Real & imagined

If you picked up this morning's edition of The Columbus Dispatch, maybe you saw the page-one article about the federal government's plan to compel now-encrypted social-networking sites and VOIP networks to allow law-enforcement agents to monitor what you and I say to each other.

Like that'd be something new, right?

All the feds want now is a law that makes it legal to spy on citizens who use these communications media. Sure, it's a development we need to be aware of but hey, we should act with the knowledge that it's happening anyway.

On Dispatch page B7, sandwiched between the obituaries and the weather, is far more pressing news.

Columbus mayor Michael Coleman, who's cozy enough with New York City's Michael Bloomberg to qualify as an enemy of The People, wants Columbus and other Ohio cities to have the power to enact their own gun-control laws.

Never mind that the state legislature and Gov. Ted Strickland wisely took away that authority three years ago. Forget that nearly all of Coleman's hoped-for laws either are on the federal books or have no effect on crime (or both). Ignore the 2008 Heller decision and (especially) the McDonald case decided earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hell, ignore the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions.

Coleman is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which means that he's not concerned about constitutional rights or, for that matter, anything beyond the group's Bloomberg-esque agenda. Here's what MAIG says about itself:

"We support the Second Amendment and the rights of citizens to own guns. We recognize that the vast majority of gun dealers and gun owners carefully follow the law. And we know that a policy that is appropriate for a small town in one region of the country is not necessarily appropriate for a big city in another region of the country."

In point of fact, MAIG's aim is to make the exercise of constitutional rights so inconvenient, so onerous, that it results in the de facto disarming of individual American citizens.

Don't believe it? Read MAIG's latest report, Trace the Guns, which is packed with misinformation, disinformation and outright lies. Visit TraceTheGuns.org to see what MAIG has in mind for your state. Check out the NRA's list of MAIG's member mayors and The Truth About Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how the game is played -- gun-grabbers know that enacting unconstitutional local laws is relatively quick and easy, and that citizens' legal challenges take much longer. And while a challenge crawls through the system, people like Coleman and Bloomberg bide their time until the judicial wind blows to the left.

They won't let up and neither should we.

I don't live in Columbus, so in two years I'll have no direct say in who assumes the office of mayor. Maybe you don't live in a city or town governed by one of MAIG's anti-Second Amendment mayors, either.

It'd be a mistake, however, for us to ignore this or any political attack on our right to keep and bear arms. Having Heller and McDonald behind us may be great, but we must never let our guard down.

* * *
"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." (Constitution of The United States, Amendment II [1789])

"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power." (Constitution of The State of Ohio, Article I §4 [1851])

On Day Two, Day One

Confident that Hurricane Gustav had cleared both the Gulf Coast and the national headlines, the Republican Party gave itself permission to kick off its 2008 nominating convention late yesterday.



It's interesting to compare the atmospherics of this convention to the one held by Democrats last week. The venue is smaller and simpler -- intimate, even sparse, perhaps an attempt to play against public perception of Republicans as big-money fat cats. The backdrop is a huge video screen which, when it's not showing other images, is occupied by a single U.S. flag waving in the wind against a clear blue sky.

Patriotism is on proud display, and in typical GOP fashion -- which is to say, old-fashioned. It's conventional, "Country First" love of postcard America. Likewise the incorporation of religion -- unapologetically and exclusively Christian.

The assembled crowd is overwhelmingly white, in contrast to the Democrats' more apparent diversity. As expected, the haircuts are better. Funny hats abound, but I didn't see any rainbow flags or gay-pride banners. (Natch.)

And damn, these people are serious. Purposeful, stern, even scowling faces were everywhere.

Among the highlights of last night's program was a patriotic video narrated by actor Robert Duvall. A series of images -- Lincoln, the founding fathers, Mt. Rushmore, anonymous Americans in military service, and latter-day Republican icons -- flashed across the screen. Predictably, the partisans roared over pictures of former Pres. Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, as they did for former First Lady Barbara Bush, Pres. George W. Bush, and soon-to-be-nominee Sen. John McCain.

