Dig Him Up!
Dig Him Up!
by
Ken Melvin
On our TV and computer screens we saw right-winged protesters armed with semiautomatic weapons displaying swastikas, nooses, and replicas of supposed confederate battle flags guarding the entrance and filling the chambers of Michigan’s State Capitol. How did they get by with this? Does the Second Amendment of the US Constitution give them the right to try to intimidate a duly elected Governor, government, with assault weapons and hate symbols? Has the Supreme Court now decided that assault weapons are a form of speech, or are maybe even citizens, and thus are protected under the First? Though Patrick Henry argued that armed militias were necessary for the ‘purposes’ of the state; there’s no evidence he thought they should be used against the state.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution:
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.
The First Amendment of the Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First guarantees their right to protest, but neither amendment gives them the right to protest with the implied threat of shooting anyone who stands in their way. What am I missing? If we had been armed in our protest of the Vietnam War, they would have shot us; did anyway. If we had been armed in our protest of the Invasion of Iraq, they would have fabricated a reason to have shot us. Extending armed protests to its logical conclusion, we are looking at the possibility of open warfare between armed protesters and any opposition, including law enforcement; the possibility of the use of arms to overthrow a legitimately elected government. Does the constitution give them that right?
In Heller, The Supreme Court held:
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
- The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
In writing the majority decision, Justice Scalia invoked his theory of original intent based on his review of colonial history and the early years of the republic and concluded that the Constitution’s Second Amendment meant, not what others before had said it meant, but whatever he said it meant some 230 years later. Justice Scalia neglected to mention that Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia at the time, wanted the first part— A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State — in the Second Amendment because state militias were used in slave-holding states like Virginia to hunt down runaway slaves and protect slave owners against rebellion. Maybe that is why Scalia said that the second part, not the first part, was the operative clause. Justice Scalia, not the Second Amendment, said, “ … to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” Justice Scalia was joined in the majority by Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. Justice Stevens, who wrote the dissent, recently called Heller, “… the worst decision of my tenure.”
Justice Scalia, do tell, how far does your “ …, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” extend beyond the home? Was the armed protesting of the Governor’s actions to protect the citizens of the State against a global pandemic a lawful purpose? Was this a legitimate form of self-defense? Or was it an exercise of their right to ‘intimidate’, the right of ‘self’ offense? Surely, you didn’t mean to give them the right to threaten? Does the first part, the inoperative part, still grant them the right to form an armed militia for the purpose of hunting down slaves? Or others? Justice Scalia, we have a real can of worms here. Perhaps, a failure to look to possible unintended consequences?
While I have you on the mind, Justice Scalia; did you intend for — and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.— to extend to armed right-wing militias (it does seem that they are always right-winged ‘militia’ armed with semiautomatic weapons, often displaying swastikas, nooses, and replicas of confederate battle flags) guarding the Michigan State Capitol entrance and filling its chambers? Or, is this a right connoted under the first’s inoperative prefatory clause?
Sure, it would have been easier to have gone to Justice Roberts to get the Federalists Society’s thoughts on the matter, or to the CATO or the American Enterprise Institutes, or to the Heritage Foundation to get their thoughts, and their interpretations of the Second, but I felt that, after all, you should have precedent.
And, Justice Scalia, you should know that it wasn’t just in Michigan that they exercised this right to whatever. They recently also exercised this right to varying degrees in Idaho, Wisconsin, Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, Kentucky, Arizona, Missouri, … Now, they claim and proclaim that they stand ready to rise up against tyranny. But who are the real tyrannists here? This seems to be tyranny by a minority; a tiny minority of armed thugs, of armed bullies. Strangely, there’s no mention in the Second of tyranny, nor in any of your connotations of the Second. Hard to find mention of tyranny itself in the Constitution. Granted, there is plenty of evidence that the Founders did not want the citizenry subjected to tyranny as in the tyranny that the tyrant King George III had once visited on the now citizens of the new United States; but really Justice Scalia, are duly elected Governors of good intent asking the citizenry to wear masks to lessen the spread of a deadly pandemic being tyrants? Should we just get over it?
Stare decisis.
It extends as far as banning the use of assault weapons such as the AR-15 an assault weapon similar to the military version of it. COA’s have ruled communities can ban them.
This is another example of pop constitutionalism, such as the idea that private twitter users are subject to restrictions of curtailing free speech while GOP congresspeople are not and the constitution protecting economic rights (it does not even contemplate them). Originalists have copied the mold of the Wahabbists claiming only they know the original (and apparently unanimous) intent of the writers of centuries old documents to justify all their political views, unpopular actions/decisions, and completely new and unheard of ideas on the documents.
