"A well-regulated militia": the Left's delusion about the Second Amendment

This image, which is making its way around Facebook in the wake of the Orlando nightclub massacre, zeros in on the part of the Constitution's Second Amendment that is the most confusing to modern eyes.

Before we, too, zero in on this phrase, consider for a moment what the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) actually was.  Why were these amendments added all at once, and so soon after the adoption of the Constitution?  Because they were adopted as a condition of the approval of the Constitution by several of the states.

There was widespread suspicion that the proposed Constitution didn't go far enough to explicitly curtail the powers of the central government. The dissenters felt that individual rights would quickly fall prey to expanding government power in the absence of explicit declarations of the inviolable rights of individuals.

The Bill of Rights is the answer to these concerns, and the promise of these was sufficient to get all of the states to sign on to the Constitution.

Here, then, is the complete text of the Second Amendment:

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.

Noting the neighboring words "security" and "State", many on the Left would have us believe that the phrase "well regulated Militia" is referring to the military and to state and local law-enforcement agencies -- that this amendment guarantees the government the ability to undertake any and all efforts necessary to protect the country (military) and maintain public order (local law enforcement).

But why, in the midst of a collection of amendments designed to guarantee individual rights, would the Founders drop in a grant of government power that, in essence, had the potential to render the rest of the Bill of Rights moot?

Does anyone honestly think that the dissenters would have gone along with this new government if this were the case?  All of human history testifies that when the people of a country have no means to resist the tyranny of their government, their government will sooner or later drift into tyranny.

So what, then, did the phrase "well regulated Militia" mean to 18th-century American eyes?

The militia were the ones who were expected to grab their guns and take action whenever the need arose.  Most importantly to the contemporary debate, though, all able-bodied males, regardless of occupation, were considered part of the militia, whether or not they had ever served in the armed forces.  This in itself argues for the notion that this amendment was not a restrictive one.

What about "well regulated"?  Surely this phrase shows that arms-bearing must be done under the supervision of the government, doesn't it?  Actually, no.  At the time, the phrase "well regulated" was used interchangeably with "well trained" or "orderly".

Well, then, what about "security of a free State"?  In context, "state" is obviously referring to the nation itself, not to the government.  There are two ways of seeing the phrase "free state": (1) a nation as a whole free from the control of other nations (this is the modern understanding of the term), and (2) a nation comprised of individuals who are free from the oppression of their government.

If we accept the notion of the entire Bill of Rights being a Bill of Individual Rights, that second interpretation of "free state" gains a considerable amount of weight.

So. Taking the Second Amendment as a whole, I see this paraphrased declaration: A nation of citizens in the possession of and well-trained in the use of firearms is an effective bulwark both against conquest by other nations and against oppression by that nation's government.  Therefore, the central government shall take no steps to interfere with the right of the citizens to keep and bear such firearms.

A well-armed, well-trained citizenry is necessary to secure the freedom of said citizenry.

Authoritarian government is the most natural form of government

Human nature being what it is, government always tends toward authoritarianism (or worse), regardless of the nobility or ignobility of a government's founders.  If the citizens were always in perfect harmony with the rulers, authoritarianism wouldn't be necessary.  In the real world, though, government must eventually take measures to create harmony by force.

Many on the right, Christian conservatives included, are justifiably alarmed at the brazen power grabs of the left.  They often think: "If only we can get our folks into power, all will be rainbows and unicorns again."

But is that realistic? George W. Bush, while deeply flawed, had his conservative moments during his presidency, and it was at those times that he faced the full onslaught of a culture that has never been more out of harmony with conservative and constitutional principles.

Remember my earlier statement: in the absence of natural harmony, governments can create harmony only by force.  This is why authoritarian government isn't just the plaything of the left.

The late Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist and deep-thinker, saw peril in Christians' tendency to remain silent when government authoritarianism was directed at others.  Writing in 1983, he warned:

Will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries and regardless of its origin?  The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.

