Bob Hurt uses targeted web ads for political advertising paid by public funds.

My letter today to my Representative....

Nothing to cause much distress in your latest Round-up.  I hope the bill you reference does not indemnify frackers from damage to landowners.  How does a community deal with negative externalities from extractive industries, even if the extraction is simply catching the wind or the sun?  Emissions into the water and air are more concrete than microclimate and viewscape issues.  But I fear the forces that evade regulatory and judicial remedies and compensations for these externalities -- not to mention indemnity limits for catastrophes related to extractive activities.  I fear the forces advocating that the rest of us live with the consequences of our energy addiction, through the diminishment of our lives.  We need to PAY AT THE PUMP -- not in slow death by repeated small cuts of negative externalities.

But that's not why I write.  I write because I saw an ad on my Embarq webmail.  Bob Hurt -- protecting your Medicare.  I clicked the link expecting a campaign site -- but was directed instead to your congressional site.  THAT KIND OF AD WITH CONGRESSIONAL MONEY IS UNACCEPTABLE.  Please show me either how it is legitimate use of public funds, or that it was indeed paid for by campaign funds, despite linking to your congressional site.

I'm annoyed as well that I get these ads directed at me according to where I browse the internet.  I get hotel ads because I've checked travel sites.  I get political ads (AND THAT IS WHAT YOURS WAS!!) because I write my Representative.  I even started browsing Victorias Secret to get a better class of ads.  I don't care what NSA knows about me.  BUT GOOGLE KNOWS TOO DAMN MUCH!  Perhaps you can find a legislative remedy to all that.  NO!  You wouldn't.  You are one of those who subscribe -- WITH PUBLIC FUNDS -- to those targeted web ads.  FOR SHAME.

Back to Shanksville

Some time ago, I posted on this blog something I wrote in 2005, four sore and sorry years after our national response to 9/11 destroyed far more than the terrorists did or ever could.

It's come to mind as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  That cartoon I link to raises a question concerning, of all things, our Pledge of Allegiance.  While "Under God" is the phrase of greatest contention -- a phrase introduced into the Pledge as a rebuke of godless communism, but which began almost immediately a culture war, for the most part won by Madeline Murray O'Hair.  She won because there is no such thing in Jesus' teaching as a Christian nation.  The kingdom of heaven does not have boundaries.  Some who call themselves Christian, and most particularly the Dominionists, regard the government of ancient Israel, according to the precepts of the God we have come to know through Christianity, as a model for our own time.  But that government didn't survive the era of Judges into the Davidic monarchy, much less into Jesus's time, much less our own.  But the silliness of "Under God" is just an aside.  Increasing coming under question is "Indivisible."  Some would remove that word from our Pledge.  Ought they?  Ought others resist?  Ought I?  I've not entirely thought it through.

But I've been trying to replace the phrase "Under God" when reciting the Pledge with "Of Laws Not Men."  In the context of that phrase, the heads of our nation are not men or women, but charter documents.  Many nations have a Head of State (The Queen), and a Head of Government (Prime Minister).  The head of State need not be hereditary.  Many nations elect or appoint one.  We might imagine those two in the USA combined in the office of the President.  But he's a man, just a man.

The Government originates from the State.  It serves the State.  Our Constitution is the LAW that constitutes our head of government.  The Declaration is the LAW that constitutes our head of State.  Our Declaration is immutable and inviolable except in its entirety.  Its repudiation results in a new state,  Repudiation of the Constitution is potentially gradual and remediative, as by amendment.  Or by upheaval.  As far as I know, the CSA of 1861-5 never repudiated the Declaration.  It remained their State charter.  A government in exile, perhaps.