Thus, the decision of In re Heller actually has much more impact symbolically-it’s holding is (and has been) quite easy to get around when regulating gun control (although that may change thanks to the warped judiciary, but that may have been the case even if John Paul Stevens wrote the decision). The Heller decision just gave gun ownership the same protections as, say a discriminatory law- strict scrutiny-it can only be enforced if it (a) solves a vital government interest (less gun deaths in most cases) (b) in the least restrictive manner. An assault weapon ban should hold for all the reasons Ken gave, as would any restriction on having assault weapons outside a state capitol. Heller contemplated a city-wide hand gun ban in DC (and I think the other case was Chicago), which was too restrictive considering handguns are the most basic form of arm used for self-defense now-a-days.
Always good to have these arguments in the tuck, the 2nd amendment (as interpreted by SCOTUS) does not mean you cannot regulate firearms, just that you need very good reasons and a few history tidbits cannot hurt either (I recommend anyone interested read Stevens dissent for an impassioned history lesson).
This seems to have been a little-noticed Supreme Court decision
US Supreme Court turns away 10 gun rights cases
Reuters – June 15
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a series of cases seeking to expand gun rights, showing that even with its conservative majority it remains hesitant about wading into the contentious issue.
The court rejected 10 different appeals that had piled up in recent months challenging whether various firearms restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, said they would have heard one of the cases, a dispute from New Jersey over that state’s concealed-carry gun permits. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.
The justices left in place a lower court ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s law mandating that people who want to carry handguns in public must show they have a special reason before they can obtain a permit. The court also turned down similar cases from Massachusetts and Maryland.
The court also declined to take up appeals challenging assault weapon bans in Massachusetts and Cook County, Illinois, a jurisdiction that includes Chicago.
The Massachusetts ban, enacted in 1998, was modeled after a federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and was not renewed, largely because of Republican opposition in Congress. Cook County enacted its ban in 2006. Both measures barred specific firearms including AK-47s and AR-15s.
The influential National Rifle Association and others have been seeking to expand gun rights by challenging the legality of firearms restrictions passed at the state and local level.
The Supreme Court on April 27 dismissed an NRA-backed challenge to now-repealed New York City restrictions on handgun owners transporting their firearms outside the home, sidestepping a major ruling over the scope of Second Amendment protections.
The court’s last major gun-rights ruling came a decade ago.
—-
Supreme Court rejects several gun rights cases for next term
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday passed up several challenges to federal and state gun control laws, over the dissent of two conservative justices.
Gun rights advocates had hoped the court would expand the constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” beyond the home.
Instead, the justices left in place restrictions on the right to carry weapons in public in Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. They also declined to review Massachusetts’ ban on some semi-automatic firearms and large-capacity ammunition magazines, a California handgun control law and a half-century-old federal law banning interstate handgun sales.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a dissent in the court’s denial of a New Jersey resident’s appeal seeking the right to carry a gun in public for self-defense. Rather than take on the constitutional issue, Thomas wrote, “the Court simply looks the other way.”
“This case challenges Massachusetts’s unconstitutional ban on commonly-owned, semi-automatic firearms as a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, citing the Supreme Court rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago,” reads a statement from Gun Owners’ Action League’s website when they petitioned to be heard by the Supreme Court.
The complaint first filed in federal court in January 2017 by the Gun Owners Action League, named as defendants Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, Public Safety Secretary Daniel Bennett, the Massachusetts State Police and State Police Superintendent Col. Richard McKeon.
It argued that between the assault weapon ban and Healey’s crackdown last summer on copies or duplicates of forbidden guns, “Massachusetts effectively bans the acquisition of the most popular rifles in the nation,” along with standard-capacity magazines that are “sold with nearly all semiautomatic firearms across the nation.” …
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free Stat”
Regulated cops are the second item on the list of rights.
Placement matters. And the founders were right, everyone wants cops eventually. The right to bear is simply a necessary and redundant artifact. The fact is we cannot have regulated militia unless the private sector is allowed to manufacture arms, and that was this is all about. The second conditional requirement could have been handled in the regulation of commerce.
I can prove it by going all the way back the Egyptian hieroglyphics and prove the proper interpretation of the literal text. All local governance obeys this rule, personial right to bear has always been subject to the need of regulated milita, cops. It has never been otherwise except when idiot Supremes make stuff up.
Constitutional law is very simple stuff, packing the court has only jammed up the appellate courts and caused chaos. Just look at how badly the Supremes have fouled the religious rights, they are all ove the map and have no clue. Something is wrong. I think the problem is us, us thinking that we can alter law in the Supremes without jamming the courts.