[...] Here is a sentence to memorize:  To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.

—How Should We Then Live? (1976). Italics in the original.

More than thirty years later, Christians are now well aware of what it's like to be the target of the government's authoritarian impulses.  Schaeffer might argue that our silence in the past made our current difficulties more likely.

Biometrics: convenient in more ways than one

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Image via "Bits and Pieces"

Be careful what you wish for (Or: This won't end well)

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This excellent point is usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but the curators of all things Jefferson at Monticello insist that there is no evidence he is the source.  They also note that other claimed sources, such as Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford, are also spurious, although they are known to have employed the quote in their speeches.

As far as documentary evidence goes, the earliest written examples of the quote date back to the early 1950s; the original sage seems to have vanished into the mists of history.

Regardless of the quote's parentage, the point remains valid and deeply profound.  In my opinion, we are likely to see its validation in many unpleasant ways in the coming years and decades.

Obamacare: Just wait until it's the only choice

When a private company provides a mediocre product, customers can "punish" the company by denying it their business. Are we sure we want to entrust our lives and health to a bureaucracy that will pay no penalty for being wrong?

I ask because the Affordable Care Act in its current form is almost certainly not the end game of our current president and his fellow travelers. Once we get to single-payer health care in this country, we will have no alternative but to endure debacles like the online health insurance marketplace which, despite three years of work and half a billion dollars of investment, should not have gone live earlier this month.

Washington Post, October 21:

Days before the launch of President Obama’s online health ­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.

Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead.

When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step, according to two people familiar with the project.

As new details emerged about early warning signs of serious deficiencies in HealthCare.gov, Obama on Monday gave a consumer-friendly defense of the health-care law, insisting that the problems many Americans have faced in trying to enroll in insurance plans will be fixed quickly.

Quick Quote: James Madison on the federal leviathan

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”

— James Madison, The Federalist #62

Modern liberals probably wouldn’t give the time of day to a classical liberal

I tend to call myself a constitutionalist conservative, but my views on government and liberty align quite nicely with what was once known as liberalism.

"A [classical] liberal is fundamentally fearful of concentrated power. His objective is to preserve the maximum degree of freedom for each individual separately that is compatible with one man's freedom not interfering with other men's freedom. He believes that this objective requires that power be dispersed. He is suspicious of assigning to government any functions that can be performed through the market, both because this substitutes coercion for voluntary cooperation in the area in question and because, by giving government an increased role, it threatens freedom in other areas."

— Milton Friedman

Reference: Capitalism and Freedom (U. of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 39

Quick Quote: Founder Patrick Henry speaks out on ObamaCare

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

-- Patrick Henry

In fairness, the federal government as a whole has been guilty of this inversion of the Constitution’s purpose for several generations.  It was bad enough when the Bush administration gave us things like the Medicare Prescription entitlement. It’s just that the current administration has ratcheted things up a few notches from the worst excesses of any previous administration (including perhaps the FDR administration).

(By the way, I’m assuming this quote was actually from Patrick Henry.  I have looked for a site that gives the original reference for the quote, but so far, if there is any citation at all, the websites are citing each other.  If someone can point me to the quote’s actual source, I’d be much obliged.)

Obama administration intends to rule by fiat if Congress doesn’t submit?

[Cross-posted from C-Pol’s companion site, The Global Warming Heretic]

According to a Fox News story today, administration officials acknowledge privately that the EPA’s newly-claimed powers allow the executive branch to function as a dictatorship if it so chooses.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.

"This is not an 'either-or' moment. It's a 'both-and' moment," she said.

But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won't be pretty.

"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

So.  Obama would prefer that Congress take the actions that the administration demands of it.  But if Congress fails to get its act together, the administration will publicly hold Congress responsible for the economic chaos that will follow.

And that economic chaos is a virtual certainty if the administration resorts to fiat rule through the EPA. Who would want to invest in an economy where regulations are changing suddenly and radically (and almost always to the detriment of businesses)?