Notably, however, when a photo of civil-rights hero Rosa Parks appeared on the big screen, I heard no reaction at all. Not long after that, the presentation showed an image of Martin Luther King, Jr., as he was being booked into jail -- and I heard an audible groan from the crowd.

If a white guy in Ohio, an independent, caught that...I'm just sayin'...

First Lady Laura Bush delivered an uncharacteristically political speech to introduce her husband, who appeared via video from the White House. The program moved quickly (and not accidentally) into another video before former Sen. Fred Thompson stepped to the convention podium.

Welcome back, Fred -- we've missed you.

A year or so ago, I'd had high hopes for Sen. Thompson and fully expected to cast a vote for him. His approach to federalism has my personal endorsement, and despite my fundamental disagreement with him on issues like abortion, his was a candidacy I believed I could get behind. His run fell flat, of course, but it was good seeing him again.

The last speaker to take the stage was once my U.S. Senator, Democrat-turned-independent-turned-McCain-supporter Sen. Joe Lieberman. This was a novelty act staged not so much to inspire Republicans as to piss off Democrats -- and it will, but its real effect, I think, is greatly overrated.

That said, I still want to call attention to a couple of paragraphs from Sen. Lieberman's remarks:

"Our founding fathers foresaw the danger of...senseless partisanship. George Washington himself -- in his Farewell Address to our country -- warned that the 'spirit of party' is 'the worst enemy' of our democracy and 'enfeebles' our government's ability to do its job.

"George Washington was absolutely right. The sad truth is -- today we are living through his worst nightmare, in the capital city that bears his name."

Of all the words spoken at yesterday's session, those may have been the most important.

Tonight the national spotlight will glare on Gov. Sarah Palin. I'll make the popcorn.

Now, a few peripheral observations.

'It's people like you wot cause unrest'
Well, you'll have that. With apologies to John Mellencamp, "Ain't that America?"

'Pas de Dupes' redux
As if to reinforce a point I made yesterday, senior McCain adviser and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina offered this response to criticism of Gov. Palin's lack of experience:

"Because of Hillary Clinton's historic run for the Presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Governor Palin."

Ok, let's review: Questioning Gov. Palin's experience is sexist, but questioning Sen. Barack Obama's experience isn't racist.

Got it.

And if I'm not sitting there...?
In a repeat performance of the stunningly elitist remarks that forced his resignation in July as a McCain adviser, former Sen. Phil Gramm said this at a Financial Services Roundtable yesterday in Minneapolis:

"If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for."

Even if this guy already quit once, can Sen. McCain make him resign again?

Suppose they threw a party
Across the river from the Republican National Convention, a reported 15,000 people gathered for another political event -- the Rally for the Republic, organized by supporters of former Republican candidate Rep. Ron Paul. Keynote speakers included Rep. Paul, journalist Tucker Carlson, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

Anyone who followed the Republican primaries is familiar with the libertarian views and peculiar temperament of Rep. Paul and his disciples. And while he's not presidential material -- not by a long shot -- this kind of grassroots energy is a crucial part of fixing our broken government.

Wish I'd been there.

Know this

[The Huffington Post's left-leaning editorial content seldom interests me. Jim Garrison's piece, "Obama's Most Fateful Decision," posted this morning, was a pleasant surprise. Give attention, please, to his message -- our situation is as perilous as he says it is, the picture he paints justifiably stark. Liberty-loving citizens must not ignore it.]

Obama's Most Fateful Decision
by Jim Garrison

The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, if signed into law, will signal the death knell of our constitutional republic and the formal inception of a legalized police state in the United States. Passed by the House on May 26, 2011 (HR 1540), the Senate version (S. 1867) was passed on Dec. 1, 2011. Now only one man -- Barack Obama, a scholar of constitutional law -- will make the decision as to whether the Bill of Rights he went to Harvard to study will be superseded by a law that abrogates it.