When we pledge allegiance, do we pledge to both the State and the government?  I'm brought to say at this point the we've had 44 Presidents, but one government.  I'm not sure of the truth of that assertion.  And it seems less and less true as purported champions of the Constitution seem anything but.  Anyhow, I pledge allegiance to a FLAG, that I've honored in an essay I'm not sure I can find -- it was posted on GeoCities of all places.  But I characterized it as a sovereign of stars, the people of the 50 states, on a field of stripes, born in the charters devised by the original 13.  The Flag, not the President, is the institution in which the State and Government are joined.  It is my Flag, your Flag, and the Flag also of the aspirational non-citizen.  It is not the Flag of any class, party, movement, heritage group, or office.  And when it's made into a mattress tag by force of law (some anti-desecration amendment, perhaps) it ceases to be a Flag.  Which was the point of my GeoCities essay.

Back to the question of 'Indivisible.'  Anyone who desires to remove that from the Pledge, I'm obliged to name a "Succesh" spoken with the same venom as by a Soldier being fired upon by a Confederate rifle pillaged from a United States arsenal.

Bob Hurt's alternatives to Obamacare undermine federalism, the sovereignty of the people, and the decentralization of control of Other People's Money.

Another weekly missive from my Kool-Aid chugging Wichita-acolyte Representative to congress, and my reply.

The bottom line seems to be, employers can't be compelled to foot the bill for a health insurance system that subsidizes care to those lacking means to pay full price.  They're opting out.  So who will opt in?

You echoed three proposals that I've heard since childhood.  Tort reform.  Medical Savings, and -- this one is new to me -- only hearing this one since Obama took office, cross state lines.  I made known my objections to medical aavings accounts in my last email, as an aside to my objections toward your proposal to allow more speculative uses of college savings.  Medical savings, high deductibles, and subscription access to primary care are things I support, but the supports of medical savings who are pulling your strings are just seeking funding for their shell games.  I object to the proposal because I doubt the motives of those making the proposal.

As for tort reform -- I hold the Seventh Amendment sacred... the exercise of sovereignty by the people.  I hold juries more sacred than the vote.  Hostility toward jury verdicts is as much a reason I left the Republican party as was hostility to voter expression in the 2000 Florida recount.  THE PEOPLE ARE SOVEREIGN.  That means juries.  Reform voir dire -- tie lawyer's hands -- but let jurors reign free.

And this state line thing -- it smacks of anti-federalism.  Why do RHINO's, those rampaging Know-Nothings that call me RINO -- they've called you RINO too, I hear.  Take pride when they do.  Why do RHINO's wants to weaken State's sovereignty over commerce within their bounds?  I think I told you before -- 'across state lines' sounds suspiciously like 'lowest common denominator' and worse, like a path toward, not away from, oligopoly and frankly oligarchy. That's what happened when banks crossed state lines.  I expect the same result if the people pulling your strings get their way.

Bob Hurt wants college age kids to find their savings have vanished

When W proposed privatizing social security, my email to Virgil read -- Don't put the govt in position where is must and cannot refuse to bail out financial losses.

When I wrote you pondering what would motivate me to mount a protest at your office in Charlottesville, I imagined carrying a banner saying --- Don't fund the Wall Street Casino with my retirement.

I might as well say the same thing about medical savings accounts.  And I certain wish to say that about accounts where parents can make early provisions for college tuition.  These parents ought be assured of rules that don't expose their investment to speculative losses.  The guarantor of these savings ought not be hamstrung in setting actuarial policies that guard its exposure (a principal, the violation of which is among my concerns about Obamacare.)

Wall Street wants to play with Other People's Money with rules that resemble "Heads, I win, Tails, you lose".  And you are complicit in their theft.  Support consumer protection is college and medical and retirement savings, and investments in general.  STOP TRYING TO UNDERMINE THEM.