Run:
Time after time they have done nothing about the armed militia protesters and went after the unarmed peaceful protesters. Too mindful of the use of Troops in the Pullman and other strikes. What were your first thoughts when they formed up Homeland Security, The Border Patrol, … ?
Idriss
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf Both Stevens’ and Breyer’s are about 50 pages long; both are well worth the read. Problem is how long will it be before the court will revise this cockamamie decision? 50 yrs? Though truly a wonderful document; it might be better to treat the US Constitution as a best effort and abandon the divining of intent so popular with the right. Its beauty, in my opinion, stems from its looking to the enlightenment, the evolution of law, …; concepts. The slavery issue was corrupting from the start.
More a lawyer from the bench than a Justice, Scalia’s search for original intent was more charade than search; he began his search knowing very well what he wanted to find. He went looking for a quark and, lo and behold, he found a quark.
Fred
Thomas is a hopeless, irredeemable, case. Is there reason to hope that Kavanaugh will grow up to be a real Justice and not just the twerp who rushed to Broward County? A run that paid off handsomely for him and John Roberts.
See a Federal Judge in Oregon just denied standing to the State’s Attorney General in re the Federal ??? operation in Portland.
Matthew
Isn’t this the way it goes? In the disparity pf the Gilded Age, … they brought in the troops. How to describe today’s Police?
ken:
Scalia in Heller left an opening which 7th and 4th districts seized upon and which I have used to refute the bullet-spewing-weapons bunch. For now it is adequate.
Ken,
That’s a bold idea, but the thing is, historically, Scotus has always been (along with the judiciary writ large) an important part of making sure the US Constitution’s enlightenment ideals are made clear and adaptable to modern times (Marbury v Madison and its progeny).
Add that to the fact the US constitution is the basis for every other modern/successful constitution in the world, so what’s the alternative? Comparative constitutional law is fun for that reason, China has had 6 completely new constitutions since Mao (I think the current one is ~100 pages), Canada’s constitution is just America’s+ 100 years of Scotus jurisprudence, and everyone else realizes the right to own and bear arms is dumb (only Mexico and Guatemala have a right to own arms as well, no right to bear them).
I think from a procedural and system perspective (doesn’t include slavery bit), far more than a substantial one (which includes the slavery bit), our constitution is priceless and one of the greatest bits of writing ever. As a whole, everything fits together in an incredibly effective way. Which gets back to my point about pop(ular) constitutionalism; the masses will have their weird fad ideas on it as they do with pop-psychology, pop-science, pop-everything. But when it comes to its actual, legal operation, I don’t think you can top it, and amending it is fair game!
idriss:
So you like John Marshall, heh?
Well said. I can’t imagine the nation putting together a group of such caliber today.
Agreed Ken, god bless RBG.
And Run, yes I am, out of admiration mostly-it was incredible how often he got his way with minimal actual power, in the museum portion of the Supreme Court the other chief justices have portraits, he has a statue. Somewhat of an ideal referee/ officiator: dispassionate, un-abusable, not self-servingly idealistic. You can feel however you want about the person but the job he did was vital in the country not falling apart with political acrimony in the lead up to the War of 1812. (Plus my brother went to Franklin & Marshall, Franklin being my favorite founding father),
edited to 1812
Idiss:
He did play a major role in the early history of the US. My aunts would drum that history into us. As first born of a different name, I did not secure some of the papers. I did through my father inherit some things of the relationship. An intelligent man the same as Chemerinsky.
Idriss, Run,
Marshall (Madison) gave the court power. Do you think that the court’s powers will be lessened by decisions like Heller, Citizens, Shelby, and Rucho?
ken:
Ideology plays a large role in lessening the capability of the courts to decide which was not meant to be in such a perverse manner.
The comments on this thread were a great read. Much thanx to Ken, Run, and Idriss.
I got over a fascination with guns once I passed puberty.
Personally, I believe the 2nd amendment is a curse
on the American psyche, that we are stuck with.
However, the ‘well regulated militia’ is simply nothing
more than the National Guard, which must suffice.
Putting assault weapons in the hands of civilians
is pure lunacy.
US Supreme Court turns away 10 gun rights cases
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a series of cases seeking to expand gun rights, showing that even with its conservative majority it remains hesitant about wading into the contentious issue.
The court rejected 10 different appeals that had piled up in recent months challenging whether various firearms restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. …
—-
Supreme Court rejects several gun rights cases for next term
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday passed up several challenges to federal and state gun control laws, over the dissent of two conservative justices.
Gun rights advocates had hoped the court would expand the constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” beyond the home. …
Ron,
Cheers, I’ve gotten much from your comments as well as a lurker.
