Defense Cuts Show Need For Iowa State Guard

Back in December of 2012 I had a guest column in The Gazette, titled “State Guard Adds Protection Efficiently.” In it I highlighted four unique advantages that an organized volunteer “state guard” or state defense force (SDF) would have that would allow it to complement our National Guard force:

  1. “[B]ecause they are solely state assets, there is no risk that they might be deployed overseas when a disaster springs up here at home. State autonomy also allows the organization of state guard units to be custom-tailored to the state’s needs.”
  2. “SDFs can draw from two sources of volunteers that the National Guard cannot. One is prior military service members who can no longer fulfill the commitments or requirements of active duty or National Guard service but still want to serve in some capacity. Another is people who may be willing to defend their own soil but are unwilling to potentially be sent to the other side of the world to defend someone else’s.”
  3. “[S]tate guard units can be operated at comparatively little expense. Unlike National Guardsmen, who are professional soldiers, state guard members are generally unpaid volunteers (although many with prior service). They can often use state-owned National Guard armories and training facilities rather than requiring their own.”
  4. “[I]t could be made to conform to the requirements for the state militia as laid out in the Iowa Constitution. Article VI, Sec 3 states: ‘All commissioned officers of the militia (staff officers excepted) shall be elected by the persons liable to perform military duty, and shall be commissioned by the governor.’ The National Guard cannot meet these obligations as their officers are rightfully commissioned by the president..”

The Obama Administration’s recently floated plan to cut National Guard troops shows another advantage of a State Guard force. Since SDFs are funded and administered entirely by the state, they would be immune from federal cuts. Although the current cuts are in no way draconian, as the Federal Government cruises closer to economic oblivion, unavoidable cuts in federal spending could prove more hard hitting in the future.

States rely on federal largesse for 25% to 50% of their state revenue. The feds have racked up over $17 trillion in debt and $128 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Eventually the feds will have to cut off the money spigot to the states as well as massively cutting their own budget or the Federal Government will collapse, in which case the money spigot will also shut down. One state, Utah, is already planning for this eventuality and in 2013 it passed seven fiscal bills that make ready for it.

In a similar fashion, Iowa should plan on being able to provide a security and response force to aid and protect its citizens without relying largely on federal funding, troops and equipment. Governor Branstad pointed out, “The [Nat’l] Guard has helped communities across Iowa effectively respond to disasters, like floods and tornadoes[.]” Let us not potentially leave Iowans without such a force because of the decisions (or incompetence) of bureaucrats and politicos in Washington D.C.

Jake Porter for Iowa Secretary of State

About 31% of Iowa’s registered voters are Democrats and 31% are Republicans. However, 38% are aligned with neither party. So why is it that our state’s elections are always overseen by an Iowa Secretary of State who is in league with one of the two major parties? Such an official will obviously always “have a dog in the hunt” in any major election. In fact, we’ve seen our state’s current top election official endorse a candidate in the election he was officiating. It’s like having a referee always wearing one team’s jersey.

Isn’t it time we had anindependent voice in the Iowa Secretary of State’s office? Jake Porter is such a candidate.  Porter is not beholden to either major party which would make him an independent arbiter in our state’s elections. He pledged not endorse any candidate as Secretary. Porter wants to “keep the Secretary of State’s office non-partisan and make it easy for all Iowans to participate in the election process.” He does not believe in “disenfranchising voters through intimidation and voter suppression tactics.”

Porter also wants to make it easier for Iowa business owners to file state forms online. He believes in reducing red tape and bureaucracy and understands “the need to follow the Iowa Code and Iowa Constitution.” You can read more about him at JakePorter.org.

It’s time for an independent leader as Iowa Secretary of State. It’s time for Jake Porter.

Iowa Red Light Cameras Map

Between Two Rivers blog recently posted a link to Iowa Red Light Cameras Map. Here you can see the locations of red light cams and speed cams in Iowa.

LP Response to Obama’s NSA "Reform"

Statement from Geoffrey J. Neale, chair, Libertarian National Committee, in response to President Barack Obama’s announced plan for minor reforms of NSA mass surveillance:

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the rights of its citizens, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. And, make no mistake, our governments — federal, state, and local — have all become injurious to the rights of citizens.

“Barack Obama today delivered a speech that promised next to nothing. He promised that ‘greater safeguards for civil liberties’ will be enacted, and that steps will be taken to rein in the worst of the NSA surveillance abuses.