First, let's be clear what is at stake. Most critical are Sections 1031 and 1032 of the Act, which authorize detaining U.S. citizens indefinitely without charge or trial if deemed necessary by the president. The bill would allow federal officials to take these steps based on suspicions only, without having to demonstrate to any judicial official that there is solid evidence to justify their actions. No reasonable proof will any longer be required for the government to suspend an American citizen's constitutional rights. Detentions can follow mere membership, past or present, in "suspect organizations." Government agents would have unchecked authority to arrest, interrogate, and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat to "national security." Further, military personnel anywhere in the world would be authorized to seize U.S. citizens without due process. As Senator Lindsay Graham put it, under this Act the U.S. homeland is considered a "battlefield."

What is at stake is more than the Constitution itself, as central as that document has been to the American experiment in democracy. What is a stake is nothing short of the basic fundamentals of western jurisprudence. Central to civilized law is the notion that a person cannot be held without a charge and cannot be detained indefinitely without a trial. These principles date back to Greco-Roman times, were developed by English common law beginning in 1215 with the Magna Carta, and were universalized by the Enlightenment in the century before the American Constitution and Bill of Rights were fought for and adopted as the supreme law of the land.

For more than two centuries of constitutional development since then, the United States has been heralded as the light to the world precisely because of the liberties it enshrined in its Declaration of Independence and Constitution as inalienable. It now seems as if the events of 9/11 have been determined to be of such a threatening magnitude that our national leaders feel justified to abrogate in their entirety the very inalienable principles upon which our Republic was founded.

At the heart of this Act is the most fundamental question we must ask ourselves as a free people: is 9/11 worth the Republic? The question screaming at us through this bill is whether the war on terror is a better model around which to shape our destiny than our constitutional liberties. It compels the question of whether we remain an ongoing experiment in democracy, pioneering new frontiers in the name of liberty and justice for all, or have we become a national security state, having financially corrupted and militarized our democracy to such an extent that we define ourselves, as Sparta did, only through the exigencies of war?

Within a week of 9/11, the Use of Military Force Act was approved which authorized the full application of U.S. military power against "terrorism." A month later, on Oct. 26, 2001, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Patriot Act that began the legislative assault on the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment right to freedom of association was gutted as federal officials were authorized to prosecute citizens for alleged association with "undesirable groups." The Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure was compromised by permitting indefinite detentions of those suspected of "terrorism." The Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy was obliterated as unchecked surveillance was authorized to access personal records, financial dealings, and medical records of any citizen at any time without any judicial oversight or permission. Evidence obtained extra-judicially could be withheld from defense attorneys.

The Patriot Act also criminalized "domestic terrorism." It stated that civil conduct can be considered "domestic terrorism" if such actions aim to "influence by intimidation or coercion" or "intimidate or coerce a civilian population." Put in plain language, this means that actions such as Occupy Wall Street can be designated as "domestic terrorism" by Federal authorities without judicial oversight and dealt with outside the due process of constitutional protections.

Two weeks after passage of the Patriot Act, on Nov. 13, President Bush issued Military Order No. 1 authorizing the executive branch and the military to capture, kidnap, or otherwise arrest non-citizens anywhere in the world if suspected of engaging in terrorist activities. Proof was not required. It stipulated that trials, if held, would be military tribunals, not civil courts, and that evidence obtained by torture was permissible. No right of appeal was afforded to those convicted. Numerous executive orders, findings, and National and Homeland Security Presidential Directives followed, further consolidating the militarization of due process under the law and enabling the executive branch to act without legal constraint after it has defined a person or group as potentially engaging in "terrorist" activity.

A year later, on Nov. 25, 2002, the Homeland Security Act was passed that for the first time integrated all U.S. intelligence agencies, both domestic and foreign, into a single interactive network under the president. The Act gave these intelligence agencies complete freedom to collect any and all data on anyone anywhere in the United States and, working with allies abroad, to access complete information on anyone anywhere in the world, working closely with local police, intelligence agencies, and the corporate sector. This dissolved the distinctions between domestic and foreign spying and made more ambiguous the distinction between domestic and foreign "terrorism."