Four Freedoms

I'm a little encouraged that Rep Cantor is trying to be a Republican instead of a RHINO.  I use the RHINO term ironically -- to describe rampaging marauders with existential cravings to stamp out fires -- whatever brings warmth and light into the world.  The folks who call real Republicans RINOs.  I was pondering how to get the party back on a course where I might seek to rejoin it.  And I saw an article about the 10 most influential State of the Union addresses (I can't locate the article).  One of those listed was FDR's Four Freedom's speech of 1941.  Despite the flaws of the concept, it's worthwhile to adopt Four Freedoms as a proper end of social organization and government, and argue that voluntary actions in a market economy are the most reliable means to bring them about.  Republicans have been doing so since the days of Lincoln, but have lately forgotten how.

Are Four Freedoms big R Republican values?  Are they RHINO values?  Freedom of Speech?  RHINOs are muzzlers.  From a letter last year to Rep Hurt.

Juries are America's Sovereign (We, the People) exercising its (OUR!) power directly.  If juries are unhappy -- don't muzzle them (These RHINO's that have taken over my Party, and dare call me RINO, love their muzzles: voter suppression, jury suppression, suppression of standing of litigants).

One might add the suppression of science.  Also RHINOs seem to desire freedom from annoyance.  Our founders saw the incompatibility between speech rights and the right to comfort -- and knew that comfort is something gladly sacrificed for the ferment of ideas, opinions, demonstrations, and expressions.  I think the leading edges of the RHINO encroachment of the Republican party came with attempts to criminalize legitimate protest which might deface or damage a flag, but do not share my disgust with commercial exploitation of the flag.  I wrote an essay on that at the time, but alas, it was stored on GeoCities, now defunct.  I might stumble across a copy somewhere. The main thing is that freedom of speech is not something the speaker owns, but that a culture owns.  Anybody can yell FIRE in a crowded theater.  He's free to do so, by divine right of lungs and vocal cords.  What shall the culture suppress, and with what tools?  What the culture is most inclined to suppress, words which threaten its leading figures and presumptions, are subject to spontaneous private suppression -- "Them's Fightin' Words, Pilgrim."  It's only our commitment to free expression and refusal to regard verbal provocation as mitigation for violent response that keeps us free.

Freedom of Religion?  Please!  I hate that schools have become the arena for this.  Teachers lack rights of free expression.  Sometimes even students and voluntary associations among students, faculty, and administration.  I think Republicans and RHINOs are pretty much aligned against any who would have us restrained from vocalizing our conception of the Divine.  Or especially of those who would chose what's permitted ("The divine nature is impersonal, inertial, and immutable" of most science vs "The divine nature is intimate, volitional, and responsive" of most theism).  Where RHINOs overstep is their readiness to compel and proscribe behavior of others.  I cringe every time the oath-giver prompts "So help you God".  I have no problem with an oath-taker stating an unprompted "So help me God." -- the prompt, itself, violates freedom, though I suppose the omission of that gratuitous phrase (could it even be blasphemous?) would be political poison, with or without the prompt.

Freedom from Want?  Here is the rub.  We have no divine right -- no certain inalienable right -- against deprivation.  But there's another part of the preamble to our Declaration which goes beyond securing our rights, and affirms the role of government in "effect[ing] their Safety and Happiness." Here is where we get Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear.  We get it because we are sovereign, as individuals.  Office holders may have some assurance of Safety and Happiness.  Capital investors too.  Intellectual Property creators and owners.  The hired help at the top of corporations with their golden parachutes.  They have that as derivative freedoms.  As means to an end.  The end being the Sovereign's Safety and Happiness -- that of individuals.  I'm not going to try to contrast real Republicans, RHINOs, and other approaches here.  Only say that Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear are core founding values of America, not some FDR intrusion.  Pretty much came to me in writing this.  I own all four freedoms now, instead of my initial approach of submitting to a populist expectation with better means than the Democrat approach of throwing other people's money at it.  That populist expectation is both a legitimate purpose of government, perhaps THE legitimate purpose, and a legitimate reason for dismantling an ineffective government, should it fail to secure these ends.... should it fail even to honor them.

Commando weapons.