Ken,
Run is correct on this. Note: Shelby, Heller, and Citizens all expanded power of the Court, they gave the judiciary wider authority to overrule legislatures. The saving grace of Bush II’s judiciary picks is that they are very narrow in the scope of their rulings. They rarely change the law broadly (and Gorsuch is in that class, as he was appointed to 10th by him, we’ll see with Kavaunaugh, its early). This is the reason we still have anti-ACA lawsuits because Roberts keeps joining the liberals so long as they make the issue a limited one.
A different issue for that reason is a broad skepticism of rulings that which was the impetus of Shelby, they think the Berger Court went too far, which I think is fallacious reasoning.
As for Heller it did not have the Bush appointees, so that was a very different regime. As mentioned, Scalia was lawyering not judging, which is why the ruling is very easy to get around, which is characteristic of his rulings; even his liberal ones involving 8th amendment issues where he always sided with Democrats.
For Citizens, that was the dream of conservatives when they had the older conservatives with Bush II’s judges, with Kennedy’s penchant for waxing poetic and broadly in his opinions, and before Roberts got his bearings navigating such divisive topics (and leading to his trademark narrowing of precedents). I personally think he learned a lot from this ruling (of course I have no proof for this, but I think this could be challenged successfully with a more balanced court).
Rucho was just dumb, I don’t get it. As Kagan said: “Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections. With respect but deep sadness, I dissent.”
Ron, thanks for the compliment and your contributions. This is all great fun. My pleasure to be a part of it with all of you.
Fred, my feelings exactly.
Can’t remember when I knew, but the 10 year old boy image was an epiphany. It first came to me as I was watching some a couplle of old bikers walking down the hallway at LBL. Then followed an understanding of the whole sword fighting and cowboy and Indian thing of our age of innocence.
Idriss, I stand in awe. Thanks so.
Truth be, I was thinking of Jackson’s quip about the Court’s lack of an army and someone else’s about its need for respect when I asked the question about the possible consequences of such decisions. Thanks so for the enlightenment on the Heller, Shelby, and Citizens. Not an attorney, I had seen them more as a failure to look to unintended consequences. I’ve come to view Roberts as being a pretty smooth political operator. During his confirmation. my impression of Roberts was that he was smart enough to change his mind (didn’t think that Alito was). Yours is a better analysis.
The failure to think of the possible consequences was immediately obvious with Citizens and Shelby.
Let me ask you, what do you think will be the consequences of McConnell’s efforts to pack the Federal Courts with members of the Federalist Society?
“It is hardly necessary “for me” to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence, got hold of by the Porcupines, will suffice to abuse & persecute me in their papers for months.
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it’s true principles.”
***************************************************
I now inclose you Mr. Martin’s patent. A patent had actually been made out on the first description, and how to get this suppressed and another made for a second invention, without a second fee, was the difficulty. I practised a little art in a case where honesty was really on our side, & nothing against us but the rigorous letter of the law, and having obtained the 1st specification and got the 2d put in its place, a second patent has been formed, which I now inclose with the first specification.
I promised you, long ago, a description of a mould board. I now send it; it is a press copy & therefore dim. It will be less so by putting a sheet of white paper behind the one youare reading. I would recommend to you first to have a model made of about 3 i. to the foot, or 1/4 the real dimensions, and to have two blocks, the 1st of which, after taking out the pyramidal piece & sawing it crosswise above & below, should be preserved in that form of the mould board complete. If I had an oppertunity of sending you a model I would do it. It has been greatly approved here, as it has been before by some very good judges at my house, where I have used it for 5 years with entire approbation.