The next major step took place on Oct. 17, 2006, when Congress passed the Military Commissions Act that effectively abrogated habeas corpus for domestic and foreign enemies alike, stating, "Any person is punishable who aides, abets, counsels, commands, or procures" material support for alleged terrorist groups. One of the most basic principles of both our democracy and our civilization, that a person cannot be held without being charged, was surrendered, and done so by substantial majorities in both houses. On the same day, the 2007 NDAA was passed, which amended the 1807 Insurrection Act and 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting U.S. military personnel from acting upon U.S. citizens within U.S. borders. Not only was anything allowable in the pursuit of "terrorists," but the military was authorized to conduct operations inside the homeland in their pursuit.

Now comes the 2012 NDAA, which completes the process and thus serves as the coup de grace for a democratically voted metamorphosis from republic to national security state. It puts the final nail in the coffin of the Constitution by designating the entire United States as essentially the same "battlefield" in the war on terror as Iraq or Afghanistan, and authorizes the executive branch and the military to take whatever actions they consider legitimate against any human being anywhere on planet earth, civilian or enemy combatant, and to do so without any judicial oversight or constitutional constraint. If this Act is passed, the Bill of Rights will no longer protect American citizens from their government. The Constitution will no longer be the ultimate law of the land.

The House and Senate versions of the Act must now be reconciled and the Act sent to the president to either sign or veto. With his decision, he will determine the fate of those very liberties which, up to this point, have been integral to and indeed have defined America.

A wedge for Jesus

If I'd stayed home late this afternoon I would've watched cable-news coverage of the plot to ship IEDs into to the U.S. via cargo planes. Problem was, the missus and I had an errand to run in Columbus.

Our only reliable source of news was the talk-radio station I'd listened to as tornadoes approached Tuesday afternoon. Because that station leans hard right, it's also a reliable source of wingnut propaganda.

An ad for Republican Bob Gibbs, who's running against Democratic incumbent Zack Space to represent Ohio's 18th District, almost had me swerving off the Interstate. The spot was produced not by the candidate, but by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, one of those 501(c) "outside groups" that are dominating this election cycle.

The ad is among the scariest things I've heard during a very scary campaign season. Its closing line:

"Please, vote faith. Vote freedom. Because it's us versus them."

(Click here to launch an mp3 audio clip of a similar radio spot.)

The Faith & Freedom Coalition was founded by none other than Ralph Reed, who won't rest until the United States of America becomes a Christian theocracy. (Think Iran, but with crosses and better haircuts.)

Conservative Republicans only need apply, by the way. I mean, everyone knows that a Democrat can't be Christian enough and a liberal couldn't possibly love his country -- right?

Reed, who's been thumping his self-righteous tub for three decades, may be a friend to the faithful but he's an enemy of freedom. He's intent on dismantling the Founders' wall of separation between church and state, attacking the foundation of our Republic and dividing The People in the name of his god.

"Faith and freedom" isn't an essential patriotic compound. Freedom favors no religion, party or ideology. Faith is the personal choice of an individual citizen who's free to practice that faith and to worship in a nation that allows for all faiths (including the choice of no faith).

Reed and his misbegotten coalition wield faith as a wedge and make Liberty their whore.

They've got the us-versus-them thing right, though. Independent citizen-patriots of many faiths, People from across the political spectrum, will defend their constitutional right to worship but we'll stand against their assault on freedoms that belong to all of us.

Back fifty-two to 'Fifty-nine

If you were alive and awake during the 1950s and early 1960s you remember Civil Defense shelters, "Duck & Cover" and other signs of those precarious times. Back then, TEOTWAWKI wasn't idle talk -- the prospect of a nuclear attack, followed by an invasion, was all too real.

The dangers confronting us today bear little resemblance to the ones we faced then -- nukes and nations have been supplanted in our collective consciousness by terrorism, shadowy cells and lone wolves. Still, I find it interesting (and arguably instructive) to revisit Americans' attitudes toward the threats of two generations ago.

To that end, I offer a pair of snapshots from 1959. These two articles were published in Guns Magazine just a few months apart, and both were received enthusiastically by readers.