I just finished reading Grapes of Wrath.  Among the thoughts provoked was another affirmation of the necessity of a well-regulated militia.  There's a conflict between what armed men will organize to accomplish and what powerful men will arm minions to accomplish.  I think of Bacon's Rebellion, where Gov. Berkeley laments his inability to raise an army to suppress rebellion, lacking the funds.  I think of the army Tom Cruise's character was hired to train in The Last Samurai.  I think of Pinkertons and other hired goons which have been assembled to suppress organized labor.  The age old question of whether one is served by participating in the communistic system of corporations and big capital with their central planning and bureaucratic means of stratification, or with voluntary associations in the free-enterprise system of guilds and small private capital (I like to think of garages and green grocers).

The problem is that scabs and goons-for-hire are likely to be "rugged individualists" in their own mind, prey to monetized (mercenary) transactions, as opposed to filial associations of the folks fighting the encroachment of avarice-based structure of society.  It's the folks who accumulate arsenals who are least likely to commit them to constructive use (do weapons have constructive use?)  Anyhow -- non-governmental (or proto-governmental like Revolutionary Committees of Safety) militia is a worthy form for organizing the liberals and progressives among us whose ends are gracious, if not altruistic.  Though a militia with a central body on the order of an Occupy Movement General Assembly sounds like a circular firing squad.

The point being that Sons of Liberty type right-wing groups and Committee of Safety type centrist groups and SDS/Black Panther type left-wing groups all have reason to bear arms, and American ideals are served by the presence of such armed groups, but the Second Amendment supposes infantry, not commandos.  Weapons whose purpose is individual carnage are not part of what I cherish as a right of free-association.  Automatic and large magazine weapons are not infantry weapons -- they are commando weapons.  They are mass murder weapons.  They are terror weapons.  They are weapons for which I will support restrictions.  I do not support restricting persons.  Be it felons or psychotics or even sociopaths.  Especially psychotics.  Perhaps when the rights of psychotics to assemble in armed non-governmental well-regulated militias are established, other rights will be less vulnerable.  I will not be disarmed by being called Schizo.  I've been called that all my life, though have been repeatedly assured by doctors I'm not clinically such.  Or legally such.  But I still feel comradeship with those who share this label, and especially those for whom that label has deprived of society's respect and a citizen's privileges and immunities.

Counterpoint to illucid rants.

There was once a time when I feared, some say with Pope John Paul II, that George XLIII was the anti-Christ, poised to usher in the end of days.  Reading my stream of consciousness rants in these recent Open Letters, and knowing my correspondence with Silly Wobbert over his two years in office has been pretty much in the same vein, I thought I'd share something here a little more polished from back in 2005.  It could be more lucid, I'm sure.  But someone other than I need have taken it there.  Nobody stepped up to the plate.

Shanksville Address (Flight 93) 
 

Four sorely sullen years ago, Their fatwa brought forth Upon this continent A new outrage. Conceived in jeolousy And dedicated to the proposition That empire is inherent evil. Now we are engaged in a crass imperial war, Testing whether some nation Or some other nation Harboring such conception or dedication Can dare try to stop us. We remember today The provocation of that war. We have come to justify Our disproportional response to it, As a final resting place To liberties only hated by ourselves. And yet that day, heros among us Stepped up to call. Many died. We dedicate this day to those heroes And to the fallen innocent. It it altogether fitting and proper That we should do this. But in a larger sense, We cannot dedicate We cannot consecrate We cannot hallow this day. The brave men, living and dead, Who struggled with fists and flames To stem loss and destruction Have consecrated it, Far above our cynical ploys To add their honor to our own Or to detract eyes from our dishonor. The world will little note, Nor long remember, Their small and noble deeds, But can never forget the ignoble attack, And our ignoble response, Which dishonors these And all who have died Through twenty score years To bring freedom from imperial lust. It is for us, the living, Rather to be dedicated here To the forgotten ideals That inspired their valor. It is rather for us To be here rededicated To the faith that freedom and justice Conquers the force of arms And not by such force, Being dedicated to our brother And devoted to our neighbor. From our honored dead, We take increased devotion To that cause for which They have given The last full measure of devotion. That we this day highly resolve That those who died four years ago And in these last four hundred, Shall not have died in vain. That this nation shall abandon Imperial agression and the Ersatz entitlements of exceptionalism And dedicate ourselves once more To the truly exceptional. A new birth of freedom! That this government Of the People By the People For the People Shall not perish from the Earth. By Robert Corey © 2005 Robert Corey (All rights reserved)