EPA declares plant food to be a public health threat

[Cross-posted from C-Pol’s companion site, The Global Warming Heretic]

A bit late in reporting on this, but hey, this is a blog, not a news service.  But just for the record, here’s what happened on Monday, as reported by the Associated Press:

The Obama administration took a major step Monday toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories, declaring there was compelling scientific evidence that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases endangers Americans' health.

Does anyone else see a logical disconnect here?  Not the Environmental Protection Agency, because they’ve consciously named carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.  A gas that occurs naturally, the existence of which is essential for plant life – is a dangerous pollutant.

And notice – only “manmade” carbon dioxide seems to be capable of causing global warming.  Oh, and how is it a danger to public health?  They don’t say here, but it’s obvious that they’re playing the Six Degrees game.

So, what kind of powers has the EPA amassed for itself by this “finding”?  The article gives us a taste:

The price could be steep for both industry and consumers. The EPA finding clears the way for rules that eventually could force the sale of more fuel-efficient vehicles and require plants to install costly new equipment — at a cost of billions or even many tens of billions of dollars — or shift to other forms of energy.

It almost certainly goes beyond this.  If human generated carbon dioxide emissions are as dangerous as the EPA says they are, there is no logical or moral reason why the EPA shouldn’t extend its regulatory tentacles into every aspect of our lives.

In other words, this finding will serve as the greatest mechanism ever devised for state control of American people and resources, all in complete, deliberate mockery of the constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government.

It’s almost as if that was the plan.

Quick Quote: Thomas Jefferson on nanny government

And now, a word from the founder of the Democratic Party:

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

– Autobiography, 1821

Reference: Jefferson: Writings, Peterson ed., Library of America (74)

Dems in Congress have no clue about the constitutional basis of their power

A reporter for CNSNews has been asking prominent congressional Democrats: Where does the Constitution authorize Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance? 
All of the proposed health care “reform” bills have this mandate, so obviously the majority think they have the power to  make the purchase of a product a “condition of lawful residence in the United States” (in the words of the Congressional Budget Office, which notes that such a move by Congress is unprecedented).
Of course, no such power is granted to Congress, but you wouldn’t know it asking congressional leaders.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer thinks that the health care mandate is no different from a general tax law:

Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”
“Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,” Hoyer said. “The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.”
Hoyer compared a health insurance mandate to the government’s power to levy taxes, saying “we mandate other things as well, like paying taxes.”
The section of the Constitution Hoyer was referring to, Article I, Section 8, outlines the powers of Congress, including raising taxes, but not the purchasing any type of product or service. The opening paragraph of Section 8 grants Congress the power to raise taxes to, among other things, “provide for the … general welfare of the United States.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy simply asserts the authority:

CNSNews.com: "Where, in your opinion, does the Constitution give specific authority for Congress to give an individual mandate for health insurance?"
Sen. Leahy: "We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?"
CNSNews.com: "I’m asking—"
Sen. Leahy: "Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is flabbergasted that anybody would question Congress’ power to legislate as it pleases:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”
Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”
CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”
Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated [sic] that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a "serious question."
“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

The question obviously caught Pelosi by surprise, and her answer amounted to “Who let this guy in here?” Later, her staff gathered its wits and fell back on Congress’ old friend, the omnipotent ‘Interstate Commerce Clause’:

Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

Okay, I’m convinced.  How about you?

Mark Steyn: Environmentalism and health care are perfect instruments of despotic rule

Excerpt from a July 11 Mark Steyn essay (emphasis added):

Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the regulation of everything: If the government is obligated to cure you of illness, it has an interest in preventing you from getting ill in the first place — by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices you make from the moment you get up in the morning. Likewise, if everything you do impacts “the environment,” then the environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you do. It’s the most convenient and romantic justification for what the title of Paul Rahe’s new book rightly identifies as “soft despotism.”