I'll provide links to the entire magazines (in pdf format) at the end of this post, but to start with, here are the opening paragraphs of "Where are Tomorrow's Minutemen?" from the January 1959 issue:

"We like to think of ourselves as 'a nation of riflemen,' self-armed, ready and able to dash out any time and become an effective, fighting, guerrilla force in resisting any enemy who might attack our country.

"But is it true?

"Except for a very few widely scattered individuals -- and possibly small groups in certain also widely scattered areas -- no.

"We're not 'a nation of riflemen.' Hardly 5 per cent of the men inducted into the armed forces for World War Two knew how to shoot a rifle even passably well. A stunningly high percentage had never so much as fired a rifle or handgun. And it is highly doubtful that as many as one of 100 of the men who were familiar with weapons knew enough about woodscraft to live off the land and fight effectively as guerrillas.

"If this seems to you to be a pessimistic appraisal, ask yourself this question: If this country were hit tonight and you were a survivor, what would you do?

"Involved in that question are these questions: Where would you go? With whom? How would you get there? What would you take with you? And what would you do, or try to do, after you got there?

"Time was, you remember, when the American colonies helped defeat invaders by the more or less individual efforts of the 'Minute Men.' Armed with gun skills and woods skills gained in Indian fighting and in getting meat for their tables, these men were a formidable force against the world's finest soldiery. But times have changed, and men have changed with the times. How many men today could survive and fight under similar conditions?"

"The Rifleman in Civil Defense," which appeared in April, begins,

"You were somewhere else when it happened. Now you stand beside the smoking pile of rubble that an hour ago was your home -- in the debris-strewn area that was your city. The sights and sounds around you are horrible. Seventy miles away the big metropolis was Ground Zero -- one of 63 major U.S. cities defense authorities estimate would be vaporized in the first minutes of nuclear attack. Your car radio is chattering hysterically about enemy troops dropping from the sky -- they'll be here soon, you think.

"What do you do? Some fellow on television told you last fall, but you switched to the ball game. A magazine article had suggestions, but you were too busy to read it. Will a Civil Defense Rescue Unit come charging up the street to help you? You doubt it. Neither you nor your neighbors paid much attention to Civil Defense over the past few years, and it's too late now.

"So, what do you do? What are you going to do it with? You don't know...so you are chalked off along with seventy-five million other Americans in those 63 major cities who sat, fat and happy, and laughed at the people in Civil Defense who warned, and played cops-and-robbers with fire hoses and guns. Now you, too, would like to play the game, but there aren't enough "toys" to go around. You're out. You are dead...not because Civil Defense has failed to try to save you, but because you and your neighbors rejected their efforts.

"Can this picture be prevented? Not entirely, but your chances of survival can be increased many times by efficient, effective preparation. In your home, now, you can organize things to help yourself cope with disaster. Matters such as at least two weeks food supply for your household; containers of water tightly sealed; towels, bandages, blankets, and first aid supplies, could make a difference. And you can join your local Civil Defense unit now, and become an important member in the organized fight for survival."

If you consider those words to be anachronistic or alarmist... or if your ass catches at the mere mention of the word "militia"... or if you see our current government as "tyrannical" or "socialist" and you're itchin' to overthrow it... you've missed the point completely.

When you get right down to it, it's pretty simple. Here it is:

Threats come and go, technology advances and tactics evolve, but the preparedness mindset doesn't change.

Think about it -- and while you're at it, take a lesson from the 'Fifties.

(As I post this, both of those 1959 issues of Guns Magazine still are available in pdf format. You can view the complete original layout of "Where are Tomorrow's Minutemen?" here and "The Rifleman in Civil Defense" here. And if you enjoy those two, you also may appreciate ".22's for Survival?" from August of 1958 -- it's another intriguing piece, quite thought-provoking.)

Tilting at windmills, are we?

"Why does everyone think I'm paranoid? Do you discuss this behind my back?" (incurably neurotic Danny Zimmer, as played by Jack Weston, in The Four Seasons)

March 30th of this year marked three decades since the attempted assassination of Pres. Ronald Reagan. The round-number anniversary reminded thinking Americans that even the most protected man in the world isn't safe from a determined lunatic.