Another open letter to Rep Hurt

I know that you and Leader Cantor have zero sincerity when it comes to debt reduction, despite your frequent protests.  Defense reductions and revenue enhancement are essential for any sincere proposal.  I'd like to see you move in a Constitutional direction.

First -- Stop these subsidies and favored treatment of big banking, fossil energy, and big defense.  TAX CARBON!  Don't fund the wall street casino with my retirement.

Second -- Don't push growth-killing measures that place burdens upon individuals that have been traditionally (or more importantly, recent measures upon which our prosperity depends) a shared social concern.  Potholes that I must fill, don't get filled.  That's not because I'm lazy.  All my neighbors are equally disincentivized.  Cantor's bogus budgets have been based upon the proposition that rich people wanting to be richer people are the engine of the economy.  What I think is the engine of the economy is a spirit of enterprise which is not deprived of rewards which ought justly come.  Be that public service (police, fire, teachers, groundskeeping, trash collection, etc) which is robbed of it's stature when collective bargaining and craft/profession based association (yes, even compulsory) is thwarted.  Be that innovators who discover that, when bohemoths make spurious intellectual property claims, the government charged by the Constitution to foster innovation, becomes allied with the forces poised to kill it.  One could go on and on identifying growth-killing measures in Cantor's bogus budgets.  Measure that leave us ill prepared to sustain a future consistent with our aspirations.  Consistent even with our present conditions.  And, appealing to Reagan's Lasker Curve, which affirms to right of government to maximize revenue, and points to how, I am certain, the CBO is certain, and everybody whose paycheck doesn't originate in Wichita is certain --- we are not past the cusp of the Lasker Curve.  It's not Voodoo economics which drives Cantor.  It's ubermensch objectivism -- it's letting the engine of economy run full bore, uncoupled from the drive mechanism.  It's a John Galt fairy tale of perpetual motion.  It's not a principle upon which prosperity will be achieved or sustained.  TAX CARBON.  Failure to tax carbon is the biggest obstacle to sustained prosperity.  I know -- Brazil, India, China -- what good for us, if not for them?  SILLY WOBBERT, that's what taxes are all about.  I scoff at appeals for Warren Buffet to hand over what he believes is just compensation to a government which enabled him to prosper so much as he has.  He alone.... I SCOFF.

Anyhow -- number 3 -- get back to Constitutional civilian oversight and participation in the military.  BIENNIAL review of defense needs.  Militia being the backbone of military preparedness -- for training and domestic/boundary mobilization, but only regular National military units available for foreign adventures, those units peopled by recruiting among members of a well-regulated militia.  NOT WHOLE UNITS.  NOT COMPULSORY FOREIGN SERVICE as a penalty for good citizenship.  And recognize that equipping and protecting soldiers is the object of defense procurement, not the distribution of Congressional pork.  And recognize that hostility is often the most expensive and least effective option to achieve global interests.  And hostility is often, perhaps always, inimical to national values.  TAX CARBON -- that will address more thoroughly than military mobilization the forces poised to violently challenge the status quo.

