Every few months I receive a forwarded email with a pre-amble, often customized or re-written by someone, but linking one to the USA Today Poll FROM NOVEMBER 2007:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/quickquestion/2007/november/popup5895.htm

The big question being: "Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?"

Options are: Yes, No, Undecided.

The forwarded email, of course, beseeches us to answer "YES, Let's show 'em!"

And, of course, sadly the results are 97% YES!
And there are over 6 MILLION respondents (since 2007).

And, unfortunately it is a trick question... my reasoning is below... if you are so inclined please feel free to share with all who will listen...it is at the crux of how Americans view their relationship with our government, servant or master.

If i knew the editor at USToday or thought they would listen, i would have them change the poll... yeah right!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/quickquestion/2007/november/popup5895.htm

None of the Amendments "give" us our rights... that denotes a privilege that can be taken away was well.
Our rights are unalienable... naturally occurring to us... if given at all, then given to us by our creator.

The Amendments were put there to ensure that government does not "infringe" on our rights that were ours to begin with before government was formed.

The first 10 Amendments were all about what government "shall not" do. There's nothing about what government "shall allow".

So unfortunately the intention of the poll might be good (might be)... but it really is only going to create more uneducated Americans about their God-given rights.

Here's the list of special interest groups Grassley is meeting with in the next week (pasted in below, from a memo from his staff)... the ones that they are telling us about... at least his office is issuing something to go by... it would be a full time job to keep up with all these folks seeking special dispensation from our oligarchy... wait, he has a huge staff to help him with all this, millions paid for by you and me and our future generations.. what a vicious circle... right before our eyes... i know this is not anything new... but i guess i have rarely noticed the level of detail here...

If the Congress stuck to its enumerated authority, it would not have the wherewithall to even hand out any loot to any of these groups, thus there'd be no meetings to be had... it's time to quit gifting from the treasury in order to maintain the welfare and warfare state... the cycle must be broken.

----
Update:
How can a congress person possibly keep up with all these meetings?

What would you do with a $2.4 million dollar staffing budget?
Think you'd figure out a way to have a staff around you to keep you in power for decades with that kind of financing?

Here's Chuck's staffing, travel, ear marks and more...
http://www.legistorm.com/member/45/Sen_Charles_Ernest_Grassley.html

His top staffer is making over $167,000 annually...
http://www.legistorm.com/person/David_Edmund_Young/2508.html
you can drill down on each staffer's disclosure forms too... see what kind of stocks they own...and where they have a mortgage... Edmunds has a mortgage for property worth $500K-$1M in DC... no wonder they need such high salaries...

MP3 Files: Hour 1

On www.RepublicBroadcasting.org 12pm CST every Saturday

Third Rail Topics for Today!

We The People Foundaiton & Articles of Freedom: Operation People Power National Conference Call Webinar Registration Information - Sunday May 30th 9pm EDT

Best Summary Version Available of the Articles of Freedom is Here as a PDF... 6 pages, with extensive footnotes, Bob Schulz Introduction, Summary Chart, Civic Action Pledge and Declaration

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From the Tribune webpage ...

At a news conference last week, Chicago Reader reporter Mick Dumke dared ask the mayor why Daley felt the city's handgun ban was effective, what with so many shootings and murders in Chicago. Daley picked up a rifle and said:

Whoa, Nellie!

Phil Pozerdarc hosts "Positively Unconstitutional" every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. CST on the www.RepublicBroadcating.org network.

He always has fascinating discussions, callers and guests.
This last week, he had a caller, Roger from Kansas, expound upon the meaning, significance and function of the last clause of Article V of the Constitution. He stated that it was the most controversial clause of the entire convention. He stated that it was the last clause approved before it went to a vote of the states.

It reads:

"... and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of equal Suffrage in the Senate."

Listen to the segment by clicking this link below:
http://www.thirdrailblog.com/audio/Pozderac.May22.5thAmend.mp3

This is a 20 minute segment worth listening to more than once.

“Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge--for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility for exercising rational or moral judgment.” --Ayn Rand, “Racism,” 1963--

As on object lesson for those who would divorce principles from politics, and as an indication of the evasive follies that result from such attempts thereafter, consider the latest Tea Party tussle:

“Tea Partiers had barely started their victory lap for propelling Rand Paul to triumph Tuesday [May 18th] in Kentucky’s GOP Senate primary, when a controversy over the new nominee’s criticism of the Civil Rights Act threatened to rain on the parade.” (“Tea Party activists defend Rand Paul amid civil rights controversy,” Foxnews.com, May 21st.)

Mr. Paul, in a series of interviews, aired the belief that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which concerned itself with racial discrimination on private property as well as in the public arena, stepped outside the bounds of proper government by doing so. And now, naturally, Democratic cries are loud and clear: “Racist!”

Yet on this issue Mr. Paul is correct: regulating personal behavior on private property, beyond the scope of force or fraud, is outside of government’s legitimate boundaries--and such regulations always end up causing more problems than they purportedly solve.

Mark Fiore is a surgically cynical as they come. I always forget to check out his site. I have signed up for his email notifications. http://www.markfiore.com

"I love both Obama's because together, at least one of them is always right!"

"There's a little something in Obama for everyone to love, you just have to find the right Obama for you."

"You see, one way or another Obama is right!"

"I'm Dale Peterson and I'm after the Republican nomination for Agriculture Commissioner of Alabama."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Todd McGreevy
Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: [SuperLiberty] FW: Dale Petersen for President!!
To: SuperLiberty-list@meetup.com

oh my... Dale, you have my vote and i don't even live in Alabama.
wow. love this.
this guy needs further looking into for sure.
http://dalepeterson2010.com/

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 11:30 PM, k jo bur wrote:

Count me in. K

Subject: Dale Petersen for President!!

Wow what an ad!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0&feature=topvideos

I wish high school and college classrooms would show this 11 min clip in their economy courses. You cannot get enough of this truth serum.

"The Federal Reserve behind the scenes has the power to create money out of thin air. It's very bizarre," Paul said. "They can bail out their friends and let the people they don't like fail, and create a trillion dollars or more out of thin air in order to prop up some companies at the expense of others ... It's absolutely bizarre and, yes, the American people right now I think are waking up to it."

Ron Paul's message is as clear as ever here. And despite the desk anchor at CNBC's efforts to "gotcha" Ron Paul a couple of times, the viewer walks away even more educated for it.

You may do a double take on the source of this surprisingly balanced, cogent analysis of the onward march of big government and its inability to solve problems.

Excerpt from The Great Consolidation: "If consolidation creates a crisis, the answer is further consolidation. If economic centralization has unintended consequences, then you need political centralization to clean up the mess. If a government conspicuously fails to prevent a terrorist attack or a real estate bubble, then obviously it needs to be given more powers to prevent the next one, or the one after that."

Full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17douthat.html