When government controls your healthcare

Is this America, ten years after the imposition of ObamaCare? UK Daily Mail, July 6:

An active pensioner admitted to hospital for routine treatment for a stomach bug died six weeks later following a series of 'blunders' by overworked staff.
Betty Dunn, 79, was taken to Tameside General Hospital in Ashton-under-Lyme, Greater Manchester, to be rehydrated with saline.
But her horrified family watched helplessly as the widow's condition deteriorated over six weeks before she died after contracting the superbug C-diff.
At one point her relatives, who battled to communicate with staff who apparently didn't speak English, were so concerned for the former Land Girl's welfare they called in police.
Doctors then transferred the great-grandmother to another hospital for 'rehabilitation'.
But when Mrs Dunn was unable to sit up she was sent straight back to Tameside. She died three days later.
Mrs Dunn's family, who call the hospital a 'zoo', compiled a log of her treatment and claim that a catalogue of errors made by staff included:

• Giving her penicillin when she was allergic to the drug
• Mistakenly denying her antibiotics
• Failing to advise relatives to wear protective gloves or aprons to guard against superbugs
• Giving her a designated food substitute three times a day - against the advice of doctors
• Breaking the news of her increasingly grave condition to relatives in a busy corridor in front of other visitors.

(Image found here)

Americans still embrace the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Or do they?

Just in time for America’s Independence Day holiday, Rasmussen has released its analysis of a poll examining the attitudes of Americans regarding the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence is one of the two crucial founding documents of the US – the other, of course, being the Constitution. The Constitution is the technical document outlining the structure and powers of the national government. The Declaration establishes the rational foundation for the very existence of this country.

Rasmussen’s strategy – and I’m not sure that this was the best idea – was to take various famous phrases from the document, and ask: “Do you agree with this?” The answers were recorded without any sure knowledge of what the respondent thought the phrase meant.

The response that jumped out to me was the one asking respondents’ opinion of this part of the Declaration:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The pollsters shortened this to “Governments derive their only just powers from the consent of the governed”. This paraphrase actually skirts around Jefferson’s profound assertion that the purpose of government is to secure the God-given rights of the people. But that’s the subject of another post, another time. The paraphrase was fair enough, because it adequately portrayed the other profound assertion in this statement.

So, what did the respondents think of the paraphrase?

56% Agree

25% Disagree

19% Not sure

Modern America has a shallow understanding of the phrase “consent of the governed”. Does it mean that, as long as most of the people are okay with it, the government can do whatever it pleases?

I would argue that this is what most people believe. In fact, this is the very essence of democracy: the will of the people legitimizes the actions of the government.

But America was not established as a democracy. It was established as a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic, there are boundaries to the “consent of the governed”.

Under our Constitution, the government is supposed to be constrained, regardless of the will of the people. Just because a majority of the people consent to (or even demand) some action of the government, such consent does not necessarily legitimize the action.

The many unconstitutional actions of the Obama administration, done to wide acclaim, should serve to abundantly illustrate the problem. President Obama does not recognize any meaningful boundaries on his powers to transform America in his image.

What about the 25% who disagree? I wish that Rasmussen could have asked some followup questions to find out what these respondents were thinking. For example, some might have been thinking of the biblical notion (found, for example, in Romans 13:1) that governments derive their just powers from God Himself. We’ll never know for sure if this is why they disagreed.

As for the 19%… who are these people? 1 in 5 people have no idea what makes a government legitimate? Are these the fabled “moderate” voters, who refuse to be pinned down on the important issues of the day?

Whatever. I wish more people would put more thought into what constitutes legitimate government, and that they would follow their reasoning through to its logical conclusion.

Despite the responses to this and other questions in the poll, I disagree with Rasmussen’s conclusion that Americans “still embrace ideals from the Declaration of Independence”.

How can they embrace what they do not comprehend?