“But government cannot be reined in. Once it has power, it seeks more. Once it has information, it keeps it — and often tells us that it didn’t keep it (such as the records of gun purchases run through the NICS system) even though it really did — and then it wants more. It is the nature of the beast; everything it thinks it can use, it stuffs into its gaping, insatiable maw.

“There is already a list of ‘safeguards,’ and they are mentioned specifically in the Constitution. If the supreme law of the land is ‘just a piece of paper,’ what other ‘safeguards’ will keep millions of bureaucrats from breaking the law further?

“The only way to limit government intrusion into our lives is to eliminate the functions that have little to do with defending individual rights within our borders. If government were restricted only to acting on its one legitimate function — protecting individual rights — 95 percent of government operations would cease to exist. And Edward Snowden would have had little incentive to break the news on the government’s rampant criminality.

“Edward Snowden should be granted a full pardon and complete immunity from prosecution. The government’s ire should instead be turned toward prosecuting the millions of bureaucrats who have violated both their oaths of office, statute law, and even the Constitution itself.

“A non-interventionist nation at peace with the world doesn’t need a worldwide security apparatus. A nation that doesn’t meddle in conflicts around the world doesn’t need a two-ocean Navy, or thousands of nuclear weapons, or gargantuan stockpiles of chemical and biological agents. A nation that stays out of foreign conflicts is less likely to be a target of terrorists. And a nation like that doesn’t need to spy constantly on its own citizens.”

Resistance Is NOT Futile!

“Resistance is futile,” the evil Borg would warn enemies that they intended to assimilate into their collective on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It seems like we hear that exhortation from all types of progressive “experts” these days when it comes defending ourselves from those who would prey upon us.

While Colorado was passing its recent gun bans (including banning licensed concealed carry on college campuses), for instance, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs advised its students to vomit or urinate on themselves to repel a rapist. Active resistance could get the girl harmed, don’t you know? This despite the fact that research going all the way back to the Jimmy Carter administration shows that of attempted rapes 32% were actually committed, but when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.

Rape isn’t the only crime that armed defense has proven effective in resisting. After the Newton shootings President Obama called for a review of existing research on gun violence. The results he got probably weren’t what he was looking for. The assessment from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council concludes that crime victims who use guns in self-defense have lower injury rates than other victims.

One 2006 Florida State University study cited in the assessment found that “self-protection in general, both forceful and nonforceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance.” It found that using a gun in self-defense reduced the risk of property loss as well minor or serious injury to the victim. In clinical language, it concludes: “Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action.” In other words, “Resist, damn it!”

You can see the macro-effects of individual armed resistance on our crime rates as well. Since violent crime peaked in 1991, twenty-four more states have enacted “shall issue” laws giving citizens a lawful means to carry the most effective tool of resistance. Researchers found that “when state concealed handgun laws went into effect[,] murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent.” In our nation we now see that gun ownership is at an all-time high while the nation’s murder rate is at all-time lows. (Despite this, 56% of Americans think gun crime is worse than 20 years ago. Thank you mainstream media!)

Of course our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms wasn’t meant just to give us the means to resist muggers, murderers and rapists. It also gives us a defense “against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers” (in the words of jurist and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story).

Although 65% of Americans believe the 2nd Amendment exists as a hedge against tyranny, I’ve heard this idea pooh-poohed by modern intelligentsia who believe that common citizens armed with light weapons would no longer be able to stand up to a foreign invader or domestic tyrant armed with heavy weapons and even nuclear weapons. (“Resistance is futile.”)

However, there are numerous examples of primitive indigenous forces wreaking havoc on more-advanced foreign occupiers. The Afghans, for instance, were able to fight the Soviets for nearly a decade, eventually expelling them, and they have kept us hemorrhaging blood and treasure and unable to declare victory for over twelve years now.

Whether the tyrannical oppressor is foreign or domestic, in his book The War of the Flea, Robert Taber makes a convincing case that as long a guerrilla force retains the support and good will of the general populace it is very nearly unbeatable. An American resistance movement fighting honorably against despotism would no doubt retain a great deal of popular support from the American people.

Even if it were to fail, would it not be better to try? Better to stand against tyranny? Is not better to die on your feet than live on your knees? In The Gulag Archipelago,  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book about the Soviet forced labor camp system, it is  recounted how the victims of Communist brutality regretted not standing up against their oppressors early on:

“During an arrest, you think since you are not guilty, how can they arrest you? Why should you run away? And how can you resist right then? After all, you’ll only make your situation worse; you will make it more difficult for them to sort out the mistake.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?

“Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?