Mr. New shewed me your letter on the subject of the patent, which gave me an opportunity of observing what you said as to the effect with you of public proceedings, and that it was not unusual now to estimate the separate mass of Virginia and N. Carolina with a view to their separate existence. It is true that we are compleatly under the saddle of Massachusets & Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings as well as exhausting our strength and substance. Their natural friends, the three other eastern States, join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of the Union so as to make use of them to govern the whole. This is not new. It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order, and those who have once got an ascendency and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantages. But our present situation is not a natural one. The body of our countrymen is substantially republican through every part of the Union. It was the irresistable influence & popularity of Gen. Washington, played off by the cunning of Hamilton, which turned the government over to anti-republican hands, or turned the republican members, chosen by the people, into anti-republicans. He delivered it over to his successor in this state, and very untoward events, since improved with great artifice, have produced on the public mind the impression we see; but still, I repeat it, this is not the natural state. Time alone would bring round an order of things more correspondent to the sentiments of our constituents; but are there not events impending which will do it within a few months? The invasion of England, the public and authentic avowal of sentiments hostile to the leading principles of our Constitution, the prospect of a war in which we shall stand alone, land-tax, stamp-tax, increase of public debt, &c. Be this as it may, in every free & deliberating society there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties & violent dissensions & discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & delate to the people the proceedings of the other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist. If to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusets & Connecticut we break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the N. England States alone cut off, will our natures be changed? are we not men still to the south of that, & with all the passions of men? Immediately we shall see a Pennsylvania & a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy ,and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit. What a game, too, will the one party have in their hands by eternally threatening the other that unless they do so & so, they will join their Northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union to Virginia & N. Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units. Seeing, therefore, that an association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry, seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New England associates for that purpose than to see our bickerings transferred to others. They are circumscribed within such narrow limits, & their population so full, that their numbers will ever be the minority, and they are marked, like the Jews, with such a peculiarity of character as to constitute from that circumstance the natural division of our parties. A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it’s true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself.
Adieu.
P. S. It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence, got hold of by the Porcupines, will suffice to abuse & persecute me in their papers for months.
Thomas Jefferson > Letter to John Taylor https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-john-taylor-2/
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Perhaps, you can take solace in this letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor? It is not the first time this nation has been plagued by a reign of witches whose spells have vexed us from proceeding forward in our quests and dimmed our vision of what is to be. Have patience and I think our ship of state will right itself and we will proceed in a steady course of what we perceive to be its true course. We have four great justices at SCOTUS who are hanging on till we can elect a better President to lead this nation. We have some of the great legal minds such as Chemerinsky and Fisher who will argue our case in Congress and at SCOTUS. The former I know and know he will do so. The latter, I know from his actions.
A bit of patience and we will get there again. I read this letter from time to time.
Haha, don’t be Ken, I’ve worked in the federal judiciary, it’s a lot of occupational knowledge,
The effects of the federal judiciary being dominated by federalists is mainly a chilling issue, which I don’t think anyone can predict. Thankfully, we still have the appellate and en banc systems, but a lot of bad results have been had… Thankfully, they have not reached a critical mass, and hopefully some will grow a conscious, but there is a bigger issue I see:
At a conference presiding Trump’s inauguration, we were being taught the updated tech for handling classified info, and a peer asked point blank how we could be sure that this would not be taken and used by the current administration. [Note: of course this was a black woman, I am terrified to think where we’d be without them.] The representative assured us of the independence of the IT part of the DOJ and every member I’ve talked to has reinforced my confidence in them. Honestly, imagine if the GOP could gain access to all of that info…. And this is why I think one of the most important things we can do is get Gen Z into civic IT work. We need them so much right now, it’s insane. The current crop of IT workers in our judiciary is an excellent and noble, yet quickly aging bunch. We need to fix that, every important constitutional matter foes through the IT departments…
Sail Away
Pearls Before Swine
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I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
This is not a story I was told
When all the people are made out of wood
They build their houses of bones
Sail away, Oh sail away
The edge of the world is near
Sail away, Oh sail away from here
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
All the cigarettes are hand rolled
Nothing is bought and nobody is sold
And everything’s made of gold
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
There a man with wounds I did see
Said: I do not want to escape from reality
I want reality to escape from me
(c) 1969 by Tom Rapp
*
[Perhaps the most explanatory lyrical line in folk music ever written was “When all the people are made out of wood, They build their houses of bones.” It has certainly been said many ways by many people, but never with more graphic visualization.]
Ken,
I am glad that you are having fun.
Life has been too good to me, but politics not so much.
Your voodoo terrifies me Ron, I literally started reading God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater yesterday…
Idriss,
Pardons. I did not intend on being Kurt with you. I just happened.
Covid-19 has me overdue for visits to both the optometrist and the proctologist. It is better for one to see than to be seen as the ass that one really is.
Speaking of curses…
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton defends slavery remarks (BBC)
… “America is a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal. We have always struggled to live up to that promise, but no country has ever done more to achieve it.”
“Describing the *views of the Founders* and how they put the evil institution on a path to extinction, a point frequently made by Lincoln, is not endorsing or justifying slavery,” he tweeted after the backlash. …
Misquoted on slavery, Cotton says after furor (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
… The senator is not disputing the accuracy of the original story, his spokesman said later Monday.
In the article, which focused on Cotton’s efforts to block a new school curriculum centered on slavery and its consequences, the senator criticized its portrayal of American history while acknowledging the importance of its central theme.
“‘We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country,” he said. “As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the Union was built, but the Union was built in a way, as [President Abraham] Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.” …