White House press secretary Jim Brady was seriously wounded in the shooting, and his wife, Sarah, exploited their personal tragedy for a national cause. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence engineered the 1994 "assault weapons" ban, plus countless other federal laws, state statutes and local ordinances that disarmed tens of millions of law-abiding citizens.

Every one of those laws was ill-conceived and unconstitutional. None could be credited, at least not plausibly, with reducing violent crime.

Since those dark days, we've managed to reclaim some of the ground lost to Brady. In 2004, Pres. George W. Bush allowed the Clinton-era ban to expire without reauthorizing it. The concealed-carry pendulum has swung in our favor. We've won two landmark cases -- Heller in 2008 and McDonald last year -- in the U.S. Supreme Court. And Pres. Barack Obama, whose election greatly concerned Second Amendment advocates, has been largely silent on gun control.

Despite that momentum, the National Rifle Association and other RKBA organizations continue to implore us not to let our guard down. That's caused some to call American gun owners "paranoid," accusing us of fighting an enemy that exists now only in fearful minds.

On the 30th anniversary of the Reagan shooting, Sarah and Jim Brady went to Capitol Hill to press lawmakers to resume their undermining of the Constitution, notably by banning "high-capacity" magazines. Guess who else showed up at the meeting?

The President of The United States, Barack Obama.

According to Sarah Brady, as reported by The Washington Post, the president assured her that gun control is "very much on his agenda" and that he's "committed to regulation." From the Post article:

"I just want you to know that we are working on it,' Brady recalled the president telling them. 'We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.'"

So we're just paranoid, eh?

Sarah Brady, supported by a disturbing number of like-minded enemies of the People, envisions "an America free of gun violence." She calls on "men and women of high morals and conscience to join [Pres. Obama]" in making her naive dream come true.

(Presumably, anyone who supports the Second Amendment and believes in the right to armed self-defense is, by her definition, amoral and lacks a conscience. Our "radar" works just fine, though.)

And consider this: A second-term Obama-Biden-Holder-Clinton-Brady administration would have little to lose, politically, by engaging in a full frontal assault on our right to keep and bear arms.

So the gun-grabbers aren't resting and neither should we. The 2012 election is crucial, too, at all levels -- but it's not enough simply to vote against this president's reelection. We need to vote for independent-minded candidates who think critically and place the Constitution above party and polls.

Clues: It ain't Palin-Beck, and it sure as hell ain't Bloomberg-Trump.

Bugging, Part III: In or Out?

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go? (The Clash)

Many of us consider evacuation more likely than it actually is.

Outside of the geographic areas that regularly deal with floods, wildfires, hurricanes and other natural hazards, in most crises the vast majority of Americans should stay put, at least in the short term.

Whatever the crisis, whether my family stays or goes, our over-riding concern will be our own safety, survival and defense. Those considerations -- not sentiment or the well-meaning advice of public officials -- will drive our decisions.

What's more, altruism and benevolence have no place in our plan. Sound selfish? You bet it is -- becoming a charity during a serious crisis is akin to committing suicide.

Let the prepared survive.

Stocked for Survival
Naturally, our home holds the largest stores of what we'd need to survive for an extended period:

• Water, or the ability to gather & purify water
• Food, or the ability to gather & prepare food
• Shelter & warmth, or the ability to find shelter & create warmth
• Tools
• First aid & medical
• Communications
• Defense

I won't include a detailed checklist here -- that's not really the point of this installment, and besides, each of us has different needs -- but I do suggest taking full advantage of the WWWeb. Among the resources we've found useful:

• Ready.gov
• FEMA
• American Red Cross
• PandemicFlu.gov
• State, county & municipal homeland-security & emergency-management agencies
• Preparedness & survival forums
• Survival books
• Military field manuals

We prefer to download Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) files whenever possible, saving them for later reference offline.