Of course Health Care is something that needs to be addressed, constructively.  Constitutionally.  A state-administered program to supply services that are agreed to be fundamental to our neighborly concern.   Things we cannot NOT do.  The discussion of where to draw that line has not been forthcoming.  The emergency-room as first-option has been a crippling approach to primary indigent health care.  I wish Gov. Vaginal Probe and the Cooch were doing their job.  And Viginia's legislature.  Instead they're intent up new Gerrymander, ala Texas 2002.  It's unfortunate that remedies have had to become national.  But having become so, DON'T FUND THE WALL STREET CASINO WITH MY HEALTH.  TAX CARBON.  Let us walk more, find value in natural places which serve as carbon sequestrators.  Let our industrial agriculture subsidies no longer feed unnhealthy habits.

Mostly -- TAX CARBON is the best way to assure America's prosperity.  Cantor's bogus budget is the best way to further the encroach of anti-American kleptocracy.

Open letter to Rep Robert Hurt (VA 5th)

The Gunpowder Incident of April 20, 1775

Of all the revered figures who lived and died in the 5th district, I've only ever seen you pay tribute to Patrick Henry.  Should I ever visit Red Hill, I hope to find the opportunity to see Booker T Washington's nearby birthplace.   [note... searching 'Booker' on Rep. Hurt's website, I found a trip album with one picture of a BTW visit, along with 4 of a nearby UPS store]  I don't know if Booker T wanted to arm his people, but Marcus Garvey and Sutton Griggs likely did.  Malcolm X most certainly did.  And I bet there are people ready to repeat Oklahoma City and other atrocities in the name of keeping their guns, while keeping them out of the hands of Booker T and Malcom X's people.  And out of my hands, too.  I'm seeing these people crawl out from under their rocks and imagine you being wholly sympathetic to their fears of black helicopters and fluorescent light bulbs.

But while unsympathetic to their tirades, I am sympathetic to their arsenals.  Hunting is not the purpose the the second Amendment.  I don't really think private arsenals for protection in the Zombie Apocalypse or whatever these people are afraid of is the purpose of the second Amendment either.  When the NRA talks about good guys with guns, my thoughts immediately turn to George Zimmerman, a self appointed good-guy with a gun.  My biggest fear is not of bad guys, but of such good guys.  All those 'good guys' ranting on Fox News and EIB radio about being robbed of Christmas and whatever else by the advance of society to places unfamiliar to them.

Anyhow, despite their evident insanity, and profligate hostility, I don't advocate you are anybody else vote to restrict their ability to -- a line I love from "Fog of War" [ I misspoke.  The movie I have in mind was Path to War] -- "jump the White House fence and lynch their President."  I'd have done exactly that should George W Bush have made unilateral WMD attack on Iran or anywhere else -- and I announced that intent and wished others would.  American hegemony is accountable to no external force, and restraint can only come from a citizenry whose outrage of actions taken in our name provoke "Second Amendment Remedies".  And tolerance of private arsenals by the McVeighs of the world, who I fear 100 times more than the Aziz's of the world, is part of that restraint.

But, what is lost in discussion centered upon sportmen's rights is "A well regulated militia."  What made America work, when anti-royalist and anti-colonial and other revolutions descended into turmoil?  It was Committees of Safety, in my mind.  It was organization of communities under ad-hoc purposeful service organizations.  It was Patrick Henry in Williamsburg and the Minutemen of Concord.  Would that we could nurture similar genius within and outside our borders today.  We crush that genius, it seems, and nurture wackiness.  Yours has certainly been nurtured.

Anyhow -- bottom line --- Article I Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes Congress...

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress

I'm aghast that nobody has challenged Congress or the President on exceeding this authority by sending National Guard units on foreign adventures.  I'm aghast that the very name "National Guard" robs States of autonomy over their military arms.  I'm aghast that regulation of militia is not appropriately practiced at either a state or federal level, whereby private arsenals might be, as the Constitution not only provides, but demands, confiscated, with due process and reparations, to public purposes.

That's the Constitution.  You pay it lip service when it serves your ends. but in a matter of well-regulated Militia, you're with the McVeighs of the world.  Enemy of the State.  A bad guy with a gun, like Zimmerman.