“The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! We did not love freedom enough. Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”

No wonder that our Founding Fathers wrote in several of their state Bills of Rights that, “The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.” Whether it be against the petty crimes of street criminals or the high crimes of tyrants: Stand and resist!

1941

1941
by Benjamin R. Cashner

It was December seventh, he remembered well.
It brought the world to the brink of hell.
They came in low and dropped their bulk,
they reduced his ship to a burning hulk.

He says he can still here the sirens blare
on the whistling winds of winter’s air.
But that was a long time ago, that fateful day,
so long ago it seems like yesterday.

Porter for IA Sec. of State Commercial

The Libertarian Party of Iowa is saying that this is perhaps the first TV commercial for an LP candidate in the state. It’s for Jake Porter for Iowa Secretary of State.

Social Contract?

Too Subtle?

Concerns about ObamaCare

I sent this to my hometown newspaper in response to a recent letter to the editor. – BRC

A recent letter writer had numerous “Questions concerning Obamacare” which I thought deserved a few answers. Firstly he asked, “Why do you opponents of Obamacare NOT WANT HEALTH CARE FOR EVERY American?” While Obamacare deals mostly with insurance and doesn’t actually PROVIDE HEALTH CARE to anyone, I won’t split hairs with the writer. Like most decent Americans, I think opponents of Obamacare (such as myself) want all Americans to have healthcare, food to eat, water to drink, clothing, shelter and love, but we may disagree as to whether it’s the proper Constitutional role of the Federal government to provide any of those.

Many of us agree with James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” who wrote in Federalist Paper No. 45: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined… [and they] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” Sure the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare (and just about every other Federal power grab since the 1930’s) was constitutional. Should we be surprised that an appendage of the Federal Government has more often than not ruled in favor of increasing the size, scope and power of the Federal Government? Just because the Federal Government seeks constant unrestrained growth, like cancer, doesn’t mean the states and the people must support it.

The letter writer continues, “Every senior citizen has Medicare so why shouldn’t the rest of our citizens have it?” Medicare is already bankrupting the country. Last year the Medicare trustees reported that Medicare would insolvent by 2024. The Medicare actuary projected the long-term unfunded liability (future debt) for the program at approximately $36.9 trillion. The non-partisan CBO projects ObamaCare will cost $1.7 trillion in the first decade. (The actual cost will be much higher.) The U.S. is already $17 trillion in debt and borrowing about $96 million an hour on the backs of our children.  Being past broke seems like a good reason not to start a massive new spending program.

Also, Medicare and other government distortions in the medical market are largely to blame for high medical costs to begin with. More of the same will only drive prices higher.

The letter writer asks, “Did you know that (Obamacare) was copied after the Republican plan implemented in Massachusetts in 2006? Did you know that the governor at the time was a Republican named Mitt Romney?” Yes!  Did you know that Romney lost the presidential election? Did you know that many fiscal conservatives, paleo-conservatives, Constitutional conservatives, and libertarians who may not have liked Obama stayed home in droves or voted third party because they couldn’t stand Romney (and/or McCain)? Both parties have played their part in racking up huge deficits, eroding liberty and expanding government.

More importantly, just because a state (like Massachusetts) may try something doesn’t mean that the Federal government may do it (and vice-versa).  If you can wipe the boot prints off it you’ll see that the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Contrary to modern interpretation, those words mean something. Healthcare (and education and a thousand other things that the Federal Government intrudes upon) are not powers that were “delegated to the United States by the Constitution.”

“Under Obamacare,” the writer continues, “insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover people with pre-existing conditions; they must cover kids on their parents insurance until age 26; it stresses preventative care such as free mammograms and colonoscopies[.]” This is exactly the sort of meddling that will drive insurance premiums higher, hurting everyone. According to a Manhattan Institute analysis of the HHS numbers, Obamacare will increase insurance ratesfor young men by an average of 97 to 99 percent, and for young women by an average of 55 to 62 percent. We’ve already heard about many people losing their coverage and employers cutting workers back to part time to avoid Obamacare costs. Some help.

Lastly, the writer says, “I’m a Christian also and I happen to believe that the Jesus I worship would want health care for all Americans.  So tell me my Republican friends, what do you think the Jesus you worship would do about health care in America?” I can’t speak for Jesus, but I should think He would want people to help their sick neighbors out voluntarily through Christian good works and charity.  “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7, New International Version) [Emphasis added.]

I think that people delude themselves if they believe they are doing the Lord’s work by sending “hither swarms of Officers”  to coercively take money from its rightful owners or by saddling our unsuspecting children with obscene levels of debt in order to fund government social programs which are always inefficient and often harmful.