There's No Place Like Home
Where we live, there are few reasons that my family and I would need to "bug out." As described in Part II, we've researched hazards and threats, and we've concluded that our best shelter and most defensible position is right here -- what's known as shelter-in-place.

Safety, survival and defense become more difficult while on the move and, ideally, most everything is simpler in familiar surroundings -- by itself, that's reason enough to shelter-in-place. In addition, our home is well-equipped and well-stocked, and yes, we know what it can provide, but we've gone beyond everyday familiarity and stockpiling.

Within a two-mile radius of our home, for example, we know where natural water supplies are located. (We're mindful, of course, that surface water may not be an option under some circumstances.) In the same area, we know where we can forage for edible plants and hunt game. We've practiced small-scale sustenance gardening, with the goal of expanding it if the need arises. And since the nature of home defense changes during a prolonged crisis, we've created a precise map of the perimeter around our home, out to 600 yards.

The last point I'll make is the need, in my opinion, to keep a low profile. Since most people won't be adequately prepared for a crisis, the quickest way for a prepared family to become a target family would be to shelter-in-place with generator whirring, house lights aglow, and gas-fired grill sizzling on the deck -- dumb and dangerous.

Time to Go

"Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." (Gen. George S. Patton)

A stay-or-go "pivot point" may present itself at the outset of a crisis, or something may force our hand later, or it may not happen at all.

If we do choose to leave our home behind, we'll make that decision because it's in the best interest of our family's safety, survival and defense. We won't leave because everyone around us is leaving, and we won't stay for sentimental reasons.

That said, we've prepared for two bug-out scenarios: Light (one or two people) and Full (family).

Our grab-and-go packs are subsets of our shelter-in-place stores. Each member of our family has ultra-minimalist kit for a light evacuation. Obviously and necessarily, we'd tote more in a full bug-out. Again, our supplies include provisions for water, food, shelter, etc.

We've mapped primary and contingency routes, rendezvous sites and retreat locales, along with potential hazards and threats -- a calculated bug-out, if you will, not a random dash. Our destinations do not include public shelters -- we refuse, categorically, to join the masses of refugees who chose not to prepare.

Note that I haven't mentioned the word "evacuation" to describe my family's plans. We prefer to call it "bug-out" or "retreat," because we have our own routes and destinations. Despite the fact that we may be putting distance between ourselves and a threat or a hazard, we'd be moving toward something, not merely running away.

Bugging home
Finally, here's an often-ignored piece of the preparedness puzzle: the virtual certainty that our family won't be conveniently assembled when the SHTF. I may be at home, my wife at work, the spawns at school.

That's when preparedness planning becomes especially crucial. Everyone must know the plan and execute their responsibilities -- no freelancing. My wife will bug home if she can; ideally, she'll pick up the spawns on her way. If it's apparent that shelter-in-place is impossible and a bug-out is called for, the drill is to follow the primary route and try to assemble at established checkpoints.

And so on.

Of course, as countless military leaders have observed, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

Still, whether we stay or go, we're glad that we have a plan.

We hope we never have to use it.


Bugging, Part I: Securing the Castle
Bugging, Part II: My Tin Hat
Bugging, Part IV: The Right Stuff

An enemy of The People: Carolyn McCarthy

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the Democrat who represents New York's 4th District, wants our guns. She always has, and it doesn't much matter to her how she gets them.

McCarthy is well-known for her obsessive, grief-fueled pursuit of gun-grabbing measures. A week ago, and for the third time since 2005, she introduced The No Fly, No Buy Act (H.R. 2401), which would combine the TSA’s no-fly list with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that determines a citizen's eligibility to buy a firearm. Her rationale?

"If someone is denied the chance to board an airplane because of suspected ties to terrorists, then they should also be denied the opportunity to purchase a gun. This is a common sense gun bill that will prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands."

I'll take those in order: no, they shouldn't; and no, it won't. Liberty won't stand for it, and neither will we.

There are about a million names on the TSA's no-fly list, that federal fecal roster that's growing by an estimated 20,000 records a month. The database is notoriously unreliable, laughably so, cataloguing the names of legislators, governors, journalists and even infants.