"Cramdown" shot down: Victory for the rule of law

There is so much that is wrong with the notion that a judge can look at a contract, legal and supposedly binding, entered into with the full knowledge and consent of both parties..... and at a whim simply rewrite the contract to the benefit of one of the parties.

This is exactly what President Obama wanted to allow judges to do with the mortgage "cramdown" bill. Congressional Democrats seemed ready to march in lockstep with this plan to wreck the mortgage lending industry, with the bill sailing through the House effortlessly.

But, as the Wall Street Journal reports, a few Senate Democrats showed a spark of rational thought (or, perhaps, a pang of conscience). Enough of them joined the united GOP to kill the bill:

The power of a united minority was on beneficial display yesterday, as Senate Republicans defeated the budget bankruptcy "cramdown" bill. Credit goes to Arizona's Jon Kyl and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who kept their party together to beat destructive legislation that had easily passed the House and was one of President Obama's housing priorities.

The cramdown would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite contracts to reduce the amount that people owe on their mortgages. But a bipartisan majority understood that relief for today's troubled borrowers would be paid with higher rates on the next generation of homeowners, as lenders priced the added risk into mortgage contracts.

A dozen Democrats joined Republicans in the 51-45 vote, and even Pennsylvania turncoat Arlen Specter gave his former GOP comrades an assist. Speaking for millions of renters and nondelinquent borrowers, Mr. McConnell said that the vote "ensures that homeowners who pay their bills and follow the rules won't see an interest-rate hike at the whim of a bankruptcy judge."

This is but one battle in General Obama's war against free-market capitalism and the rule of law. Obama and his statist army are still advancing, so I'm sure we haven't seen the last of insane ideas like this.

New house bill would let Geithner set ALL salaries in bailed-out companies

The wise are cautious and avoid danger;
fools plunge ahead with great confidence.

The Bible, Proverbs 14:16

The assaults on the pillars of the old Republic keep coming. The inglorious death of the 90% AIG tax didn't deter the architects of our New National Order; they simply regrouped and attacked from another direction.

House Democrats have now introduced a bill that goes far beyond the scope of the AIG bill. Now, the federal government is not only claiming jurisdiction over executive compensation at companies that receive bailout funds, they're claiming jurisdiction over the compensation of all employees at these companies. Retroactively, of course.

Here's how Byron York describes it in the Washington Examiner today:

The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

When the Soviets tried to orchestrate the minutiae of their economy, we mocked them for it, and rightly so. Central control of a nation's economy has never worked anywhere. N.E.V.E.R.

And yet, our rulers plunge forward with great confidence. Maybe it will be different this time.

Click.

Lady Liberty is on the rack, and the ratchet has just been been turned another notch. She cries out in pain, but few speak up for her. Her tormentors yawn disinterestedly. They have so much to do; why must they waste their time drawing out her death?

Okay, maybe the preceding was a little melodramatic, but I hope you get my point. It seems abundantly clear to me that our country and its institutions -- everything that made America so attractive to the immigrants of past generations -- will be unrecognizable once the Obama administration and Congress have fulfilled their dreams for us. They are destroying, not building.

Internet SAFETY Act: Exchanging liberty for safety yet again

Did you ever notice that encroachments on our privacy and liberty are so often justified as being For The Sake Of The Children™? CNet's Declan Mccullagh reports:

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.
The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.
"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level."
Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals."
Two bills have been introduced so far--S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.
Each contains the same language: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

The article goes on to describe how sweeping this data retention requirement is.

Republicans can be forgiven for this encroachment, because it's For The Sake Of The Children™. Anybody who objects must hate children.

After all, I've got nothing to hide, so why do I care if the government has the ability to track my Internet usage?

Russia warns against statist solutions to economic crisis

Talk about living in a topsy-turvy world.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Puting, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has a message for western countries flirting with central planning of their economies: We tried it. It didn't work.

The Wall Street Journal has the complete transcript online. This excerpt is especially interesting:

Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake.

True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent.

The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.

President Obama, are you listening?