected to represent us understand and abide by their duty to protect the individual’s right to First Amendment freedom as expressed through architecture and their duty to resist the insidious forces of architectural fascism.

Let architectural anarchism run free, as it has done for thousands of years, and enjoy the art that is the essence of architecture that results.

©2009 Altnews

Enticing children into a church van is a felony

By Seth Richardson

Gazette reporters Mark Barna and Sue McMillin reported that representatives of the Cornerstone Baptist Church appear to have attempted to lure a seventh grade student into a church van near Russell Middle School last Thursday.

Cornerstone has been actively proselytizing children for some time and has baptized some children without their parents permission. Church members have been told not to trespass on school property in Colorado Springs District 11, particularly at Russel, Keller and Fremont elementary schools.

While church members have a First Amendment right to stand on public sidewalks and preach, even to school children, they do not have a right to lure children into vehicles or move them anywhere at all without parental permission.

Colorado statutes make such actions a felony. Here’s the statute:

18-3-304. Violation of custody order or order relating to parental responsibilities.

(1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (2.5) of this section, any person, including a natural or foster parent, who, knowing that he or she has no privilege to do so or heedless in that regard, takes or entices any child under the age of eighteen years from the custody or care of the child’s parents, guardian, or other lawful custodian or person with parental responsibilities with respect to the child commits a class 5 felony.

(2) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (2.5) of this section, any parent or other person who violates an order of any district or juvenile court of this state, granting the custody of a child or parental responsibilities with respect to a child under the age of eighteen years to any person, agency, or institution, with the intent to deprive the lawful custodian or person with parental responsibilities of the custody or care of a child under the age of eighteen years, commits a class 5 felony.

(2.5) Any person who, in the course of committing the offenses described in subsections (1) and (2) of this section, removes a child under the age of eighteen years from this country commits a class 4 felony.

(3) It shall be an affirmative defense either that the offender reasonably believed that his conduct was necessary to preserve the child from danger to his welfare, or that the child, being at the time more than fourteen years old, was taken away at his own instigation without enticement and without purpose to commit a criminal offense with or against the child.

(4) Any criminal action charged pursuant to this section may be tried in either the county where the act is committed or in which the court issuing the orders granting custody or allocating parental responsibilities is located, if such court is within this state.

It’s important to note that while the statute title refers to “custody order” the statute itself is more expansive and includes simply taking a child under eighteen from the “custody or care” of the person legally responsible for the child.

When a child is in school, the school is the custodian of the child under a legal concept known as “in loco parentis”, which means “in the place of the parent.” Luring a child from school grounds, regardless of the reason for doing so, without the permission of the school authorities is a crime.

Once released from school, children are in the custody of the parent, whether or not they are in the physical presence of the parent. This custody extends to standing orders for the child to return home promptly and directly from school, and by interfering with that journey, anyone enticing or taking a child from that parentaly-approved route is violating the custody of the parent.

The Colorado Springs Police Department and the District Attorney should at a minimum warn the members of the church that while they are free to preach to or speak with children in public spaces, any attempt to physically interfere with or even delay that child’s journey home, or to lure the child into a vehicle and move them somewhere without the express permission of the parents is a felony. If the church members persist in such actions, they should be arrested.

In the meantime, parents should monitor the church members, using video cameras to document their activities, and if any child is lured into a vehicle, parents should use reasonable and appropriate physical force to arrest the individuals involved, as authorized by Colorado statute 16-3-201, which says “A person who is not a peace officer may arrest another person when any crime has been or is being committed by the arrested person in the presence of the person making the arrest.”

Citizens have both the power of arrest and the right to use reasonable and appropriate physical force when making that arrest under Colorado statute 18-1-707 (7), which says, “A private person acting on his own account is justified in using reasonable and appropriate physical force upon another person when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it necessary to effect an arrest, or to prevent the escape from custody of an arrested person who has committed an offense in his presence; but he is justified in using deadly physical force for the purpose only when he reasonably believes it necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force.”

UPDATE: Channel 13 News reported Friday night that the church issued a statement denying knowledge of the van or who the woman driving the van was.

This is of concern, and police should be searching for the van and its driver because if it’s not associated with the church, it might have been an abduction attempt utilizing the church’s proselytizing as a cover.

©2009 Altnews