It's manifest whimsy, both political and bureaucratic. The majority of Americans don't even trust the list to "prevent" real terrorists from boarding commercial aircraft, and there are far too many law-abiding citizens on that list to justify merging it with the NICS.

This criminally foolish legislation, this latest McCarthyism, bears no resemblance whatsoever to "common sense." McCarthy is wielding a ideological bludgeon and she knows it -- she simply doesn't care, as long as she can take another small step toward completely disarming the American public.

As existing gun laws go unenforced, McCarthy and her anti-liberty cronies will keep proposing new laws that seek to trample the Second Amendment. Even if No Fly, No Buy again dies in committee, as it should, our constitutional right to keep and bear arms will remain under attack -- that much is clear.

The People's charge, then, is equally clear: vigilance.

An enemy of The People: Dianne Feinstein

"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe." (U.S. Sen. Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum to the Associated Press on November 18, 1993, offering her typically idiotic counterpoint to Benjamin Franklin's 1755 assertion, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.")

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them -- 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in' -- I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here." (Sen. Feinstein, who authored the 1994 assault-weapons ban, to CBS 60 Minutes on February 5, 1995, expressing great disappointment in having failed to pass unconstitutional legislation that not only would've prohibited the sale of firearms to individual U.S. citizens, but also would've required law-abiding Americans to surrender legally owned guns to the federal government)

"I wouldn't bring it up now. I'll pick the time and the place, no question about that." (Sen. Feinstein, who now chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to CBS 60 Minutes on April 12, 2009, vowing to re-institute the expired assault-weapons ban and to make it permanent -- and, we can predict, to do whatever else she can to deny The People our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms)

'Are you going to keep helping them do it?'

I listened to Rush Limbaugh's radio show yesterday. Surprised?

Because I don't hew to the extremes, Limbaugh neither offends nor validates me ideologically. But like all talk-radio windbags, whether they blare from the right or the left, he insults critical thought.

I swear, the guy must employ a staff devoted exclusively to creating "triggers" -- Hussein, Democrat Party, drive-by media and the like, terms guaranteed to get his mindless listeners convulsing like neo-con clones of Maynard G. Krebs. Yesterday's buzz-word, repeated no fewer than two dozen times during a dissociative rant about visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, was ChiCom.

I'm not going to dignify it with a definition. You figure it out.

Since the Tucson shooting there's been lots of chatter about the increasingly negative tone of American politics. Salon.com columnist Gene Lyons has an interesting theory about that:

"Ever since Rush Limbaugh adapted the techniques of drive-time sports radio to politics -- the loudmouth hyperbole, the fake omniscience, the mute button -- the mass-marketing of outrage to people stuck in freeway traffic with blood-pressure levels already approaching the blowout range has coarsened public discourse to the level of road rage."

As an example, Lyons points to something that Limbaugh said last week. This unfiltered bullshit comes directly from Limbaugh's site:

"What [the Tucson shooter] knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. ... He knows that a Democrat Party, the Democrat Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim."

"That smiling mug shot, this guy...understands he's got a political party doing everything it can -- plus a local sheriff -- doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder but something lesser."

Lyons observes, quite correctly,

"If you believe that, you'll believe anything."

No thinking person would. The column concludes:

"Meanwhile, the Tucson radio station that advertised 'Rush Limbaugh: Straight Shooter' with a billboard full of simulated bullet holes has taken it down.

"See, they compete with each other, these clowns, to set you against an imaginary enemy consisting of your friends and neighbors because conflict pushes ratings, and higher ratings lead to more money.

"Are you going to keep helping them do it?"

Not me. How about you?

* * *
Gene Lyons also tipped me off to another post-Tucson gem. Mark Shields attributed this observation to his friend Allen Ginsberg:

"This week, we saw a white, Catholic, Republican federal judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic woman, member of Congress, who was his friend and was Jewish. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American college student, who saved her, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon.

"And then it was all eulogized and explained by our African-American president. And, in a tragic event, that's a remarkable statement about the country."

I couldn't agree more.